Social learning as a catalyst for building resilience among smallholder farmers: Exploring its role in promoting transformations

Building resilient agricultural systems in the face of the climate crisis requires transformative action, yet progress has remained slow. The current, dominant food system remains a huge contributor to the climate crisis and is itself vulnerable to its effects, making transformations towards resilience a complex and multifaceted challenge. In response, social learning is emerging as a promising mechanism for inspiring transformations by recognizing the central role of learning in building pathways towards resilience. We conducted a systematic literature review to examine this connection between social learning and transformations among smallholder farmers, addressing three research areas: (1) the factors influencing social learning processes; (2) social learning outcomes; and (3) the extent to which social learning promote transformations. The review reveals many underlying positive assumptions about the role of social learning in transformations, but there remains little insight as to how or why learning leads to the adoption of transformative practices. We also find that while social learning has a positive impact on participants’ understanding of climate-related issues and resilient agricultural practices, sustained adoption of transformative actions remains a challenge. Participatory on-farm demonstrations and addressing perceived risks associated with making changes can increase the likelihood of adopting transformative action. Drawing on these findings, we propose a conceptual framework for promoting the adoption of transformative actions that take into account differences in socio-economic contexts. This study highlights the crucial role of social learning in building resilience and provides insights to inform future research in this field.