Investigating Features of Chain-wide Sustainability Initiatives Favouring Sustainable Development in Flemish Agriculture

Sustainable development can be described as ‘wicked problem’ without fixed end goals or templates to achieve it. Suggestions to start challenging our existing practice resulted in a number of initiatives stimulating farmers to increase the sustainability of their farming practices. These initiatives are very diverse with respect to the actors involved, the tools used, the setting in which it takes place, etc. The contestable, normatively and revolutionary concept of sustainability calls for learning as an essential element of projects and practices seeking contribution to a sustainable development. Insights on how and if these initiatives influence the sustainable development of farming practices are lacking. Therefore we try to find out the kind of learning necessary to achieve a sustainable development of farming practices through literature on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and educational practices. Based on a framework of Lankester, we ordered a non-limitative list of characteristics of educational processes mentioned in literature in categories ‘who learns’, ‘why is learned’, ‘how is learned’, ‘what is learned’. These characteristics will be used to analyze four cases where farmers are stimulated to increase the sustainability of their farm. Two of these initiatives are located in The Netherlands (Veldleeuwerik’ and ‘Koeien en kansen’) and two are located in Belgium (‘Beloftevol Boeren’ and ‘Boerenbond duurzaamheidstraject’). Based on this analysis, we derive recommendations on how the educational dynamic within these practices can be further stimulated and farmers learn to deal with sustainability as a wicked problem.status: publishe