Agriculture and Human Values最新文献

Effective control of weeds requires all land managers to manage weeds on their own properties and encourage others to do the same. Sources of social capital – trust, networks and norms – can influence the behaviour of land managers as well as whether weed management is done individually or collectively. Yet, social norms are understudied compared to other sources of social capital. The aim of this research was to describe the social norms associated with weed management on rural private property in Victoria, Australia, and the extent to which they facilitate or hinder collective action. Data for this analysis came from semi-structured interviews with 31 landholders and observations of 13 events from two case study areas, focussing on the management of gorse (Ulex europeaus). Sixteen social norms were identified, which can be encapsulated by three themes: good landholders, good neighbours, and social learning. These norms influence landscape preferences, weed management practices, propensity to share knowledge and work with others. In general, good landholder norms discouraged collaborative weed management learning and practices. Some good neighbour norms reinforced the individualism of good landholder norms, while others prioritised the public good. Social learning norms supported landscape scale learning and action on weeds. Many of the social norms described here are applicable beyond weed management and indicate that further research on good landholder, good neighbour and social learning norms and the tensions between them are needed to inform agricultural policies that support collective action.

We use a unique dataset from a census of 299 wholesale markets in 8 Nigerian states spread over the poorer and more culturally conservative North and the relatively more affluent and developed South. This dataset includes 471 product-level governance structures such as tomato and fish trader associations and overall market management committees. We find few women are in top leadership positions in the markets, particularly in the North, despite women’s widespread employment in the markets as traders. Three main factors influence women’s leadership involvement: active participation in trading; the market’s practice of electing leaders; and cultural norms proxied by the regional location of the market. These results inform potential strategies that policy makers, donors, and markets can leverage to support women’s engagement in market leadership.

This study explores the factors associated with the cultivation of neglected and underutilized crop species (NUS) and agroecology adoption (crop rotation with legumes) amid the climate crisis in rural Lebanon and Morocco. A mixed-methods approach (interviews and questionnaire survey) was used. Five key informant interviews as well as a survey of 923 farmers: 465 in Lebanon (242 men and 223 women) and 458 in Morocco (238 men and 220 women) were conducted. This paper addresses two key questions: (1) what are the predictors of agroecology and NUS cultivation, and (2) what are the primary gendered NUS varietal preferences of farmers and why? Using insights from feminist political ecology, and applying logistic regression analysis, key predictors of adoption include gender, with Moroccan women more likely to adopt agroecology, and age, as older farmers in Morocco are less likely to engage. In Lebanon, marital status influences adoption, with divorced or widowed farmers more engaged in NUS cultivation. Education and wealth also play significant roles, with higher levels of both positively associated with agroecology and NUS adoption. Amid the climate crisis, men and women farmers both indicated that traits like drought resistance and suitability for low rainfall conditions are key drivers for NUS and agroecology adoption. Some key reasons for NUS varietal preferences included, market demands, the need to reduce burden on women, taste and cooking qualities, and to adjust to the climate. Farmers, especially women, also indicated importance of flour blending in their uptake of barley cultivation. These findings highlight the complex motivations behind NUS varietal selection, and the importance of context-specific strategies to support sustainable agriculture in the MENA region.

Making a living in commodity production depends on knowledge of both how to produce and what is produced—a commodity’s qualities and value. Producers’ livelihoods and agency stem from the relationships between their knowledge systems and value chains. Bringing together agrarian studies with cultural-economic studies of value chains, this paper considers knowledge(s) as forces in the production of diverse kinds of value, complicating labels like expert, technical, lay or local. The paper presents the case of specialty coffee farming and processing in Vietnam, focusing on how fermentation during post-harvest processing creates qualities and value. The analysis shows coffee producers employ working knowledge: knowledge of production that does work by producing value. Though Vietnam is the world’s second-largest coffee producer, it has a reputation for poor quality. In the 2010s, a slim minority began producing specialty coffee—valued for exceptional flavors and aromas—in part by employing novel post-harvest fermentations. Through an ethnography of fermentation knowledges and practices, this paper shows that livelihoods depend on flows not only of coffee and its material qualities but also of information. Producers assemble and translate diverse knowledges and practices as their work depends on making a commodity legible for value chains. Their knowledge systems are thus not peripheral but central to global production, as they shape and are shaped by value chains and the production of quality.

Food security(FS) refers to having sufficient physical, social, and economic food access at all times. People living in rural, regional, and remote (RRR) locations often face distinctive challenges to FS. Existing solutions, that aim to enhance FS, themselves face challenges when addressing these issues. This paper outlines the application of an adapted Systemic Innovation Lab (SIL) approach to enhance the function of existing community and government-led, -run or -operated initiatives (programs, interventions) in RRR Western Australia. It examines which systems change characteristics participating initiatives possess, to identify opportunities to support their transition to newer and more effective ways of addressing FS in their region. A six-stage SIL process was enacted, with four of the stages focused on identifying which systems change characteristics, across nine Focus Areas (FAs), the participating initiatives possessed. Data representing 148 initiatives were analysed to map the initiatives’ support of FS systems change in their region and identify the FAs systems change characteristics least possessed by initiatives. This delivered insights necessary to strengthen these characteristics and enhance participating initiatives’ capacity to better support RRR FS. Initiatives were least likely to possess systems change characteristics relating to two-way communication between government and community, which, if adopted, would support the achievement of holistic, effective, and sustainable outcomes for FS in RRR locations.

This study examined how and why extension workers shared farming videos with farmers, revealing divergent appropriation patterns and their implications for digitization in agriculture. 294 extension workers in Bihar (India) were asked to circulate three wheat agronomy videos with farmers. Extension workers’ circulation of these videos was observed using link tracking, phone surveys, and follow-up interviews. Results were analyzed using a novel analytic framework based in affordance theory. Extension workers varied widely in how much, how, and why they shared the farming videos. This variation was underpinned by extension workers’ differing incentives and goals. In other words, extension workers heterogeneously appropriated—rather than homogeneously deployed—the practice of sharing farming videos. Some but not all of these appropriations were desirable from the perspective of service managers. For theory, extension workers’ appropriations of farming videos demonstrate that prevalent conceptualizations of digital agricultural technologies do not account for the adaptation of these technologies by farmers and other actors in agricultural innovation systems. For digital agriculture evaluators, the findings caution against the prevalent focus on averaging effects of interventions and highlight the need to examine the variability of these effects within and across interventions. For extension service managers, the findings emphasize the importance of engaging extension actors with farmer-aligned incentives and goals. This study was limited in focusing on the video-sharing behaviors of human extension actors and not on algorithmic extension actors, like YouTube or farming advisory chatbots powered by large language models. However, the findings have implications for both: just as human actors variably appropriate digital tools, algorithmic extension actors also embed implicit goals that shape how agricultural information circulates. Future research should examine the goals and behaviors of these algorithmic actors that have increasing influence in agricultural innovation systems.

Agroecology has been promoted as an alternative to industrial agriculture for many reasons, including the social and environmental benefits associated with agroecological practices. Yet, agroecological practices are commonly characterized as requiring more labor than non-agroecological, capital-intensive farm management. The anticipated high labor requirements of agroecological practices raise major questions about agroecological transitions in fruit and vegetable production in the United States, where political-economic pressures have promoted land consolidation and mechanization, the agricultural labor market is shrinking, and labor is often fruit and vegetable farmers’ greatest expense. To understand how labor requirements interact with farm size to create barriers to agroecological practice use among fruit and vegetable farmers, we conducted a national survey (n = 599) and interviewed farmers in California and New York (n = 49). Labor barriers (time demand, management complexity, and expenses) were selected as one of the top reasons for not using a practice for seven of eight practices assessed. Notably, farmers who did not use a given agroecological practice perceived a greater labor requirement than farmers who had experience using the same practice. We also found that large-scale farmers, who faced greater labor scarcity than small- and medium-scale farmers, pursued more mechanization despite already managing the most mechanized operations. Lastly, labor policy changes, such as state minimum wage increases, were perceived as exacerbating many farmers’ labor challenges. Our results illustrate distinct issues and potential solutions among differently sized farms, underscoring the need to directly engage with farmers and farmworkers to address labor-related barriers to agroecological transitions.

In this article, framing and introducing the Special Issue on ‘Migrants, Farmers and Farmworkers’, we argue that the interaction between structural, institutional and political dynamics shapes the character and trajectory of social relations among migrants, farmers and farmworkers, which in turn influence or could influence the character and trajectory of broader struggles within and against capitalism, and the building of systemic alternatives. This collection looks into the specific entanglement of migrants, farmers and farmworkers in the context of this broader political process. The current phase of global capitalism has resulted in the fragmentation of the working class and the peasantry. This has resulted in a complex chain of hollowed-out rural villages interspersed with layers of different categories of migrant labour that are telecoupled in rural–rural/rural–urban (cross-border) migration corridors. In this introduction, we tease out theoretical, methodological and political implications highlighted by the 14 papers in the collection, individually and collectively, and identify some future research and public action agendas.

Improved food systems literacy is needed to address complex food systems issues. The term food systems literacy has been increasingly used in the last decade; however, it is sparsely and inconsistently defined in the literature, under various terms. Thus, the aim of this study was to unpack food systems literacy with experts and develop a fulsome definition. To do this, a 3-Round modified Delphi study that engaged experts from academic, non-profit, education, government and agri-food sectors across Canada was conducted. Findings demonstrate that food systems literacy needs to be comprehensively defined, that it is distinct from food literacy, unique to individuals and varies based on context. While food systems literacy is conceptualized at the individual level, it also exists at different scales (e.g., national networks, businesses). The resulting definition reflected participants’ identified need for a holistic definition that is distinct from food literacy, and reflects food systems literacy as a tool to empower citizens to be agents of change at different scales, (i.e., individual, institutional, etc.): “Food systems literacy is an understanding of food systems and the interrelationship between people food and other socio-ecological systems that is developed across one’s lifespan. This includes understanding one’s own role and skills to participate within diverse food systems, including thinking critically about their advantages and disadvantages, and the environmental, economic, social, historical, political, and cultural components in ways that contribute to personal, collective, and environmental health and well-being.” This definition can holistically guide policy and program development for food literacies.