Vicarious Learning Blog

Vicarious Learning in Changing Farming Practices

An article in the Nation Online looks at the potential pivotal role that Vicarious Learning can play in changing entrenched farming and social patterns.

The article focusses on ways to encourage a change in farming practices in Malawi, but notes that change management for such a critical (life dependent) activity cannot involve risk.

The dilemma facing those wishing to improve farming techniques in order to improve crop yields and the long term prospects of the poor is how can they introduce new techniques without jeopardising the lives of those involved.

As the amount of land owned by each person or family unit is just enough for self sufficiency it is not possible to set aside a portion of their land in order to test and demonstrate new techniques.

More than this, the article notes that change of such traditional practices, ones that form a central function in everyday life (personal and social identity), are likely to be met with strong resistance. Often this resistance will be implicit, unspoken or hard to address directly through discussion and argument alone, even in the face of a visible demonstration of the value of adapting to change.

The suggestion made is that these two problems - that of lack of land for experimental trials and resistance to change of traditional practices - can be addressed by having community leaders be the first in initiate and introduce the ideas.

Community leaders typically have more land than other members of the community, part of this land can be used for a local trial of new techniques without risking any lives in the community. Also, as a highly esteemed member of the local community affective and social resistance to change is also addressed. Community members are less likely to be dismissive of the new practices and will be more encouraged to adopt the change in lifestype and patterns of living involved.

This idea of using 'Socially Valued Others' to manage change is often seen as an effective way to introduce new ideas and techniques (sometimes called 'Change Leaders'. Again, this is something that the blog and the website will return to quite often to explore.

Do you have a similar or related example of change management using vicarious or observational learning? Please get in touch and share your ideas and experiences.

Posted at 04:36PM Jun 24, 2008 by Finbar Dineen in General  |  Comments[0]