How do farmers feel about growing trees?

How do farmers feel about growing trees? To find out, scientists at Forest Research interviewed 49 farmers and held two focus groups with farmers in England. They wanted to investigate how their values influenced their willingness or ability to grow trees on farms. 

The research was published in the journal, People and Nature.  

They categorised the values into different groups – instrumental, relational, expressive and intrinsic – through which they analysed the data.  

Value orientations informing farmer behaviour and decision-making: 

• Relational: relating to meaningful relationships with human and non-human others (e.g. other farmers, significant trees) 

• Instrumental: oriented towards achieving a desired or valued end goal (e.g. income, farm sustainability) 

• Expressive: relating to sources of self-expression and creativity (e.g. demonstrating skills, quality food producer) 

• Intrinsic: oriented towards the inherent worth of an aspect of farming or nature (e.g. enjoyment of particular tasks, food production, trees, landscape features) 

The researchers found that economic factors were important (instrumental values), but so too were things like farming identity (expressive values), wellbeing (intrinsic values), how the landscape looks and feels (intrinsic values), and care for the farm and the wider environment (relational values).   

‘Values are complex and particular contexts strongly influence the things that matter to individual farmers – for example, the farmer’s history, the type of farming they do, and their relationships with other people,’ said Dr Stephen McConnachie, social scientist at Forest Research. 

‘It is important that anyone aiming to increase tree cover on farms recognises and pays attention to the range of things that farmers care about.

‘Our work provides a framework for understanding where, how, and why trees matter to farmers.’

This research was funded by Defra’s Nature for Climate Fund.

Reference: S. McConnachie et al. Growing trees on farms: Navigating the goals and values of farmers, People and Nature DOI: 10.1002/pan3.70167