Agriculture and Human Values最新文献

{"title":"From farm to table: uncovering narratives of agency and responsibility for change among actors along agri-food value chains in Germany","authors":"Veronica Hector,&nbsp;Jonathan Friedrich,&nbsp;Michael P. Schlaile,&nbsp;Anna Panagiotou,&nbsp;Claudia Bieling","doi":"10.1007/s10460-025-10732-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10460-025-10732-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Given the complex nature of agri-food value chains and related sustainability challenges, the question arises who has the agency and responsibility to address these challenges and facilitate systemic change. We address this question through a mixed method approach and examine experiences with agriculture among different actors along the agricultural value chains in Germany. Based on this, we explore how various actors make sense of current agri-food topics as well as of their perceived responsibility and agency to change practices. While our study shows weak signals for the favoring of collective and collaborative approaches to change, there is a dominant narrative of externalizing responsibility to other actors, mainly consumers, state actors, and to a lesser extent farmers; upstream market actors such as retailers are barely mentioned, indicating a lack of awareness of the power dynamics within agri-food systems. We discuss how these findings can inform appropriate governance mechanisms at different levels and future research to address the prospective responsibility of value chain actors and power dynamics within agri-food transitions.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7683,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture and Human Values","volume":"42 3","pages":"1805 - 1827"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10460-025-10732-1.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144905144","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Crop biocultural traits and diversity dynamics among Bassari farmers","authors":"Anna Porcuna-Ferrer,&nbsp;Théo Guillerminet,&nbsp;Delphine Renard,&nbsp;Vanesse Labeyrie,&nbsp;Christian Leclerc,&nbsp;Victoria Reyes-García","doi":"10.1007/s10460-025-10725-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10460-025-10725-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Cultural and ecological dimensions of agriculture are often considered as contrasting in agricultural research. This is well reflected on approaches to variety evaluation and selection that privilege a narrow set of agronomic indicators that do not account for the complexity of farmer-crop interactions. In this work, we explore the concept of ‘crop biocultural traits’ to integrate the social and biological dimensions of crops and the entanglements between them. Our research is based on a case-study in a Bassari village of south-eastern Senegal, where we explored the biocultural traits that farmers assign to crops and varieties together with their abundance, distribution and trends. We focus on six local staple crops, namely sorghum, Bambara groundnut, fonio, maize, rice and peanut. Our methods include key-informant and semi-structured interviews, individual trait scoring exercises and participatory workshops. Our results reveal that Bassari farmers characterize crops and varieties considering both their agronomic but also their socio-economic and cultural traits. Bassari maintain a basket of crops and varieties that, together, bear multiple and complementary traits. However, no biocultural trait alone can explain crop and variety abundance, distribution, and trends. We conclude that understanding crop diversity dynamics requires embracing the complexity of biocultural interactions. We argue that this is also a matter of ontological pluralism and of viewing agricultural knowledge as a collective effort and a common good. Only by including diverse ways of knowing will it be possible for plant breeding and conservation efforts to address farmers contextualized needs and priorities.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7683,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture and Human Values","volume":"42 3","pages":"1323 - 1345"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10460-025-10725-0.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144905071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Garden as society: exploring the values embedded in community garden aesthetics","authors":"Azucena Lucatero,&nbsp;Madeleine Fairbairn","doi":"10.1007/s10460-025-10745-w","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10460-025-10745-w","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Despite the benefits of ecological complexity, tidy and ecologically simple landscapes are the hegemonic aesthetic norm in many rural and urban settings. In rural agriculture, tidy landscapes of perfectly spaced, weed-free rows are often taken as an indication of farmer skill. Meanwhile, suburban yard owners face cultural pressures to maintain immaculate lawns through intensive lawn care regimens. In both contexts, an aesthetic of tidiness can contribute to dire ecological outcomes. Community gardens have potential to break the mold of tidiness. They are influenced by both agricultural and suburban aesthetic lineages but also by alternative agri-food movements, which place a higher value on sustainable practices, opening possibilities for alternative aesthetic outcomes that support greater ecosystem health. Drawing on a photovoice project and semi-structured interviews with community gardeners in the California central coast, we investigate the values that drive community garden aesthetics. We find that tidiness remains the hegemonic aesthetic, upheld by formal and informal governance mechanisms as well as personal taste. However, an alternative aesthetic, which we term “wildness,” provides a counterpoint to tidiness that can contribute valuable ecological resources to community gardens. Ultimately, however, we find that garden tidiness is not necessarily mutually exclusive with a sustainability orientation and wildness was not always the product of sustainability values.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7683,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture and Human Values","volume":"42 3","pages":"1933 - 1951"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10460-025-10745-w.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144905166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The impact of agricultural policies on agrobiodiversity management in a pre-Rif farming system in Morocco: what implications for resilience?","authors":"Océane Cobelli,&nbsp;Irene Teixidor-Toneu,&nbsp;Salama El Fatehi,&nbsp;Younes Hmimsa,&nbsp;Christian Leclerc,&nbsp;Vanesse Labeyrie","doi":"10.1007/s10460-025-10724-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10460-025-10724-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Agrobiodiversity is widely recognized as essential for smallholder agriculture, particularly for enhancing resilience to disruptions which are increasingly frequent and intense. However, whether agricultural policies support or hinder agrobiodiversity in these systems remains debated. A deeper understanding of how policies intersect with other change drivers and local practices is crucial to improving decision-making. Using a case study from northwest Morocco, this research explores the complex interplay between public policies and other factors affecting local agrobiodiversity management. This study is based on the analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with 48 farmers documenting the changes in their farm and agrobiodiversity management system, and comparing it with that of their parents, as well as the perceived drivers of these changes. The results of this analysis were cross-checked with literature on agricultural policies. Our results show that major changes in agrobiodiversity management systems occurred at three levels: (i) seeds and varieties of annual crops; (ii) farming activities (i.e., crop species and livestock); and (iii) associated agricultural practices from plot to landscape. Public policies were found to be important drivers of these changes but interacted with other drivers such as climate change, rural exodus and other societal and economic shifts. Nevertheless, our research also highlights the persistence of local practices and motivations that sustain agrobiodiversity despite strong pressures, particularly through culinary practices, crop rotation, and agroforestry. This study underscores the complex, context-specific interactions that shape local agrobiodiversity management systems. It discusses the implications of changes in agrobiodiversity management systems on the resilience of farm livelihoods, and emphasizes the need to recognize local distinctiveness in adapting these systems to global change.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7683,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture and Human Values","volume":"42 3","pages":"1285 - 1305"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10460-025-10724-1.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144904952","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Growing behind and beyond bars: an examination of prison gardens and reentry green jobs programs","authors":"Amanda Micek","doi":"10.1007/s10460-025-10739-8","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10460-025-10739-8","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This research focuses on prison garden and green re-entry jobs programs to understand the benefits their participants can receive. The United States continues to have one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world. Yet, penal tactics shift over time to placate modern sensibilities and meet ideas around the role prisons should play in broader society. Most recently, some prisons are shifting their focus from discipline to reform and rehabilitation, implementing and working with reintegration industries like prison gardens and green jobs training programs. The success of these programs is often solely measured in recidivism rates, which I argue are limiting and serve to legitimize the prison-industrial complex. This ethnographic research examines these programs to argue that they impact participants beyond what the recidivism rates show, including providing: a sense of purpose, a safe space, new senses of selfhood, and a sense of belonging and community. However, not all garden and green jobs programs are inherently successful and positive. Rather, there must be careful consideration to the structure, formatting, implementation, and execution of the programs in order for them to make a meaningful impact on participants.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7683,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture and Human Values","volume":"42 3","pages":"1865 - 1880"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144904950","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Nested relationships and the spatially distanced consumer in alternative pet food movements","authors":"Carly Baker","doi":"10.1007/s10460-025-10743-y","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10460-025-10743-y","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Marketing ‘sustainable and humane’ super-premium dog kibble emerged alongside alternative food movements interested in sustainability, transparency, and welfare. To demonstrate the trends and implications of the alternative pet food movement, I selected Open Farm for a case study. Open Farm was the first certified humane and sustainable dog food on the market with a ‘transparent’ supply chain. Through interviews, autoethnography, and semiotic analysis, I demonstrate that certification represents a series of nested relationships in the dog food supply chain, from the dog through to the nonhumans used as ingredients. With the transparency tool, these relationships are commodified to increase the exchange value of the product. The added premium is meant to signal an intimate and improved food system, but I argue that the certification and representation of these specific relationships obscures the industrial scale of alternative pet foods and the consequential impact for humans and nonhumans within food systems. This research contributes to food and animal geographies by applying alternative food literature to the alternative pet food industry, and by researching a novel intersection in pet-farmed animal-human relationships: the pet store.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7683,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture and Human Values","volume":"42 3","pages":"1919 - 1932"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10460-025-10743-y.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144905198","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Agri-food related social innovations in sustainability transitions: a multiple case study of initiatives across Europe and Northern Africa engaged in change","authors":"Friederike Elsner,&nbsp;Christian Herzig,&nbsp;Patrizia Pugliese,&nbsp;Hamid El Bilali,&nbsp;Lea Ellen Matthiessen,&nbsp;Rita Góralska-Walczak,&nbsp;Youssef Aboussaleh,&nbsp;Cesare Zanasi,&nbsp;Carola Strassner","doi":"10.1007/s10460-025-10742-z","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10460-025-10742-z","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Human actions and interactions drive agri-food system outcomes. Sustainability transitions of such systems are shaped by changes in social relations encompassing new ways of doing, framing, knowing, organizing—largely understood as social innovations (SI). Previous SI conceptualizations in transition research draw substantially on energy studies. Hence, we address the recent appeal to expand SI research to other realms and specifically refer to the developed typology of SI in energy that we apply and adapt to the agri-food system. Guided by transition theory and SI research, this paper investigates the manifold activities of socially innovative agri-food initiatives engaged in challenging the dominant regime, the mechanisms through which these activities are realized and the barriers and drivers initiatives face. We conducted 22 semi-structured interviews with 17 initiatives engaged in making the local food system more sustainable from five territorial cases in Europe (Denmark, Germany, Italy, Poland) and Northern Africa (Morocco) in rural and urban areas. We derived a cluster structuring the socially innovative activities according to first, social (interaction) processes and second, agri-food fields. The initiatives assert these agri-food related social innovations (FSI) through four social (interaction) processes: cooperation, sharing, enabling, knowledge generation. We found that the socially innovative initiatives anchor their new ways through networks, practices and materials and institutions to six agri-food regime domains. Local political actors are perceived as conducive to their development. Governance for transition may take this into account as these political actors are better intertwined with the local area, capable of adapting policies to local needs.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7683,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture and Human Values","volume":"42 3","pages":"1895 - 1918"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10460-025-10742-z.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144904949","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Farmer perceptions of regenerative agriculture in the Corn Belt: exploring motivations and barriers to adoption","authors":"Jaime J. Coon,&nbsp;Mary Jo Easley,&nbsp;Jennifer L. Williams,&nbsp;Gene Hambrick","doi":"10.1007/s10460-025-10735-y","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10460-025-10735-y","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Regenerative agriculture has been proposed as a sustainable approach that balances environmental and economic trade-offs in farming. However, regenerative agriculture lacks a consistent definition and implementation, and there is a need for context-specific information on adoption. In our study, we evaluated farmer perceptions in an economically depressed region on the Indiana-Ohio border. Guided by diffusion theory, we explored definitions of regenerative agriculture and motivations and barriers to adoption using an online pre-survey (n = 49) and exploratory, in-depth interviews with <i>early adopters</i> (n = 16) who identified themselves as using regenerative agriculture. Early adopters defined regenerative agriculture as principles and practices that support healthier soils, with an emphasis on livestock and cover cropping. Interviewees noted that environmental and economic priorities were more strongly linked in regenerative agriculture versus conventional agriculture. Motivations were primarily environmental (e.g., soil, water, biodiversity), whereas barriers were primarily economic (e.g., start-up costs, marketing). However, community benefits, such as healthier food and farmer wellbeing, were other motivators. Regenerative practices were perceived as highly observable but lacking in support from the broader community. Further, in economically depressed communities, costs were seen as limiting, especially for livestock integration, which was perceived to have lower trialability versus practices like cover crops. Our analysis reveals that although many farmers would not say they use regenerative agriculture, there is increasing engagement with some associated practices. Financial and marketing support and facilitating information sharing between early adopters and other farmers may increase regenerative practices in economically depressed regions of the Corn Belt.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7683,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture and Human Values","volume":"42 3","pages":"1847 - 1864"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10460-025-10735-y.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144904951","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Scaling up agroecology through new municipalism? Promises and pitfalls of experimentation in post-crisis Madrid","authors":"Émilie Houde-Tremblay,&nbsp;Geneviève Cloutier,&nbsp;Nathan McClintock,&nbsp;Alain Olivier","doi":"10.1007/s10460-024-10700-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10460-024-10700-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Scaling up agroecology raises the question of how to relate to institutions. While the institutionalization of agroecology at national and international scales has raised concerns among activists and researchers, municipalities are increasingly envisioned as potential entry points for thinking about the reorganization of food systems. Using participatory and non-participatory observation, semi-directed interviews and documentary research, we explore the encounter between the agroecological movement and new municipalism in Madrid and interrogate the institutionalization of agroecology under the government of Ahora Madrid (2015–2019). The analysis of various arrangements through which agroecology has been operationalized highlights the fragile nature of the advances made as well as the constraints to the full integration of the agroecological project within the local government. These constraints, linked to how people relate to food and agriculture, to the forms of nature promoted by agroecology, and to collaborative approaches, suggest a need to consider the way experiments are lived and embedded in everyday life in order to promote learning and subjectivation processes.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7683,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture and Human Values","volume":"42 3","pages":"1603 - 1621"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144905180","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A multi-dimensional framework for responsible and socially inclusive digital innovation in food, water, and land systems","authors":"Felix Ouko Opola,&nbsp;Simon Langan,&nbsp;Indika Arulingam,&nbsp;Charlotte Schumann,&nbsp;Niyati Singaraju,&nbsp;Deepa Joshi,&nbsp;Surajit Ghosh","doi":"10.1007/s10460-025-10731-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10460-025-10731-2","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Digital innovations can offer solutions to various food, water, and land systems challenges globally. However, there are concerns on the ethical and social inclusivity aspects of these innovations, particularly for marginalized groups of people in less industrialised countries. In this article, we describe the design and development of a digital inclusivity framework, which builds from a detailed synthesis of inclusivity in digital literature. Key insights from the review were collated into five dimensions: risk mitigation, accessibility, usability, benefits, and participation. These dimensions can be assessed by means of twenty-one concrete and measurable sub indicators. Our focus was to enable a more holistic approach to the usually technocentric design of digital innovations. The framework, including the associated indicators, lays the groundwork for the development of a digital inclusivity index, a tool for assessing and fostering the inclusivity of digital innovations in food, water, and land systems.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7683,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture and Human Values","volume":"42 3","pages":"1829 - 1846"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10460-025-10731-2.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144905181","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}