Rhiannon Fisher, recently submitted CCRI PhD student, presents her research on the role of social capital with regards to farmer resilience and response to critical events, looking in particular at bovine TB.

1. The role of social capital in influencing
the response capacity of farmers
Rhiannon Fisher
Countryside and Community Research Institute,
University of Gloucestershire and
the Royal Agricultural College
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2. Bovine Tuberculosis
• An infectious disease in cattle
• Spread between cattle and badgers
• Cost the taxpayer around £90m in
2010/11 in England (excluding research)
• In 2010, 10.8% cattle farms in England
were put under restriction due to a TB
incident.
• Around 25,000 cattle were slaughtered
for TB control in England in 2010
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4. The policy context
The Coalition Government’s bTB
eradication programme promotes
partnership working across
government, the farming industry
and the veterinary profession, as
well as responsibility and cost-
sharing
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5. Social Capital:
The stocks of social trust, networks
and values that people can draw
upon in order to improve their
livelihoods (Putnam, 1995).
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6. Types of social capital
• Bonding - Links between families and
close friends (e.g. within the business)
• Bridging - Links between communities
(e.g. consumers, wider community)
• Linking - Vertical linkages through
society linking individuals/
organisations with unequal power (e.g.
DEFRA, NFU representatives)
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7. Methods
Phase 1:
(qualitative)
20 individual face-to face farmer interviews
Analysis (NVivo)
Phase 2:
(quantitative)
Postal survey (374 farmers)
Attitudinal questions
Analysis (SPSS multivariate
analysis) 7

8. Methods
Phase 1:
(qualitative)
20 individual face-to face farmer interviews
Analysis (NVivo)
Phase 2:
(quantitative)
Postal survey (400 farmers)
Attitudinal questions
Analysis (SPSS multivariate
analysis) 8

9. Key findings
Linking social capital –
“A lot of the people making policy and
thinking up all these inspections don't have a
clue. TB is crippling”
Bridging social capital -
“I’ve known my vet for 30 odd years so I have
the greatest respect for the man. He has the
wellbeing of my herd and the industry at heart
which I sometimes doubt if the Ministry has.”
Bonding social capital -
“It’s difficult to talk to my wife about it
because she’s too close, we just get each
other upset”
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10. Methods
Phase 1:
(qualitative)
20 individual face-to face farmer interviews
Analysis (NVivo)
Phase 2:
(quantitative)
Postal survey (400 farmers)
Attitudinal questions
Analysis (SPSS multivariate
analysis) 10

11. Postal Survey
• 1500 surveys distributed to
farmers in the South West
• 401 responses received – 374
usable
• response rate of 26.7%
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12. County Beef Dairy Beef and dairy No response Total
Devon 64 (51.6%) 39 (31.5%) 21 (16.9%) 0 124 (33.2%)
Somerset 33 (47.8%) 23 (33.3%) 13 (18.8%) 0 69 (18.4%)
Cornwall 27 (45.0%) 20 (33.3%) 12 (20.0%) 1 (1.7%) 60 (16.0%)
Gloucestershire 23 (56.1%) 11 (26.8%) 6 (14.6%) 1 (2.4%) 41(11.0%)
Wiltshire 18 (46.2%) 11 (28.2%) 8 (20.5%) 2 (5.1%) 39 (10.4%)
Dorset 11 (35.5%) 15 (48.8%) 5 (16.1%) 0 31 (8.3%)
No response 3 (30.0%) 5 (50.0%) 2 (20.0%) 0 10 (2.7%)
Total 179 (47.9%) 124 (33.2%) 67 (17.9%) 4 (1.1%) 374
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13. Identifying farmer groups
• Farmer segmentation (farming
styles, woodland management,
organic farmers etc.)
• 18 attitudinal statements
subjected to factor analysis
• Factor scores used to group the
farmers using cluster analysis
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14. Bonding social
capital
Linking social
capital
Bridging social
capital
Bonding social
capital
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16. Profiling the farmer groups –
Vulnerable and internally focused
• Feel in less control over their business and
have higher risk perception
• More fatalistic and felt that there was
nothing they could do to reduce risk
• Mainly sourced information from other
farmers
• Slightly more experience of bTB but no
difference between the groups in terms of
number of breakdowns or the number of
cattle lost
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17. Profiling the farmer groups –
Resilient and externally focused
• Resilient farmers feel that there is
plenty of support available to them
• Higher proportion of NFU members
• Slightly more trusting of authority
• More confidence in the knowledge of
Defra, Animal Health and the NFU
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19. Conclusions
• Linking social capital has an important influence
on levels of perceived resilience
• Distinction between internally focused and
externally focused farmers (bridging social
capital)
• Bonding social capital does not necessarily
increase perceived resilience
• Changes in attitudes do not necessarily lead to
changes in behaviour
• While social capital may influence attitudes,
government intervention may be needed to
influence behaviour
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