Swedish Farmers Talking about Nature - A Study of the Interrelations between Farmers' Values and the Sociocultural Notion of Naturintresse

Agro-environmental schemes (AES) aim to counteract declining biodiversity on farmland and to improve ecosystem services, such as pollination and pest regulation. Studies show, however, that an involvement in AES does not lead to any substantive cognitive or motivational change in farmers' behaviour. Hermeneutic studies have tried to explain these modest effects by analysing farmers' mentalities and behaviour. This article contributes to these studies by using self-identifications and stories of 16 Swedish farmers about nature and AES to create a typology of different farmers' valuations. In pursuit of this objective the article establishes a conceptual link between these hermeneutic studies and so-called farming style analysis (FSA). The study lays bare latent points of friction between the views of these farmers and more conventional sociocultural notions about nature and nature conservation.