How agroecological farmers develop their own practices: a framework to describe their learning processes

Abstract

Supporting farmers through their agroecological transition calls for fostering learning processes that enable farmers to develop practices rooted in their peculiar agroecosystem. We here aim at contributing to the understanding of the learning processes of agroecological farmers. We thus conducted interviews with farmers experienced in conservation agriculture. A qualitative analysis led to a framework grounded in pragmatist philosophy, and consisting in a categorization of learning elements, combined with the evolution of pragmatic judgements. This framework could be applied to a broader range of agroecological farmers, to explain the diversity of their learning processes and help designing ways to better foster such learning processes.