In this article the author offers, on the one hand, a general view of the forms of collective action that have taken place in Spanish agriculture during the democratic transition and that have facilitated the development of the farmers' unions and workers' unions. On the other hand, he analyses the problems that these organizations have had in trying to consolidate themselves in a context characterized by the presence of institutional remains of the old Franco-ist agrarian corporatism. Finally he analyses (...) the role played by these organizations in the creation and implementation of Spanish agricultural policy as well as the changes that are taking place after the admission of Spain to the EEC. (shrink)

Much of the developing world, including Kenya, is rapidly urbanizing. Rising food and fuel prices in recent years have put the food security of the urban poor in a precarious position. In cities worldwide, urban agriculture helps some poor people gain access to food, but urban agriculture is less common in densely populated slums that lack space. In the Kibera slums of Nairobi, Kenya, households have recently begun a new form of urban agriculture called sack gardening in (...) which vegetables such as kale and Swiss chard are planted into large sacks filled with topsoil. This paper examines relationships among sack gardening, social capital, and food security in Kibera. We used a mixed methods approach, combining qualitative interviews with a household survey, as well as focus group discussions with both farmers and non-farmers. We present evidence that sack gardening increases social capital, especially for those households that undertake sack gardening in groups. We also find that sack gardening in the Kibera slums has a positive impact on household food security by improving household dietary diversity and by reducing the need to resort to painful coping mechanisms that are used during food shortages. (shrink)

The interest in and enthusiasm for urban agriculture (UA) in urban communities, the non-profit sector, and governmental institutions has grown exponentially over the past decade. Part of the appeal of UA is its potential to improve the civic health of a community, advancing what some call food democracy. Yet despite the increasing presence of the language of civic agriculture or food democracy, UA organizations and practitioners often still focus on practical, shorter-term projects in an effort both to increase (...) local involvement and to attract funding from groups focused on quantifiable deliverables. As such, it seems difficult to move beyond the rhetoric of food democracy towards significant forms of popular participation and deliberation within particular communities. In this paper we provide a theoretical framework—deep democracy—that helps to contextualize nascent attempts at civic agriculture or food democracy within a broader struggle for democratic practices and relationships. We argue that urban agriculture efforts are well positioned to help citizens cultivate lasting relationships across lines of difference and amidst significant power differentials—relationships that could form the basis of a community’s collective capacity to shape its future. We analyze the theory of deep democracy through recent experiences with UA in Denver, Colorado, and we identify ways in which UA can extend its reach and impact by focusing more consciously on its political or civic potential. (shrink)

According to portfolio managers, agriculture in general, and farmland in particular, can be considered an emerging asset class. Specialized financial vehicles, such as private equity and mutual funds, are emerging and competing to attract potential investment in this asset class. In recent years, there has been significant development of such vehicles targeting South Africa’s farming sector. These innovations are led by a group of market intermediaries who endeavour to “re-shape” South African farmland as an opportunity for institutional investors. (...) These “pioneers” engage in a multifaceted mediation process between global financial investors on one hand, and the South African agricultural sector on the other. Drawing upon an empirical study of such intermediaries in South Africa, this paper analyses the concrete mechanisms that facilitate this particular form of commodification. The paper presents and compares the intermediaries, giving particular attention to their structure, governance mechanisms and asset allocations within this “market in the making”. It describes how intermediaries develop different paths of asset valorization to unlock the “financial value” of South African farmlands. But, it also highlights some of the difficulties faced in the process of translating between international investors and local managers, questioning the “land-asset fiction” that is materializing through the subordination of farmland to the needs of financial society. (shrink)

This book includes a selection of contributions to the Iowa State University Symposium on agricultural bioethics in november 1987. The papers are grouped in the sections "Safety and regulatory issues", "Impact on scientific and industrial communities", "Public perceptions", "Economic prospects", "Social considerations" and "Ethical dilemmas".

This book . . . is an invitation to all Christians to begin constructing a food ethics; to the academic Christian ethicist, it presents an opportunity to join a discussion on a topic relevant in so many ways to the life of every American; to the Christian for whom the spark of the divine is detectable in the everyday life, it is a chance to begin making ethical sense out of something done every day for the entirety of one's natural (...) life-participating in agriculture. -from the Introduction In Sustainable Agriculture, Mark Graham joins the vibrant, substantive discussion about the moral issues in American agriculture by revealing what is going on in current agricultural practices and analyzing them in light of morality and sustainability. Graham's constructive proposal for change is based on a moral vision that identifies a group of core values around which our agricultural system should be developed, including: a) a consistent, safe food supply; b) vital, sustainable communities; and c) personal and environmental health. (shrink)

The relationship betweendiscourse and ideology can be described as thatof process and effect [Purvis and Hunt (1993)British Journal of Sociology 44: 473–499].Discourse, used within relations of domination,can result in the formation of ideology. Tostudy this relationship systematically requiresa methodology that contextualizes discoursewithin social relations and examines when suchdiscourse becomes an ideology. I use Thompson'stheory/methodology of ``depth hermeneutics'' tostudy documents produced by agriculturalinterest groups concerning the 1996 FederalAgriculture Improvement and Reform (FAIR) Actand I assess the ideological status of thediscourses contained in (...) these documents. Thefindings suggest that the organizationsrepresenting the small-to-medium-sized farmerstended to use more agrarian themes, fewermarket themes, and fewer linguistic strategiesindicative of ideology. The organizationsrepresenting more concentrated,vertically-integrated interests andagribusinesses use fewer agrarian themes, moremarket themes, and more linguistic strategies.Therefore, market themes, not agrarian themes,form an ideology in this context. (shrink)

Introduction: Agricultural workers perform intense labor outside in direct sunlight and in humid environmental conditions exposing them to a high risk of heat-related illness (HRI). To implement effective cooling interventions in occupational settings, it is important to consider workers’ perceptions. To date, an analysis of agricultural workers’ experience and perception of cooling devices used in the field while working has not been published. -/- Methods: Qualitatively data from 61 agricultural workers provided details of their perceptions and experiences with cooling interventions. (...) -/- Results: The participants in the bandana group reported the bandana was practical to use at work and did not interfere with their work routine. Cooling vest group participants agreed that the vest was effective at cooling them, but the practicality of using the vest at work was met with mixed reviews. -/- Conclusion: The findings of this qualitative study support and extend existing research regarding personal cooling and heat prevention research interventions with vulnerable occupational groups. Personal cooling gear was well received and utilized by the agricultural workers. Sustainable heat prevention studies and governmental protection strategies for occupational heat stress are urgently needed to reduce the risk of heat-related morbidity, mortality, and projected climate change health impacts on outdoor workers. (shrink)

Commentary on J. Gowdy & L. Krall "The economic origins of ultrasociality": We question the sequence of evolutionary transitions leading to ultrasociality in humans proposed by Gowdy & Krall. Evidence indicates that families are, and likely always have been, the primary productive units in human agricultural economies, suggesting that genetic relatedness is key to understanding when the suppression of individual autonomy to the benefit of subsistence groups, i.e. extended families, evolved.

Smallholder farmers in Rattanakmondol District, Battambang Province, Cambodia face challenges related to soil erosion, declining yields, climate change, and unsustainable tillage-based farming practices in their efforts to increase food production within maize-based systems. In 2010, research for development programs began introducing agricultural production systems based on conservation agriculture to smallholder farmers located in four communities within Rattanakmondol District as a pathway for addressing these issues. Understanding gendered practices and perspectives is integral to adapting CA technologies to the needs of (...) local communities. This research identifies how gender differences regarding farmers’ access to assets, practices, and engagement in intra-household negotiations could constrain or facilitate the dissemination of CA. Our mixed-methods approach includes focus group discussions, semi-structured interviews, famer field visits, and a household survey. Gender differences in access to key productive assets may affect men’s and women’s individual ability to adapt CA. Farmers perceive the practices and technologies of CA as labor-saving, with the potential to reduce men’s and women’s labor burden in land-preparation activities. However, when considered in relation to the full array of productive and reproductive livelihood activities, CA can disproportionately affect men’s and women’s labor. Decisions about agricultural livelihoods were not always made jointly, with socio-cultural norms and responsibilities structuring an individual’s ability to participate in intra-household negotiations. While gender differences in power relations affect intra-household decision-making, men and women household members collectively negotiate the transition to CA-based production systems. (shrink)

Greece's agricultural economy has undergone a gradual process of adjustment since World War II. While farm numbers have been reduced and average farm size has increased, the relative size of the farm population is still large by European standards. The slow rate of consolidation and adjustment in the agricultural sector of Greece is influenced by the following three factors: (1) lack of developed markets for long term capital; (2) multiple job holding among Greek farmers; and (3) protective agricultural policies.Greece's accession (...) into the European Economic Community in 1981 has shifted her trade patterns towards her European partners. In terms of agricultural trade, Greece exported considerably more agricultural goods to EEC members in 1987 than was imported from EEC countries. Greece's agricultural trade balance with all nations of the world is roughly one to one, i.e., agricultural imports equal agricultural exports in value. Since entry into the EEC, Greece has improved her degree of competitiveness or self-sufficiency in vegetables, citrus, and wine, but has reduced her self-sufficiency or competitiveness in meat and livestock products.Improved competitiveness of Greece's agricultural sector in the 1990s will require adoption of known production technologies, reduction in government bureaucracy, development of new technologies for improving product quality and minimizing plant diseases, reduction in production and marketing costs, and more effective domestic and export group marketing strategies. (shrink)

Coastal wetlands are among the most productive and valuable ecosystems worldwide, although one of the main factors affecting their survival is the coexistence between agriculture and conservation. This paper analyses the complex balance between agriculture and conservation coexistence in El Hondo Natural Park coastal wetland by examining stakeholders’ narratives, perceptions, and interactions. The aim is to highlight the concurrence between socio-economic progress and socio-environmental justice perspectives by identifying those driving factors motivating stakeholders’ conflicts while expanding stakeholders’ behaviour and (...) interaction when discussing the current and future management of this socio-ecological system. Data were collected between April and June 2019 from semi-structured interviews and questionnaires to river basin authorities, regional governments, municipalities, irrigation communities, union farms, regional and local ecologist groups, and social movements; and scrutinized through qualitative data analysis and descriptive statistics. Stakeholders discussed the main driving factors identified through the local newspapers to motivating current conflicts and confronting perspectives in El Hondo Natural Park: the origin and evolution of the coastal wetland, the provision and value of ecosystem services, the management of water scarcity and water quality standards, the guarantee and management of public and private investment, and consequences of a natural park declaration. Likewise, the triple-loop analysis of stakeholders’ representativeness, relevance and collaboration highlighted examples of stakeholders’ underrepresentation and power imbalance, a negative assessment of the stakeholders’ actions, and how agreements are based on both stakeholders’ predisposition to collaborate and affinity. (shrink)

Gender mainstreaming has been prioritised within the national agricultural policies of many countries, including Nepal. Yet gender mainstreaming at the national policy level does not always work to effect change when policies are implemented at the local scale. In less-developed nations such as Nepal, it is rare to find a critical analysis of the mainstreaming process and its successes or failures. This paper employs a critical gender analysis approach to examine the gender mainstreaming efforts in Nepal as they move from (...) agricultural policies to practices. The research involved a structured review of 10 key national agricultural policy documents, 14 key informant interviews, and two focus group discussions with female and male smallholder farmers. Results suggest that gender mainstreaming in national agricultural policy and practice has largely failed. The creation of the Gender Equity and Social Inclusion (GESI) section within the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development is paradoxical to gender-responsive agricultural innovation because it has received limited human and financial resources with an expectation for women to manage this policy development in informal and largely unrecognized ways. At the regional and local levels, implementation of fundamental gender equity and social inclusion procedures—such as gender-responsive planning and budgeting—has become staff responsibility without requisite formal training, gender sensitization, and follow-up. In Nepal, women as smallholder farmers or agricultural labourers are recognized as a vulnerable group in need of social protection, but the welfare approach to gender mainstreaming has achieved little in terms of gender equity, social inclusion, and agricultural sustainability. This paper concludes that what is generally missing is a systemic transformation of gender roles and relations in agriculture, with policies that would support rural women's empowerment through the provision of economic and political rights and entitlement to productive resources. (shrink)

Humans, animals, and the environment face a universal crisis: antimicrobial resistance. Addressing AR and its multi-disciplinary causes across many sectors including in human and veterinary medicine remains underdeveloped. One barrier to AR efforts is an inconsistent process to incorporate the plenitude of stakeholders about what AR is and how to stifle its development and spread—especially stakeholders from the animal agriculture sector, one of the largest purchasers of antimicrobial drugs. In 2019, The Wellcome Trust released Reframing Resistance: How to communicate (...) about antimicrobial resistance effectively, which proposed the need to establish a consistent and harmonized messaging effort that describes the AR crisis and its global implications for health and wellbeing across all stakeholders. Yet, Reframing Resistance does not specifically engage the animal agriculture community. This study investigates the gap between two principles recommended by Reframing Resistance and animal agriculture stakeholders. For this analysis, the research group conducted 31 semi-structured interviews with a diverse group of United States animal agriculture stakeholders. Participants reported attitudes, beliefs, and practices about a variety of issues, including how they defined AR and what entities the AR crisis impacts most. Exploration of Reframing Resistance’s Principle 2, “explain the fundamentals succinctly” and Principle 3, “emphasis that this is universal issue; it can affect anyone, including you” reveals disagreement in both the fundamentals of AR and consensus of “who” the AR crisis impacts. Principle 2 may do better to acknowledge that animal agriculture stakeholders espouse a complex array of perspectives that cannot be summed up in a single perspective or principle. As a primary tool to combat AR, behavior change must be accomplished first through outreach to stakeholder groups and understanding their perspectives. (shrink)

Indigenous agricultural knowledge (IAK) can be analyzed for its technical role in food production strategies, and for its role as cultural knowledge producing and reproducing mutual understanding and identity among the members of a farming group. IAK can also be approached from the perspective of critical theory, analyzing the relationship between knowledge and relations of power, with the goal of liberating indigenous farmers from forms of domination. The paper considers relationships between the different aspects of IAK, using examples of (...) the influence of non-local technologies and ideas on indigenous agricultural practices in the Ecuadorian Andes. The examples elucidate how technical change is a signifier of the changing relationship between indigenous farmers and wider society. The political implications of these changes are ambiguous, however, because the change is not necessarily one of social and cultural assimilation. As indigenous peasant organizations in Ecuador now reflect on these changes, they are connecting the questions of IAK, indigenous cultural identity and political strategy. Some organizations speak of recovering and revalorizing indigenous technologies as a tool for, and symbol of, resistance to domination by wider society. Others see selective modernization of indigenous agriculture as a necessary strategy to sustain the social and cultural cohesion of the group, even if this implies social changes. The different perspectives reflect both different conditions facing the organizations, and their varying approaches. That peasant organizations have these discussions suggests that they should constitute an important meeting point for farmers and crop researchers to discuss technology development strategies as equal partners. The organizations can provide an institutional forum in which participants reflect critically on the agrarian knowledge that they have, why they have it, and what it can contribute to future strategies of agrarian and social change. (shrink)

The American states have demonstrated varying levels of support for animal rights legislation. The activities of interest groups, including pressures from competing groups, help to explain the presence or absence of ten pro-animal regulations and laws. This article analyzes and ranks each of the fifty states with regard to ten key areas of animal protection and welfare legislation. The analysis reveals that states with a more agricultural economic base are less likely to provide protection to animals. In addition, states with (...) a more traditional political culture are less likely to have pro-animal legislation in place. (shrink)

There are over 2,500 Landcare groups with 65,000 members operating across Australia. With considerable evidence of program impact, Landcare is an important example of state sponsored community participation in natural resource management. However, the authors suggest excessive emphasis has been placed upon attitudinal change - the development of landholder stewardship, as the lever for effecting major changes in land management. Analysis of data from a landholder survey failed to establish predicted stewardship differences between Landcare and nonLandcare respondents or between those (...) who joined early/late, or participated more/less in group activities. And there was no relationship between stewardship and adoption for most of the sustainable agriculture practices surveyed. Further analysis clearly linked Landcare participation and concern about the environmental and economic impacts of land degradation. Whilst respondents were significantly more concerned about economic impacts, research findings were consistent with earlier work indicating that most land managers have a strong stewardship ethic. The authors also suggest that concerns that Landcare is not addressing biodiversity conservation are largely unjustified and reflect urealistic expectations of these voluntary groups. (shrink)

Sustainable agriculture refers to farming systems with economic, social, and environmental viability that must respond to citizens’ interests and concerns. However, European citizens are not satisfied with the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) due to misinterpretation of their preferences. Because of this, the European agricultural model’s long-term viability is being questioned, especially after the European Commission’s CAP proposals in 2011. This paper examines European agriculture’s potential sustainability with regard to citizens’ preferences. First, focus groups and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (...) are used to identify and quantify southern Spanish citizens’ preferences for farming. Second, socio-demographic features and opinions that determine preferences towards agriculture are studied by a multinomial logit model and a cluster analysis. A comparison is made between citizens’ preferences and the CAP aims because the CAP aims address all European farming. The main results indicate that agricultural economic, environmental, and social functions are equally important to the respondents in our study, even though the CAP prioritizes the economic ones. However, some citizen groups agree with the agricultural model designed by the CAP. (shrink)

Citizens are called upon to become active participants in creating a more sustainable food system. As food citizens, people participate in defining and constructing their food systems according to their needs and values. In food policies, the concept of food citizenship is often left undefined or with reference only to individual activities. In the food citizenship literature, the role of nonhuman agency in constituting food citizenship needs more examination. Here we investigate food citizenship activities in a citizen-led community-supported agriculture (...) group and explore the role of materiality in constituting food citizenship. We ask (1) what is the role of material-discursive arrangements in community-supported agriculture activities, and (2) how does materiality constitute food citizenship? We analyze semi-structured interviews, as well as observation and visual material, using qualitative content analysis. Our findings indicate that materialities, such as the field, time, and body, play a central role in community-supported agriculture activities. With materialities, food citizenship is understood as collective and active doing, aiming to change the food system. Instead of endorsing food citizenship as a human trait or status, we claim that it is more productive to regard it as a phenomenon, produced in intra-action with(in) material-discursive arrangements. Acknowledging nonhuman agency emphasizes the political, collective, and responsible nature of citizenship as well as the power relations behind the constitution of citizenship. We conclude that in food policies more attention should be paid to collective ways of civic participation and to the materiality of becoming a food citizen. (shrink)

Emerging bovine somatotropin (or “bovine growth hormone” [bGH]) technology has become highly controversial even though the technology is one to two years from commercial introduction. The bGH controversy is discussed and placed in the context of the evolution of the American public agricultural research system and farm structural change over the past 15 years. It is argued that while many observers tend to overestimate the degree to which bGH will be representative of other biotechnologies applied to agriculture, the bGH (...) case may well reflect a more general pattern of the changing clientele relations of the land-grant system and of the changing character of technology developed within the public agricultural research system. In particular, these new clientele and technical relations may portend a new era in which farmers begin to scrutinize the land-grant research portfolio, which might in turn lead to diminished political support by state-level farmers' groups for agricultural research appropriations. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to investigate how alternative land ethics of agricultural stakeholders may help explain recent land use changes. The paper first explores the historical development of the land ethic concept in the United States and how those ethics have impacted land use policy and use of private lands. Secondly, primary data gathered from semi-structured interviews of farmers, ranchers, and influential stakeholders are then analyzed using stakeholder analysis methods to identify major factors considered in land use decisions, (...) priorities of factors of each group, and to define relevant mental models describing each group’s view of the land ethic concept. Results show that these stakeholder groups prioritize land use factors qualitatively differently and possess strikingly different land ethics. It is concluded that shifts in stakeholder land ethics have contributed to recent land use changes. Lastly, we discuss how current agricultural policy sends mixed signals about preferred land use and the potential ramifications based on the different land ethics we’ve described. (shrink)

The process of agricultural unification will dominate the German scene for the next few years. At this stage, however, analysis and forecasts are hampered by the considerable problem concerning the viability of East German agriculture in a market economy and by the absence of reliable data in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). This can only be understood in terms of the agricultural situation in the GDR before unification, which is discussed in the first section. The political and economic incentives (...) for German unification are described in the next section of this paper, focusing especially on the integration of the GDR into CAP. The third section considers some critical structural, legal, social, and economic constraints in the process of integrating the two agricultural systems. Finally, the implications for German agriculture as well as the challenges for the CAP will be addressed. Data were collected from interviews with key agricultural policy makers, farm organizations, commodity groups, consumer groups, and agricultural experts, as well as interviewing East German farmers. Additional data were compiled from government statistics, EC publications, and press reports. The conclusions reached in this research show the urgent need for the German government to reconsider the objectives and rationale for structural policies in agriculture, and point out that the new Germany, itself full of paradoxes and uncertainty, stands at the center of European agricultural disorder. (shrink)

This article describes the feasibility of researchinto the relation between values of farmers andsustainability for the Dutch Ministry of Agricultureand the Dutch Federation of Agricultural andHorticultural Organisations.Firstly, a theoretical framework describes differentlevels of motivation behind conduct and choices. Itenables exploration and analysis of individualinterviews with small groups of conventional andecological farmers. The aim is to find out what theirbasic convictions regarding nature and sustainabilityare, and to analyze the relation between theseconvictions and the actual choices they make in theirfarming practice. The (...) research shows that for somefarmers, differences in farming practice go back to themotivation level of moral convictions about what is`good farming'. For others, the motivations for aspecific farming practice are more pragmatic or`superficial'. This knowledge can be of significancefor the process of policy making. (shrink)

Rural queer studies, viewed through the lens of relational agriculture, offer critiques of heteropatriarchal norms in farming and highlight strategies used by queer farmers to manoeuvre discrimination and thrive in rural areas. This paper responds to recent calls for further scrutiny of the experiences of gender and sexually underrepresented groups in community-supported agriculture (CSA). It investigates the empowerment of rural queer people in CSA Guadiana, South Portugal, through the experiences of 12 queer members. I collected data through participant (...) observation, semi-structured interviews and a focus group and analysed them through open coding, followed by focused coding. Results indicate that CSA Guadiana, despite not originally designed for this purpose, facilitates various forms of empowerment and active engagement among queer members, particularly influenced by the leadership of queer producers and recurrent gatherings in queer-owned farmland. Three key lessons of queer empowerment in CSA Guadiana emerge from the analysis and contribute to debates on the politics of recognition, queer community action and visibility in the rural context: (i) self-confidence to perform queerness may be restricted to a selective rural community; (ii) partnerships between producers and co-producers may enable reciprocal queer empowerment; and (iii) queer leadership in agri-food community action may quietly represent gender and sexual diversity in the countryside. These findings offer the rural queer literature novel insights into the complexities, contradictions and limitations of empowerment experienced by queer farmers, artisanal food producers and consumers in a rural CSA. (shrink)

Gene editing in agriculture and food (GEAF) is a nascent development with few products and is unfamiliar among the wider US public. GEAF has garnered significant praise for its potential to solve for a variety of agronomic problems but has also evoked controversy regarding safety and ethical standards of development and application. Given the wake of other agribiotechnology debates including GMOs (genetically modified organisms), this study made use of 36 in-depth key interviews to build the first U.S. based typology (...) of proponent and critic priorities for shaping public trust in GEAF actors and objects. Key organizational actors provide early and foundational messaging, which is likely to contribute heavily to public salience, comprehension, and decision-making as potential consumers reflect upon their experiences, envision future outcomes, and consider the reputation of those trying to influence them. As is documented in our results, the trust-building priorities of these groups often stand in opposition to one another and are influenced by distinct motivations for how the public will come to trust or distrust GEAF actors and objects as more products are developed and enter the market. (shrink)

International agricultural development as practiced by U. S. sponsored research groups in developing countries has emphasized technical questions of production, ignoring more fundamental social and economic issues that underline rural poverty and hunger. Rethinking the role of U. S. development assistance will require transcending the view that the only way to impact agriculture in the Third World is by increasing the intensity of land use in high potential agricultural areas. The challenge is to find ways of how to further (...) increase agricultural productivity so that the rural poor significantly benefit, while at the same time conserving and regenerating the resource base. U. S. scientists must realize that this is only possible by improving the access of resource-poor farmers to land, water, other natural resources, as well as to equitable credit, markets, appropriate technologies, etc. Solidarious collaboration will emerge from the U. S. siding with progressive governments and/or community-based initiatives that promote political change aimed at securing farmers' control over resources and inputs, and changing the structural conditions and policies that perpetuate poverty. (shrink)

The feminization of agriculture narrative has been reproduced in development literature as an oversimplified metric of empowerment through changes in women’s labor and managerial roles with little attention to individuals’ heterogeneous livelihoods. Grounded in feminist political ecology, we sought to critically understand how labor and managerial feminization interact with changing agricultural practices. Working with a local NGO as part of an international, donor-funded research-for-development project, we conducted semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and participant observation with over 100 farmers (...) in Mid-Western Nepal in 2017. Household structure and headship are dynamic in the context of male out-migration, pushing women to take on new agricultural duties and increasing household labor responsibilities. In this context, decision-making processes related to agricultural management and new cultivation practices illustrate ongoing renegotiations of gender and cultivation practices within and beyond the household. We contend that the heterogeneity of household power dynamics muddies the empowering impacts of migration and emphasize the importance of community spaces as a locus of subjectivity formation and social value. We conclude that FPE can illuminate complexities of power, space, and individual responses to socio-ecological conditions that challenge the current feminization of agriculture framework. (shrink)

In 1973, Jim Hightower and his associates at the Agribusiness Accountability Project dropped a bombshell – Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times – on the land-grant college and agricultural science establishments. From the early 1970s until roughly 1990, Hightower-style criticism of and activism toward the public agricultural research system focused on a set of closely interrelated themes: the tendencies for the publicly supported research enterprise to be an unwarranted taxpayer subsidy of agribusiness, for agricultural research and extension to favor large farmers and (...) be disadvantageous for family farmers, for public research to stress mechanization while ignoring the concerns and interests of farm workers, and for the research and extension establishment to ignore rural poverty and other rural social problems. By 1990, however, there had been a quite fundamental restructuring of the agricultural technology opposition movement – one that is not often well recognized. Two overarching changes had occurred. First, agricultural-technology activism had shifted from contesting land-grant/public research priorities and practices to contesting private agribusiness technological priorities and practices. Second, the relatively integrated, overarching Hightower-type opposition had undergone bifurcation into two quite distinct social movements: the agricultural sustainability/local food systems movement on one hand, and the anti-GM food/crop and anti-food-system-globalization movement on the other. In this paper I explore the causes and consequences of these restructurings of the agricultural research and technology opposition movement. Chief among the major factors involved was the fact that “Hightowerism'' involved an ineffectual representational politics. Hightowerist claims – especially the claim that land-grant research was detrimental to family farmers – generated little support among the groups it claimed to represent (particularly “small'' or “family'' farmers). The two successor movements, by contrast, have relatively clear and dependable constituents. Further, the progressive molecularization of agricultural research, which proved to be both an antecedent and consequence of corporate involvement in agricultural research in the US, has decisively changed the issues that are contested by technology activists. Since the age of Hightower, the agricultural technology activist movement has shifted its 1970s and early 1980s emphasis from contesting public sector/land-grant research priorities to contesting private sector activities, particularly genetic engineering, GM crops, and globalization of agricultural technologies and regulatory practices. Even the sustainability/localism wing of the new agricultural technology movement configuration has progressively backed away from contesting public research priorities. The efforts of the sustainable agricultural and localism movement have increasingly focused on quasi-private efforts such as community supported agriculture, green/“value-added'' labeling and marketing strategies, and community food security. Some implications of this increasingly bifurcated, agricultural technology, activist movement configuration in which there is decreased interest in land-grant/public research priorities are discussed. (shrink)

Amongst the environmental and social externalities generated by Australian agriculture are a number of risks both to the health and safety of communities living near sites of agricultural production, and to the end consumers of agricultural products. Responses to these potential risks – and to problems of environmental sustainability more generally – have included a number of programs to variously: define “best-practice” for particular industries; implement “Quality Assurance” procedures; and encourage the formation of self-help community “Landcare” groups. Taken together, (...) these programs appear to deal comprehensively with both the social and environmental risks associated with agricultural production and products. However, these programs may also be interpreted as strategies that actually encourage the further intensification of agriculture, while attempting to reassure consumers that their food is safe and that farmers are doing “all they can” to protect the environment. Investigation of the Australian cotton and beef industries illustrates a number of strategies that have become evident between farmers, agri-science agencies, and the retail sector to manage these risks and define good farming practices in ways that satisfy their own perceived interests. Contrary to the image, therefore, of “green consumption” that is emerging as an integrated concern for “clean” (and thereby “healthy”) and sustainably produced foods, it appears that mainstream agricultural industries have bifurcated these concerns in ways that distract attention from production and processing methods, leaving conflict over on-farm production methods a characteristic only of those industries believed to have direct health impacts on nearby communities. (shrink)

Drawing from a four-year study of US science institutions that support biological control of arthropods, this article examines the decline in biological control institutional capacity in California within the context of both declining public interest science and declining agricultural research activism. After explaining how debates over the public interest character of biological control science have shaped institutions in California, we use scientometric methods to assess the present status and trends in biological control programs within both the University of California Land (...) Grant System and the California Department of Food and Agriculture. We present available data on the number of scientific positions and the types of positions to discuss the impact on the amount of public interest research on biological control in California. We use sociograms to depict how biological control science networks have been reconfigured over time. Our quantitative and qualitative analyses indicate that the following factors contributed to the decline of biological control science in California over the 45-year period analyzed: (1) the institutional reconfiguration of university research priorities; (2) the fraying networks within and increasing specialization of biological control science; (3) the transformation of the social organization of the life science work, including privatization; and (4) the abandonment of this thematic area by civil society activist groups. This broad array of forces suggests that biological control, as a public interest science, will require a deliberate intervention, based on advocacy of clear public interest criteria. (shrink)

Almost one-third of all U.S. Americans believe that Jesus Christ will return to Earth in the next 40 years, thereby signaling the end of the world. The prevalence of this end-times theology has meant that sustainability initiatives are often met with indifference, resistance, or even hostility from a significant portion of the American population. One of the ways that the scientific community can respond to this is by making scientific discourse, particularly as related to sustainability, more palatable to end-times believers. (...) In this paper, I apply a historical–ecological framework, which emphasizes the interdisciplinary study of landscapes to understand long-term human–environment interactions, to three millennial religious groups that formed communes in nineteenth century America. The Shakers, Inspirationalists, and Mormons all blended deep beliefs in end-times theology with agricultural practices that were arguably more sustainable than those in use in the mainstream, and their ability to reconcile eschatology with sustainability provides us with potential lessons. By examining the history, doctrines, and agroecology of these nineteenth century communes, I propose communication strategies based in autonomy, institutional support, multigenerational narratives, and anthropocentricism as potential pathways for a more productive dialogue between advocates of sustainability initiatives and end-times believers in the modern United States. (shrink)

At its beginning, the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) did not include measures to guide farmers in preserving ecosystems. At the same time, the social context on the 1960s and 1970s did not encourage environmental care to become a priority. Since the 1980s, new social concern expressed alarm over ecology, recognizing that agriculture can pollute. These social changes moved the CAP to add measures that linked agriculture and environment. In order to study if the EU decision-makers have (...) designed a CAP which responds to a new ethic that incorporates environmental care and social demands, two questions rise: whether the social image of agriculture as a polluting activity has changed; and whether farming performs the environmental functions demanded by society. To answer the previous questions, we have reviewed the environmental aspects added to the CAP, then a poll has been conducted and cluster method and classification tree models have been used to group respondents according to their opinions. The results show that the society ascribes great relevance to the environment for the future sustainability of the region, but they are not satisfied with the role of agriculture in producing environmental outputs. (shrink)

Due to natural phenomena like global warming and climate change, agricultural production is increasingly faced with threats that transcend farm boundaries. Management practices at the landscape or community level are often required to adequately respond to these new challenges (e.g., pest migration). Such decision-making at a community or beyond-farm level—i.e., practices that are jointly developed by farmers within a community—can be aided by computing and communications technology. In this study, we employ a translational research process to examine the social and (...) behavioral drivers of adoption of smart and connected farm networks among commodity crop farmers in the United States. We implement focus groups and questionnaires to bring to the fore views on the use of digital technologies in collaborative contexts. We find that participating farmers are concerned with several issues about the potential features of the network (e.g., the ability to ensure data validity while maintaining data privacy) and the nature of their interactions with the various stakeholders involved in the network management. The participatory approach we adopt helps provide insights into the process of developing technologies that are both actionable and trusted by potential end users. (shrink)

Despite the application of 2.5 million tons ofpesticides worldwide, more than 40% of all potentialfood production is lost to insect, weed, and plantpathogen pests prior to harvest. After harvest, anadditional 20% of food is lost to another group ofpests. The use of pesticides for pest control resultsin an estimated 26 million human poisonings, with220,000 fatalities, annually worldwide. In the UnitedStates, the environmental and public health costs forthe recommended use of pesticides total approximately$9 billion/yr. Thus, there is a need for (...) alternativenon-chemical pest controls, and genetic engineering(biotechnology) might help with this need. Diseaseand insect pest resistance to various pests has beenslowly bred into crops for the past 12,000 years;current techniques in biotechnology now offeropportunities to further and more rapidly improve thenon-chemical control of disease and insect pests ofcrops. However, relying on a single factor, like theBacillus thuringiensis toxin that has beeninserted into corn and a few other crops for insectcontrol, leads to various environmental problems,including insect resistance and, in some cases, athreat to beneficial biological control insects andendangered insect species. A major environmental andeconomic cost associated with genetic engineeringapplications in agriculture relates to the use ofherbicide resistant crops (HRC). In general, HRCtechnology results in increased herbicide use but noincrease in crop yields. The heavy use of herbicidesin HRC technology pollutes the environment and canlead to weed control costs for farmers that may be2-fold greater than standard weed control costs. Therefore, pest control with both pesticides andbiotechnology can be improved for effective, safe,economical pest control. (shrink)

Social networks can influence people’s behaviour and therefore it is assumed that central individuals in social networks, also called “opinion leaders”, play a key role in driving change in agricultural and food systems. I analyse the outcomes of an intervention (that encouraged Sulawesi smallholder farmers to take a specific action toward improving the health of their cocoa trees) to assess the impact of engaging opinion leaders in agricultural programs that aim to change farmers’ practices. The intervention has been implemented through (...) (a) 18 opinion leaders identified by interviews and a social network survey of 1885 cocoa farmers; and (b) 18 randomly selected farmers who were not central in local social networks. The obtained social networks and statistical data were quantitatively analysed and the results were interpreted with input from the field staff. Contrary to expectations, the highly socially central opinion leaders were not more effective in promoting the initiative in their communities. On average, randomly selected low-centrality farmers convinced almost twice as many of their peers to take the recommended action as compared to the identified opinion leaders (17.1 versus 8.6) but the variation within the random group was also significantly higher. Importantly, while the identified opinion leaders were mostly senior men, women performed better in influencing others into taking action even when their centrality in local social networks of agricultural advice was lower. I discuss the implications of the conventional selection of perceived opinion leaders as model farmers for achieving sustainable and equitable change at scale in agriculture and propose practical alternatives. (shrink)

The promotion of conservation agriculture for smallholders in sub-Saharan Africa is subject to ongoing scholarly and public debate regarding the evidence-base and the agenda-setting power of involved stakeholders. We undertake a political analysis of CA in Zambia that combines a qualitative case study of a flagship CA initiative with a quantitative analysis of a nationally representative dataset on agricultural practices. This analysis moves from an investigation of the knowledge politics to a study of how the political agendas of the (...) actors involved are shaping agrarian practices. From its initial focus on CA as soil conservation and sustainable agriculture, the framing of the initiative has evolved to accommodate shifting trends in the policy arena. In tandem with the increased focus on climate adaptation, we see an increased emphasis on private sector-led modernisation. The initiative has shifted its target group from the poorest smallholders to prospective commercial farmers, and has forged connections between its farmer-to-farmer extension network and private input suppliers and service providers. The link between CA and input intensification is reflected in national statistics as a significantly higher usage of herbicides, pesticides and mineral fertilizer on fields under CA tillage compared to other fields. We argue that the environmental and participation agendas are used to buttress CA as an environmentally and socially sustainable agricultural development strategy, while the prevailing practice is the result of a common vision for a private sector-led agricultural development shared between the implementing organisation, the donor and international organisations promoting a new green revolution in Africa. (shrink)

A number of multi-stakeholder initiatives and commodity roundtables have been created since the 1990s to respond to the growing criticism of agriculture’s environmental and social impacts. Driven by private and global-scale actors, these initiatives are setting global standards for sustainable agricultural practices. They claim to follow the new standard-making virtues of inclusiveness and consensus and base their legitimacy on their claim of balanced representation of, and participation by, all categories of stakeholders. This principle of representing a wide range of (...) interests with a balance of power is at the heart of a new type of action that forms part of a broader political liberal model for building coalitions of interest groups. The intention of this symposium is to assess the nature of processes and outcomes of this model while paying particular attention to the forms of inclusion and exclusion they generate. In this introduction, we highlight the differences in theoretical approaches to analyzing MSIs and the manifestation of power through them. We distinguish between more traditional political–economy approaches and approaches concerned with ideational and normative power, such as convention theory. We discuss some of the main paradoxes of MSIs related to their willingness to be “inclusive” and at the same time their exclusionary or “closure” effects due in part to interactions with existing political economic contexts and embedded power inequalities, as well as more subtle manifestations of power linked to the favoring of some forms of knowledge and engagement over others. (shrink)

The use of genetic engineering inagriculture has been the source of much debate. Todate, arguments have focused most strongly on thepotential human health risks, the flow of geneticmaterial to related species, and ecologicalconsequences. Little attention appears to have beengiven to a more fundamental concern, namely, who willbe the beneficiaries of this technology?Given the prevalence of chronic hunger and thestark economics of farming, it is arguable thatfarmers and the hungry should be the mainbeneficiaries of agricultural research. However, theapplication of genetic engineering (...) appears unlikely tobenefit either of these two groups. This technology islargely controlled by the private sector, and itscontinued development hinges on its profitability.Thus, the only likely beneficiaries of the applicationof genetic engineering in agriculture are companieswith the capacity to use it. (shrink)

The current research examines the emergent literature of Critical Data Studies, and particularly aligns with Michael and Lupton’s (2016) manifesto calling for researchers to study the Public Understanding of Big Data. The aim of this paper is to explore Irish stakeholders’ narratives on data sharing in agriculture, and the ways in which their attitudes towards different data sharing governance models reflect their understandings of data, the impact that data hold in their lives and in the farming sector, as well (...) as their preferences for how data should be governed within agriculture. Seven focus groups were held in 2019 with Irish stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds, including agri-researchers, those working in SMEs, and farmers of varying ages and sectors. The primary activities carried out during these focus groups centred upon asking participants to discuss four different data sharing governance models, and to work their way through a set of value cards relating to these models. Focus group results are studied using an inductive, data-driven form of thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006). Five primary themes cross-cut these focus groups: 1) Desire for a data intermediary, 2) Reversing the value chain, 3) Categorisation of data, 4) The common good, and 5) Potential danger in data sharing. These themes are explored in the paper through a detailed discussion of the focus group results, in which the authors track the manifestation of these themes across focus groups, and the ways they sometimes morphed or changed depending upon the participating stakeholder group. (shrink)

Higher education, a key driver of women’s empowerment, is still segregated by gender across the world. Agricultural higher education is a field that is male-dominated, even though internationally women play a large role in agricultural production. The purpose of this study was to understand the experience, including challenges and coping strategies, of women from 10 Latin American countries attending an agricultural university in Latin America. The participants were 28 women students with a mean age of 20.9 ± 1.8 years. Following (...) informed consent and assurance of confidentiality, four focus group sessions (one for each year of study with a mean duration of 81 min) were conducted in Spanish. The central question was, “what has been your experience at the university?” Sessions were recorded and transcribed. Thematic coding was performed independently by two teams of researchers (from Latin America and North America), with the resulting schemas combined through mutual discussion. Member checking, auditing, and reflexivity contributed to trustworthiness of the process. Students reported that the personal qualities needed for success included determination, persistence, and self-efficacy. Many described an empowerment process, including increased discipline and self-efficacy from the first to fourth year of study. University life encompassed six themes: university structure and discipline (part of the exosystem), two supportive microsystems (friends and classmates and institutional support) as well as three challenges (academics, peers, and machismo). Cultural influences instantiated in students’ daily experiences included familism, machismo, and religious faith. Students anticipated futures involving further education and contributions to society. We conclude that higher education in agriculture can serve as an effective means of empowering women to feed the world. (shrink)

The One Health approach to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) requires stakeholders to contribute to cross-sectoral efforts to improve antimicrobial stewardship (AMS). One Health AMR policy implementation is challenging in livestock farming because of the infrastructural role of antibiotics in production systems. Mitigating AMR may require the development of more stringent stewardship obligations and the future limitation of established entitlements. Drawing on Amatai Etzioni’s compliance theory, regulatory analyses and qualitative studies with stakeholder groups we examine the structural and socio-cultural dimension of antibiotic (...) use and AMS compliance in Australian beef and dairy production. We found a disconnect between how antibiotic use is conceptualised by farmers and the way in which AMS policies construe agricultural AMR risks. Under the umbrella of food safety standards and national-level prescribing restrictions, farmers and veterinarians interact around antibiotic use with different operating logics and compliance mechanisms. These parallel regimes service distinct and sometimes competing common goods of food security and antibiotic preservation. Further reforms to mitigate AMR need to account for the value orientations of different groups and the embeddedness of the constraints imposed by existing systems. Advocacy for greater AMR precaution in agriculture should acknowledge and compensate for erosions in competing common goods and the cost of proposed interventions. (shrink)

While questions about the environmental sustainability of contemporary farming practices and the socioeconomic viability of rural communities are attracting increasing attention throughout the US, these two issues are rarely considered together. This paper explores the current and potential connections between these two aspects of sustainability, using data on community members’ and farmers’ views of agricultural issues in California’s Central Valley. These views were collected from a series of individual and group interviews with biologically oriented and conventional farmers as well (...) as community stakeholders. Local marketing, farmland preservation, and perceptions of sustainable agriculture comprised the primary topics of discussion. The mixed results indicate that, while many farmers and community members have a strong interest in these topics, sustainable community development and the use of sustainable farming practices are seldom explicitly linked. On the other hand, many separate efforts around the Valley to increase local marketing and agritourism, improve public education about agriculture, and organize grassroots farmland preservation initiatives were documented. We conclude that linking these efforts more explicitly to sustainable agriculture and promoting more engagement between ecologically oriented farmers and their communities could engender more economic and political support for these farmers, helping them and their communities to achieve greater sustainability in the long run. (shrink)

Purpose There is a contradictive debate on factors influencing mobile phone usage awareness among scholars. This study aims to examine factors influencing mobile phone usage awareness for accessing agricultural marketing information. Design/methodology/approach A descriptive cross-sectional research design was used with 400 smallholder grape farmers. The use of structured questionnaires, focus group discussions and key informant interviews helped to collect primary data. Data analysis was subjected to descriptive, ordinal logistic regression and thematic approaches. Findings This study found that farmers were (...) mostly aware of voice calls helping to access buyers and price information. Education, age and sex were the critical factors influencing mobile phone usage awareness among grape smallholder farmers. Originality/value This study contributes to scientific knowledge by providing an understanding of the perceived factors on mobile phone usage awareness within the grape subsector to inform policymakers. (shrink)

Agriculture plays a key role in national economies and individual livelihoods in many developing countries, and yet agriculture as a field of study and an occupation remain under-emphasized in many educational systems. In addition, working in agriculture is often perceived as being less desirable than other fields, and not a viable or compelling option for students who have received a post-secondary education. This article explores the historical and contemporary perceptions of agriculture as a field of study (...) and an occupation globally, and applies themes from the literature to analyze primary data from focus groups with international students studying for university degrees in the United States. The article analyzes students’ perceptions and experiences in four countries—Bangladesh, Nepal, Honduras and Haiti—in order to make recommendations about how best to address challenges and develop capacity in agricultural education and employment in low-income countries. (shrink)

Agricultural and rural development programs can only succeed if they are based on effective participation and support of actors from the policymaking stage through all levels, including field personnel and primary producers. But these actors must possess the knowledge, attitude, and skills necessary to execute their tasks. For this reason, agricultural education and training has an integral part to play in any agricultural and rural development effort. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has made significant contributions (...) to the development of agricultural education in its member countries. FAO's contributions have focused on institution building, group training, and fellowship/study tours. This paper reviews some of the lessons learned through FAO involvement in these areas and recommends directions for improvement. These recommendations include the following:Higher agricultural education institutions should become more involved in rural development by participating in appropriate activities leading to the formulation of national development policies.These institutions should develop education programs and curricula responding to the need of development by providing the knowledge and skills required to meet the needs of the people concerned and to solve their technical and socio-economic problems.More emphasis should be placed on improving the quality of teaching and on practical training.The same institutions should undertake to play a leading role in the agricultural and training systems at the national level.Research should be an integral part of higher educational institution programs and the research themes should include interests of small and poor agricultural producers and measurement of research impacts.Regional and inter-regional collaboration among higher agricultural education institutions should be encouraged. (shrink)

This paper examines discourses of stakeholders regarding global climate change to assess whether and how they construct industrial animal agriculture as posing a risk. The analysis assesses whether these discourses have shifted since the release of Livestock’s Long Shadow, a report by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which indicated that the industrial animal agriculture sector as a whole contributes more to global climate change than the transportation sector. Using Ulrich Beck’s theorizing of the “risk society,” (...) this paper examines how various animal rights and welfare groups, environmental organizations, meat industry stakeholders, governmental agencies, and newspapers in Canada, the United States, and internationally investigate and construct industrial animal agriculture as a risk, if at all, and how their respective discourses conflict. The findings indicate that while some stakeholders acknowledge industrial animal agriculture’s contribution to global climate change, for the most part the problematization of animal agriculture has not increased since the release of Livestock’s Long Shadow, and the animal agriculture industry has seemingly not lost its power to “rationalize risk.”. (shrink)