SOAR is a research school. In addition to the focus on PhD students, SOAR also includes graduates, postdocs and supervisors in the activities and networks. This is important because they also constitute the research environment, in which the PhD student is under education. SOAR wants to contribute to the professional discussions with a special focus on the organic food and farming systems.
The research interests of SOAR cover a wide range of subjects within organic agriculture and food systems:
Organizational becoming within the agri-industrial complex: Inter-organizational collaboration amongst agriculture and authorities on integrated nature resource management
Supervisors
Egon Noe, Faculty of Science and Technology, AU
Tor Hernes, Copenhagen Business School
University
Aarhus University, Faculty of Science and Technology
The overall aim of the project is to develop a way of organizing a long term, self maintaining solution to newly recognized local and complex nature and environmental problems. By putting into use process oriented organizational theory combined with systems theory and Actor Network theory the project aims at delivering the foundation for a new, synergy creating way of collaboration for the organizations involved. The objectives are:
· To develop a conceptual framework for describing and explaining agriculture’s and the Danish authorities’ shared skepticism towards mutually involving nature resource management
· To identify and increase synergy-creating aspects of collaboration in self organizing processes between biological and social systems
· To enable and assess collective organization and network cooperation between farms within a locality and on a scale that match the scale of the environmental/ nature problem is.
Background
From a perspective of regulation there is an evident need for new means to cope with present climate challenges, environmental challenges and declining biodiversity. Existing means of regulation, such as surveillance and sanctions against offenders, are becoming insufficient as they are not suited to coping with challenges that are transboundary and hard to check up on. Generalized regulation as a preferred means of regulation has difficulties in managing nature and environmental considerations in ways also viable to society
Pressure is put on the national authorities by the EU in order for the national authorities to initiate a new kind of regulation based on involvement, and collaborative management together with the primary managers of nature, e.g. the farmers. Unlike other EU-member states the Danish authorities will soon have used up the capacity of problem solving that resided with generalized regulations. Still, Danish authorities are hesitant towards voluntary, mutual involving forms of management and regulation.
Until now generalized and uniform regulation of farming has been accepted by farming associations. This may be due to the principle of collective and equal liability which has been a major driving force to the Danish agricultural industry, historically. With focus on the farm land having changed to include not only production considerations but also nature and environmental considerations recognition is rising within the industry that there may be a mis-match between generalized measures aimed at nutrients reduction and local possibilities for nature and the environment to reproduce.
Even though agriculture recognizes the need to change means of regulation, large parts of the industry are still skeptical towards voluntary and mutually involving regulatory forms. This is true even though more collaborative projects have been carried out showing positive results.
Thus, despite of common problem recognition, authorities and agriculture stand at paradox and a deadlock: Methods already tried-out do not spread from the projects that they are part of. As authorities and agriculture have not yet developed mutual trust, authorities continue to use generalized regulation as a preferred or ever present means. Generalized regulation is not optimal in meeting environmental and agricultural objectives, which is why further lack of confidence in the authorities is spreading in the industry.
