WS1.1 ‐ Innovation and change for rural development 9 th European IFSA Symposium, 4‐7 July 2010, Vienna (Austria) 207 Building capacity in collective action: learning from dairy industry workforce planning and action in Australia Ruth Nettle a , Pauline Brightling b and Jim Williamson c a Rural Innovation Research Group, Melbourne School of Land and Environment, University of Melbourne, Parkville, 3010, VIC, Australia, ranettle@unimelb.edu.au b The People in Dairy Program manager, Harris Park Group Pty Ltd Swann House 22 William St Melbourne, VIC, Australia, c Brotherhood of St Laurence, Fitzroy, VIC, Australia Abstract: Facilitating change as part of rural development is increasingly about aligning the action of diverse groups of interests, knowledge‐types and practices. Different theoretical perspectives (e.g. social learning, community of practice) inform processes for faciliating change, however the ethical concerns of actors in collective action contexts is less understood. This paper analyses the emergence of joint activity to support entry and retention of dairy farm workers in an Australian context with the aim of exploring the role that ethical concerns have in motivating a particular type of collective action. Using an action research methodology, the paper draws on formalised reflections by the authors on their experiences in two projects: In2Dairy is a partnership initiative between industry, community, training and government sectors to develop a more effective entry level employment pathway onto dairy farms; Farm Manager Skills Retention is a partnership initiative between 2 levels of the dairy industry and a local irrigation organisation to attract and retain senior dairy farm managers in a region experiencing long‐running drought and a drift of people away from the region. Ethical concerns such as mutual obligation, responsibility, fairness and social inclusion appear to influence individual and collective action strategies. Mutual ethical concerns provided the principles or operating rules for local ethical collective action. It appears that ethical concerns and frameworks provide particularly relevent guidance for why and how to act together. The relevence and application of ethical frameworks for improved collective action appears largely unrecognised yet offer significant potential for social learning and rural development. Keywords: Ethical collective action, dairy farm workforce, rural development, social capital, social inclusion, capacity building. Introduction We define rural development for the purpose of this paper in action‐oriented terms to encompass the activities and policies that empower rural communities and groups to act to improve their situation. Facilitating change as part of rural development is increasingly about aligning the action of diverse groups of interests, knowledge‐types and practices involved in the particular domain of rural development interest. Participatory development and social learning approaches have advanced frameworks for collective action particularly in the context of environmental decision making and sustainable agriculture (eg Blackmore, 2006; Woodhill and Roling,1998; SLIM, 2004; Wenger, 1998; Leeuwis and Pyburn, 2002). These frameworks highlight critical processes like: a) agreement or convergence of interests (Ison and Watson, 2007), b) explicitly revealing, acknowledging and working with different worldviews (after Checkland and Davies, 1986), c) the formation of communities of practice and reflexive learning (Paine and Kenny, 2002) and d) concerted action in the area of interest that involves reflection by stakeholders to co‐create knowledge in an interplay of practices (Paine, 1999). Yet, according to Hubert (2006), how to involve diverse stakeholders to engage in the co‐definition of collaborative action for improving situations remains a primary concern for multi‐ functional agriculture. In translating this challenge to that of rural development, we identify three areas receiving limited attention in social learning research for rural development: a) analysis of the conditions for