Research Methodologies in Organic Food and Farming Research

Year

2008

 

Aim

It is the aim of the present course to acquaint young researchers (PhD-students) within the Nordic and Baltic countries with principles of organic agriculture, to define and describe different approaches to scientific investigation, present an overview of the options for holistic and systemic research, provide practical guidelines for selection of appropriate methods and discuss the methods in relation to the background and principles of organic farming. The course will also provide opportunities for students to reflect on their own research project and the significance of perspectives and values in the decisions and choices that is always taken in the research process.

 

Photos from the course are available at Picasa

 

Programme

 

Time

Intensive course from Sunday 2 November at 5 p.m. to Friday 7 November 3 p.m. 2008

 

Venue

Danhostel Lyngby-Tårbæk, Rådvad, Denmark (North of Copenhagen)

By public transport: Take S-train to Lyngby and bus 182 or 183 from there:

Bus 183 at 16:27 from Lyngby Station to 'Vejporten', arrival 16:41. We can pick you up there (3 km).

Time schedule for bus 182 and 183

By car: Take exit no. 15 marked ‘Lundtofte’ on the Helsingør Highway (E47/E55/19). Follow the signs to the hostel immediately after the turn-off (3km). 

Map

 

Course responsible
Associate professor Henning Høgh Jensen, LIFE/KU, Denmark

Course teachers
Professor Tor Arvid Breland, UMB, Norway

Senior scientist Charlotte Lagerberg Fogelberg, SLU, Sweden

 

Registration

By email to latest on October 1st.

 

Tuition fee

There is a tuition fee for non-Nordic participants, please contact SOAR for further information

 

Cost for food and accommodation

Non-NOVA PhD students will be charged 500€ for food and accommodation

NOVA PhD students are those enrolled at KU/LIFE, Denmark, SLU, Sweden, UMB, Norway and HU, Finland

SOAR PhD students will not be charged

 

Pre-course preparations

Guidelines for the pre-course assignment and literature will be available from 1st October.

 

The pre-course assignment includes written work (poster and abstract) undertaken before the intensive week. This assignment calls on participants to reflect on the methodological approaches applied in their own PhD project, and to give an argumentation for the relevance of the choice of methodology and methods to answer the research questions / hypothesis in the project. Guidelines or guiding questions will be made available to support participants in writing the assignment.

 

A number of articles will be identified and serve as compulsory and suggested reading before the intensive week. The articles will be selected to support participants in writing their pre-course assignment. IFOAM’s principles will be compulsory reading before the intensive week, to ensure that participants are acquainted with these, and can participate actively in discussions of the principles and underlying values in relation to practice.

 

Schedule 8 working days to read course literature and prepare the pre-course assignment.

 

Keynote speakers

Senior scientist Mette Vaarst, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark

Senior lecturer Chris Blackmore, Open University, UK

 

 

Description

The whole course is scheduled to run over two and a half weeks, split into a pre-course assignment and an intensive course. The pre-course assignment includes reading material (scientific articles) and preparation of a presentation from each participant, giving a short introduction of the participants; his/her research project, methodologies and approaches used, and reflections on the choices made.

Participants will present their research (pre-course assignment) in the beginning of the intensive week. Furthermore, an excursion to an organic farm/enterprise will serve as a common reference for the participants, and a case for group work on research proposals. During the course the participants will be acquainted with various methodologies within basic and applied research as well as hard and soft systems research, e.g. inductive – deductive, participatory, experimental, etc, as well as the concepts of disciplines and interdisciplinarity. These lectures will serve as inputs for the group work on research proposals, which will be presented by the groups on the last day of the intensive week.

 

Intensive week

The pre-course assignment will be used during the course. First, participants will present their assignment ‘in class’, as a way of introducing themselves. Secondly, the assignments will be used as inputs in the group work, where groups are seen as an interdisciplinary group of researchers developing a research proposal. Here, the assignments will serve as ‘CVs’ of the researchers in order to highlight resources within the group.

 

Excursion to organic farm

The excursion is a visit to Krogagergård, www.krogagergard.dk, where participants will observe and discuss issues and problems in the production in relation to the organic principles. In groups the participants will identify researchable questions emerging from these observations and discussions with the farmer/manager. A lecture on systems thinking will be given before the excursion to give participants tools needed to analyze the situation and identify researchable questions from the observations and discussions. The excursion will also help to visualize practical organic farming as the context of the research.

 

Presentations by guest lecturers

International renowned guest lecturers will introduce the latest within different approaches, methodologies and research methods in organic food and farming research during their 45 minutes presentations, followed by discussions. These lectures and discussions should give participants an overview at the highest academic level, and enable them to suggest methodologies relevant to the researchable questions identified in the case (excursion).

The teachers of the course were selected for their excellence in different fields which are important to the topic of the course. Altogether the teachers collectively cover natural and social sciences. Moreover, they represent both in-depth experience within disciplines and wider understanding of whole systems including the use and implications of different approaches.

 

Group work

The participants will work in groups on issues merging from the excursion, and formulate interdisciplinary research proposals, including the expertise and different research backgrounds present in the group. This will be a multi-perspective analysis of the farm / enterprise, and the leading question for the analysis will be to what extent the production is compatible with the principles, and where they see room for improvement in this respect. The course teachers will function as supervisors during the group work. The outcome of the group work will be presentations made on the last day of the course.

 

Assessment 

Assessment of the students’ performance is based on three elements:

1) the pre-course assignment and its presentation

2) the performance during the intensive course

3) the quality of the final project and its presentation

 

Evaluation

The course will be rounded up through an evaluation session to help the students sum up and reflect over what they derived from the course, and decide on further actions in their research. The evaluation will also function as quality control and course development tool for the organizers.