Journal of Rural Studies最新文献

{"title":"What is the future of pastoral livestock farming in the context of climate change? An environmental justice analysis of contested discursive justifications of pastoralism in the Pyrenees","authors":"Lisa Darmet,&nbsp;Cécile Barnaud","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103654","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103654","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Livestock farming is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, leading to calls for reduced meat consumption and production. However, existing research often overlooks the specificities of pastoralism, an extensive form of livestock farming practices in mountainous areas. This results in intersecting injustices for pastoralists, which remain under-researched. This article addresses this gap by exploring how these injustices manifest locally, the justice claims articulated by the different actors of these pastoral landscapes, and the impact of climate change on their perceptions of pastoralism. We employ an empirical environmental justice framework to analyze the diverse discourses and justice claims of the inhabitants of a valley in the French Pyrenees, regarding how pastoral livestock farming should evolve (or not) in the context of climate change. Our findings reveal the complexity of issues that impact rural populations and highlight intra-rural inequalities. We show that climate arguments do not necessarily challenge prevailing discourses about pastoralism; instead, they are often integrated in existing dominant discourses about its environmental benefits. However, climate arguments also support minority views about the benefits of spontaneous reforestation resulting from the decline of pastoralism. Additionally, we identify a growing discourse advocating for agricultural diversification in response to climate change, which questions the specialization of mountain regions for pastoralism and highlights related land access injustices. This study underscores the need for centering the voices and knowledge of populations living in pastoral landscapes in order to foster just transformations of these landscapes in the context of climate change.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"117 ","pages":"Article 103654"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143785800","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"“The ground beneath our feet is still holding strong”: Physical and symbolic capital in the rural youth movements crisis in Israel","authors":"Naama Zohar ,&nbsp;Avi Shnider ,&nbsp;Liron Shani","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103652","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103652","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"117 ","pages":"Article 103652"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143785799","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Empowering European farmers: Insights from decolonial theory and indigenous people in Latin America","authors":"L. Lécuyer ,&nbsp;S. Calla ,&nbsp;B. Coolsaet ,&nbsp;I. Rodríguez ,&nbsp;J.C. Young","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103651","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103651","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The modernization of European agriculture and new societal concerns around global environmental change and food quality have led to forms of marginalization and misrecognition of European farmers. These include limited political agency in decision-making, economic dependency on industrial inputs, devaluation of traditional farming knowledge, restrictive regulatory frameworks, socio-technical lock-ins reinforcing productivist models, and increasing social stigmatization by the public. We draw parallels between the root causes of farmers' marginalization in Europe and the oppression of Indigenous people in the Global South. Their common struggle for recognition allows us to see how a decolonial approach could contribute to addressing the social malaise of farmers in Europe. There is much to learn from Indigenous people's experience in facing the coloniality matrix of power in their claim for more justice that could benefit farmers and the transformation toward a fairer agri-food system in Europe.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"117 ","pages":"Article 103651"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143783951","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Does agricultural outsourcing improve technical efficiency? Evidence from farms of various scales in China","authors":"Zhen Zhong,&nbsp;Weiyang Jiang,&nbsp;Sansi Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103650","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103650","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Outsourcing plays an increasingly crucial role in improving the technical efficiency of China's agricultural production sector. This study employs a single-step stochastic frontier analysis model to investigate the impact of agricultural outsourcing on technical efficiency and how this impact varies across different farm scales. Our findings reveal a U-shaped relationship between farm technical efficiency and agricultural outsourcing. As larger farms demonstrating a higher engagement in outsourcing activities, our analysis demonstrates that outsourcing contributes to increased technical efficiency for small- and large-scale farms, while it has a negative impact on technical efficiency for medium-scale farms. This variation is attributed to the diverse benefits of labor division and economies of scale, as well as the differing transaction costs associated with outsourcing. These results remain robust after addressing the endogeneity issue. The heterogeneity analyses across various production stages and types of production outsourcing services underscores the crucial role of specialization, economies of scale, and transaction costs in shaping the relationship between technical efficiency, outsourcing and farm scale.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"117 ","pages":"Article 103650"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143776407","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Understanding the barriers and enablers to agroforestry adoption in Ireland through an innovation systems approach","authors":"Rachel Irwin ,&nbsp;Ian Short ,&nbsp;Áine Ní Dhubháin","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103641","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103641","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The innovation of agroforestry is relatively new in Ireland, with uptake lagging behind targets. This study aimed to identify the reasoning behind this and identify the main barriers to the uptake of agroforestry. The Innovation Systems Approach was used as the analytical framework to the study whereby a structural-functional analysis was used to identify the main barriers/blocking mechanisms. Thirty-three interviews across all four domains of the innovation system (research, intermediary, enterprise and influencing) were undertaken with actors from the wider agricultural and forestry sectors networks. The results demonstrate the following key failures of the current Irish Agroforestry Innovation system: a low level of knowledge of agroforestry; a lack of research undertaken and capacity; a lack of interaction between actors; policy issues; and a lack of goals within actor organisations in supporting and promoting agroforestry. The paper provides a number of recommendations aimed at reducing the identified failures laid out as a set of goals.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"117 ","pages":"Article 103641"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143748605","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Determinants of collective action by farm producers: A meta-analysis of the likelihood of co-operative membership","authors":"Jasper Grashuis","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103639","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103639","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Collectively owned and controlled by farm producers, co-operatives have been prominent and successful in many countries. The empirical literature on co-operatives is extensive, part of which considers the various determinants of co-operative membership. However, the evidence is mixed and scattered, which warrants a meta-analysis to help inform market and policy initiatives to increase the incidence of collective action by farm producers. Our search yielded 168 studies, 213 model results, and 924 effect size estimates for the ten most common determinants: gender, age, experience, education, household size, farm size, herd size, off-farm income, credit access, and market distance. On the basis of random-effects model results, eight of the ten determinants (excluding off-farm income and market distance) have a positive and significant effect on the likelihood of co-operative membership at the 99 % confidence level. Thus, farm producers who are small, female, young, inexperienced, uneducated, or credit-constrained are less likely to obtain co-operative membership. However, the effect size magnitudes are arguably small; effect size dispersions are not explained significantly by common study-level characteristics such as location (i.e. continent) or commodity sector (e.g. coffee). Information of local contexts is necessary to better understand heterogeneity in effect size observations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"117 ","pages":"Article 103639"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143738609","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A room with a blue view: The impact of Blue Economy activities on housing prices across Scottish regions","authors":"Marcello Graziano ,&nbsp;Maurizio Fiaschetti ,&nbsp;John W. Gross ,&nbsp;Karen A. Alexander ,&nbsp;Alberto Longo ,&nbsp;Tim O'Higgins","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103632","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103632","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines the indirect impacts of sustainable transitions on coastal communities by analysing the relationship between the visibility of Blue Economy activity and house prices using four Scottish regions as a case example. The research employs hedonic price modelling and spatial econometrics to assess how the visibility of various Blue Economy activities, such as conservation, fossil fuel extraction, ports and aquaculture, has influenced residential property prices from 2012 to 2019. Utilising a unique database of property listings and geographic data, the analysis considers three distance bands to determine the extent to which ocean views containing different marine activities affect housing values. The findings reveal that oil and gas sites negatively impact housing prices across all distance bands and property price quartiles, consistent with existing literature on land-based oil and gas extraction. Conservation activities like Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) only affect prices positively at larger distances when spatial autocorrelation is accounted for, indicating a nuanced relationship between environmental conservation and property values. The study also highlights the complex interactions between aquaculture and housing prices, with positive effects noted at closer distances. Moreover, the analysis shows that port facilities positively influence housing prices, suggesting that accessibility to job opportunities and public services provided by ports is a valued amenity in rural, tourist-oriented regions. This study's methodological innovations contribute to a deeper understanding of the spatial effects of Blue Economy activities on housing prices, providing valuable insights for marine spatial planning and regional economic strategies in coastal areas across the world.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"117 ","pages":"Article 103632"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143738612","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Understanding the transition process and dynamic mechanism of farmland use functions: A comparative analysis from Eastern and Western China","authors":"Jingwei Xiang,&nbsp;Haiwen Wu","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103642","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103642","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The multifunctional utilization of farmland is critical for food security, socioeconomic stability, and ecological sustainability, and understanding its characteristics and driving mechanisms is important for promoting the efficient use of farmland and achieving harmonious development between human and land. However, comparative analyses across differing regions are lacking, which makes it difficult to comprehend developmental differences among regions and coordinate the use of farmland resources. Case studies were conducted in Xianju County (developed eastern region) and Shidian County (less-developed western region), China. The comprehensive function score was calculated using the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution method, characteristics and mechanisms driving the functional transformation of farmland use from 2000 to 2020 were compared and developmental strategies for the two regions proposed. There was evident significant heterogeneity in the multifunctional transformation of farmland use between the two counties. Shidian County experienced three transformation stages: mild degeneration, fluctuating development, and rapid improvement, while Xianju County progressed through stages of mild degeneration, rapid improvement, and differentiated development. The demands of social development, constraints on resource endowments, impetus of diverse stakeholder behaviors, and the regulation of policy and institutional frameworks jointly drove the transformation of farmland use. The gap between the two regions can be narrowed by implementing measures to fully exploit the potential of resources, which would contribute to the nation's common prosperity. This study provides new insights and theoretical support for narrowing regional disparities in farmland benefits and promoting efficient land use, thereby offering a scientific reference for regional collaborative development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"117 ","pages":"Article 103642"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143748606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Agricultural land system transition based on resilience and vitality: A case study on the Loess Plateau (Yulin, China)","authors":"Li Fei,&nbsp;Meng Bin,&nbsp;Wang Yibin","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103643","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103643","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Agricultural land systems can undergo three types of changes: fluctuation, sustainable transition, and unsustainable transition. Developing targeted policies to promote the sustainable transition of agricultural land systems can provide guarantees for the achievement of sustainable development goals such as no poverty (SDG1), zero hunger (SDG2), and sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems (SDG15). However, this requires a comprehensive framework to determine whether the transition of agricultural land systems is sustainable. Therefore, the Loess Plateau (Yulin), with its fragile ecological environment, long agricultural history, and tense human-environment relations, was selected as the case area to explore the characteristics, mechanisms, and regulatory pathways of agricultural land system transition, by constructing a conceptual framework that integrated system resilience and vitality. The results indicated that driven by socio-economic development (urbanization, economic growth, and technological innovation) and natural environmental changes (climate change and environmental change), agricultural land systems on the Loess Plateau underwent an unsustainable transition around 2013, which was regulated by national and local strategies and policies. The rapid improvement in system resilience was attributed to the human input subsystem (41 %) and the agricultural output subsystem (39 %), while the significant declining vitality was mainly maintained by the natural support subsystem. Therefore, enhancing the vitality of the human input subsystem and the agricultural output subsystem was a priority choice to promote the sustainable transition of agricultural land systems on the Loess Plateau. Under the new urbanization carried by counties and rural revitalization strategy, reducing agricultural labor force, improving agricultural mechanization level and utilization efficiency of agricultural chemicals (such as fertilizers, pesticides, and films), accelerating agricultural industry development and farmers' income increase, popularizing fallow rotation and climate intelligent agricultural management models would be effective measures to heighten the sustainability of agricultural land systems. Moreover, the analytical framework of agricultural land system transition presented in this study was feasible and credible, and had the potential to be applied in human-environment systems and social-ecological systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"117 ","pages":"Article 103643"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143738611","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Symbolic economy of bike rentals in rural and suburban Hong Kong: Capital conversion in competitiveness of traditional and innovative firms","authors":"Tommy Ho-Yin Chan","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103647","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103647","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines the symbolic economy emerging around bike rental services in rural and suburban areas of Hong Kong, focusing on the rivalry between traditional bike rental shops and an automated bike-sharing scheme in the New Territories. Employing a Bourdieusian framework, this study examines how symbolic capital, as immaterial power, and economic capital, as material resources, together shape the legitimacy, competitiveness, and resilience of mobility providers within the fluid, porous boundaries of rural and urban spaces. Drawing on a six-month ethnographic study—comprising interviews, ride-alongs, and participant observation—the findings show that bike-sharing services initially struggle with symbolic representation and legitimacy, perceived as disordered byproducts of hyper-capitalist expansion. These services gain legitimacy through urban-focused symbolic strategies, such as branding themselves as part of the public transport system, which naturalises values like efficiency and modernity as universal standards. This process, however, can impose symbolic violence on rural communities by embedding urban priorities as ‘common sense’, marginalising local traditions and disrupting established rural practices. In response, traditional rentals resist this shift by emphasising localised, human-centred services that strengthen rural identity and autonomy, drawing on a habitus rooted to community ties. The dynamic interplay of symbolic and economic capital highlights a deepening rural-urban divide, as divergent habitus shape market dynamics and user perceptions within these contested spaces. This study underscores how symbolic practices shape socio-economic dynamics and competitive advantages in the mobility sector, reinforcing rural-urban disparities. It cautions that efforts to bridge this divide may unintentionally perpetuate symbolic violence.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"117 ","pages":"Article 103647"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143748530","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}