Information Sources and Trust
Farmers and advisers in Hungary and the UK used diverse sources to gain new information about soil, ranging from individuals (such as other farmers) to institutions (such as agricultural levy boardsFootnote1). Farmers generally used and placed most trust in other farmers when they wanted to learn about soil management, as one Hungarian arable farmer (HF07) explained:
“I discuss our experiences with my fellow farmers. We are in continuous contact; we keep in touch but if some problem occurs then we can just call each other like: “What did you do? How do you deal with it? What are you results? How big is the yield? What is the quality?”. We can trust in each other’s experiences because we are friends, so we do not want to cause trouble to each other, and we know how the others works; we see the result on each other farms with our eyes.”
Respondents also frequently used digital technology to find information: for farmers, this was usually via social media and other online sources such as farming forums and the agricultural press; for advisers, this was primarily in online scientific journals. Most respondents thought the internet was a useful way to find out about new information on soil and gauge what other farmers felt about the topic, though advisers (particularly those from colleges/universities) did not find online farmer experiences shared on social media were credible as they believed anecdotal stories were not robust enough to be considered “evidence”. Farmers, however, reported that they valued social media to learn directly from and connect with other farmers about agricultural practices and experiences much easier than they could in person. Both Hungarian and British farmers used social media as a source of agricultural information, though this practice tended to be more common in British farmers. One British advisor commented:
“Twitter has become a very important tool for farmers to learn peer to peer… Farmers sharing just real-life case studies. They are sharing their trials; they just share what they are doing and you see farmers interact with that. Twitter has played a central role in providing one form of evidence that farmers do trust which is what other farmers are doing. Twitter has empowered that to happen.”
Whether talking about other farmers in the social media or geographical networks, farmers tended to get information from other farmers with similar farming experiences and interests to them, rather than seeking out particularly experienced or knowledgeable farmers, and when they sought evidence beyond these networks, they were typically cautious. Whilst farmers and advisers regularly used the internet to gather soil information, many were somewhat cautious of fully trusting online sources, as one British mixed farmer (BF04) explained: “Ultimately the internet is the biggest tool of useless information but also the biggest tool of useful information. It is just knowing what bit of information you are reading at the time.” Therefore, the internet was considered useful to gather information but that this information needed to be taken “with a pinch of salt”—as numerous respondents mentioned—before it could be believed, trusted and acted upon.
Both advisers and farmers used the farming press to gather information on soil, with farmers placing more trust in this source than advisers. However, both farmers and advisers reported a degree of scepticism in the content of the farming press, believing the content to be somewhat swayed by the agribusinesses who pay for adverts in the magazines. For example, one UK advisor commented, “If you read Farmer’s Weekly you think ‘really?’… You read most of it and there is an underlying message in it, there is always a commercial message.” National general press sources such as broadsheet newspapers were not trusted as sources of information on soil as these were deemed to have a different agenda to the agricultural sector.
Farmers and advisers alike mentioned that established agricultural levy/membership organisations were trusted sources of information about soil because respondents believed these organisations undertook reliable, robust science that was practical for on-farm use. Here, respondents trusted the research produced from these institutions as the institutions themselves were perceived as trustworthy and being on the side of the farmer. For example, one UK farmer and advisor commented, “I would probably as a general rule tend to be fairly trusting of anything which comes out of AHDB [Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board] probably from the point of view that again it is independent, it is levy funded and certainly in the last year or two they seem to have swung into a fairly pragmatic attitude of looking at things both from a scientific and economic point of view and they tend to bring in good researchers.” Respondents also felt these institutions were empathetic towards what farmers wanted and communicated in ways farmers understood. Farmers often mentioned that partly why they trusted agricultural levy boards was because they were funded by the farming industry.
Whilst farmers trusted the research produced from these agricultural levy boards (though less than they trusted other farmers), they generally only trusted academic research institutions—such as agricultural colleges—that were known for longstanding work on agriculture conducted in collaboration with farmers. Researchers from other institutions, such as governments, non-agriculturally focused colleges and universities (hereafter denoted as “outsider scientists”), were not trusted by farmers, as these researchers were thought to have a conflicting agenda to farmers so did not have farmers’ best interests at heart. In Hungary, this was partly due to the changing advisory landscape, as a university adviser explained (HA10):
“Unfortunately, the world has changed a lot. State-financing universities are no longer the case. Information is difficult to pass on. Farmers are less and less likely to believe in university research.”
Therefore, the degree to which farmers trusted scientific outputs was dependent on the institutions producing them. Numerous farmers in Hungary and the UK were suspicious of the funding sources that outsider scientists relied on, assuming that many research projects were part-funded by (what they deemed) untrustworthy and biased donors such as the agrochemical industry; this was one reason why most farmers placed little trust in advisers who worked for large agribusinesses.
The way in which outsider scientists obtained funding was seen to “corrupt” their results, as a British mixed farmer (BF27) proposed. Other farmers mentioned an additional reason for not using information from or trusting outsider scientists was because they could not access academic research, partly as it was often behind paywalls and partly because it was written in a way that farmers found hard to understand. Outsider scientists were also thought to work at different geographic scales to farmers, as the researchers often wanted large-scale generalisable studies whereas farmers wanted locally specific research applicable to their farm. This fed into the suspicion farmers had towards outsider scientists, as the knowledge produced by these researchers was not generally actionable on the farm and was communicated in ways farmers struggled to understand, suggesting a lack of empathy that outsider scientists conveyed towards farmers. The scalar difference was thought to affect the usefulness of scientists’ advice, as reflected upon by a British agricultural college adviser (BA23):
“Farmers quite rightly trust other farmers and why would they trust the scientists, the scientist who only writes a paper? And why would they trust a scientist who doesn’t turn up in their field and talk to them directly? Why would they read a paper and think ‘I must try that out’?”
Agricultural Information Validation
Agricultural information on soil was often validated by respondents using a rough triangulation process, including collecting additional evidence (like repeated trials or studies done in different contexts) and getting verification from trusted sources, as this Hungarian agribusiness adviser (HA08) explained:
“I do not trust without any doubt, so I do cross analyses and if I find out that more papers state the same then I trust in the information provided.”
There were concerns about the rise of “fake news”, with farmers likely to triangulate potentially unreliable sources with other farmers. For example, one British farmer said:
“I think in the last few years there has been more of fake news but the things I read I don’t think are fake. I don’t know actually. Gut feeling maybe, talking to other farmers. I wouldn’t just jump in with both feet and do something regardless. You talk to other farmers and see what they are doing”. Advisors, on the other hand, were more likely to triangulate with other published sources. One British advisor checked her sources by “understanding where the information has come from, who is putting it out and whether they have any prior experience”.
However, there was a difference in the sources and methods respondents chose to verify information. Advisers were more likely to look for perceived scientific robustness, as this Hungarian agribusiness adviser (HA01) described: “I like university research. It is verified back statistically and biologically, confirmed results and a reliable source.” Conversely, farmers often relied on other farmers to verify information, as a British farmer (BF01) explained: “Farmers want to see other farmers doing it… it convinced you more when you actually see it and see what the benefits are, that is the crucial thing”. Demonstration farms and visits were important for some respondents, for example one UK advisor commented, “demonstration events [are a] particularly really powerful way to have a look at it. I think particularly with soil demonstrations that until you see it, it is very hard to visualise it and see what works and doesn’t work.” This verification process was used to overcome the challenges with information overload and misleading information, as a British agribusiness adviser (BA15) described: