Change in the present farming business is inevitable now more than 50 years back. With the global environment playing an all bigger part and influencing the on-farm decision making, change cannot be ignored in any way. In the previous Agra Ring publication (Dec ‘16/Jan ’17) the focus was on-change in general.
Figure 1 shows the behavioural change within persons and the nett result of all communication and actions with the influence of positive and negative forces, changing from an existing horizon (present level of intervention) to a new level of intervention, de Klerk and Düvel (1982).
Lewin (1951) differentiated the three phases as being:
- Phase 1-------- “developing a need for change”
- Phase 2-------- “working towards change”
- Phase 3-------- “generalisation and stabilization for change”
As mentioned previously, change will always take place in the context of movement. These forces create movement and are part of a person’s surrounding in which he/she is living in.
Perception
Wilkens & Düvel (1972) quoted perception as: “Each individual perceives and interprets a situation via his memory capacities, attention, past experience, motives, attitudes, expectations and the like – i.e., in terms of his unique pattern of experience and personality.”
Düvel (1990) explained the over- and underestimation of a situation as follows. Research findings on the topic of rangeland condition evaluation between farmers, extensionists and specialists indicated the over- and underestimation on a situation at hand. The over- or under estimation of a situation will consequently influence the level of interventions what might be implemented.-Ibid-refereed to results from Botha & Düvel (1989) which indicated, based on the evaluation criteria of poor, fair and good rangeland condition, that farmers evaluated the rangeland as 5% poor; 38% fair and 57% good compared to extension staff, evaluating the veld as 22%, 58% and 20% respectively. Düvel (1990) showed in a second result that the rangeland evaluation as scored by farmers were 4%, 38% and 58%; extensionist 39%, 49% and 12% while the specialist evaluated it as 57%, 31% and 12% respectively. What is important here is the focus on a different perception, irrespectively of the group. The perception (scoring of the rangeland condition, as an example) will bring about different implementation actions for different scenarios.
The more the perceived situation is underestimated the narrower the gab will be, not solving the problem as a whole. The gab can vary according to the over- or underestimation of a problem. This illustrates the difference in perception on a certain topic and consequently the action that will be taken to overcome it.--
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Example: Understanding and improving rangeland conditions Phase 1: “developing a need for change” Understanding rangeland condition better (condition criteria are botanic composition, plant density, organic soil cover, plant vigour, erosion, bush encroachment, poisonous plants, termite’s activity). What do I see? What influences the criteria? Linking rangeland condition to meat production, etc. Phase 1: “develop a need for change”
Phase 2: “working towards change”
Phase 3: “generalisation and stabilization for change” The STRATEGY (Focus on that, which can be influenced)
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References:
De Klerk, C.H. & Düvel, G.H. 1982. Menskundige en omgewingsinvloede op praktyaanvaarding en reproduksiedoeltreffendheid in die hoëpotensiaal beesboerderygebiede van Suidwes-Afrika.
Düvel, G.H. 1990. A problem-solving approach in programmed agriculture.
Lewin, K. 1951. Field theory in social science.
Wilkens, C.J. & Düvel, G.H. 1972. Different perceptions as communication problems in veld management.
Norbert Neumann – Feedmaster Technical Adviser ---------- 081 2327 027
