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Communicating Sustainability Constructs among Researchers and Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) Farmers in Laguna, Philippines
Abstract:
The study examined how farmer-participants construe and communicate the concept of sustainability and other concepts/incidents associated with it. Researcherparticipants’ constructs for sustainability and other concepts were compared with that of the farmer-participants. The qualitative approach to communication research that takes on the interpretive diagram as its philosophical position was used in the study.
The study had two sites—Barangay Novaliches, Liliw, Laguna and Barangay Gagalot, Majayjay, Laguna. Both sites practice tomato-based farming system. The study had a total of 34 farmer-participants for both sites and five researcherparticipants. Maximum variation sampling was used to select the participants for the study. A combination of participant observation, intensive interviews, and key informant interviews were conducted to elicit constructs and meanings for the concepts. Data-text was reduced by descriptive and conceptual coding. Thematic coding ensued, which was condensed and organized further into data displays. Interpretation of the displays was written as analytic text. Data, method, and theory triangulation were done to ensure the reliability and validity of findings.
Farmer-participants’ understanding for their relationship with the environment included care and concern, survival, interdependence, future generation, and duty/ obligation. Criteria used to evaluate a new technology were (1) capability to improve farming and increase yield/ income, (2) production cost, (3) labor requirements, (4) market availability, (5) qualities of a new variety, and (6) not harmful to the environment. They construed the term integrated pest management (IPM) as using recommended chemicals, limited and early spaying of less toxic chemicals, and spraying being beneficial to both crops and health of farmers. The term IPM also meant using appropriate methods to control pests that are not chemical-based. Pesticide Residue Reduction (PRR) was construed as pesticides remaining on the skin of the tomato, washing before consuming tomato, limited spraying, and no spraying before harvesting. This was due to the farmer-participants’ awareness of the long term but dangerous effects of chemicals.
Farmer-participants construed the term sustainability as caring for the land by spraying less toxic chemicals, planting trees, and helping the youth and the next generation by not destroying the forest and the environment. For them, to sustain tomato production meant practicing good management, right working attitude, sufficient capital, ready market, good price, and good weather.
The farmer-participants’ sources of information on the concept of sustainability and concepts associated with it were personal communication with chemical sales agents and researchers, and the mass media. The flow of information in the study sites was dynamic, interactive, and ever-changing where farmer-participants become receivers and senders of information either by sharing/exchanging information, and providing feedback. Information included new varieties of tomato, new chemicals, pests and diseases, and village activities. Farmer-participants interacted and communicated with researchers, farmers, barangay chairman, family members, technicians, seed company representatives, and research agencies. Farmers’ interaction with other farmers was also through interpersonal communication and group meetings. Interaction occurred in an informal setting and was done in a casual, open, and spontaneous manner. Farmers treated each other as friends, someone not different from them, sharing and exchanging information, opinions, and experience. In sharing their lives with one another, farmer-participants shared vocabulary, meanings, and constructs.
Farmer-participants’ understanding was based on their education, experience, organizational affiliation, paradigms, observation, attendance in seminars, and exposure to mass media. Moreover, their understanding was influenced by their communication with researchers, technicians, company representatives, family members, and fellow farmers. They learn and assign meanings in interaction with different people.
Farmers’ constructs for the term sustainability and other incidents/terms associated with it were not exactly similar with that of the researcher-participants. Their constructs were similar in certain categories. However, the farmer-participants’ management practices in tomato farming indicated that their practice was sustainable. Certain realities such as lack of information of other methods to control pests aside from using chemicals, and low production due to low price and erratic weather, affected their understanding and practice. The dissimilarity on constructs was attributed to differences in education, work experience, organizational affiliation, paradigms, seminars and trainings attended, mass media exposure, and communication with people. Farmer-participants explained their understanding through accounts/ narratives of their experience. Their communication with people determine their experience and their experience will determine how they will communicate.