What was the challenge/problem addressed?
What can we learn from abroad in order to improve and enhance our farms’ production? How are cattle farms managed elsewhere and what kind of current issues they are dealing with? How to adapt new, even strange information to your own farm in a trustable way?
How did you solve the problem?
Creating a new, innovative group model: International information gathering group, and finding Finnish and international farmers to test its effectivesess in learning and gathering information.
Duration of the group: 1,5 years. 5 group meetings and two days English language course. During the language course we also took part to online meeting with a farmer in USA, which would have been a problem during the other meetings because of the time difference.
In this new group model we had eight cattle farms from Finland and six cattle farms from across the world to share information and learn from each others’ practices. In each on-site or remote group meeting, the Finnish group met the international visitor to discuss farm management and agriculture in different parts of the world. The Finnish group was mostly located together in a room, but they had the possibility to join hybrid and part of the Finnish farmers joined online too.
In the group’s first meeting, the Finns chose the partner countries for the coming meetings (Germany, Sweden, Serbia, Wales/UK, Poland) and the remote destination for the language course (South Dakota/USA). Some of the international guests were old acquaintances of the facilitators, some were new contacts.
Before each meeting, the Finnish group went through some basic information of the agriculture production and other interesting details of the destination country. During the meeting the group found out best practices, key figures and comparative information of the visitor’s farm. After the meeting, the Finnish group summarized the key points and discussed what they can learn and adopt into their every-day life and attitude. The part of each country’s basic information and the summary part was done in Finnish, and the meeting with another country’s farmer was in English with no interpreter.
What is innovative in your practical case?
Cowboys ad cowgirls: This model focuses on gathering information internationally, allowing participants to learn from various farming practices and agricultural management techniques across different countries. This approach broadens perspectives and encourages the exchange of innovative ideas.
Long-Term Duration: The extended duration of 1.5 years provides ample time for participants to immerse themselves in the learning process, deepen their understanding, and establish meaningful connections with international counterparts.
Language Training and Communication: The inclusion of an English language course and conducting meetings in English without interpretation fosters effective communication and collaboration among participants from different linguistic backgrounds, breaking down language barriers and facilitating knowledge exchange.
Adaptation and Adoption of Practices: Participants actively reflect on the information gathered during meetings, identifying best practices, key figures, and comparative information from the visitor’s farm. They discuss how they can adapt and adopt these insights into their own farming practices and daily routines, promoting continuous improvement and innovation.
Overall, this model fosters a dynamic learning environment where participants engage in meaningful exchanges, leverage diverse perspectives, and continuously evolve their farming practices through collaborative learning and adaptation.
What are the success factors in solving the problem?
The open-mindness towards the new group model of the Finnish group members and international guests and the courage for interacting in English. The farmers actually discussed about their daily life very openly with many different countries farmers. It wasn´t just keeping a presentation, but real sharing of best practises and thoughts about the nowadays farming across the world.
Summarizing the meeting together with the whole group and discussing the key points. What can we learn from each international farm? What can we adopt to our farm’s practices? The summary part was as imprortant as the actual meeting part with the other country´s farmer.
Finding inspiration, new perspectives and courage to do and think differently and in a new way. The world is closer to the group members now and it´s easier to find new information from another coutries.
Also farmers outside the group had the change to learn about the most important issues, as each meeting was published at Arki-project´s facebook pages with several pictures and some text. The main lesson learnt were open to anyone. https://www.facebook.com/arkihanke?locale=fi_FI
Lessons learned
Cattle farm management in other countries and comparing practices and knowledge. Sharing information and discussing challenges together, adopting good practices to own farm.
Involving group in planning its content increases motivation and commitment to group’s goals. They are more committed to the group, when they planned it themselves with the facilitators.
Finnish people tend to organize everything early, which was not understanable for some of the other countrys farmers. “Why do you ask me now to join in 8 months time? “ The plans could have been done also much later and in this case it´s be important to be able to change some of the plans and have some extra farms abroad to ask easily. Connecting people abroad is the big part of the group!
Advisors working as a pair is important! The other person was facilitating and encouraging the group of Finnish farmers to keep active and the other one followed the cases and prepared some extra guestions for the other country´s farmers and helped in writing down memos. Because of the working pair system it was also possible to change the other group leader without spoling the flow in the group. More advisors had the possibility to join this new group and learn about the methodology of the group.
What role does the advisor or advisory service play with the practical case?
Planning and facilitating the group and its objectives, arranging the meetings and contacting the international guests. Maintaining the good spirit. Finding the basic information and data from the guest country to be able to understand the guest farmer more deeply.
Can your approach be transferred and/or adapted for other innovation challenges and regions?
Yes
Estimated transferability on a scale from 1 to 5
(where 1 is easy and 5 very difficult)
1
For sharing the experience on the good practice, please contact
Anna Okkonen
anna.okkonen@proagria.fi, +358438250583
Link to external information
Each meeting was published at Arki-project´s facebook pages with several pictures and some text. The main lesson learnt were open to anyone. https://www.facebook.com/arkihanke?locale=fi_FI