Journal of Rural Studies最新文献

{"title":"Terroir takes on technology: Geographical indications, agri-food innovation, and regional competitiveness in Europe","authors":"Stefanella Stranieri ,&nbsp;Luigi Orsi ,&nbsp;Federico Zilia ,&nbsp;Ivan De Noni ,&nbsp;Alessandro Olper","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103368","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103368","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In the agri-food sector, firms and local systems can utilize both Geographical Indications and technological advancements as key strategic assets for growth in many European regions, but the combined contribution of Geographical Indications and innovation activities to the economy of European regions is still poorly investigated. This study aims to understand how Geographical Indications and agri-food innovation affect the competitiveness of the agriculture and food industry in European regions and how these strategies interact. To achieve this goal, a longitudinal and original dataset has been organized, including data related to Geographical Indications and agri-food patents from 265 European NUTS-2 regions between 1996 and 2014. The data for Geographical Indications and agri-food patents are collected from the eAmbrosia and OECD RegPat databases, respectively. The results show that Geographical Indications have a positive and significant impact on regional competitiveness, while the effect of agri-food innovations is controversial. The implications of these findings in terms of policy design are further discussed.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"110 ","pages":"Article 103368"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0743016724001724/pdfft?md5=6b3944e76d071ef8ccccc1359a4d92f1&pid=1-s2.0-S0743016724001724-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141882591","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":"Simulation of smallholder farmers’ adaptation to irrigation-induced landslides: An ABM application in human-land-policy interaction","authors":"Juelin Feng,&nbsp;Jue Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103384","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103384","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Understanding the dynamic interaction between smallholder farmers' adaptation decision-making behavior and the policy environment in the context of human-induced disasters is vital for developing effective policies to enhance farmers' participation in disaster risk reduction (DRR). From the perspective of bounded rationality theory, this study constructs the farmer-land-policy interaction (FLPI) model, taking Heifangtai in Loess Plateau, China, as a case study. Based on first-hand micro data, this study combines static econometric model analysis with dynamic simulation techniques, achieving a combination of micro decision-making and macro policies to understand the interaction between farmers and the policy environment. The FLPI model simulates farmers' future adaptations under multiple policy scenarios (baseline, mandatory policy, and subsidy policy scenario with a combination of different policy tools) from 2021 to 2030. Compared with the simulation results of the baseline scenario, the results indicate that mandatory and subsidy policies are effective interventions incentivizing farmers’ adaptation behavior for effective DRR. Mandatory policies rely on policy intervention to ensure that farmers adopt drip irrigation and to promote the generation of long-term behavior of farmers. And the results also propose a suitable subsidy range of 700–900 yuan and with a period of more than 2 years for subsidy policy. This study enriches the research on the interaction simulation between farmer behavior and policy environment under the background of human-induced disasters. And the FLPI model uses survey data as input, which could provide behavior rules closer to real situations than that of simplifying assumptions. The research indicates that the “bottom-up” approach of the FLPI model proven more appropriate to presenting micro-level adaptation and dynamic changes than traditional statistical models.And the agent-based model is very suitable for simulating the behavioral decision-making changes of farmers in policy environments.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"110 ","pages":"Article 103384"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141985557","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 agricultural diversification: What really matters? A review","authors":"Gianluca Grilli ,&nbsp;Francesco Pagliacci ,&nbsp;Paola Gatto","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103365","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103365","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Diversification of farm activities is one of the strategies to reduce the risk associated to the farm business and stabilise farmers’ income, in particular for smaller farms. Diversification may result in on-farm activities (e.g. agritourism) or off-farm, which indicates that farmers seek additional income in the labour or investment market off their farms. Understanding the determinants of diversification is important to anticipate farms that are more likely to diversify their activities, explore regional differences, and propose effective policies when decision–makers believe that wider diversification is desirable. In this contribution, we review the scientific literature on on-farm and off-farm diversification and collect all the variables that have been included in the econometric specifications to offer a better picture of all the important determinants of diversification practices and improve future modelling. The review suggests that the number of factors that may influence diversification is large and most of the models fail to consider all the important factors, possibly due to lack of some important data in secondary dataset. An important implication is therefore to improve data collection for future applications. In addition, potential issues related to endogenous variables should be better highlighted. Lastly, it was noticed a dearth of contributions that explore regional and environmental factors that may be important to explain diversification.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"110 ","pages":"Article 103365"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0743016724001694/pdfft?md5=52a8a1150b6f9e6bd566d41cff32771e&pid=1-s2.0-S0743016724001694-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141882594","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":"Analysing micrologistics initiatives in rural areas – Approaches to typologise and assess complex logistics solutions in regional supply networks","authors":"Susanne Hofmann-Souki ,&nbsp;Annemarie Wojtech ,&nbsp;Martina Schäfer ,&nbsp;Alexander Conrad","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103348","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103348","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>While demand for regional products increases and societal expectations towards a regionalisation of production are on the rise in Germany, little attention is given to the logistical challenges of local producers. At the same time, rural areas are confronted with declining supply options for goods of daily needs. Logistical challenges in rural areas are primarily caused by a scarcity of actors, low or fluctuating quantities of goods and long transport distances. A lack of economies of scale makes supply and logistics very costly. Given the rising interest and new possibilities created by digitisation, numerous private and public initiatives are developing solutions for sustainable regional logistics to secure and improve supply in rural areas - so called micrologistics solution. However, a meta-analysis of such regional logistics solutions is missing that identifies similarities and differences and indicates which characteristics are essential for the development of long-term viable regional logistics solutions.</p><p>This article therefore aims at providing a general overview and at systematising current micrologistics solutions in rural regions, introducing a typology which is based on a meta-analysis of approximately 80 micrologistics initiatives in Germany and beyond. Referring to two case studies – Smart Village St. Wendel and UCKER Warentakt - we then focus analysis on solutions aiming at providing goods of daily need to the population in rural areas. We share lessons learnt on their characteristics, challenges and factors of success. This is done using a specifically developed morphological box, a viability and impact-oriented assessment framework for micrologistics initiatives as well as results of interviews with initiators and operators of such initiatives. We conclude on the usefulness of the analytical approaches developed for this new research field as well as further research needs.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"110 ","pages":"Article 103348"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0743016724001529/pdfft?md5=a63532994be00140c97e58c159821669&pid=1-s2.0-S0743016724001529-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141942912","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":"Lively commodities and endemic diseases: Shifting commodity situations and nonhuman disability in cattle and sheep on UK farms","authors":"Lewis Holloway ,&nbsp;Niamh Mahon ,&nbsp;Beth Clark ,&nbsp;Amy Proctor","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103367","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103367","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The concept of ‘lively commodities’ captures how aspects of the life of certain entities affect their commodification and exchange within capitalist economic systems. Their status as being, or comprised of, living things matters to their commodification in different ways in particular places and spaces and at particular times. This paper uses the empirical example of diseased farmed animals in the north of England to examine the effects of susceptibility to disease on the process of lively commodification, drawing on conceptualisations of nonhuman disability and relations of care alongside literature on lively commodities, and exploring cases of multi-lifeform co-production of disease. It thus focuses on moments where the liveliness of animals means that commodification ‘goes wrong’, because liveliness means susceptibility to injury and disease, alongside its potential for economic production. The paper focuses on two important endemic conditions affecting UK farming: lameness in cattle and sheep, and bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD) in cattle. These conditions significantly affect animals' welfare and impact on farm productivity. Drawing on qualitative analysis of transcripts from in-depth interviews with 29 farmers and 21 farm advisers (e.g. vets), the paper examines three empirical themes where farming practices are strongly affected by the lively nature of the commodities being produced: first, the anticipatory practice of breeding animals resistant or vulnerable to disease; second, lameness and nonhuman disability; and third, BVD and threats to agricultural biosecurity. The paper concludes by revisiting the concept of lively commodities in situations where farmed animals are diseased, and reflects on the implications of this for their shifting commodity status in particular times and places.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"110 ","pages":"Article 103367"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0743016724001712/pdfft?md5=602f874c661a82ff9087025ba3749a9a&pid=1-s2.0-S0743016724001712-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141942996","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":"Marriage squeeze in the Loess Plateau Region, Northwestern China: A case study of two villages","authors":"Le Zhang ,&nbsp;Zidi Sun ,&nbsp;Lu Zheng ,&nbsp;Xiaobo Hua ,&nbsp;Ben Fan","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103375","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103375","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The quest for spouses among rural men in China has become increasingly arduous, resulting in a growing number of older bachelors. However, the mechanisms driving the marriage squeeze in underdeveloped rural areas remain poorly understood. This study analyzes time-series data from 70 marital unions across 58 households in two geographically distinct villages in the Loess Plateau Region of China. The results indicate that marriage expenses and the subsequent financial burden on the bridegroom's household increased substantially from 1969 to 2018, particularly in the most recent decade, while the bride's household received the majority of marriage-related income. There has been an overall increasing trend in economic pressure induced by marriage expenses in both villages since 1979. A cohort of older bachelors has emerged in the hilly village, where rural males traditionally marry women from more remote, underdeveloped areas. Conversely, rural males in the tableland village can consistently find spouses from comparable geographical settings and have not yet emerged as older bachelors. This study concludes that the marriage squeeze manifests as dual pressures from economic and living conditions, and excludes economically disadvantaged males in harsh environments from the marriage market within the context of rural out-migration and the sex ratio imbalance.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"110 ","pages":"Article 103375"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141962363","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":"Europe's orchard: The role of irrigation on the Spanish agricultural production","authors":"Ana Serrano ,&nbsp;Ignacio Cazcarro ,&nbsp;Miguel Martín-Retortillo ,&nbsp;Guillermo Rodríguez-López","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103376","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103376","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In the latter half of the twentieth century, Spanish agriculture witnessed sustained production growth, aligning with Western European levels after a period of lag in both production and productivity. This growth predominantly occurred in the warm, sunny provinces of southern and eastern Spain, which specialized in high-value crops such as fruits, vegetables, and olive oil. Various factors have been identified in the scientific literature as contributors to this transformation, including technological innovations, the internationalization of Spanish agriculture, domestic development, and advancements in irrigation. This paper aims to examine the impact of irrigation on Spanish agricultural production, focusing on the creation of regional and productive disparities since the mid-twentieth century. These diverse effects have been crucial in shaping the regional and product-specific specialization patterns that characterize the historical dynamism of Spanish agriculture. To that aim, we have compiled a comprehensive database containing detailed information on agricultural production values, irrigated and rainfed area and yields. The level of disaggregation of data, both in terms of production and regional breakdowns, enables us to identify specific regional and crop patterns. Additionally, this study highlights the significant and regionally varied transformations within the Spanish agricultural sector over the long term, which have had profound effects on rural areas.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"110 ","pages":"Article 103376"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0743016724001803/pdfft?md5=eb5cb8d684fd2d4cd4020d8bfac3e346&pid=1-s2.0-S0743016724001803-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141979586","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":"Unpacking the agricultural innovation and diffusion for modernizing the smallholders in rural China: From the perspective of agricultural innovation system and its governance","authors":"Cheng Chen ,&nbsp;Jinlong Gao ,&nbsp;Hui Cao ,&nbsp;Wen Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103385","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103385","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Innovation is perceived as a crucial tool for addressing the serious global challenges faced by the agriculture sector. This paper focuses on a new local public agricultural innovation project in the context of rural China, and intends to capture the embodied agricultural innovation and dissemination network for modernizing the smallholders. Through integrating the concepts of Agricultural Innovation System and Agricultural Innovation Governance, we develop a comprehensive framework for understanding the partnerships between agri-technicians and small farmers within the network structured by innovation governance practices. In-depth interview and network analysis methods were used to scrutinize the linkages among actors engaged with the agricultural innovation programme in case area and detect the achievements in enabling smallholders to upgrade technical trajectories in production and fostering modern farmers at the local levels. Our empirical analysis suggests that the single-center and multi-level network produced in the agricultural innovation practices, which is distinctive to the previous simplistic linear model for technology transfer, demonstrates obvious effectiveness in diffusing the new knowledge both vertically and horizontally, and that the grassroots sub-network generates the interaction space between agronomic experts and farmers for building mutual trust and co-producing technologies suitable for local conditions. Through allocating financial resources and supervising the public agricultural innovation projects, the provincial government indirectly dominates the directionality of local agricultural innovation for enabling smallholders to learn emerging technologies and cultivating the new generation of professional farmers. Nevertheless, the current agricultural innovation practice in case area has not completely avoided the social selection bias due to the clear marginalization of some vulnerable smallholders, and the duration of innovation projects imposed negative influence on the persistent collaborations between agri-technicians and smallholders in places. It is argued that for meeting the national agenda of agricultural modernization and common prosperity in rural area, how to reform the management measures of public innovation projects and enable the vulnerable farmers to equally engage with the innovation activities and share the interests brought by new technologies are the urgent challenges need to be addressed in the future.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"110 ","pages":"Article 103385"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142048540","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":"Planning for socially sustainable rural housing in Sweden","authors":"Susanne Stenbacka ,&nbsp;Susanna Heldt Cassel","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103377","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103377","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The aim of this article is to analyse and discuss policies and planning for rural housing, with a special focus on social sustainability. In this endeavour, we review research with such a focus and put this in dialogue with an analysis of the contemporary situation regarding rural housing challenges and policies in Sweden. Countrysides in Europe, including Sweden, are diverse and face different housing-related challenges. The literature illuminates spatial as well as socio-economic inequalities. Both a low demand for housing related to a shrinking labour market and out-migration and a high pressure on the housing market triggering restrictive or conditional measures to avoid speculative developments and rural gentrification affect social sustainability.</p><p>Our case study on policy and planning measures that deal with rural housing in Sweden shows that there is a need to further investigate and understand the role of housing in rural areas for various groups and people with fewer resources, including further elaboration on the connection between mobilities and housing needs. A narrow focus upon housing provision that does not take into account access to services and communications as well as contemporary mobility flows of different groups challenges equality and well-being in rural areas. In Sweden, housing is primarily a municipal, local responsibility. However, exogenous forces or trends mean that housing issues play out at both the regional and national levels and put the municipalities in a difficult situation.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"110 ","pages":"Article 103377"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0743016724001815/pdfft?md5=cf74c5abe51cfd1db1722b65749cd589&pid=1-s2.0-S0743016724001815-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142012222","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":"Contemporary interventions tackling complex issues: Exploring pathways from online mental health forums to personal resilience","authors":"Artur Steiner ,&nbsp;Jane Farmer","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103379","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103379","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper identifies and examines pathways in which online mental health forums assist in building personal resilience and address the mental ill-health of rural residents. We use a resilience theory to develop a Theoretical Resilience Framework and apply it to empirical qualitative data deriving from three of Australia's online mental health forums as well as interviews with forum users. Using thematic analysis and an abductive approach to generating new knowledge, we develop a logic model illustrating links between factors influencing personal resilience, factors acting upon resilience, and intermediate and long-term outcomes that online mental health forums have on their users. Our study demonstrates that online forums can provide ongoing and timely services to those in need, and they support the adaptive capacity of individuals to cope with stressors and a variety of challenges they face. Embedded in a rural setting, the paper adds understanding to the role of technology and online forums in addressing geographical isolation. Ultimately, our work helps to develop new sources of knowledge about rural resilience and supporting mental health service provision in rural places.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"110 ","pages":"Article 103379"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0743016724001839/pdfft?md5=de8956f5625b771e04742920594ba6ff&pid=1-s2.0-S0743016724001839-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142097914","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}