Acknowledging Hard to Reach Farmers: Cases from Ireland

Jim Kinsella

Abstract


While acknowledging the positive role farm advisory services play in agricultural development, the reality is that many farm households are disconnected from these services thus failing to benefit from supports to farm-level decision-making. This article provides a better understanding of those farmers who either do not engage with the farm advisory services or else engage at a very low level.  Failure to recognise the role and importance of these hard to reach farmers in Ireland provides an important backdrop to this issue where the national agricultural development strategy implies meeting targets through the more progressive and ‘service-reached’ farmers. The article draws on findings from four studies which identified and examined farmers who were ‘hard to reach’ by farm advisory services in Ireland. These studies collected data through farmer interviews and focus groups with farm advisors. They are augmented by the outputs of a workshop with farm advisors from a number of EU member states which focused on hard to reach farmers. ‘Hard to reach farmers’ are defined as those who either do not use the public or private advisory services or use a minimum level of the services accessible to them. The hard to reach farmers comprise just over half of all Irish farmers and fall into two distinct groups: those who are elderly, with no successor and no intention to develop their farms; and those who are relatively young and have off-farm work. The article suggests that advisory agencies can either establish or increase engagement with many of these farmers by reconfiguring how and when they deliver services. This new and increased engagement is regarded as important in achieving the broader goals of sustainable agricultural and rural development in Ireland and has relevance at the wider EU and global levels.


Keywords


Advisory engagement, hard to reach, small scale, agricultural development.

References


Anderson, J., (2007), Agricultural Advisory Services: A Background Paper to the World Development Report 2008. Agriculture and Rural Development Department, World Bank.

Brackertz, Nicola. (2007). Who is hard to reach and why? Institute of Social Research Working Paper, Swinburne University of Technology Institute of Social Research, Victoria.

Central Statistics Office (2012). Census of Agriculture, 2010. Government of Ireland Stationary Office, Dublin, Ireland.

Central Statistics Office (2015). Farm Structures Survey 2013. Government of Ireland Stationary Office, Dublin, Ireland.

Deane, T. (2016). Categorisation of hard to reach drystock farmers according to their aspirations, intentions and motivations. MAgrSc Thesis, Unpublished. School of Agriculture and Food Science, University College Dublin, Ireland.

Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. (2010). The Food Harvest 2020: A vision for Irish agrifood and fisheries. Dublin: Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Food.

Department of Agriculture, Food & the Marine. (2015). Local roots global reach. Food Wise 2025. A 10-year vision for Irish agri-food industry. Dublin: Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Food.

Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, (2016). Annual Review and Outlook 2015-16. Dublin: Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Food.

Dunne, A. (2016). An Examination of the Impact of Agricultural Extension Services on Rural Development - Case Study of County Laois. UCD PhD Programme (2013-2018) in Progress. School of Agriculture and Food Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

European Parliament (2014). European Parliament resolution of 4 February 2014 on the future of small agricultural holdings (2013/2096(INI)).

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2014). The State of Food and Agriculture: Innovation in Family Farming. FAO of the United Nations, Rome 2014.

Froonjian, J. & J. L. Garnett (2013). "Reaching the Hard to Reach: Drawing Lessons from Research and Practice." International Journal of Public Administration, 36 (12) (2013), 831-839.

Heanue, K. & C. O’Donoghue (2014). The Economic Returns to Formal Agricultural Education. Teagasc, Agriculture & Food Development Authority.

Jansen, J., C. D. M. Steuten, R. J. Renes, N. Aarts, &T. J. G. M. Lam. (2010). ‘Debunking the myth of the hard-to-reach farmer: Effective communication on udder health’. Journal of Dairy Science, 93, (3) 1296-1306.

Kandel, D. (1975). Reaching the hard-to-reach: illicit drug use among high school absentees. Journal of Addictive Diseases, 1975, 1 (4), 465-480.

Kelly, M. (2015). An Examination of Agricultural Advisory Services in East Clare. Masters in Agri. Sci. Thesis, Unpublished. School of Agriculture and Food Science, University College Dublin, Ireland.

Kinsella, J. (1995). A Study of Development Information Needs of Viable and Potentially Viable Farm Households in Ireland in the Context of a Changing Policy Environment. Unpublished PhD, National University of Ireland.

Kinsella, J. (2014). Advisory Services at a Crossroads. Presentation to the Agricultural Science Association Annual Conference 2014: Keeping pace with global food trends, Naas, Co. Kildare, Ireland. Sept. 12th 2014.

Kovandzic, M., C. Chew-Graham, J. Reeve, S. Edwards, S. Peters, D. Edge, S. Aseem, L. Gask, C. Dowrick, (2011). Access to primary mental health care for hard-to-reach groups: From ‘silent suffering’ to ‘making it work’. Social Sciences and Medicine 72 (2011) 763-772.

Labarthe, P., Laurent, C., (2013). Privatization of agricultural extension services in the EU: Towards a lack of adequate knowledge for small-scale farms? Food Policy 38, 240–252.

Mackenzie, M., M. Reid, F. Turner, Y. Wang, J. Clarke, S. Sridharan, S. Platt and C. O'Donnell (2012). Reaching the Hard-to-Reach: Conceptual Puzzles and Challenges for Policy and Practice. Journal of Social Policy, 41, 511-532.

Masterson, J. (2016). Review of Advisory tools and methodologies to engage with ‘hard to reach’ drystock farmers. M.Agr.Sc Thesis, Unpublished. School of Agriculture and Food Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

Somers, B. M. (1991). "Small farmers and agricultural extension." Surviving on a small farm in the Netherlands and possibilities for agricultural extension to reach a hard-to-reach category. Wageningen, Landbouwuniversiteit Wageningen, Netherlands.

Sutherland,,L.A., L. Madureirab, V. Dirimanovac, M. Boguszd, J. Kaniad, K. Vinohradnikg, R. Creaneya, D. Ducketta, T. Koehnenb and A. Knierim (2017). New knowledge networks of small-scale farmers in Europe’s periphery. Land in Use Policy, 63, 428-439.

Swanson B. & R. Rajalahti (2010), Strengthening Agricultural Advisory and Extension Systems: Procedures for Assessing, Transforming and Evaluating Extension Systems. World Bank Agriculture and Rural Development Discussion Paper No. 45. The World Bank.

Teagasc, (2016). Annual Report 2015 and Financial Statements. Teagasc Agriculture and Food Development Authority. Ireland.


Full Text: PDF XPS

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2018 Jim Kinsella

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.