Informational benefits via knowledge networks among farmers

Abstract

PurposeThis research aimed to obtain insights into how farmers on small and medium‐sized farms perceived the benefits of the information they receive from their interpersonal networks and other sources.Design/methodology/approachFarmers' information environments were explored using socio‐spatial knowledge networks, diaries and in‐depth interviews (to draw out participants' interpretations of significance). This enabled the perceived benefits of information to be interpreted within the context of participants' interpersonal networks.FindingsBoth on and off‐farm information sources were important. The benefit most valued was when farmers perceived they were enabled to challenge or reframe their thinking about professional and business issues.Practical implicationsThe study of information benefits is still relatively new, but a fuller appreciation of how learners perceive benefits from incoming information may provide insights into how to present information in ways that foster useful outcomes. Possible gaps and limitations in farmers' information supply may also follow the identification of how benefits are perceived.Originality/valueFarmers' access to information was mainly shaped by the particularities of the contexts within which they lived and worked. Yet they proactively kept up significant interpersonal connections even at a distance (by means such as by phone contact with former neighbours who now lived elsewhere). Farmers' sources of information were closely aligned to the information they already possessed, so that “what they know” was intimately configured within “who they are” as members of a family, a community, and as farmers.