Comparing system visions of farmers and experts

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to identify farmers’ future in terms of the pesticide management of potato growing farmers in Vereda la Hoya (Boyaca´ , Colombia). To achieve this goalwe applied the Future-Structured Mental Model Approach (Future-SMMA) and interviewed 10 farmers concerning their future perspectives and expectations to derive their future visions. Subsequently, 10 experts were interviewed about the
feasibility and the consequences of farmers’ future visions.
Applying the Future-SMMA, we analyzed farmers’ future visions and found that farmers take account of social and environmental threats and that their visions are optimistic. In addition we compared farmers’ and experts’ perceptions of external constraints on farmers’ future and discovered that the future visions of farmers and
experts were inconsistent. Finally, we determined how farmers’ livelihood assets and selfperception influence the formation of farmers’ future visions and found that the more a person was able to differentiate his livelihood assets the more differentiated were the future visions of that person. In discussing our findings, we deduce that the inconsistency of future visions found is due to diverging attitudes towards future scenarios and differing opinions about who should take responsibility for the knowledge management of farmers.