Transition to Sustainable Fertilisation in Agriculture, A Practices Approach

It is argued that sustainability transition in agriculture requires a shift from a regime oriented towards increasing agricultural productivity to a regime in which the environmental and social effects of production are regarded as central. Practice theories represent an emerging perspective on analysing sustainability transitions and provide a way to focus on farming activities and their changes. Focusing on practice elements – materials, meanings and competences – we explore the prospects of applying practice theory when analysing differentiation and change in agricultural fertilisation practices. Empirically, the article is based on semi‐open qualitative interviews among Finnish farmers. We identified five different fertilisation practices. The differences and changes in practices could be explained by the diverse and hierarchically organised purposes in farming which contributed to different elements and their linkages in the performance of the practices. Consciously cultivating changes in meaning are especially important in facilitating the change in practices.