332- Danish Stable Schools for Experiential Common Learning in Groups of Organic Dairy Farmers (Research paper – Vaarst – 2007)

332 Research paper – Vaarst – 2007 – Danish Stable Schools for Experiential Common Learning in Groups of Organic Dairy Farmers

In Significant Impact Groups: Prudent use AB \ Farmer
Species targeted: Dairy;
Age: Young; Adult;
Summary:
The farmer field school (FFS) is a concept for farmers’ learning, knowledge exchange, and empowerment. In Denmark, a research project focusing on explicit nonantibiotic strategies involves farmers who have actively expressed an interest in phasing out antibiotics from their herds through promotion of animal health. An FFS approach was adapted to Danish conditions and named “stable schools.” A facilitator was connected to each group whose role was to write the meeting agenda together with the host farmer, direct the meeting, and write the minutes to send to the group members after the meeting. Complex farming situations were the focus of all groups and in this context, problems were identified and solutions proposed based on each farmer’s individual goals. In this article, we describe the experiences of 4 stable school groups (each comprising farmers and a facilitator), and the process of building a concept suitable for Danish organic dairy farming.

Where to find the original material: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022030207717526; https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2006-607
Country: DK