IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/agrhuv/v27y2010i3p307-319.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Moving beyond the numbers: a participatory evaluation of sustainability in Dutch agriculture

Author

Listed:
  • Marleen Kerkhof
  • Annemarie Groot
  • Marien Borgstein
  • Leontien Bos-Gorter

Abstract

Environmental pollution, animal diseases, and food scandals have marked the agricultural sector in the Netherlands and elsewhere in the 1990s. The sector was high on the political and societal agenda and plans were developed to redesign the sector into a more sustainable direction. Generally, monitoring of the agricultural sector is done by means of quantitative indicators to measure social, ecological, and economic performance. To give more attention to the normative character of sustainable development, the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature, and Food Quality requested for a participatory approach to evaluate Dutch agriculture, which was characterized by stakeholder workshops, dialogue, and learning. This article describes and reflects on this approach, using the Fourth Generation Evaluation framework developed by Guba and Lincoln (Fourth generation evaluation, 1989 ). Although there are several improvements to be made, the evaluation approach was successful in the way that it gave insight into perceptions, visions, and ambitions of agricultural stakeholders with regard to sustainability. It also encouraged learning about ways to make the agricultural sector more sustainable. And it contributed to the development of a monitoring approach that is complementary to the quantitative, indicator-based, evaluation approach that is generally used and that can be used every few years to see how perceptions and ambitions of stakeholders have developed. Copyright The Author(s) 2010

Suggested Citation

  • Marleen Kerkhof & Annemarie Groot & Marien Borgstein & Leontien Bos-Gorter, 2010. "Moving beyond the numbers: a participatory evaluation of sustainability in Dutch agriculture," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 27(3), pages 307-319, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:27:y:2010:i:3:p:307-319
    DOI: 10.1007/s10460-009-9214-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10460-009-9214-9
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10460-009-9214-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Murray Bruges & Willie Smith, 2008. "Participatory approaches for sustainable agriculture: A contradiction in terms?," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 25(1), pages 13-23, January.
    2. Mathie, Alison & Greene, Jennifer C., 1997. "Stakeholder participation in evaluation: How important is diversity?," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 279-285, August.
    3. Greene, Jennifer C., 1987. "Stakeholder participation in evaluation design: Is it worth the effort?," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 379-394, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Heidi Peterson, 2023. "Cost–Benefit Analysis (CBA) or the Highway? An Alternative Road to Investigating the Value for Money of International Development Research," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 35(2), pages 260-280, April.
    2. Andrej Lange & Rosemarie Siebert & Tim Barkmann, 2015. "Sustainability in Land Management: An Analysis of Stakeholder Perceptions in Rural Northern Germany," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-22, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Toal, Stacie A. & King, Jean A. & Johnson, Kelli & Lawrenz, Frances, 2009. "The unique character of involvement in multi-site evaluation settings," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 91-98, May.
    2. Nichols, Laura, 2002. "Participatory program planning: including program participants and evaluators," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 1-14, February.
    3. Unruh, Deanne, 2005. "Using primary and secondary stakeholders to define facility-to-community transition needs for adjudicated youth with disabilities," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 413-422, November.
    4. Daigneault, Pierre-Marc, 2014. "Taking stock of four decades of quantitative research on stakeholder participation and evaluation use: A systematic map," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 171-181.
    5. Papineau, Danielle & Kiely, Margaret C., 1996. "Participatory evaluation in a community organization: Fostering stakeholder empowerment and utilization," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 79-93, February.
    6. Jacob, Steve & Ouvrard, Laurence & Bélanger, Jean-François, 2011. "Participatory evaluation and process use within a social aid organization for at-risk families and youth," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 113-123, May.
    7. R. Burke Johnson, 1995. "Estimating an Evaluation Utilization Model Using Conjoint Measurement and Analysis," Evaluation Review, , vol. 19(3), pages 313-338, June.
    8. Granderson, Ainka A., 2011. "Enabling multi-faceted measures of success for protected area management in Trinidad and Tobago," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 185-195, August.
    9. Harvey James & Iddisah Sulemana, 2014. "Case studies on smallholder farmer voice: an introduction to a special symposium," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 31(4), pages 637-641, December.
    10. Mawhinney, Lynnette & Drame, Elizabeth R. & Bowe, Anica G. & Duval-Diop, Dominique & Kares, Faith R. & Santos, Patrizia, 2023. "Responding to the times: Adapting an evaluation study during a dual pandemic," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    11. Andreas Neef & Dieter Neubert, 2011. "Stakeholder participation in agricultural research projects: a conceptual framework for reflection and decision-making," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 28(2), pages 179-194, June.
    12. Emma Jakku & Peter Thorburn, 2009. "A Conceptual Framework for Guiding the Participatory Development of Agricultural Decision Support Systems," Socio-Economics and the Environment in Discussion (SEED) Working Paper Series 2009-12, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems.
    13. Colleen M. Eidt & Laxmi P. Pant & Gordon M. Hickey, 2020. "Platform, Participation, and Power: How Dominant and Minority Stakeholders Shape Agricultural Innovation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-21, January.
    14. Susan L. Santos & Caron Chess, 2003. "Evaluating Citizen Advisory Boards: The Importance of Theory and Participant‐Based Criteria and Practical Implications," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(2), pages 269-279, April.
    15. Orlando, Francesca & Alali, Sumer & Vaglia, Valentina & Pagliarino, Elena & Bacenetti, Jacopo & Bocchi, Stefano & Bocchi, Stefano, 2020. "Participatory approach for developing knowledge on organic rice farming: Management strategies and productive performance," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    16. Taozhi Zhuang & Queena K. Qian & Henk J. Visscher & Marja G. Elsinga, 2017. "Stakeholders’ Expectations in Urban Renewal Projects in China: A Key Step towards Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-21, September.
    17. Corrado Ciaccia & Marta Di Pierro & Elena Testani & Giancarlo Roccuzzo & Marcello Cutuli & Danilo Ceccarelli, 2019. "Participatory Research towards Food System Redesign: Italian Case Study and Perspectives," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-12, December.
    18. Jennifer G. Greene, 1988. "Stakeholder Participation and Utilization in Program Evaluation," Evaluation Review, , vol. 12(2), pages 91-116, April.
    19. Brandon, Paul R., 1999. "Involving program stakeholders in reviews of evaluators' recommendations for program revisions," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 363-372, August.
    20. Turnbull, B., 1999. "The mediating effect of participation efficacy on evaluation use," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 131-140, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:27:y:2010:i:3:p:307-319. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.