Nature-inclusive farming is part of the Vision for the future of agriculture in The Netherlands published by the Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality: “Agriculture, nature and food: valuable and connected” . So far it is mainly envisioned as a pathway for transition; it is not sharply defined but rather used as a boundary concept to stimulate public debate and to inspire stakeholders, including government, to take action . Since the introduction of the concept in the Nature Vision of 2014 , it has been taken up in numerous projects, partnerships, policy documents and subsidy schemes. It is used by businesses , farmer groups , NGO’s and the various tiers of government , and discussed in politics, the media and in meetings. Nature-inclusive farming has become part of the discourse as one of the directions that the development of agriculture could take. This does not mean that there is consensus about the future of farming, or that all farmers consider nature-inclusive farming as a feasible and desirable option for themselves. In this article we address the following research question: what is the role of farmers’ cultural norms regarding ‘a good farmer’ and ‘a good agricultural landscape’ in the acceptability of ‘nature-inclusive farming’ amongst farmers in The Netherlands? In the next section we present our theoretical framework, in which we elaborate on the concepts of the ‘good farmer’ and a ‘good agricultural landscape’ in relation to famers’ cultural norms and self-identity. We follow Burton et al. , Burton and Paragahawewa and Burton by placing these concepts in the context of cultural capital as theorized by Bourdieu . In addition, we consider diversity and evolution of cultural norms. After that, we describe our qualitative methods, followed by the results of four case studies in The Netherlands. In the discussion we identify the limitations of our study as well as the additions to literature. In the conclusion we answer the research question and reflect on the relevance of our findings for policy. Burton reported that arable farmers in an English rural area admitted that they applied more pesticides to fields that were well visible from the road than would be economically rational. They did this because they knew that their colleagues would be driving around monitoring the fields of other farmers, as they did themselves, and they wanted to make sure that their fields looked properly managed.This display of skill by paying extra attention to visible symbols in the landscape such as ‘clean’ fields and healthy livestock is known as ‘roadside farming’ . By means of driving around, farmers benchmark their own skills and status as a good farmer to the skills of others.

By means of roadside farming, farmers take the norms in their farming culture regarding what ‘a good farmer’ does and what land should look like into account in their farm management decisions. In this article, we use the concept of ‘good landscape’ to capture normative descriptions of landscape related to ‘good farming’. We find it helpful as a category term for concepts such as ‘tidy landscape’ as well as positive descriptions by farmers of landscapes that display biodiversity-friendly farming practices. We address conceptions of ‘good farmer’ and ‘good landscape’ as cultural norms because we consider them as – often unspoken – social standards for appropriate and inappropriate behaviour based on shared beliefs within a specific cultural group , which may be passed on from generation to generation . Cultural norms within farming communities concerning ‘a good farmer’ and ‘a good agricultural landscape’ influence farm management decisions in two ways . First, cultural norms influence farm management decisions through self-identity. A farmer strives to be a ‘good farmer’ according to cultural conceptions of ‘the good farmer’ that she or he has internalised. Self-identity refers to the extent to which a certain behaviour is seen as part of – or consistent with – the self . Second,stacking flower pot tower cultural norms influence farm management decisions through anticipation on the opinion of peers. In turn, feedback from the social environment influences self-identity . According to empirical studies, cultural norms regarding a ‘good farmer’ may include the following: a good farmer works hard, achieves a good yield, masters working with machines, does not pollute the water, takes good care of his/her livestock, and is a good neighbour . Many farmers find the unpredictability and uncontrollability of nature, such as in the case of rivers, hard to combine with their identity as a good farmer . In general, a ‘good landscape’ is neat and tidy, without weeds, but with a healthy and even crop, straight working lines, healthy livestock, no soil erosion, and well-kept landscape features . The cultural norm that a ‘good landscape’ is a tidy and productive landscape as a display of farmers’ skill, implies that the presence of ‘untidy’ biodiversity enhancing features can lead to a loss of status in the farming community. This cultural norm can, accordingly, be a barrier for farmers to engage in practices such as organic farming or agri-environmental management . Burton and Paragahawewa and Burton place farmers’ cultural norms regarding the ‘good farmer’ and the ‘tidy landscape’ in the context of Bourdieu theory of capital.

Bourdieu distinguishes between three states of capital: economic, social and cultural capital, which can be transformed into each other through a fourth state of capital: symbolic capital. Here, we focus on cultural capital, its relation to social capital and the role of symbolic capital in transforming cultural capital into social capital and vice versa. Social capital is derived from membership of a group and involves the capacity of agents to gain access to group resources. Symbolic capital is the status or value that people attach to the other forms of capital, and enables exchanging one form of capital into another. Cultural capital comes in three forms, of which two are most relevant to our study: embodied and objectified cultural capital. Embodied cultural capital involves skills and knowledge that are part of one’s mental and bodily dispositions, such as the skills of a ‘good farmer’. It can be acquired through upbringing, education and experience and cannot be detached from the person who possesses it. It can only be transferred to others through great investment of time. Objectified cultural capital involves goods with a high status within particular groups, such as ‘tidy’ agricultural landscapes that have been found to have a high status within farming communities. Embodied cultural capital is required to be able to create – as well as to be able to ‘read’ or appreciate – goods with a high status value, such as a ‘good’ agricultural landscape. This is why farmers see different things in a landscape than non-farmers: farmers have embodied group-specific norms that enable them to create and ‘read’ agricultural landscapes, which reveal how ‘good’ farmers are performing according to group standards. Since farmers are members of a group, which gives them access to particular group resources , the status attributed to cultural capital in the form of being a ‘good farmer’ and managing a ‘good agricultural landscape’ is meaningful to them. A loss of status has consequences for their position in the farming community , something most farmers would wish to avoid. The above descriptions of cultural norms regarding ‘the good farmer’ and ‘a good landscape’ could suggest that such norms are both uniform and static. However, there is evidence that cultural norms in farming and related practices are heterogeneous . Rather than trying to capture ‘the’ farming culture we should be aware of multiple ‘agri-cultures’ or farming subcultures with different sets of cultural norms . In addition, cultural norms in farming are subject to change . Building on Bourdieu, we would expect that such cultural change would imply development of new embodied cultural capital simultaneously with new objectified cultural capital. In other words: alternative practices that are visible in the landscape could create new meanings of what it is to be ‘a good farmer’. Whether this new cultural capital yields symbolic capital in the sense of recognition in a farming community, depends on the availability of social capital within a related subculture. In other words: the development of alternative cultural norms may require a social context of groups in which the alternative practices and related skill are appreciated. Nature-inclusive farming proposes an alternative conception of ‘good farming’ resulting in an agricultural landscape with other signs of farmers’ skill. For many farmers, adoption of nature-inclusive farming would require the acquisition of new cultural capital: the skills to farm well in a nature-inclusive way, but also to recognize these skills on the land of others.

In our case studies we investigated to what extent nature inclusive farming is compatible with prevalent cultural norms regarding a ‘good farmer’ and a ‘good agricultural landscape’. In effect, we studied a subculture of farmers who participate in agri-environmental management and for whom membership of an agri-environmental collective and experience with new practices could be ways to acquire new cultural capital. To answer the research question we used qualitative and interpretative methods. Qualitative research is a form of social inquiry that focuses on the way people interpret and make sense of their experiences and the world in which they live.The basis of qualitative research lies in the interpretive approach to social reality and in the description of the lived experience of human beings.Qualitative researchers claim that the experiences of people are essentially context-bound , that is, they cannot be free from time and location, social and cultural context or the mind of the human actor. If qualitative research is context-bound,ebb and flow then researchers must be context sensitive. They use strategies of observing, questioning and listening to put themselves as researchers in the world of the participants. They generate descriptions of a culture . To study cultural norms in farming in their context of farming communities that work in specific landscapes and work with specific farming systems, we chose to do case studies . We suspected that cultural norms are partly determined regionally, because of varying landscapes and related farming systems as well as general cultural differences between regions . To accommodate such diversity, we selected case studies in different regions with a variety in types of farms , sizes of farms , landscape and soil types. We selected four case study areas in The Netherlands : Midden-Limburg, a small-scale riverine landscape with a diversity of farming systems; Noord-Beveland, an island with an open landscape dominated by arable farming on sea clay; Achterhoek, a small-scale landscape with mainly smaller livestock farm holdings on sandy soils; and Noordelijke Friese Wouden, an open peat meadow landscape with dairy farming. In these areas, we recruited in total 24 respondents through mediation by agri-environmental collectives.

Agri-environmental collectives are organisations of farmers that are responsible for the implementation of the Dutch agri-environment scheme. In the Netherlands, farmers can only participate in the agri-environment scheme as a member of the agri-environmental collective in their region. Since 2016 agri-environmental contracts are no longer between farmers and the government, but between farmers and the collective . To enhance the chance of ecological success, the collective coordinates the management implemented by the various participants . Therefore, participation in agri-environmental management implies regular contact with and advice from the field coordinator, involvement in monitoring, and contact with colleagues who also participate. We asked the chair or de coordinator of the agri-environmental collective to look for farmers who are not ‘advanced nature-inclusive’ according to Dutch policy , nor have a downright negative attitude towards biodiversity. We suspected advanced nature-inclusive farmers – putting their heads above the parapet – to make their farm management decisions fairly independent from prevailing cultural norms in the agricultural community : deeply motivated for biodiversity, willing to profoundly integrate biodiversity into their farming practice, and fostering their relations with the public). In addition, we expected to find little evidence of shifting cultural norms with regard to biodiversity with farmers with a negative attitude towards biodiversity. As a result of this instruction to the agri-environmental collectives, we recruited farmers who participate in subsidized agri-environmental management.