Nachhaltigkeitsherausforderungen und Kommunikationsstrategien im Transformationsprozess Landwirtschaft
Sustainability challenges and communication strategies in the agricultural transformation process
von Angelika Dauermann
Datum der mündl. Prüfung:2023-08-21
Erschienen:2024-01-30
Betreuer:Prof. Dr. Ulrich Enneking
Gutachter:Prof. Dr. Ulrich Enneking
Gutachter:Prof. Dr. Achim Spiller
Dateien
Name:eDiss_Dauermann_Angelika.pdf
Size:5.09Mb
Format:PDF
Zusammenfassung
Englisch
This dissertation, which focuses on sustainability work and sustainability communication in the field of agriculture, seeks to provide contributions on how German agriculture can position itself more sustainably and how the sector can communicate better in the context of a society whose members are becoming increasingly removed from everyday farming life. The majority of the articles in this dissertation deal with both topics, i.e., sustainability work and sustainability communication. In four mof the six articles, agricultural building culture – one of the main focal points of this work – is examined in the context of sustainability work and sustainability communication. Another important area of discussion in this dissertation is the animal welfare debate surrounding dairy farming, a very important sector in Germany. The dissertation is divided into three chapters, each with two accompanying manuscripts. The first chapter deals with the situation of agricultural timber construction and farmers’ attitudes towards the use of timber as a building material. Timber buildings store carbon in the long term, construction processes consume less primary energy, and as a building material timber is easy to recycle. The two articles in the first chapter of this dissertation therefore examine the opinions of German farmers on the use of timber in barn construction. Both of these articles – one on cattle farming and one on pig farming – identify uncertainty among farmers regarding the durability of timber as a building material owing to problems resulting from moisture and contact with farm animals. Both of these contributions, while showing that more needs to be done to gather information on how to protect timber constructions, underscore the fact that the potential that timber construction offer when it comes to making agriculture more sustainable has been very much neglected to date. The second chapter of this dissertation contains two articles on the communicative effect of agricultural buildings. The first of these – the third article in this dissertation – examines the visual imagery used by direct marketers in Lower Saxony, exploring in particular the question of whether agricultural direct marketers from this region use building structures for communication and, if so, in what form. To answer this question, the initial view content of websites of direct marketers were analyzed. The analyses show that historical-looking buildings in particular are used by direct marketers on their homepages to attract customers. This study’s conclusion is that with such direct marketing imagery, consumers are likely to associate with traditional agriculture and misplaced agricultural nostalgia. The fourth article in this dissertation deals with the question of how the esthetics of dairy cattle barns are perceived by the local population and whether people view them differently if they have different outer shells and exterior designs. The result is that the appearance of a barn clearly evokes positive or negative impressions of the nature of agriculture. The third and final chapter of the dissertation focuses on the animal welfare debates surrounding German dairy farming, analyzing the different positions and demands with regard to the reorganization of German dairy farming. The fifth article compares the arguments put forward by civil society organizations and agricultural associations in relation to tethering and grazing, husbandry practices which are the subject of much public debate. This article concludes that agricultural association representatives more frequently argue that longer time horizons are needed to resolve conflicting objectives and to allow for further research. In principle, however, the two groups of organizations differ more in terms of their ideas about the dynamics of change and the timeframe for change than with regard to actual substance. The sixth and final article takes up the matter of calls from the general public for German dairy farming to adopt practices that are closer to nature and places these demands in the context of expert opinions. The result of this study is that animal science experts do not consider connection with nature to be the key to achieving better, i.e., more animal welfare-oriented dairy farming. What the experts did recognize, however, was that behind the demands for more nature connectedness is a legitimate desire on the part of consumers to have a better understanding of the innate needs and integrity of dairy cattle. Both of these studies also point to the potential that science offers when it comes to evaluating different social perspectives and creating points of reference for consensus-building. The current dissertation recognises that German agriculture is in a multi-faceted transformation process, which has to be transformed and communicated to a similar extent. Considering content,the demands for transformation certainly do not come solely from one direction. Often differing expectations from the agricultural side have to addressed concurrently. The conclusion of this dissertation is that German agriculture should meet these challenges with a new, multi-functional self-image. Agricultural building culture, which this dissertation has looked at closely, is a particular example. Building culture offers the chance of addressing many objectives. A transformed, sustainable building culture can contribute to the conservation of the environment, climate and resources. Furthermore, those buildings also serve as a visual medium conveying agricultural practices and farmers’ attitudes. In addition, agricultural buildings with a stronger visual impact also contribute to an aesthetically pleasing rural landscape. The dissertation also shows the importance of science for agriculture in order to cope with different perspectives.
Keywords: Climate and resource protection; wood construction; agricultural landscape; agricultural buildings; natural living strategies; sustainability communication