Academia and Farming: The disconnect and potential

In today’s deep dive episode we’re taking on the behemoth of a topic that is the broken system and relationship between academic institutions and farmers on the ground. For a long time there was traditional and experiential knowledge that helped to guide farming practices and cultures based on eons of experience and place based relationships. As agriculture became more technologically driven, traditional practices began to be replaced with mechanized and chemical centered management. Traditional knowledge was supplanted by academic knowledge which was guarded by universities and research centers as scientific trials and studies offered roadmaps of how to integrate these new products into farming. For the most part these institutions guarded their information and disseminated it through research papers, formal agronomists, and extension services. Since much of the research on specific products and the practices of using them was, and still is, funded by the industries that sold them, much of the knowledge has a severe bias in favor of the efficacy of those products and studies helped to push them onto farms. Most of the research done on farms happens on specific research farms run by universities themselves, which isn’t to say that they don’t create valuable learnings and insights, but the studies there are often done in highly controlled environments that working farms can almost never recreate, and the research then gets published in journals that farmers either don’t read or can’t access. For their part, farmers are constantly running experiments and trying new things to stay ahead of the endless variables and challenges of trying to get consistent yields out of a dynamic and living landscape while operating in shifting markets. The ones I know are endlessly tinkering and experimenting and looking for new knowledge. In theory these would be the ideal collaborators for researchers, but for a number of reasons that we’ll explore in this episode, the communication and collaboration just doesn't happen.  So here’s where we come in.Climate Farmers started more than 6 years ago, and while we used to be best known for our carbon credit program, which we closed back in 2025, we now operate entirely as a non-profit dedicated to advancing a regenerative food system in Europe by helping farmers to successfully transition to regenerative management of their land and businesses. Yet one of the core aspects of our work here still goes largely unnoticed by the farmers in our community, and that’s the projects we’re involved in through our research and innovation labs. This is where we’re working to connect academia and research institutes with real farmers. The idea is to bridge the gap that many of us have observed between the institutional research that churns out papers and studies that few farmers ever read, and instead get farmers involved so that they can help guide these studies and perform trials on their own land that can create validated information that’s relevant to them and their operations. The research and innovations labs at Climate Farmers are run by my colleagues Fabio Volkman and Alexander Berlin who are guiding us through today’s Deep Dive into both the challenges and the potential of better connecting scientists and farmers. They’ll also give us a look into some of the many projects we’re involved in that illustrate how we help make these connections happen as well as the valuable outputs that have already been created as a result. But just telling this story from our own perspective from within Climate Farmers hardly meets my standards for a Deep Dive, so you’ll also hear from a researcher who’s broken the mold for on-farm studies by conducting holistic and relationship focused research. You’ll hear from an agronomist helping to manage over 20k hectares of arable land and pastures who’s become a bridge between local universities and farmers in Estonia, and we’ll speak to a farmer with a long established tr