Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
RECOFTC-The Center for People and Forests, Bangkok, Thailand.
PLoS One. 2021 Aug 10;16(8):e0255987. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0255987. eCollection 2021.
With the decline in public budgets for agricultural extension support, ties between members of farmer groups are becoming more important to facilitate information transfer about agroforestry. This paper examines the role of social network ties in predicting organizational leadership in an agroforestry-based farmer group. Using social network data derived from interviews with members of farming groups based in the Ayeyarwady Delta of Myanmar, we established a positive relationship between advice-seeking ties and organizational leadership. In other words, farmers who were highly sought for agroforestry advice were more likely to be elected as leaders of the farmer group. Results show the frequency of interactions through advice-seeking ties also had a positive influence on the probability of farmers holding leadership positions. We found a core-periphery structure for the advice networks, whereby farmer leaders were overrepresented at the network core. Interestingly, general members of the farmer group were also in the core of the core-periphery structure, suggesting that engaging with farmers without leadership roles can also effectively disseminate agroforestry information to peripheral farmers. We conclude that farmer groups are valuable in agroforestry adoption and persistence and further analyses of formal leadership structures are needed to support more transparent and accountable governance.
随着公共农业推广支持预算的减少，农民群体成员之间的联系对于促进关于农林复合的信息传递变得更加重要。本文考察了社会网络联系在预测基于农林复合的农民群体中的组织领导力方面的作用。我们利用源自缅甸伊洛瓦底江三角洲农民群体成员访谈的社会网络数据，确定了寻求建议联系与组织领导力之间的积极关系。换句话说，那些在农林复合方面被广泛寻求建议的农民更有可能被选为农民群体的领导人。研究结果表明，通过寻求建议联系进行互动的频率也对农民担任领导职位的概率产生了积极影响。我们发现了建议网络的核心-边缘结构，农民领袖在网络核心中占比较高。有趣的是，农民群体的普通成员也处于核心-边缘结构的核心，这表明与没有领导角色的农民进行互动也可以有效地将农林复合信息传播给边缘农民。我们的结论是，农民群体在农林复合的采用和持续方面具有重要价值，需要进一步分析正式的领导结构，以支持更透明和负责任的治理。
