Nearly half of the farmers expressed they were at a big turning point in their personal lives when they decided to farm full time. For example, these farmers had either moved across the country to an unfamiliar place, had quit their office job, and/or had lost an important family member or their childhood home.Farmers interviewed possess embedded knowledge, which is knowledge that comes from living on the land and observing natural processes . To situate this type of knowledge in this particular place , the farmers described their relationship to the land they farmed. Not surprisingly, many of the farmers initially responded with personifications of their land . Initial responses also spoke to farmer perception of their role within the land as well as an expression of romanticism for their land . Among farmers who owned most of the land that they farmed , there was a distinct lack of reference to land ownership; these farmers described their relationship both as a responsibility and as part of a larger human inheritance.All farmers interviewed mentioned direct experience as being one of the most important modes for understanding their landscape, their farming system, and management practices essential to their farm operation. The farmers described this accumulation of experience as “learning by doing,” being “self-taught,” or learning by “trial and error” . These farmers added that in learning by experience, they made “a lot of mistakes” and/or faced “many failures” but also learned from these mistakes and failures – and importantly, that this cycle was crucial to their chosen learning process.

More than half of the farmers interviewed maintained that no guidebook or manual for farming exists; while reading books was viewed as valuable and worked to enhance learning for individual farmers, to farm required knowledge that could only be gained through experience.Moreover, square pots plastic nearly all the farmers also explicitly commented on the fact that they have never stopped learning to farm . Overall, farmers in this study learned primarily through personal experience and over time, making connections and larger conclusions from these experiences. On-farm experimentation was a critical component of knowledge building as well. Experimentation consisted of methodical trials that farmers implemented at small scales on their farms, and most often directly on a small portion of their fields. Experimentation was often incited by observation , a desire to learn or to increase alignment with their own values, or a need to pivot in order to adapt to external changes. The farmers experimented to test the feasibility of implementing specific incremental changes to their current farming practices before applying these changes across their entire farm. For example, one farmer relied exclusively on trucking in urban green waste compost as part of the farm’s fertility program when she first started farming. However, one year, she decided to allow chickens to roam in a few of the fields; within a few years, those fields were outproducing any other field on her farm in terms of crop yield. She quickly transitioned the entire farm away from importing green waste compost to rotating chickens on a systematic schedule throughout all fields on her farm. This form of experimentation allowed this farmer to move from relying on external inputs for fertility to cycling existing resources within the farm and creating an internally regulated farming system . For this farmer, this small experiment was monumental and shifted her entire farm toward a management system that was more in alignment with her personal farming values.

As she described, “When you look at everything on the farm from a communal perspective and apply that concept of community to everything on the farm . . . it literally applies to every aspect of your life too.”Though this farmer had initially used direct observation to implement raised beds on his farm, as he learned the purpose of raised beds through his own direct experience, he slowly realized – over the course of decades – that raised beds served no purpose for his application. One year, he decided not to shape some of his beds. At the end of the season, he evaluated no real impact on his ability to cultivate or irrigate the row crops on flat ground, and no impact on yield or crop health. In fact, he observed less soil compaction and more aeration due to fewer passes with heavy machinery; and, he saved time and fuel. The transition to farm on flat ground took several seasons for this farmer, but over time, his entire farm operation no longer used raised beds to grow row crops. This breakthrough in farming for this particular farmer was informed by personal experience and guided by careful experimentation.Second to experience, observation also influenced the farmer learning process. Whereas direct experience is usually immersive, and embedded within a larger social context, observation is a detached, mechanical form of knowledge production, where a farmer registers what they perceive to transpire . For example, farmers cited observing other farmers in a multitude of ways: “By watching other farmers, I really mean I’d just drive around and look. I’d see what tools they were using;” or “If I saw someone working in the field, I would stop my car on the side of the road to see what people are doing;” or “I really would just observe my father farm,”) as well as making observations about the status of their land . Several of the farmers summed up their cycle of learning as a cycle of observation, trial, feedback, observation, trial, feedback, etc . The farmers frequently mentioned fellow farmers as a source of learning as well. However, several of the farmers clarified that this type of learning did not necessarily involve talking to fellow farmers. One farmer shared that he learned certain farming practices from a neighbor farmer through distant observation and then borrowed ideas he subsequently applied on his farm; to achieve this, he admitted that he had never really talked to the other farmer directly.

Another farmer noted that he would “go back at night if they [another farmer] left their equipment in the field and just study how it was set up, so I [he] could see what was going on.” Based on interviews with other farmers, farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchange often consisted of detached observation rather than personal conversation or direct contact with another farmer.During the initial field visit, the farmers shared their definitions of soil health. Across all farmers interviewed , responses appeared mechanical and resembled language disseminated by government entities such as the Natural Resources Conservation Service . As such, most responses emphasized building soil organic matter, promoting biological activity, maximizing diversity, and minimizing soil disturbance. During the in-depth interview, farmers shared specific indicators used to evaluate soil health on their farms. These responses were varied compared to definitions of soil health and were generally based on observation and personal experience. Generally speaking, the farmers relied heavily on their crops and on the health of their crops to inform them about the basic health of their soil. In fact, the farmers cited using their crop as their foremost indicator for gauging optimum soil health. One farmer shared, “Mostly, I’m looking at the plants, if the color of green on a particular leaf goes from shiny to matte, plastic grow pots or slightly gray undertone to it. These subtle cues, I pick up from just looking at my crops.” The growth habit of weeds within and around fields was also cited as an indicator of soil health. For example, one farmer explained, “I’m looking at how the weeds are growing at the edges of the field; in the middle of the field. Is there a difference between what’s happening around the edges and what’s happening in the field?” Some farmers also frequently relied on cover crops as indicators for determining soil health and soil behavior. When acquiring new fields, for example, the farmers tended to first grow cover crops to establish a baseline for soil health and also understand soil behavior and/or soil type. The farmers also used cover crop growth habits to gauge the status of soil health and soil fertility for a particular field before planting the next iteration of crops. As one farmer elaborated, “I’m judging a field based on how a cover crop grows. It’s one thing if you’re planting a nutrient-intensive crop in a field, but if you have a cover crop in the field and there’s a swath that’s this tall and another swatch that’s only this short, then you know there’s something seriously different about that section of field and the soil there.”In addition to crop health and cover crop growth patterns, the farmers used other biological and physical indicators to determine the health of their soils. Presence of “soil life,” including earthworms, arthropods, fungi, was used as a key biological indicator of soil health by most farmers . For most of the farmers, this was often both a visual and tactile experience, as one farmer described, “Being able to pick up a bunch of soil and see the life in it.

If I can see earthworms, if I can see arthropods, if I can see lots of fungus, then I know that’s pretty good soil, that that’s working well.” Soil structure and soil crumble were also flagged as good physical indicators of soil health by more than half of the farmers . Farmers interviewed determined soil structure in a variety of ways, which included: 1) observing soil behavior while on the tractor; 2) touching soil directly, by hand; 3) digging a small hole to observe its vertical profile; or 4) observing how water drains in a field following rain or irrigation. A majority of the farmers explicitly stated that they did not rely on soil tests to provide information regarding the health or status of their soils; only a handful of the farmers communicated that they actively used soil tests. The farmers who did not use soil tests noted that commercially available soil tests were often inaccurate, not calibrated to their scale and/or type of operation, lacked enough data points to be useful, and/or did not provide any additional information that they were not able to already readily observe day-to-day or long term on the farm.The organic farmers in Yolo County that were interviewed for this study demonstrated wide and deep knowledge of their soil and farming systems. Results show that white, first- and second-generation farmers that farm alternatively accumulate substantive local knowledge of their farming systems – even within a decade or two of farming. These particular organic farmers demonstrated a complex understanding of their physical environments, soil ecosystems, and local contexts that expands and complements other knowledge bases that inform farming systems. While the content and application of farmer knowledge may be locally specific , below we consider aspects of this case study that may be more broadly applicable. First, we discuss emergent mechanisms for farmer knowledge formation using existing frameworks in the social-ecological systems literature, and also summarize key features of farmer knowledge that coalesced from the results of this study.To further examine how farmers in this study acquire and incorporate their knowledge within their farm operation, we first explore emergent mechanisms that underpin farmer knowledge formation. Because farmer knowledge encompasses knowledge of both social and ecological systems – and the interactions thereof – it is useful to draw upon existing frameworks from the social-ecological systems literature in order to trace the process of farmer knowledge formation among farmers in our case study. Briefly, social-ecological systems recognize the importance of linking social and ecological processes to capture interactions between humans and the environment; importantly, existing literature within SES studies also emphasizes the interactive and adaptive feedback among social and ecological processes that link social and ecological system dynamics . Boons offers a conceptual guide for identifying social-ecological mechanisms, which adapted to our case study provides a starting point for tracing aspects of farmer knowledge formation. Here, social-ecological mechanisms for farmer knowledge formation refer to – on the one hand, social and cultural phenomena that influence farmer knowledge and their personal values – on the other, farmers’ observations of and experiences with environmental conditions and ecological processes on their farms that influence their knowledge and their values – and the interactions thereof .