Local Knowledge: Farmers' Perspectives on Waste, Water, and Ways of Knowing

Scientists, engineers, and researchers work hard to provide farmers with the tools to better manage their land for water quality protection. The roles these actors play are generally routinized. Scientists perform experiments... [ view full abstract ]

Scientists, engineers, and researchers work hard to provide farmers with the tools to better manage their land for water quality protection. The roles these actors play are generally routinized. Scientists perform experiments and research to produce knowledge that is global and generalizable, while farmers gather local and specific knowledge through daily interaction with their land. Scientists, engineers, and researchers use this information in different ways and sometimes reduce the information collected by farmers to “anecdote” and devalue it as a potential source of data. As a result, the voices of farmers are largely absent from the scientific process with regard to water quality and agricultural land management. The knowledge they possess has not been fully considered in experiment design or hypothesis development. The proposed project aims to engage with farmers to better understand knowledge acquisition and land management practices. This study is situated in the Cayuga and Owasco Lake watersheds in the Finger Lakes region of central New York which drain into the Great Lakes Basin. This study will use semi-structured interviews and focus groups to examine the ways farmers collect, store, and share knowledge relevant to water and nutrient management on their farms. Through this project we hope to broaden the conversation about what farmers know and how they know it and assess how scientists, engineers, and researchers engage with that information and how it could be done in a more meaningful way. Data collection is currently underway and will be completed by summer 2018.