Cultivating farmers’ knowledge for the future

Climate change is expected to alter the agricultural conditions in northern Sweden. New research from Luleå University of Technology reveals that farmers’ local knowledge and understanding of their different farmlands develops through practical experience and by sharing knowledge with other local farmers. The findings could play a vital role in creating a more sustainable and resilient agricultural industry in northern Sweden.

"Climate change will likely bring several educational challenges for the agricultural industry in northern Sweden. Sustainable agriculture will likely depend on the ability to adapt to a changing natural landscape and to effectively transfer and transmit both competence and knowledge between different farmers," says Niklas Johansson, doctoral researcher in education at Luleå University of Technology.

In his doctoral thesis, he has explored how farmers in northern Sweden learn and redevelop their local knowledge and understanding of their different farmlands throughout their professional lives, something that may become increasingly important as climate change progresses. Previous research has suggested that climate change may alter the natural landscape in northern Sweden through the emergence of, for instance, new weather systems and vegetation patterns. But at the same time, the agricultural industry is also facing a generational shift, with fewer young people choosing farming as a profession. There is therefore a great contemporary need for scientific knowledge about how farmers learn and redevelop their local knowledge and understanding of their different farmlands in their everyday lives.

As part of the study, Niklas Johansson conducted 30 interviews with 14 different farmers, located on various farmsteads in Norrbotten.

The farmers in the study represented between the third and eleventh generation of farmers to work their respective farms. All had, at some point in their lives, been involved in animal husbandry, forestry and crop cultivation.

The findings show that farmers’ lifelong environmental learning does not primarily take place through formal education, but rather through long-term experience of working the land, observing changes in the landscape and sharing experiences with other local farmers.

"Farmers’ lifelong learning about their different farmlands is based on sensing, storying, and shaping the landscape," says Niklas Johansson.

By identifying and discussing local changes and experiences together, farmers can continuously cultivate and strengthen their local knowledge and understanding of their different farmlands.

"Reflecting about different place-based environmental and agricultural experiences together with other local farmers is something that the farmers themselves emphasize as very important for their lifelong learning," says Niklas Johansson.

In the long term, Niklas Johansson’s doctoral thesis, Learning from the Land: The Lifelong Environmental Learning of Farmers in Northern Sweden, may be used by agricultural upper secondary schools, county administrative boards and farming organizations to develop education programs that may facilitate and support the lifelong environmental learning of farmers in northern Sweden.

The research was conducted in collaboration with NorrlandsNavet and funded by the Kamprad Family Foundation.

• Link to the doctoral thesis, Learning from the Land: The Lifelong Environmental Learning of Farmers in Northern Sweden.