Mental models of soil health in the Midwest: Does everyone have the same understanding?
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Date
2020-02
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Abstract
Having a different understanding of soil health and what else it relates to can lead to divergent mental models of the concept. In turn, having these differing mental models may impede communication and the ability to answer applied research questions. To explore this idea, we used a large survey across three targeted groups, farmers, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) employees, and agricultural researchers from the Midwest, to provide evidence that soil health is equally prominent within the mental models of all three of these groups. However, NRCS personnel and researchers consistently undervalue the importance of soil health to farmers and do not consider soil health as holistically as farmers do. The differences in how groups conceptualize the relationships between soil health and related factors suggest that soil health plays a more central role in causal relationships for farmers than it does for NRCS personnel or researchers. Our results underscore that a greater understanding of these relationships is essential for effective communication about on-farm practices that build soil health, the development of applied research programs, and efficient use of research and extension resources.
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Poster Division: Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (FAES): 1st Place (The Ohio State University Edward F. Hayes Graduate Research Forum)
Keywords
mental models, soil health, agriculture, farmers, agronomic researchers, Natural Resource Conservation Service