Participation changed my mindset: Transformative learning about agrobiodiversity in a citizen science project

Agrobiodiversity has to be reinforced in order to enhance conservation efforts and support the provision of multiple ecosystem services in rural areas. Achieving this in an effective and efficient way requires the upscaling of measures promoting agrobiodiversity from the parcel to the landscape level. Interventions at the landscape level require multiple actors to become involved, including farmers, private land owners, communities, nature organizations. This implies that questions arise about how we can engage different stakeholder profiles to take action for agrobiodiversity and support multiple agroecosystem services. One way to stimulate engagement is through learning in citizen science projects, where actors interact with the positive and negative effects of agrobiodiversity. Therefore, we need a better understanding of what aspects of citizen science projects facilitate and counteract learning outcomes towards sustainable transitions. Here we present the learning outcomes of a citizen science project where 90 volunteers weekly interacted with agrobiodiversity in a landscape observatory in the municipalities of Melle, Merelbeke and Oosterzele in Flanders (Belgium). The observatory consisted of 40 standardized mini-gardens of 1 m², planted with ten vegetable crops. Every mini-garden was assigned to one or more volunteers, who were all local landscape actors. The volunteers were asked to do a weekly visit of their assigned mini-garden between May and September in 2018 and 2019 (20 visits/year). Tasks included, for instance, watering, weeding and harvesting, all according to a detailed research protocol. During both seasons, there were weekly contacts between volunteers and the research team during informal field visits, via email, in a private Facebook group and on several gathering events. The learning outcomes were assessed by a post-project qualitative questionnaire, distributed among 84 participants. 97% of the 36 respondents reported to have learned, mostly instrumental learning about vegetable gardening and arthropods. 61% indicate that their opinion about biodiversity or attention for the environment has changed and 53% changed their behaviour. Furthermore, it was clear that learning outcomes were highly associated with the prior knowledge of the participants. Frequent communication, mutual visibility among researchers and volunteers and a tactile learning tool were identified as strong learning catalysts. For future citizen science projects, we recommend to differentiate between participants with and without prior knowledge and connect people with different knowledge levels. Learning can be promoted when written information is experienced in a tactile tool. Successful data gathering in citizen science projects is facilitated by volunteers that feel part of an enthusiast group and engaged research team. It is therefore advised to ensure high mutual visibility of actions by volunteers and researchers. In conclusion, participatory and citizen science projects have potential to change perspectives and behaviour towards (functional) agrobiodiversity in rural areas.