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The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension
Competence for Rural Innovation and Transformation
ISSN: 1389-224X (Print) 1750-8622 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/raee20
Achieving best-fit configurations through advisory
subsystems in AKIS: case studies of advisory
service provisioning for diverse types of farmers in
Norway
Laurens Klerkx, Egil Petter Stræte, Gunn-Turid Kvam, Eystein Ystad & Renate
Marie Butli Hårstad
To cite this article: Laurens Klerkx, Egil Petter Stræte, Gunn-Turid Kvam, Eystein Ystad & Renate
Marie Butli Hårstad (2017): Achieving best-fit configurations through advisory subsystems in AKIS:
case studies of advisory service provisioning for diverse types of farmers in Norway, The Journal of
Agricultural Education and Extension
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1389224X.2017.1320640
© 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa
UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis
Group
Published online: 10 May 2017.
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Achieving best-fit configurations through advisory
subsystems in AKIS: case studies of advisory service
provisioning for diverse types of farmers in Norway
Laurens Klerkx
a
, Egil Petter Stræte
b
, Gunn-Turid Kvam
b
, Eystein Ystad
c
and Renate
Marie Butli Hårstad
b
a
Knowledge, Technology and Innovation Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands;
b
Centre for Rural Research, Trondheim, Norway;
c
Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, Norway
ABSTRACT
Purpose: In light of the discussion on ‘best-fit’in pluralistic advisory
systems, this article aims to present and discuss challenges for
advisory services in serving various types of farmers when they
seek and acquire farm business advice.
Design/methodology/approach: The empirical basis is data
derived from four workshops, five interviews with staff from
advisory organizations, and interviews with 11 farmers.
Findings: Emerging configurations serve different types of farmers,
that is, private advisors serve different clients in different ways;
these could be considered subsystems within the overall advisory
system.
Practical implications: Best-fit configurations of advisory services
exist within a country setting in response to farmers’information
demands and how they seek information, as well as public goals
of the advisory system, and lead to advisory subsystems. Policy-
makers should monitor the emergence of these subsystems and
become active participants in some of them, in line with the
concept of the public sector as regulator of private and
commercial advisory systems.
Theoretical implications: Best-fit has been mainly explored at
country level, but this study shows that, within countries, different
advisory service configurations are formed. So, best-fit should not
be considered at national level only, in view of subsystems which
can have wider or narrower boundaries. More broadly, the
concept of Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS)
should not be confined to the national level, for example, in view
of farmer specializations within countries and the international
dimensions of advisory systems.
Originality/value: The originality lies in the further unraveling of
heterogeneity within AKIS and what this implies for advisory
service delivery configurations.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Revised 30 January 2017
Accepted 4 April 2017
KEYWORDS
Advisory services; AKIS;
transformation; extension;
farming styles; Norway
© 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
CONTACT Laurens Klerkx Laurens.Klerkx@wur.nl
JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION AND EXTENSION, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1080/1389224X.2017.1320640
Introduction
In recent decades, many countries have undergone changes such as decentralization
and privatization in their agricultural advisory systems, leading to more commercia-
lized agricultural advisory services provided often on a fee-for-service basis (Garforth
et al. 2003;Klerkx,DeGrip,andLeeuwis2006;LabartheandLaurent2013). Although
this has been reported as leading to greater client satisfaction, concerns have also been
raised regarding farmers’access to farm advice and the breadth and depth of topics
addressed by agricultural advisory systems (Klerkx and Proctor 2013; Labarthe and
Laurent 2013). As the commercialization of agricultural advisory services raises chal-
lenges relating to uneven distribution of farm advice (Labarthe and Laurent 2013), it
has been found essential to complement commercial advisory services with public
advisory services that reach different types of farmers, for example, small farmers or
farmers who do not engage in active information-seeking behavior (Jansen et al.
2010;Prageretal.2016). It is also necessary to pay attention to topics that may not
be of high private interest but may have a more public good character, for example,
environmental and rural development issues (Klerkx and Jansen 2010;Vrainand
Lovett 2016), and thus do not always stimulate farmers to autonomously demand ser-
vices related to these topics.
As all countries are different in terms of the composition of their agricultural systems
and value chains, for example, their governance structures and their political ambitions for
agriculture and rural areas, it is argued that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’agricultural advi-
sory system. Instead, it is argued that each country should achieve ‘best-fit’, that is, ‘advi-
sory services that “best fit”the specific conditions and development priorities of their
country’(Birner et al. 2009, 343). However, achieving such best-fit is challenging given
the heterogeneity of farming and farmers and farmers’abilities to identify the most appro-
priate services for them (Klerkx and Leeuwis 2008; Kilelu, Klerkx, and Leeuwis 2014). Fur-
thermore, advisory service providers must develop and adjust their own organization,
methods, and practices to meet farmers’different needs and connect to different
farming styles and goals (Aguilar-Gallegos et al. 2015; Kilelu, Klerkx, and Leeuwis 2014;
Vanclay et al. 2006).
Studies have been conducted on how demand and supply configurations in advi-
sory systems are shaped and an optimal fit between demand and supply is achieved
(e.g. Ingram 2008;Kilelu,Klerkx,andLeeuwis2014; Phillipson et al. 2016;Landini
2016), but such work focuses mostly on the individual advisor–farmer interface or
on project level, or on a whole country level. However, how advisory services
connect to different segments of farmers within countries, with different information
needs and farming characteristics, has rarely been studied. The aim of this article
is therefore to present and discuss challenges for advisory service providers in
serving various types of farmers when they seek and acquire advice, in light of the
discussion on best-fit. The overall research question of this article is how advisory
services achieve this best-fit and what arrangements emerge, with three sub-
questions:
(1) What different advisory service providers and advisory service configurations exist in
Norway?
2L. KLERKX ET AL.
(2) What relationships exist between different kinds of farmers and advisory service pro-
viders in terms of how farmers articulate demand for services and how advisors
supply them?
(3) How does the Norwegian advisory system respond to challenges in dealing with this
diversity and achieving best-fit?
We first present a conceptual framework before empirical describing the Norwegian
advisory service. In the discussion and conclusion, we point to the advisory services’
main challenges in meeting farmer needs and some of the solutions they adopt to cope
with these challenges. Furthermore, we reflect on what our study implies for the best-fit
of advisory services, and the broader implication for advisory systems and knowledge
and innovation systems more generally.
Conceptual framework
The best-fit framework
Agricultural advisory services are defined in this article ‘as the entire set of organizations
that will enable the farmers to co-produce farm-level solutions by establishing service
relationships with advisors so as to produce knowledge and enhance skills’(Labarthe
et al. 2013, 10). Agricultural advisory services assist farmers in a broad range of issues,
for example, technical, financial, business management, ethical (animal welfare), and regu-
latory, which are often interconnected and thus require complementary or joint efforts
between several advisors (Klerkx and Jansen 2010; Phillipson et al. 2016). The agricultural
advisory system is part of the broader Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System
(AKIS) (EU SCAR 2013), which forms a broad governance framework for advisory ser-
vices in relation to other innovation support arrangements such as research, education,
and innovation funding (Knierim et al. 2015; Hermans, Klerkx, and Roep 2015). Birner
et al.’s(2009) best-fit framework provides different analytical categories to assess advisory
systems: (1) governance structures, (2) capacity in terms of staff numbers and skills, (3)
management of advisory organizations, and (4) advisory methods in terms of techniques
and styles. The aim of the best-fit framework is then to see how this provides a fit with the
farming and policy context, consisting of (1) political system and agricultural development
policy, (2) overall advisory system capacity to serve all farmers well, (3) production
systems and markets, and (4) community aspects such as land size and education
levels. We use this framework to outline the main features of the advisory service, as
well as the farming and policy context, which is briefly sketched at the beginning of the
Results section. We now further elaborate on how the literature considers diversity in
advisory service provisioning.
Diversity regarding who is supplying agricultural advisory services
We follow Prager et al. (2016, 330), who make a distinction between ‘private’as the status
of an organization, and ‘commercial’referring to activities carried out by the organization
(e.g. offering advisory services for a fee). Just because agricultural advisory services are
provided by private organizations does not mean they are necessarily commercial, as
THE JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION AND EXTENSION 3
government often continues to pay for public good advice (Klerkx and Jansen 2010). Com-
mercial advisory services may be coupled with both selling and purchasing agricultural
commodities but involving dedicated staff for advisory services (called embedded advisors
by Klerkx and Jansen 2010), but may also be provided by advisors who provide only advice
(called independent advisors by Klerkx and Jansen 2010). Besides advisors, farmers use
different sources of information and support, such as media and peers, which often
rank above advisors as most used sources (Gielen, Hoeve, and Nieuwenhuis 2003;
Solano et al. 2003; Oreszczyn, Lane, and Carr 2010; Lubell, Niles, and Hoffman 2014).
As several authors argue, farmers are often surrounded by networks of different comp-
lementary advisors (Klerkx and Proctor 2013; Phillipson et al. 2016), who also sometimes
jointly offer integrated advice on complex issues that have several dimensions (e.g. tech-
nical, economic).
Diversity in relationships between different types of farmers and their demands
and advisors and their advisory styles
Farmers are not a homogenous entity and have different demands for advisory services, and
it is relevant and important for advisory services to consider this in configuring their supply
(Jansen et al. 2010; Kilelu, Klerkx, and Leeuwis 2014; Aguilar-Gallegos et al. 2015). The
well-known categorization of farmers’technology and practice adoption, denoting them
as innovators, early and late adopters, and laggards (Rogers [1962]1995), has implications
for pro-active advice seeking (e.g. innovators and early adopters tend to be more pro-active).
However, these categories often do not fully capture the various ways farmers can engage
with advice and information, and they tend to be normatively applied to favor one way
of producing over another (Gilles et al. 2013). Various variables and causes, such as farm
size, asset status, and education, but also factors such as stability or turbulence in the regu-
latory environment, influence farmers’variation in demand for advisory services (Klerkx, De
Grip, and Leeuwis 2006; Labarthe and Laurent 2013; Prager et al. 2016; Vrain and Lovett
2016). As Ingram (2008) argues based on her study of promotion of best management prac-
tices, farmers can be more pro-active or re-active in their relationship with advisors, and the
relationship can be steered by either the advisor or the farmer, or can be more equal. As
Jansen et al. (2010) argue, farmers may have several valid reasons for actively seeking
advice or not. They distinguish between four types: Pro-activists, Do-it-yourselfers, Wait-
and-see-ers, and Reclusive traditionalists. Following Jansen et al. (2010), in this article, we
define an analytical typology with the following types:
.Pro-activists, who actively seek advice from advisors
.Do-it-yourselfers, who develop their farming in their own way, for example, by experi-
menting or seeking alternative sources of information
.Wait-and-see-ers, who seek advice but implement this to a lesser degree or at a slower
pace
.Reclusive traditionalists, who do what they have always done or think they know best.
This typology does not necessarily cover all types of farmers but can contribute insights
into how advisory service providers adjust their approaches and methods to farmer
diversity.
4L. KLERKX ET AL.
Methods
The study focuses on four cases represented by four advisory organizations and their inter-
actions with their clients: the agricultural business cooperatives TINE, Nortura, and Fell-
eskjøpet and the advisory services cooperative Norwegian Agricultural Extension Service
(NAES). The empirical basis is interviews with 11 farmers from Trøndelag region in 2014,
observation at two workshops at national level in 2015, five interviews with staff from
advisory organizations in 2015, and observation at two advisory service training work-
shops at regional level (Trøndelag) in 2016. We also examined advisory services’bro-
chures and webpages describing services offered (more information about services
below). The latter is especially important to get an overview of the Norwegian providers.
Eleven farmers from the Trøndelag region (one of the more intensively farmed regions
in Norway) were interviewed through a semi-structured guide with questions on: the kind
of advisory service they use, how they use the advisory service, how satisfied they are with
the service, what services they lack, how services can be improved, how they pay for ser-
vices, and how they keep themselves updated in farming. These 11 farmers were sampled
from a list of 64 farmers compiled by advisory service staff and public authorities that are
very familiar with agriculture in the region. We purposively chose the sample to achieve a
variation in geography and production type as the longlist provided the farmers’addresses
and their farm type. Three women and eight men (aged between 30 and 55) were inter-
viewed; two of them were husband and wife and so this was a joint interview. Thus, 10
interviews were conducted at 10 farms. Two interviews were conducted in person and
the rest by phone. Interviews were tape-recorded and notes taken during and after the
interviews. Six of the 10 farms were dairy farms; of these three also engaged in grain pro-
duction, one in forestry, and two in other significant activities (sheep, green farming, and
contract tractor driving). Further, one farm grew vegetables, one kept chickens, one had
pigs for slaughter and grain, and finally one had beef, poultry, and grain. Details of the
interviews were reported in Norwegian (Stræte 2014). To analyze the interviews, we
applied the typology based on Jansen et al. (2010). Although a typology is based on
averages and cannot capture each individual farmer, the farmers interviewed could be
assigned to one of the types. Five of them were characterized as Pro-activists, one as a
Wait-and-see-er, and five as Do-it-yourselfers. As expected, none of the farmers was a
Reclusive traditionalist because the method made it hard to access this type of farmer,
so views on this type came from advisors. Given the small number of interviewees,
these 11 farmers are not representative of all farmers or types of farmers in Norway, so
the findings should be seen as indicative rather than conclusive. Ideally, a larger
number of farmers with even greater diversity should have been interviewed, but
limited resources made that impossible. That is a limitation of the study; and to counteract
this weakness we observed at workshops to complement the data obtained from the inter-
views and enable triangulation.
The two 2015 workshops were organized to address questions relating to competence
development for farmers and challenges for advisory services; they also generated data
used for the study reported in this article. They were organized with a few keynote speak-
ers, working in groups and plenary discussions. The two 2016 workshops were training
workshops for advisors. From these workshops, the researcher could identify the issues
raised by both farmers’representatives and the advisory services, observing the most
THE JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION AND EXTENSION 5
pressing questions and challenges. Data from these workshops were notes taken during
and after the activity.
Finally, interviews were conducted with five staff (advisors and middle managers) from
the four studied advisory service organizations. These interviews were open but related to
the kind of service offered, the interviewees’experience of their service, whether and how
they evaluated it, the challenges, and their strategies.
This data triangulation enabled us to answer the three research sub-questions. For
research sub-question 1, mainly documents, websites, and interviews with advisory organ-
ization staff were used. For research sub-question 2, mainly interviews with farmers and
observations at the 2015 and 2016 workshops were used (using observations with insights
on how the advisors responded (or not) to the farmers’various needs). For research sub-
question 3, mainly interviews with advisory organization staff and observations at the 2015
and 2016 workshops were used (observations on how the advisory services strategically
and systematically responded to farmer diversity).
Findings
In this section, we present results relevant to the three main topics as articulated via the
research sub-questions: the structure of the Norwegian advisory system, how farmers
seek advice, and farmers’relationships with advisory services.
The Norwegian AKIS and advisory system in transformation in a changing
farming and policy context
The Norwegian AKIS has transformed from a governmental-driven strategy with farming
and public goods in focus into a commercialized business with farmers in focus. From the
late 1980s, the agriculture sector in Norway, as in many other countries, shifted to more
market orientation with less subsidization and an increasing focus on competitiveness.
The number of farms declined and the remaining farms became larger and more special-
ized; and, thanks to rising productivity, total production volume also increased (Almås
2002; Forbord, Bjørkhaug, and Burton 2014). Specialization in production and new econ-
omic activities on the farm increased the need for specific competence building and related
advisory service support to farmers. It follows that farmers needed not generic one-size-
fits-all advice, but rather specific advice relating to their own situation and resources
(Grande et al. 2014). This transformation in AKIS governance over the last 30 years
has also affected the advisory system within the AKIS, for example, through a smaller
budget for publicly funded advisory services at county and municipal level (Almås
2002). From the literature (Almås 2002; Grande et al. 2014) and also from the interviews
with advisory organization staff, the following main implications of this transformation
emerged:
.In governance: Less governmental support and public responsibility for provisioning of
advisory services, but agricultural development is still a policy objective.
.In competencies: Both farmers and advisors face challenges in following up and imple-
menting new knowledge and technology. In addition, advisory services are changing
6L. KLERKX ET AL.
working methods from recipe-based problem-solving and decision-making towards
guiding and coaching-based methods.
.In organization: Advisory services need to develop market-oriented business models.
From being almost always a free-of-charge service, it has moved to a situation in
which farmers more often have to pay, and advisory organizations have to focus on
being sufficiently profitable to remain viable. Such changes have also increased the
competition among advisory service providers.
As a result of this transformation, a pluralistic advisory system has emerged:
.Advisors in the input supply industry, often in cooperatives such as Felleskjøpet Agri
(https://www.felleskjopet.no/) (concentrate, fertilizer, machines, and equipment) but
also many machinery suppliers and others. This service is provided by organizations
that sell to farmers and in some cases buy from farmers.
.Advisors in the food industry, often in cooperatives such as TINE (http://www.tine.no)
(dairy) and Nortura (http://www.nortura.no/) (meat). This service is provided by
organizations that buy produce from farmers. TINE has organized its advisory
service in a specific department, TINE Advisory Service. In the meat sector in particu-
lar, several competitors provide advice for farmers to various degrees.
.Advisors in independent organizations such as the cooperative NAES (Norsk land-
bruksrådgiving)(https://www.nlr.no/) and also independent private consultants.
.Advisors in relation to services like accounting, banking, insurance, breeding, ICT,
farmer unions, and so forth. These services are provided or sold in addition to other
services.
.Advisory services provided by governmental and public bodies, especially at local and
county level.
The organizations considered in this study, the agricultural business cooperatives
TINE,Nortura, Felleskjøpet and the advisory services cooperative NAES, are important
providers of advisory services in Norway. They have taken part in the transformation
over recent decades, even though they have developed in different ways, as the former
three are involved in production and sales and the latter is independent. The main chal-
lenges for all of them are more specialized demand from farmers and the need to find new
business models for their own advisory organizations. Currently, they have a comprehen-
sive package of different advisory services, according to interviews with advisory organiz-
ation staff and the advisory organizations’websites. These services include tools for
production tasks and financial management, for planning strategy and managing farm
activities, and for agronomical operations on the farm. The advisory services are also
involved in a range of training for farmers, solely or in cooperation with high schools
and universities. Using the analytical categories of the best-fit framework, Table 1 sum-
marizes the key features and activities of the main advisory service providers in
Norway. All four providers offer services in all regions.
Advisors from the four cooperatives cooperate now and then. Such cooperation often
also includes public sector parties and receives public funding. One example that emerged
from interviews with advisory organization staff, documents, and websites is ‘Green
Research’(Grønn forskning), a regional program for Mid-Norway, which included the
THE JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION AND EXTENSION 7
Table 1. Main private providers of advisory services in Norway.
Name
provider
Number of
advisory service
staff
a
Type of
organization
Overall
education level
staff
Main target
audience Type of advice
Advisory methods
used
Type of client
served Funding Way of payment
TINE 350 (TINE
Advisory Service
–separate
department)
Dairy
cooperative
(embedded
advice)
University and
college, a few
with Ph.D.s
Dairy farmers Dairy farming,
feeding, animal
health, milk
quality,
economy,
strategy
One-to-one advice,
experience
groups,
meetings for
members,
packages of
advisory services
for specific
issues, website
All types but top
teams esp. the
Pro-active, and
obligatory
meetings to
include also
reclusive
traditionalists
Private, fee-for-
service
Combination:
One meeting free
for members,
payment per hour,
or advisory
package
Nortura 150 (divided over
providing
membership
services and
advisory
services)
Meat
cooperative
(embedded
advice)
College and
university,
and some
with
experience
and other
kinds of
education
Meat
producers
(cattle,
sheep and
goats, pigs,
and
poultry)
Meat production,
animal health,
economy,
buildings
One-to-one advice,
meetings for
members,
introducing
packages
All types but esp.
the Pro-active in
pigs
Private, some fee-
for-service
Normally free
b
for
members and
potential members
but payment for
specific deliveries
(management
plan, etc.)
Felleskjøpet 240 (divided over
input sales,
providing
membership
services, and
providing
advisory
services)
Input supply
cooperative
(embedded
advice)
Various Farmers in
general
Concentrates,
fertilizer,
buildings,
machinery,
equipment
Intake discussions
for new
members on
advisory service
needs, one-to-
one advice,
meetings for
members
All types Private Normally free for
members and
potential
customers
NAES 330 (all dedicated
to providing
advisory
services)
Specialized
advisory
service
cooperative
(independent
advice)
University and
college
Plant
producers
Plant production,
soil, organic,
economy,
strategy,
buildings,
machinery,
landscape
One-to-one, field
show, groups,
packages of
advisory services
on specific issues
One-to-one esp. for
the Pro-active in
vegetable
production
Coordinators
mixed with
research esp. the
Pro-active
Private, fee-for-
service
In addition, about
20% of revenue
for NAES comes
from
governmental
grants
Combination:
Annual
membership fee,
payment per hour
or advisory
package,
governmental
grants
a
Information from interviews and websites.
b
‘Free’implies no direct payment, but the cost is covered in the price of the milk sold or other inputs purchased.
8L. KLERKX ET AL.
region of Trøndelag. Green Research has, among other things, established meeting arenas
for advisory services, research, and farmers. Another example is a project named ‘Compe-
tence boost for agriculture in Trøndelag’(Kompetanseløft trøndersk landbruk), which
organizes training workshops for advisory services across organizations. This project
aims to solve common challenges for advisory services and agricultural education. A
third example is RULL in Oppland county. This is a partnership between farmers’organ-
izations, the county, and the county governor, focusing on farmer learning on agronomy
for example. All these examples get funding from regional governmental bodies and are
examples of cooperation and partnerships between the private and the public sector.
The key factor is that projects managed by farmers and/or advisory services can apply
for and receive public funding and institutional support to carry out activities to deal
with challenges that are too big or too difficult for the individual organizations to
manage alone.
Farmers seeking advice and up-to-date information in different ways
Supported by the typology of farmers presented above, based on Jansen et al. (2010), below
we give examples of relationships between the various farmer types and advisory services,
and how, or whether, the farmers seek information from advisory services. These results
are based on interviews with farmers and with advisory organization staff, plus issues dis-
cussed at the training workshops.
Pro-activists
Farmers’view: This type of farmer makes explicit requests to the advisory service. They are
often specific in their demands to the advisory service. When farmers invest in new tech-
nology (like automatic milking systems), they may develop a stronger relationship through
specific advisory service packages. As one farmer said: ‘I am conscious about “picking”the
right advisors.’
Advisors’view: This is the ‘ideal farmer’who needs to be served well; otherwise, they
may lose her or him to other companies. These farmers are open to, and actively seek,
external information. However, some advisors (and farmers) find that it can be difficult
for advisors to meet these farmers’level of competence. As an advisor said about advisors:
‘There is still a need for generalists but there is also a need for specialists.’
Do-it-yourselfers
Farmers’view: This type of farmer seldom has a strong relationship with the advisory
service. They may even be in conflict, that is, confronting ‘official advice’that is regarded
as ‘the truth’,or‘shopping’advice from different sources, including alternative as opposed
to conventional sources (i.e. their regular advisor), as in general they distrust external
information. As one farmer said: ‘… It is hard to make plans for farm management, to
give economic advice and so on –they [advisors] do not at all keep updated. I feel I
have better control myself by doing simple calculations.’
Advisors’view: Advisors have mixed views on this type of farmer. On the one hand,
these farmers can challenge advisors with alternative and often challenging knowledge,
that is, raising very critical questions about the knowledge that the advisor is disseminat-
ing. On the other hand, advisors respect them and see a potential to learn more
THE JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION AND EXTENSION 9
themselves, as it can be an important correction. However, a main challenge is to establish
constructive relationships.
Wait-and-see-ers
Farmers’view: This type of farmer often participates in meetings and in other activities
organized by the advisory services and follows the regular advisory scheme from the advi-
sory service, like annual meetings, analyzing fodder, drawing up a fertilizer plan, and so
forth. However, they are not swift in implementing new knowledge, as they are in
general more closed to external information. Some may need to be challenged to make
progress.
Advisors’view: Farmer group activities organized by an advisory service may also be an
arena for social meetings with colleagues. From the advisors’perspective, these farmers
seldom challenge advisory services, but advisors face some specific challenges. First, advi-
sors need to challenge some of these farmers now and then about their farm management,
if there is a need for improvement or investment. Advisors require specific skills to do this
in a balanced way, as the farmers have various motivations and ambitions for their farm.
As an advisor said at a training workshop:‘It is a challenge to find out what the farmer
really “needs”. The farmer can see different causes for problems than I.’These farmers
may not be so explicit in articulating the types of support they require.
Reclusive traditionalists
Advisors’view: There is in general no active relation between these farmers and advisory
service providers. These farmers seldom make contact with advisory service providers.
They generally farm their own way, as they are used to doing, or they are busy with
other activities that make farm development and seeking information less relevant. Advi-
sory service providers indicate that it is difficult to make contact and develop a relation-
ship with this type of farmer. For some advisors, this is worrying, given public goals for the
agricultural sector. They regard it as their societal mission to include all farmers in their
advisory service.
Despite differences in relation to the different types of farmers, there are also simi-
larities. The need for advice varies among farmers but, among those interviewed, there
were examples of specialized producers that expressed a need for top quality expertise.
Both Pro-activists and Wait-and-see-ers stated that advisors should be more assertive
and challenge farmers more strongly. This requires advisors to have both professional
skills and personal qualities to handle such issues. Further, some asked for a ‘road map’
to reach a peak level for their specific type of production; this is typical for farmers
who are deeply involved in their business. Generic advice is not sufficient. The margins
are so small that they need a detailed and scheduled follow-up plan. Some farmers men-
tioned a lack of such services.
However, advisors indicated that individual advisors cannot have expertise in every-
thing. There is therefore a trade-off among the advisors to find a balance between special-
ization and universality. This carries a risk: the discussions clearly suggest that, if farmers
do not have access to specialized knowledge, they go abroad to seek expertise; this is typical
for Do-it-yourselfers and is also done by Pro-activists. Pro-activists may veer towards
becoming Do-it-yourselfers if they do not achieve what they want, or ‘shop’knowledge
where it is available, domestically or abroad. Advisors can perceive it as a failure when
10 L. KLERKX ET AL.
they are not able to respond to demand, but it could also be regarded as an opportunity to
assist and facilitate the farmers to achieve such expertise, for example, abroad.
The results of this study indicate that advisory services are challenged to meet the
demands of the various types of farmers. In the next section, we show how new configur-
ations emerge to eliminate mismatches.
Emergence of best-fit configurations in the advisory system
Advisory service organizations are aware of the challenges in responding adequately to
various farmers’demands. Here, we present four examples of different demand–supply
configurations that have emerged in response to demands from different types of
farmers. These configurations were identified from analysis of documents, websites, work-
shops, and interviews with advisors and farmers.
(A) Top team with expertise on feeding: TINE has organized a national team of experts on
feeding in dairy farming who should help the other advisors when needed, acting as a
resource pool for the advisory service. They also contribute directly on farms regard-
ing specific problems. This team maintains direct links to ongoing research to be up-
to-date. For example, one of the interviewed farmers, a Pro-activist, had used this
service and was very satisfied, as the following quote indicates: ‘I am very fascinated
by the feeding-advisors. They are top qualified …and I have also a goal to increase
my own competence, learning from them and make it my own, and become a
better farmer little by little.’
(B) Coordinators between advisory services and research: NAES has coordinators who are
employed both in the advisory service organization and in a research institute
(NIBIO). The purpose is to coordinate communication and activities between the
two main actors on specific topics. As one said: ‘The coordinators shall keep them-
selves up-dated and share knowledge with all the advisors in the organization and
units.’
(C) Training on cooperation between advisors: The project ‘Competence boost for agricul-
ture in Trøndelag’(Kompetanseløft trøndersk landbruk) organized training workshops
for advisory services across organizations. The participating advisors were trained in
working together in meetings with farmers. The purpose was to achieve a more holistic
perspective on the farm. They were trained especially on their roles in meetings with
farmers when representing two different advisory service organizations.
(D) Obligatory ‘check-up’meetings between advisor and farmer: TINE provides dairy
farmers with a key advisor as the main contact between the farmer and the TINE
Advisory Service. Included is an annual obligatory meeting between the farmer
and the advisor. At this meeting, they go through all aspects of the dairy farm, includ-
ing a farm inspection. As one farmer said, ‘It is very good to have a farm visit and to
know that someone else has checked how I do things at the farm.’The cost for this
advisory service is included in the TINE cooperative membership. An important
argument for retaining this obligatory meeting is to ensure that farmers are able to
cope with TINE requirements on issues such as milk quality and animal welfare as
this is important to safeguard the reputation of the dairy cooperative.
THE JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION AND EXTENSION 11
Table 2 exemplifies the relationships between types of farmers, challenges for advisory
services in relation to farmer types (as described above), and how this is met by configur-
ations that aim to support best-fit. The challenges were identified in interviews with advi-
sory organization staff and in workshops.
Furthermore, Table 2 lists identified examples of challenges for which advisory service
organizations have tried to meet the demands of specific types of farmers. However, the
new configurations predominate in, but are not exclusive to, the target types. The study
has not identified examples of configurations that are specific for challenges relating to
Do-it-yourselfers. However, the advisors are very aware of this type of farmer and are
trying to improve their skills for providing service in these cases as well, but without a
specific arrangement to support that. The challenge is very similar to that for the Pro-acti-
vists, how to bring in the appropriate expertise, but it seems that lack of trust makes it
harder for the advisors to forge a good relationship. The advisors need skills to engage
with farmers who do not articulate a clear demand for advice; this may require specific
support for advisors (Klerkx and Jansen 2010).
Public goals as a factor for targeting various farmer types
As already indicated, in pluralistic privatized advisory systems, addressing public goods
can be complicated, and this is why advisory service organizations in Norway are con-
cerned about serving most types of farmers. The Norwegian model of cooperation in
the agricultural sector involves shared goals between government, farmer unions, and
cooperatives. Farms must deliver on policy goals like producing for the domestic
market, contributing to rural settlements, environmental goals (Forbord, Bjørkhaug,
and Burton 2014). To do so, they are served by support instruments like subsidies,
import restrictions, and market regulation. From the workshops and interviews with advi-
sory organization staff, it seems that these conditions are regarded as essential to maintain
Norwegian agriculture. Advisory service organizations are aware of this and therefore have
an interest in helping all types of farmers to enable the agricultural sector to deliver public
goods. One way to support public goods is to subsidize private advisory services (i.e. public
funding and private delivery). In the Norwegian case, only NAES receives subsidies as
basic funding, mainly for the organization’s regional and local units. This way of govern-
ance can be argued to balance the governmental objective of stimulating access to advisory
service in all regions with a strategy to be a market-oriented advisory service provider.
Table 2. Farmer types and examples of best-fit configurations.
Farmer type Examples of challenges for advisory services Examples of new configurations
Pro-activists How to bring in the appropriate expertise to
meet the specific demand for knowledge
(A) Top teams of expertise-sharing advisors (TINE)
(B) Coordinators with shared employment in advisory
service organization and in research institute
(NAES)
Do-it-yourselfers How to develop trust in relationships with
farmers
No example identified
Wait-and-see-ers How to challenge farmers when they are less
motivated for change
(C) Specific training projects for cooperation between
advisory service organizations
Reclusive
traditionalists
How to make contact with farmers (D) Obligatory annual meeting between advisor and
farmer (TINE)
12 L. KLERKX ET AL.
Discussion and conclusion: towards subsystems in pluralistic advisory
systems?
The advisory service system in Norway, and more broadly the AKIS of which it is part, has
been transformed from a public service to a highly privatized system. This study shows
that advisory services in Norway are concerned about who they are serving and how
they can serve most of the different types of farmers. A typology of farmers based on
Jansen et al. (2010) was applied to explore the relation between types of farmers and advi-
sory services: Pro-activists, Do-it-yourselfers, Wait-and-see-ers, Reclusive traditionalists.
The results confirm the existence of several farmer–advisor relationships, depending on
the farmer’s position, information-seeking style, and capability, resembling Ingram’s
(2008) earlier findings. Sometimes, a good demand–supply match occurs, but, if this
does not happen, arrangements are put in place to mitigate such systemic weaknesses,
that is, installation of advisory system coordination and capacity building, as described
by Klerkx and Proctor (2013).
Beyond confirming that findings from earlier work on farmer–advisor interactions in
pluralistic systems are also found in the Norwegian case, there is an important emergent
finding of specific configurations of farmers and advisors in the Norwegian advisory
system (following earlier ideas of Phillipson et al. 2016) in response to farmers’
dynamic demands (Kilelu, Klerkx, and Leeuwis 2014). However, rather than being only
configurations at the farm or project level as these other authors find, the Norwegian con-
figurations might be considered subsystems of the national system aimed at achieving
best-fit for a particular type of farmer. From our results, we have identified three types
of subsystems.
.A holistic subsystem: This is an inter-organizational system of service supply with cross-
over relations between advisory organizations to provide a more holistic perspective on
farming and the service needed to support it. Participating advisory organizations both
cooperate and compete. When agreements are reached and cooperative routines estab-
lished, farmers are offered a better advisory service. This system makes it easier for
farmers to access the appropriate advice. As regards the various farmer types, this
system may be most helpful for farmers who are not seeking advice pro-actively.
This means that Wait-and-see-ers are the target group for this subsystem.
.An elitist subsystem: This subsystem is organized as top teams of expertise established to
overcome the expertise/generalist challenge in advisory service organizations. General-
ists have first-line contact with farmers and, when needed, they can bring in expertise
from top teams, which can be sourced intra-organizationally or cross-organizationally.
This subsystem is most relevant for Pro-activist and Do-it-yourselfer farmer types.
.A public goods subsystem: Systems of private and public cooperation in regions can be
found to work on issues that, for example, require a long-term perspective (like edu-
cation, learning, competence) and are difficult to turn into a commercial service (like
succession and recruitment, or environmental issues), and when there are difficulties
in terms of willingness-to-pay or ability-to-pay. This subsystem seems to substitute
former public advisory service provisioning and counteract market imperfections
such as skewed access to advice for some farmer groups, which is an issue in many pri-
vatized systems (Labarthe and Laurent 2013; Prager et al. 2016). This subsystem serves
THE JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION AND EXTENSION 13
various types of farmers. The projects ‘Green Research’,‘Competence boost for agricul-
ture in Trøndelag’, and ‘RULL’are all examples of this type of subsystem.
The concept of subsystems has both policy and theoretical implications. In terms of
policy implications, as our results show, some of the identified subsystems are formed
mainly because of private action to serve clients better (e.g. the elitist subsystem) and
some are connected to public concerns (e.g. farmer exclusion and environmental issues
in the public goods subsystem). We also observe less emphasis on developing subsystems
that specifically target reclusive traditionalists; this resonates with earlier findings by
Labarthe and Laurent (2013). Hence, policy-makers should monitor the emergence of
these subsystems and become active participants in some of them, in line with the idea
of government as regulator in privatized AKIS and mitigating shortcomings of private
and commercial advisory systems (Klerkx, De Grip, and Leeuwis 2006).
In terms of theoretical implications, although earlier work has already touched on
diversity in farmer-information demand and different kinds of advisory service supply
to meet heterogeneous demands, our study has an important additional implication,
given the finding on the emergence of subsystems within advisory systems. This has impli-
cations for the boundaries typically drawn around the study of advisory systems and more
broadly AKIS, which are often national (Knierim et al. 2015; Hermans, Klerkx, and Roep
2015). As opposed to advisory systems that are seen as national and homogenous with
best-fit within a given country setting and AKIS (Birner et al. 2009), best-fit systems
emerge dynamically and have particular configurations within a country setting in
response to types of farmer information-seeking and the system’s public goals. Further-
more, and perhaps on a more speculative note, given the international character of
many advisory service firms and innovation projects (see Peiker et al. 2012; Rubalcaba
and Toivonen 2014; Klerkx et al. 2017), such subsystems may even be international and
encompass cross-border exchange, for example, in the case of the elitist subsystem in
which farmers sometimes source knowledge from the best advisors available worldwide.
As our findings should be considered as tentative, a wider sample (e.g. including inter-
views in more Norwegian regions) as well as more in-depth study is needed on (a) the con-
structed typologies of farmer information-seeking and the related advisory service
demand–supply match for each type, (b) the advisory subsystems, to better explore how
they operate and study how stable or dynamic they are –whether they are permanent sub-
systems or more temporary configurations, and (c) the international dimension of certain
advisory subsystems, including questions on how these cut across national AKISs, the kind
of business models used within subsystems, and how knowledge and information is trans-
lated between international and local dimensions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This paper is related to the project “Competent farmer: Improving farmers’competence by more
efficient interaction between farmer, advisory services and research”. This project is jointly
14 L. KLERKX ET AL.
funded by Norwegian Research Funding for Agriculture and Food Industry; county governors in
Møre, Romsdal, Sør-Trøndelag and Nord-Trøndelag; cooperatives TINE, Nortura, and Fell-
eskjøpet Agri; the Norwegian Agricultural Extension Service; the Mid-Norway Board of
Cooperation in Agriculture. These funders did not exercise steering on the design and execution
of the research or influence the analysis and conclusions drawn, and views expressed in this
article are those of the authors only.
Notes on contributors
Laurens Klerkx is Associate Professor at the Knowledge, Technology and Innovation Group of
Wageningen University.
Egil Petter Stræte is Senior Researcher at the Centre for Rural Research.
Gunn-Turid Kvam is Senior Researcher at the Centre for Rural Research.
Eystein Ystad is Senior Adviser at the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research.
Renate Marie Butli Hårstad is Research Assistant at the Centre for Rural Research.
ORCID
Laurens Klerkx http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1664-886X
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