Understanding farmer behavior is needed for local agricultural systems to produce food sustainably while facing multiple pressures. Researcher synthesize existing literature to identify three fundamental questions that correspond to three distinct areas of knowledge necessary to understand farmer behaviour:
1) decision-making model;
2) cross-scale and cross-level pressures; and
3) temporal dynamics.
Researcher used this framework to compare five interdisciplinary case studies of agricultural systems in distinct geographical contexts across the globe and found that these three areas of knowledge are important to understanding farmer behavior, and can be used to guide the interdisciplinary design and interpretation of studies in the future. Most importantly, these three areas need to be addressed simultaneously in order to understand farmer behavior.
Three methodological challenges identified hindering in this understanding: the suitability of theoretical frameworks, the trade-offs among methods and the limited timeframe of typical research projects. Scientist proposed that a triangulation research strategy that makes use of mixed methods, or collaborations between researchers across mixed disciplines, can be used to successfully address all three areas simultaneously and show how this strategy has been achieved in the case studies.
The framework facilitates interdisciplinary research on farmer behavior by opening up spaces of structured dialogue on assumptions, research questions and methods employed in investigation.