Agriculture and Human Values最新文献

Plant-based futures are becoming essential landmarks for policy promises aimed at transitioning from animal-based to plant-based production and consumption. Promises often manifests in technological product solutions, such as plant-based meat imitations, with the hope that consumers will embrace a transition in their eating practices based on a simple product substitution. Manufacturers are pivotal players in such a transition, as they develop and market the products available. This study investigated the experiences and anticipations of market futures among manufacturers of plant-based food products in Denmark. Focusing on market devices in socio-material networks as well as consumer imaginaries we show how negotiations of access to shelves between manufacturers and supermarkets and visions of future consumption patterns co-shape present strategies, and operational choices within companies.

Social movements often embrace technological solutions to problems. Their role in technology development and adoption may be especially important in a technology’s early stages, when public or government support for new technologies is limited and for-profit companies have little incentive to invest in them. I examine the mechanisms by which social movement organizations seek to influence new technology through an in-depth study of the animal protection movement’s support for alternative proteins, plant-based or cell-cultured proteins that substitute for farm-raised meat and dairy products. I document how animal protection activists and interest groups created a network of organizations to support alt-protein development and product adoption. Their activities range from financing company start-ups and basic research and attracting investments from large food companies to marketing products and lobbying governments for policies favorable to the industry. I also show how the pivot by many in the animal protection movement to support a technological solution to the problem of farm animal welfare affected their coalitions and framing of the problem, and I argue that the high cost of new technology contributed to that strategic shift.

The expansion of oil palm farming in Southeast Asia has been premised on the mobilisation of both internal and transborder migrant labour. This paper examines labour relations on an oil palm plantation in Sabah, Malaysia, with a focus on the underexplored case of undocumented Filipino migrant workers from Palawan. Drawing on field-based research, we analyse the evolution of a migrant labour regime in light of debates on labour exploitation. We find that this labour regime is structured around three interrelated mechanisms: the mobilisation of a labour force primarily composed of undocumented migrant workers, the casualisation of labour relations, and the adoption of piece rate payments. Together, these mechanisms facilitate the extraction of surplus value by transferring risks and costs to workers, while undermining class-based solidarity through self-discipline, peer surveillance, and labour fragmentation. In response to debates about ‘free’ and ‘unfree’ labour, we argue that outsourcing, casualisation, and piece rate systems are not only markers of precarity but are deliberately structured to extract surplus value and inhibit migrant worker mobilisation. By situating Filipino migrants within the broader oil palm labour regime, this paper highlights the relational nature of labour regimes, demonstrating how undocumented migration and transnational mobility are central to sustaining contemporary agricultural production.

Farm-to-restaurant relationships play a crucial role in shaping Alternative Food Networks (AFNs), yet these partnerships are influenced by a complex interplay of trust, communication, and economic constraints. The aim of this study is to explore farmers’ perspectives on their relationships with restaurants purchasing their produce. Based on interviews with farmers and participant observation conducted in the Gothenburg region, southwest Sweden, this study highlights the importance of direct, in-person engagement for fostering mutual trust and understanding between farmers and restaurants. The theoretical framework is rooted in prior ethnographic research about social relations within farming, characterised by analytical concepts such as ‘social embeddedness’ and ‘relational materiality’. These concepts help in understanding the complexity of AFNs and illustrate their dynamic and constantly evolving nature. While our findings confirm that close relationships between farmers and restaurants enhance food quality and support sustainable production, they also highlight challenges, including time constraints, price pressures, and communication difficulties. The study underscores the importance of representing the interaction between food actors while simultaneously considering farmers’ actual conditions, self-benefiting principles, and market-bound forces within a Swedish context.

Regenerative ranching emphasizes ecosystem restoration and is informed by holistic decision-making. It offers an opportunity to transform human-animal relations in ranching. However, its implications for animal welfare remain underexplored. This study examined human-animal relations in regenerative ranching in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, using the four lenses from integral theory: individual perceptions, practices, cultural norms, and systemic structures. Through semi-structured interviews with 16 regenerative ranchers who practice holistic decision-making in the Pacific Northwest, and 10 key informants (i.e. NGOs, thought leaders, university professors), participant observation, and thematic analysis, we identified tensions between relational values and practices. Ranchers recognized animal sentience and expressed compassion, but their instrumental language (e.g. labeling cattle as tools) reflected a cognitive dissonance. Practices aligned with relational values, such as low stress animal handling and fence-line weaning, coexisted with culturally rooted stressors (e.g. branding and castration events). Cultural traditions celebrating community bonds prioritized human well-being over animal welfare, while systemic barriers (e.g. mandatory branding laws and market dependencies) appeared to constrain animal welfare improvements. Our findings highlight regenerative ranching’s potential for transforming human-animal relations in ranching. This can be realized by nurturing relational values like care and responsibility and addressing cultural and institutional inertia. We propose integrating animal welfare explicitly into the holistic decision-making framework, advocating for policy reforms, and fostering dialogue with Indigenous Peoples to reconcile ethical, ecological, and economical priorities of regenerative ranching. By acting on their relational values, regenerative ranchers could be role models for compassionate, multispecies coexistence, expanding the true meaning of regeneration in agriculture involving animals.

Agroecological diversification and job quality are key components of a nature- and people-centered approach to sustainable food production. Organic agriculture is often associated with both ecological health and social justice, but research has shown that organic certification doesn’t guarantee more diversified or fair labour outcomes. To better understand the drivers of and interactions between agroecological diversification and job quality in organic agriculture, we conducted a survey of on-farm practices and approaches (how farmers think about their management) on organic vegetable farms – both certified and uncertified – in British Columbia, Canada (n = 135). We found that variations in diversification and job quality were better explained by co-variates than by organic certification status. Small-scale and ecologically motivated farmers were most strongly associated with diversification practices, and motivation for land stewardship was the only significant predictor of diversification approaches. Farms that were larger in terms of economic size (gross farm receipts and farm income) were most strongly associated with improved job quality practices, while motivation for social justice was the only significant predictor of job quality approaches. While our research suggests that organic certification alone is insufficient to overcome shared barriers to diversification and improved job quality, organic organizations and farmer networks were the most frequently named support for diversification, while respondents highlighted a lack of support for improved job quality.

Sustainability transitions in agrifood systems imply significant changes in agriculture encompassing land use and farming practices as well as the goods produced. Transition processes are challenging and politically contested in many European countries with various climatic, market, and policy conditions. However, research has not yet examined how perceptions of justice in agricultural sustainability transitions differ or align between countries with relatively similar environmental farming conditions. We compare two countries, England and Finland, with similar challenges in climatic terms yet relatively different policy and market conditions. Using interview and focus group data, we examine how justice related issues are described and claimed by farmers and other stakeholders in the context of agrifood system sustainability transitions in these countries. Findings from both countries revealed more similarities than differences. The similarity of many concerns, especially among farmers, implies that just agrifood transitions would greatly benefit from increased cross-country exchange, learning, and knowledge exchange. We also uncovered relevant differences in, for example, problem diagnosis and proposed or claimed solutions. Our results show the value of cross-country comparisons and have implications for realizing just agrifood transitions more successfully by fostering cross-country learning, exchange, and collaboration.

Farmers (are expected to) fulfil diverse economic, environmental, and social roles or functions. Yet the relative importance of these functions remains contested both within farming communities and in the broader society. Understanding how farmers prioritize these different functions as a reflection of their role identity is crucial, given the increasing recognition of the importance of identity as a determinant of farmer behaviour. We frame this aspect of farmer identity in terms of multifunctionality, a common lens for analysing the performance of agriculture relative to societal demands. However, while this concept is often used with an ecological focus, our study builds on a broader interpretation that encompasses the full range of social, cultural, economic, and ecological functions. Furthermore, we focus on the roles farmers themselves would like to play when looking 10 to 20 years into the future. We apply Q methodology to see how farmers from Eastern Germany prioritize among 71 societal functions. We use the Q sorts and qualitative data to derive and characterize a typology of three narrative perspectives. The results demonstrate the breadth and heterogeneity of farmers’ role identity, and therefore the need to go beyond a narrow focus on ecological roles or functions.

Efforts to increase the adoption of modern crop varieties among smallholder farmers have limited success, especially among vulnerable communities. We argue that, before analyzing constraints to adoption, we first need to understand why farmers decide to cultivate certain crops. Beyond well-known (environmental, socio-economic, technological, and policy related) factors, the role of ethnicity and culture is relevant as well. We investigate how ethnicity and culture are correlated with crop choice during the post-rainy season among farmers in Adilabad District, India. We adapted the Hofstede Cultural Values Scale to operationalize and measure culture in these farming communities. It represents a tool to characterize culture along six dimensions, including attitudes toward change, individualism, and masculinity. Our results show significant differences between tribal and non-tribal farmers in terms of crop choice and cultural values, and these two types of variables “hang together” in an intuitive way. Tribal farmers mostly grow sorghum for subsistence and fodder purposes, while non-tribal farmers focus on producing cash-crops (chickpea, rice, maize). They also have weaker preferences for hierarchy, display a more collectivist (less individualistic) attitude, and show greater resistance to changing their traditional ways. Farmers’ ethnic and cultural background should be taken into consideration when breeding or designing interventions aiming to increase dissemination of new varieties.

The current complex seed governance framework, and the increasingly oligopolistic seed industry that has championed it, have created a series of seed enclosures that exclude farmers and many breeders from freely accessing, sharing and improving seed, and constraining their freedom to operate and cooperate. Opposing the resulting ongoing loss of both cultivated diversity and farmers’ seed rights, experimental initiatives applying open source models and copyleft principles to the domain of seed have emerged. This article presents six initiatives from five different continents applying open source seed (OSS) models in very diverse cultural, policy and agronomic contexts: Bioleft in Argentina, Seed Savers Network in Kenya, MASIPAG in the Philippines, OpenSourceSeeds in Germany, Open Source Seed Initiative in the USA and Rete Semi Rurali in Italy. We analyse the mechanisms by which OSS models attempt to overcome legal, knowledge, and financial enclosures by creating safe operating spaces in current governance frameworks, breeding for diversity and rebuilding bridges between farmers and breeders, while exploring innovative financial models to fund breeding for cultivated diversity. The findings show that OSS emerges as a synergistic strategy to amplify seed rights through three dimensions: first, geographically, by connecting local and international efforts to enhance cultivated diversity and seed rights. Second, a temporal dimension, by acting now, within the current legal context, while contributing to the long term transformation of seed governance. Third, through its capacity to be applied in both physical and digital realms. Finally, further areas of research on OSS are proposed.