Dissecting the Roles of Social Capital in Farmer-to-Farmer Extension: A Review

Various types of relationships within a farmer-to-farmer (F2F) extension system can influence farmers’ access to advancement opportunities, resources, capacity building, and social and professional networks. Using a social capital theoretical lens, this review elucidates the nature of these relationships and networks to better understand how bonding, bridging, and linking social capital may be leveraged in positive and negative ways and how relationship dynamics relate to farmers’ power, opportunities, and gender equity. This research demonstrates that all three types of social capital are instrumental but play different and often complementary roles in F2F extension. While bonding social capital is crucial for social cohesion, too few connections to outside actors and networks may cause farmer communities to become wary and unreceptive to innovation and change. On the other hand, outside linkages without sufficient bonding social capital to build trust may lead to inequitable distribution of desirable resources and power. Our most fundamental recommendation is to use social capital conceptualizations – specifically bonding, bridging, and linking – in the design, implementation, and evaluation of F2F extension systems. Participatory mapping of social capital, using a social equity lens, could help farmer groups identify where social capital is plentiful and where it is scarce. Building awareness among diverse farmer communities about social capital dynamics, especially linked to gender, may encourage shifts in attitudes and decision-making to reduce barriers and help marginalized farmers build social capital. Finally, we recommend making host communities and farmer groups attractive to outside interests, investments, and networks, to promote development and innovation

Contextualizing organizational frames: Teaching leadership to faculty in agricultural and natural resources

Possessing leadership skills has been determined to be an essential requirement within the workplace. A multi-level leadership program was designed to help provide undergraduates with more exposure to leadership principles. The program team was created through the collaboration of multiple universities found within the southeastern United States. Through a 14-week online training program followed by a field experience, participants were exposed to Bolman and Deal’s organizational frames. Participants then created cased studies grounded in this leadership framework and based on the data that was collected during their field experiences. This study quantitatively analyzed the consistency with which each of the frames were used. From the 16 published case studies on the multi-institutional project’s website, assessment questions were analyzed based on which frame/frames were being referenced. Findings from this study identified a similar use of each of the frames throughout all the case studies. Further research should be conducted to better understand each participant’s comprehension of the organizational frames prior to the development of their case studies