Introduction:
The French agricultural world has gone through major changes since the sixties. Indeed, the green revolution involved a shift of the ways to work for agricultural workers. They went from traditional hand working to modernized, technological farming. These evolutions have different origins. Technological breakthroughs were obviously necessary to allow the revolution. Yet, the biggest power to initiate this transition was the political one. In fact, the birth of the European Union (EU) acted as a catalyst because the necessity for European countries to gather and assemble to keep a significant place in the geo-political landscape accelerated the transformation of the agricultural world in order to stay competitive. A huge amount of money was then invested to modernize the agricultural field of all EU members. Nowadays, the environmental crisis is compelling us to adapt and operate a step-back in our way to conceive agriculture. New European policies even dedicate government subsidies to help agricultural workers to take a biological orientation concerning their farm operations. In the light of the history of the agricultural field we can wonder, how does it affect the daily life of the farmers? And what are the consequences on their quality of life at work? More precisely, what are the effects of practicing a more intensive agriculture or a more biological one?
Theoretical concepts:
There are multiple concepts in social and work psychology to evaluate Quality of Life (QOL) but how to define it? According to the World Health Organization (WHO) it can be defined as “individual’s perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns.”. As we focus on workers, we’ll use Quality of Working Life (QOWL) which is also a generalist concept that is evaluated by psychologist through measuring work satisfaction. This concept is often used, and some factors are well known to evaluate it. We can include decision making autonomy, task variability, self-efficacity. Another way to explore QOWL is to evaluate stress and risks perception, which can be high working with dangerous crop protection products (CPP).
In this study, two variables are used. The first one is the type of farm operations either intensive (looking for “quantity”, the best rate of milk litter by cow by year) or extensive (looking for “quality” the best rate of nutrients by milk litter). The second one is the risk perception and the stress induced using CPP.
The hypothesis are the following:
Farmers in extensive farms will express more work satisfaction than intensive farmers.
Farmers using CCP will perceive a higher risk due to their frequent exposition to them.
Methods:
To collect results, the choice was made to conduct semi-directed interviews of milk producers. This category of farmers was chose because they are a lot in the area thus, it’s easy to reach them but also because they have to grow their own cultures to feed their animals implying some of them use CPP. Ten interviews were conducted leading to the creation of three groups: Farmers using CPP in intensive farms (CPPI), Farmers using CPP in extensive farms (CPPE) and Farmers not using CPP in extensive farms (E). The interviews all lasted between thirty minutes and an hour. The registered audios were wrote down to proceed to a themed analysis following the various factors identified as works satisfaction factors.
Results:
The group CPPE was not analysed because it was constituted of only two members that were not close enough to constitute a group homogeneous enough.
The analysis showed that work satisfaction wise there was almost no difference between the two types of farms. Indeed, both groups talked about similar work loads, decision making autonomy and self-efficacity. Yet, there still is a difference as the CPPI group manifested a lack of social support, a factor of Karasek (1979) model of strained situation at work. This lack of support is mainly felt through media’s way of talking about the use of CPP in agriculture but also through traumatic events of harassment from neighbours. Concerning the risk perception of exposure to CPP farmers using them perceived a risk as high as the farmers not using them but their way of dealing with the stress caused by the exposure was different in each group. The group E were cautious and regarding about an eventual exposure of their crops due to neighbours’ activities whereas some of the group CPPI farmers admitted not using protection gear willingly, they also expressed the need to disconnect from work and gather with friends and family to relieve stress. Thus, we cans say that their way to cope with professional stress is centred on looking for emotional and social support rather than centred on the issue.
Conclusion:
The first hypothesis concerning the work satisfaction perceived was invalidated because no major differences were showed between intensive and extensive farmers. Though, it may be relevant to further explore the social support dimension of work satisfaction. Finally, the second hypothesis about the risk perception of exposure to CPP was also invalidated because both groups perceived a similar risk. We can ask ourself about why farmers using CPP while being exposed more frequently seems to adopt more dangerous behaviours regarding their health.