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Innovation shared is Resilience built: farmer to farmer knowledge sharing and adapting to climatic change

Posted on:2014-08-08Degree:M.AType:Thesis
University:University of Victoria (Canada)Candidate:Roessler, Hannah MaiaFull Text:PDF
GTID:2459390008954830Subject:Environmental Sciences
Abstract/Summary:
Does digitally-mediated farmer-to-farmer learning facilitate farm-level adaptation to climate change? Utilizing semi-structured interviews with small-scale organic farmers in the Cascadia Bioregion, I document how farmers perceive climate change and in what ways they are responding and/or adapting to these changes. Such small-scale farms have limited economic capacity to adapt to climate change. Access to innovative, low-cost but locally relevant solutions will require novel knowledge-dissemination mechanisms. A modern option is "participatory media" - a social network based approach, linking farmers to farmers through internet-exchange of photos and video. This project engages in a "bottom-up" approach to the development and sharing of knowledge. In collaboration with local farmers, I explored the efficacy of a participatory media method in moving towards improving farmers' perception of and adaptation to climate change, as well as overall farm-level resilience.
Keywords/Search Tags:Change, Farmers
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