Who Do You Strive To Be? Exploring Norms of Good Farming for Sustainable Soil Management in Four European Regions

ABSTRACT A widespread use of climate‐smart soil management practices is needed to meet the challenges posed to farming by climate change. However, it is individual farmers who choose to use such practices or not. Their choices depend on many different factors such as social norms, policy incentives, economic factors, or environmental and local requirements. Understanding norms can thus provide valuable insights into farmers' (potential) use of climate smart soil management practices. In this study, the ‘good farmer’ concept serves to investigate the norms that farmers hold with respect to their profession. To do so, we use a qualitative research approach and analyse the content of semi‐structured interviews with farmers in four case study regions located in Austria, Switzerland, Spain and Sweden. Analysing the views of farmers from different climatic zones in Europe is, to the best of our knowledge, unique. We first identify and describe the characteristics and symbols that are used to define a ‘good farmer’ and then compare them across contexts. The most frequently mentioned characteristics and symbols across regions are open‐mindedness and a willingness to learn, attentiveness and adaptiveness to soil and weather conditions, and being able to time work well, but also having neat and tidy farms and fields. These results are relatively congruent across the case study regions. Economic aspects of farming—for example, being a good businessperson that acts in an economically strategic way—are mentioned in all regions but emphasised especially in the Spanish case study region. We conclude that farmers hold several norms that likely benefit the use of climate‐smart soil management practices, such as openness to change, attentiveness and long‐term orientation. Other norms are either ambivalent (e.g., norms related to farm economics and business management) or might present barriers (e.g., the importance given to tidy fields) for their uptake. Therefore, we recommend policy incentives which address these norms, such as open mindedness and adaptiveness, rather than focusing primarily on economic incentives. We draw policy recommendations such as revising policy measures to incorporate such norms. For example, we advocate for the establishment and continuation of farmers' networks to foster peer‐to‐peer learning within communities.