The farmers needed inspiration and advice. Yearly week-end meetings for farmer families and project staff were a positive experience for that purpose, and detailed planning of the conversion on each farm was important in the first part of the project.
Case studies can be a holistic research strategy.
Studies of practical farms and farmers give birth to ideas for further research. The farms are useful as examples and an education in reality, and the farmers as adiscussion group. A practical situation is complicated and difficult to structure and analyse, but the results and the farmers' experiences are easy to transfer. Whole farm case studies give useful information other research strategies could not obtain, e.g. on barriers for conversion, and problems that trouble eco-farmers. Our case studies were based on results collected in the survey.