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Small scale farmers and climate change: Opportunities and barriers to community engagement. Burbi , Baines and Conway Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester. What Farmers Are Expected To Do. Produces food, feed, fuel and fiber Safeguard the environment Maintain biodiversity
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Small scale farmers and climate change: Opportunities and barriers to community engagement Burbi, Baines and Conway Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester
What Farmers Are Expected To Do • Produces food, feed, fuel and fiber • Safeguard the environment • Maintain biodiversity • Provide broad range of ecosystem services • Reduce waste, pollution and greenhouse gas emissions • Maintain business productivity and competitiveness
What Researchers Can Do • Assess the feasibility of practical application of mitigation options in the UK. • Provide a free and easy-to-use decision support tool for farmers and land managers, in the form of a decision tree. • Propose mitigation options to farmers and land managers based not only on environmental impacts, but also considering their socio-economic impact on business (options, feasibility, sustainability, farmers’ engagement)
Translational Research • Methods • 14 small-scale livestock farmers; farm visits, interviews, focus group meetings • Decision Support Tool to provide farm management practices assessment and guidelines to reduce GHG. • Feedback on farmers’ attitudes and perceptions of climate change mitigation.
Translational Research • Barriers to adaption of GHG mitigation measures by farmers • Financialburden of GHG emission reduction measures • Trust in official reports, government • Support in integrating environmentalschemes and GHG emissions reduction • Bureaucracy linked to obtaining grants • Trust in scientific basis of recommendations • Risk associated with change of viable business model for something new and unknown
Translational Research • Whathelps small scale farmers make good decisions: • Trust in source of recommendations (i.e. the individual) • Interest in conservation and environmental matters • Trust in source of recommendations (i.e. the organization) • User-friendliness of assessment tools • Community support and/or engagement