Assessing Training Needs of Conventional Farming Workers in Organic Farming

This research proposal aims to assess the training needs of conventional farming workers in organic farming. It explores the relationship between age, education, and experience with training needs. The justification for the study lies in the potential benefits of organic farming and the lack of knowledge and training among farmers. The research will focus on the keywords 'organic farming', 'conventional farming', 'organic foods', and 'farmers and organic farming'. The discipline area is agriculture and the document type is a research proposal.

Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Research Proposal
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Research Aim
The aim of this research is to assess the training needs of the conventional farming
workers in organic farming.
Research objectives
 To identify the training needs of the conventional farming workers
 To determine the relationship between age, educational qualification and experience
with the training needs.
Justification of the study
Organic food represents a considerable market segment within the global food
industry as these products are believed to be safer and the nutritious than their counterparts
that are grown by conventional farming (Ramdhani and Santosa 2012). The organic farming
had already set its paws in the first world country, it also extending its use in other countries
such as India, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Pakistan (Andrade et al. 2017). Myanmar has have
a variety of geographical and climatic regions that has a potentiality to export various
agricultural products in the world market. The environment and the agriculture are threatened
by the indiscriminate use of modern technologies (Ramdhani and Santosa 2012). The
indiscriminate use of the harmful chemical fertilisers have modified the ecosystem because of
their hazardous effect. Consumption of the chemical; containing food might cause several
damages to the body (Forman and Silverstein 2012). Although organic farming has been
introduced in many countries, farmers are always not comfortable in using organic farming
due to the lack of knowledge and lack of proper training to the farmers who had been

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practicing organic farming (Andrade et al. 2017). The organic farming practices are location
specific and many of the indigenous farmers have developed their own methods of the
farming, which are going to be lost if not documented properly. In order to understand the
need of the farmer it is essential to understand the behaviour of the farmers towards the
practice. As per the theoretical framework, the behaviour of a farmer is guided by different
kinds of considerations like knowledge of organic farming, cost associated organic farming,
usefulness of organic farming, the social and the environmental factors (Naik et al. 2018).
Beginning farmer training and program development have been found to have developed in
many of the countries and according to a study conducted by (Läpple and Kelley 2013) it has
been found that most of the beginners farmers do not contain enough knowledge about the
tools and the techniques used in organic farming. The organic farming has been location
specific and hence due to lack of proper documentation of the procedures, some of the
practices have become extinct (Naik et al. 2018). Furthermore, it has been found that the
beginner’s farmer training procedure and program development about the transition from
conventional farming to organic farming is one of the most significant yet one of the poorly
understood sector of the food system and agricultural research (Tiedemann and Latacz‐
Lohmann 2013). Apart from the importance of the organic farming, the main reason behind
this research is that till now very few researches have been done associated to the perception
of the farmers regarding their needs in developing their skills in organic farming (Adesope et
al. 2016). Although the educational training and education is prevalent world-wide, focussing
on the adult agricultural education is not much prevalent.

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RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Disciplined area
The main keywords that will be used for searching the literary sources for the
literature review section of this research proposal are “ Organic Farming’, “conventional
farming”, “Organic foods”, “farmers and organic farming’
Organic farming-Organic farming can be defined as a technique that includes cultivation of
the plants and rearing of animals in natural methods. It might include the use of the biological
compounds to improve farming, avoiding the use of the synthetic substances for the
maintenance of the fertility of the soil and minimising the ecological balance of nature
(Tuomisto et al. 2015).
Conventional farming- Conventional farming on the other hand involves typed of farming
that uses unnatural methods of farming like the use of the chemical and the synthetic
fertilisers, chemical fertilisers , weedicides and fungicides (Tuomisto et al. 2015).
Initial Theoretical Research
According to the Office of the National Statistics (2017), in UK, the government
promotes organic farming and this is reflected in its statistics. According to Office of the
National Statistics (2017), 517 thousand hectares of land in UK are used of organic farming
and 64% of land is accounted for the permanent grassland for the organic farming in UK.
Thus in order to promote organic farming, the knowledge of the farmers is also important.
Niewolny, K. L., and Lillard, P. T. 2016. Expanding the boundaries of beginning farmer
training and program development: A review of contemporary initiatives to cultivate a new
generation of American farmers. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community
Development, 1(1), pp. 65-88.

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RESEARCH PROPOSAL
In relation to the assessment of the needs of the farmer related to organic farming, Niewolny
and Lillard (2016) have stated that adult agricultural education to the farmers practicing
traditional farming methods have taken on new patterns and for supporting and sustaining the
new generation of the farmers. It is vitalising the new opportunities for generating and
exchanging the knowledge and information for a sustainable organic farming. Very little is
known about the ways in which the adult education acts as a conduit between the beginner
agriculturist and a wider social structure that influences the food and the farming system. The
systematic review of this paper leads one to believe to the fact that agricultural educations are
needed, that should be taught to the farmers by registered agriculturists. As per the needs
assessment carried out it can be said that in most of the cases the farmers were not aware of
the environmental effects that the chemical fertiliser possess. Furthermore, it can also be
understand from this systematic review that integration of the online educational programs or
involving the media in farmer’s education can have beneficial effect in the improvement of
knowledge of organic farming.
Panneerselvam, P., Halberg, N., Vaarst, M. and Hermansen, J.E., 2012. Indian farmers'
experience with and perceptions of organic farming. Renewable Agriculture and Food
Systems, 27(2), pp.157-169.
Panneerselvam et al. (2012) conducted a study in order to examine the level of
experience and knowledge of the Indian farmers in the domain of the organic farming. The
study also covered the benefits and the barriers behind the adaptation of the organic farming.
The author selected 40 different farmers from different states of West-Bengal like Tamil
Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The analysis of the results highlighted that in
comparison to the conventional procedure of farming, the organic farming has limited

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amount of exposure through marketing. This of exposure has led to decrease in the level of
knowledge ad awareness of the farmers in organic farming. Moreover, lack of institutional
support leads to decrease in the level of adaptation of the organic farming procedure. The
study conducted by Panneerselvam et al. (2012) also highlighted that organic farming leads
to reduction in the level overall production or the yield. This leads to decrease in the level of
adaptation of the procedure of organic farming among the farmers. Increase in the level of
governmental support will lead to increase in the adaptation of the organic farming.
Sutherland, L.A., Burton, R.J., Ingram, J., Blackstock, K., Slee, B. and Gotts, N., 2012.
Triggering change: towards a conceptualisation of major change processes in farm decision-
making. Journal of environmental management, 104, pp.142-151.
Sutherland et al. (2012) conducted a search in order to study the change management
process that is required to be undertaken in order to implement the practice of the organic
farming among the farmers who mainly practice conventional farming. The authors mainly
highlighted boarder conceptualization of the major learning needs of the organic farming
among the farmers. The analysis of the results highlighted that the major change management
principle under any farming bodies is the limited path dependency. Increase in the level of
knowledge lock-in is necessary in order to increase the overall adaptation of the organic
farming among the conventional farming workers and this can be achieve through education
and learned experience. Education will be followed by active assessment and new activities
triggered by a period of consolidation before the overall change is implemented. The
intervention may be most effective in order to trigger events. The authors concluded that the
as a result of the “path dependency” in the process of the organic farming, the major change
in the farming practice will occur in response of the trigger events after which the managers
of the farm will intensify their consolidation in organic farming. Over the rime, the new
practices will help in achieving the anticipated aims of the process leading to further

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dependency. The recognition of the pattern of the path-dependency will help in drawing new
governmental policy for the application of the new farming approach. The main strength of
the study is, it is based on qualitative interview among the conventional and the organic
farming farmers. However, the limitation of the study s it is based on the two English case
studies and no direct interview was conducted.
Sutherland, L. A., and Darnhofer, I. 2012. Of organic farmers and ‘good farmers’: Changing
habitus in rural England. Journal of Rural Studies, 28(3), pp. 232-240.
A large number of literary sources have demonstrated the importance of “good and
healthy farming’ ideals to the farming practice. In this paper by Sutherland and Darnhofer
(2012) the authors have tried to develop an empirical study of the organic and the
conventional farmers focussing on the transition of the conventional framing to organic
farming. This paper have also helped us to understand a nuanced conceptualisation of how
changes occur in good farming and to explore the implications in the identification of the
changing farming practice. According to the paper, many of the farmers have the
predetermined notion that the organic farming is a ‘joke; and is not considered to be a good
method of farming. Furthermore, farming without the chemical fertilisers was previously
thought to be impossible. As per the interviews conducted with the farmers, it was known
that in most of the cases, the failure of organic farming or its high cost is due to the lack of
proper training to the farmers about the cost effective means of organic farming. One of the
limitation of this paper is that the low sample size of the farmers, which might not be
applicable to the generalised population.
Tiraieyari, N., Hamzah, A., and Samah, B. A. 2017. Organic farming and sustainable
agriculture in Malaysia: organic farmers’ challenges towards adoption. Sustainable
Development of Organic Agriculture: Historical Perspectives, p. 135.

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In spite of the benefits that organic farming brings to the environment, the adoption
rates of the organic farming among the farmers are quite low. Tiraieyari, Hamzah and Samah
(2017) have outlined some of the findings of the challenges faced by the present day farmers
to adopt organic farming. One of the main important factor is land issue. Farmers have
admitted land issue to be their primary challenge, especially the ones who do not own their
land for initiating organic farming.
Another factor identified by the author is the shortage of the labour. Since the
activities of the organic farming are done annually and most of the organic technologies
require manpower, they have greater needs for man power in comparison to the conventional
farming. Due to the lack of social labour, the organic farmers have to rely deeply on the
foreign labours for execution of their work (Tuck et al. 2017). One of the most important
challenges identified by the farmers are the lack of training and the extension services. The
farmers lacked extension services for the organic farming. No such trainings are normally
provided to the farmers (Tiraieyari, Hamzah and Samah 2017). The organic farmers require
information via multiple channels such as the members of the association of the farmers, the
colleagues. The strength of this article is that it has reviewed the status of the sustainable
agriculture and organic farming in Malaysia. It can be known from the study that, the small
scale producers have to rely upon the friends and the media for receiving any information on
the organic farming. Hence, the program have stated that government should play an
important role in the in the adoption of the organic farming program.
Yadav, D.S., Sood, P., Thakur, S.K. and Choudhary, A.K., 2013. Assessing the training needs
of agricultural extension workers about organic farming in the North-Western
Himalayas. Journal of Organic Systems, 8(1), pp.17-27.

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RESEARCH PROPOSAL
The research conducted by Yadav et al. (2013) was based on the aim to understand
the training needs of the farmers under the domain of organic farming. The research mainly
highlighted whether or not the training needs of the farmers changes with respect to their age,
educational qualification and overall professional experience. Yadav et al. (2013) conducted
an exploratory research based on the training needs of the farmers who cultivate in Himachal
Pradesh State Department of Agriculture in India. Their level of knowledge was accessed in
the domain of organic farming. They study conducted over 65 extension officers selected
randomly from 12 different districts of Himachal Pradesh. The training needs were recorded
based on self-reported methods. The researcher mainly focused on the 10 different needs of
the organic farming. The needs mainly included composting or vermin-composting, leaf
manuring or green manuring, bio-fertilizers, crop rotation, bio-dynamic farming, record
keeping, certification standards, packaging/ grading and marketing of organic procedure. The
analysis of the results highlighted that there is no significant relationship between age,
educational qualification or the service experience of the farmers with the training needs. In
order to achieve the successful implementation of organic farming among the farmers of the
Himachal Pradesh, emphasis must be given to improvement knowledge in the seven different
identified fields of organic farming. The main limitations of the research are it was conducted
from the training needs and the perspective of the farmers of the Himachal Pradesh who
operates under the diverse climatic condition, which is unlike the other climatic environment
of the world. Moreover, the experience of the farmers was conducted based on 2011. Tuck et
al. (2014) stated that process of organic farming has improved since 2011 and thus the level
of knowledge in order to increase the level of organic farming will vary.

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Types of Data Employed
There are two types of data in the research first is the primary research and secondary
research. The secondary data was collected from the literary articles obtained through the
online search in the electronic database. The secondary data was used to highlight the gaps in
the research and also used frame the questionnaire that will be used for the conduction of the
interview among the farmers for the qualitative research. The conduction of the secondary
research was based on the search of the research articles online with the use of the keywords.
Keyword: 1 Boolean
Operator
Keyword: 2 Boolean
Operator
Keyword: 3
Organic
Farming
AND
Conventional
Farming
AND Farmer’s
Knowledge
OR
Knowledge of
Farmers
OR
Gap in
Knowledge
AND Change
Management
In order to collect the primary data, the interview will be conducted among 10 farmers who
have experienced in the conventional farming. The main inclusion criteria for the recruitment
of the farmers include:
Criteria for the Selection of the Candidates for the Interview
1 Experience: More than 5 years in conventional farming
2 Age group: 25 to 50 years

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3 Level of educational qualification: NA
Random probability sampling was done in order to conduct the interview. According
to Acharya et al. (2013), random probability sampling helps in the elimination of the
sampling bias.
Method of Data Collection
The main method of data collection will include interview with open-ended
questionnaire. According to Jacob and Furgerson (2012) open-ended questionnaire helps the
respondents in sharing if their own ideas thoughts and feeling. On the other hand, close ended
questionnaire force the respondents to response with the limited boundary and this might lead
to biased response. The detailed list of the interview questions that will be used in the
research is
1. What do you known about the organic farming?
2. Do you know the difference between organic farming and conventional farming
3. Do you know any aspect of organic farming like use of the bio-fertilizer, homa
farming, bio-rational pest management?
4. What kind of training do you think you need in order to increase your knowledge in
the domain of organic farming?
5. Do you receive any support from your farm owners in organic farming?

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Data Analysis
Narrative analysis will be used for the analysis of the qualitative data gathered in the
interview. According to Lewis (2015) narrative data analysis is the most common method
that is used for the qualitative research. It helps to find the common patters across the data
set. The main steps for narrative data analysis include getting familiar with the data by
reading and re-reading it. This will be followed by coding or labelling of the data from the
whole text of the interview. Then themes are searched with boarder pattern of meaning
followed by naming of the themes and analysis of the theme. The analysis of the data will
also be done on the basis of the age, qualification and professional experience of the farmers
in order to highlight the connection of the level of knowledge with these three parameters.
Future Scope of the Research
The future scope of the research will deal with how the farmers who are trained in the
domain of the organic farming is helping to improve the overall yield of the cultivation. The
future scope of the research will mainly be directed towards a quantitative analysis of the
production and the quality yield of the crop best on the cost-effectiveness of the overall
farming process. The research will also analyse how organic farming helps to increase the
overall convenience of the research. The future scope of the research will be based on the
research conducted by Conti et al. (2014). The research conducted by Conti et al. (2014)
stated that choice of organic farming could be used as an alternative of the conventional
farming technique on the parameter of the improvement in the quality of the crops, lower
environmental impact and increase in the rate of the market price. However, organic farming
does not deal with increase in the overall yield of the crops. Here the authors have conducted
their research on strawberry.

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Limitation of the study
In order to understand the responses of the farmers related to needs of education or
training on organic farming, 10 farmers will selected for the interview for assessing the needs
of the farmers. One of the limitation of this research proposal is the small sample size. The
small sample size is due to the availability of less time and constraints in framing. A small
sample size impacts on the reliability of the result obtained as it might lead to higher
variability that might lead to bias. One of the most common bias that can occur due to small
sample size is the non-response bias. Some of the potential farmers practicing conventional
farming might want to answer the questions, or might not get the opportunity to participate in
the study. The results hence obtained will be generalised and might not represent the entire
population.

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References
Acharya, A.S., Prakash, A., Saxena, P. and Nigam, A., 2013. Sampling: Why and how of
it. Indian Journal of Medical Specialities, 4(2), pp.330-333.
Adesope, O.M., Matthews-Njoku, E.C., Oguzor, N.S. and Ugwuja, V.C., 2012. Effect of
socio-economic characteristics of farmers on their adoption of organic farming practices. In
Crop Production Technologies. InTech.
ANDRADE, C.A.W., MIGUEL, A.C.A., Spricigo, P.C., DIAS, C.T.D.S. and Jacomino, A.P.,
2017. Comparison of quality between organic and conventional strawberries from multiple
farms. Revista Brasileira de Fruticultura, 39(2).
Conti, S., Villari, G., Faugno, S., Melchionna, G., Somma, S. and Caruso, G., 2014. Effects
of organic vs. conventional farming system on yield and quality of strawberry grown as an
annual or biennial crop in southern Italy. Scientia Horticulturae, 180, pp.63-71.
Forman, J. and Silverstein, J., 2012. Organic foods: health and environmental advantages and
disadvantages. Pediatrics, pp.peds-2012.
Jacob, S.A. and Furgerson, S.P., 2012. Writing interview protocols and conducting
interviews: Tips for students new to the field of qualitative research. The Qualitative
Report, 17(42), pp.1-10.
Läpple, D. and Kelley, H., 2013. Understanding the uptake of organic farming: Accounting
for heterogeneities among Irish farmers. Ecological Economics, 88, pp.11-19.
Lewis, S., 2015. Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five
approaches. Health promotion practice, 16(4), pp.473-475.

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Naik, M.H., Srivastava, S.R., Godara, A.K. and Yadav, V.S., 2016. Knowledge level about
organic farming in Haryana. Indian Research Journal of Extension Education, 9(1), pp.50-53.
Niewolny, K. L., and Lillard, P. T. 2016. Expanding the boundaries of beginning farmer
training and program development: A review of contemporary initiatives to cultivate a new
generation of American farmers. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community
Development, 1(1), pp. 65-88.
Office of the National Statistics. 2017. Organic farming statistics 2017. Access date: 1st of
January 2019. Retrieved from:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/
attachment_data/file/758533/organics-statsnotice-23nov18.pdf
Panneerselvam, P., Halberg, N., Vaarst, M. and Hermansen, J.E., 2012. Indian farmers'
experience with and perceptions of organic farming. Renewable Agriculture and Food
Systems, 27(2), pp.157-169.
Ramdhani, M.A. and Santosa, E., 2012. Key Succes Factors for Organic Farming
Development. International Journal of Basic and Applied Science, 1(1), pp.7-13.
Sutherland, L. A., and Darnhofer, I. 2012. Of organic farmers and ‘good farmers’: Changing
habitus in rural England. Journal of Rural Studies, 28(3), pp. 232-240.
Sutherland, L.A., Burton, R.J., Ingram, J., Blackstock, K., Slee, B. and Gotts, N., 2012.
Triggering change: towards a conceptualisation of major change processes in farm decision-
making. Journal of environmental management, 104, pp.142-151.
Tiedemann, T. and Latacz‐Lohmann, U., 2013. Production risk and technical efficiency in
organic and conventional agriculture–the case of arable farms in Germany. Journal of
Agricultural Economics, 64(1), pp.73-96.

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Tiraieyari, N., Hamzah, A., and Samah, B. A. 2017. Organic farming and sustainable
agriculture in Malaysia: organic farmers’ challenges towards adoption. Sustainable
Development of Organic Agriculture: Historical Perspectives, p. 135.
Tuck, S.L., Winqvist, C., Mota, F., Ahnström, J., Turnbull, L.A. and Bengtsson, J., 2014.
Land‐use intensity and the effects of organic farming on biodiversity: a hierarchical meta‐
analysis. Journal of Applied Ecology, 51(3), pp.746-755.
Tuck, S.L., Winqvist, C., Mota, F., Ahnström, J., Turnbull, L.A. and Bengtsson, J., 2014.
Land‐use intensity and the effects of organic farming on biodiversity: a hierarchical meta‐
analysis. Journal of Applied Ecology, 51(3), pp.746-755.
Tuomisto, H.L., Hodge, I.D., Riordan, P. and Macdonald, D.W., 2012. Does organic farming
reduce environmental impacts?–A meta-analysis of European research. Journal of
environmental management, 112, pp.309-320.
Yadav, D.S., Sood, P., Thakur, S.K. and Choudhary, A.K., 2013. Assessing the training needs
of agricultural extension workers about organic farming in the North-Western
Himalayas. Journal of Organic Systems, 8(1), pp.17-27.