Stakeholder management in regional design and development processes: how to involve farmers?

The project 'Echt Overijssel!' aims to meet regional nature, landscape and agricultural goals by designing and implementing the concept of regional agriculture: new collaboration concepts and alternative product chains. Involving farmers in this process is necessary but complex. Many farmers struggle with keeping their businesses profitable and hesitate to put time and effort in processes that do not explicitly address their immediate interests. To address these interests and at the same time develop common goals and concepts, we followed a dual approach. In a forecasting route we established three farmers' networks that focus on topics close to farmers' everyday management and facilitate knowledge co-creation. These networks are to provide building blocks for regional agriculture. As a backcasting route, we launched an interactive design process that starts with developing shared visions and continues with the design and implementation of common concepts of regional agriculture. Despite this set-up, we experienced that active farmer involvement in the project was not optimal. Main causes are the resilient cultures and routines of both farmers and process facilitators, the large diversity of participants, and the differences in time horizon between farmers' needs and interests and the objectives of the project. We conclude that adequate farmer involvement in regional design processes requires specific social and networking skills of both facilitators and participants in order to facilitate mutual learning, knowledge co-creation and cooperation. Starting the design process with the active and early involvement of a small selection of interested and visionary farmers could help the process even more.