Social Learning Processes in Swiss Soil Protection—The 'From Farmer - To Farmer' Project

摘要

Social learning approaches have become a prom-inent focus in studies related to sustainable agriculture. Inorder to better understand the potential of social learning formore sustainable development, the present study assessed theprocesses, effects and facilitating elements of interactionrelated to social learning in the context of Swiss soil protectionand the innovative 'From Farmer - To Farmer' project. Thestudy reveals that social learning contributes to fundamentaltransformations of patterns of interactions. However, thestudy also demonstrates that a learning-oriented understand-ing of sustainable development implies including analysis ofthe institutional environments in which the organizations ofthe individual representatives of face-to-face-based sociallearning processes are operating. This has shown to be adecisive element when face-to-face-based learning processesof the organisations' representatives are translated intoorganisational learning. Moreover, the study revealed thatthis was achieved not directly through formalisation of newlines of institutionalised cooperation but by establishing linksin a 'boundary space' trying out new forms of collaboration,aiming at social learning and co-production of knowledge. It is argued that further research on social learning processesshould give greater emphasis to this intermediary level of`boundary spaces'.