Building social capital and promoting participatory development of agricultural innovations through farmer field schools: The Greek experience

More than 25 years after the first implementation of Farmer Field Schools (FFS), there is a rich corpus of evidence that participation in FFS improves farmers’ knowledge, skills, and competencies. On the other hand, several studies converge to show that FFS, by strengthening group action, have the potential to build-up social capital among participants and, thereafter, within local communities. However, it is not yet clear if this social capital is reflected in the levels of knowledge gained by FFS participants and to what extent it promotes farmers’ participatory engagement in the process of innovation development. To answer these questions the authors used between and within-subjects approaches. Data were drawn from facilitators and cotton farmers who participated in an FFS project aimed at the development of competencies in three domains: integrated crop management, farm management, and occupational safety. In a first step they developed three measures to assess the levels of social capital among farmers, the degree to which each participant contributed to the co-production of innovations within the framework of the project, and the knowledge gained by farmers. Regression analyses confirmed that the levels of social capital – and especially bonding social capital – do indeed predict both the co-production of innovations by farmers, and the levels of knowledge they gain through their participation in FFS. These findings indicate that cultivating social capital among FFS participants is a key element in facilitating the construction of knowledge and the coevolution of agricultural innovations by farmers, two of the core foci of FFS approach.

The paper was presented during the 12th European IFSA Symposium (Workshop: "Generating spaces for innovation in agricultural and rural development") in 2016.