{"title":"Civic food networks and agrifood forums: a social infrastructure for civic engagement","authors":"I.-Liang Wahn","doi":"10.1007/s10460-023-10536-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10460-023-10536-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper explores how civic food networks (CFN) use public forums to engage with other initiatives and stakeholders in civil society. It develops the concept of social infrastructure to capture the assemblages of discourses, networking and spaces around agrifood forums. The research then examines how social infrastructures support CFNs’ capacity to organize communities and challenge power relations in the agrifood system. Two cases are compared: News&Market, a Taiwan-based agrifood news platform which also sells organic food products, and Foodthink, a collective blog created by a farmers’ market in China. Both started in the late 2010s but one focuses on policy critiques while the other focuses on market critiques. A comparison finds that CFNs develop different critiques to address the specific challenges facing local alternative food networks (AFNs), and use networking and space creation to promote social dialogue with other stakeholders or build networks across AFNs and NGOs. The paper argues that a social infrastructure such as that built around agrifood forums enables CFNs to shape food democracy and food citizenship practices in new ways.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7683,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture and Human Values","volume":"41 3","pages":"1069 - 1083"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139797528","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":"The seeds are coming home: a rising movement for Indigenous seed rematriation in the United States","authors":"Emma Herrighty, Christina Gish Hill","doi":"10.1007/s10460-023-10532-5","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10460-023-10532-5","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Seed rematriation is a rising movement within greater efforts to improve seed and food sovereignty for Native American communities in the United States. As a feminized reframing of repatriation, rematriation seeks to heal Indigenous relationships with food, seeds, and landscapes. Since first contact, Native agricultural practices have been systematically targeted by colonization, resulting in the diminished biodiversity of cultural gardening systems. Of this vast wealth, many varieties exist today solely under the stewardship of non-Native institutions. Seed rematriation is therefore the process and movement by which Native nations reclaim their cultural seed heritages. Once seeds are returned to the hands and soils of their home communities, Indigenous Nations can reestablish healthy, diverse, and sustainable seed and foodways for generations to come. This article explores the history of the term rematriation within Indigenous sovereignty scholarship as well as its evolving interpretations and applications. Considering how the seed rematriation movement has been shaped by several seed keepers in the Midwest reveals the cultural understandings and significances that underpin this work across many aspects of Indigenous lifeways. The resulting discussion from ethnographic material demonstrates why seed reclamation and seed sovereignty movements in the Midwest uphold Native nationhood through both resurgence and refusal. The Indigenous processes of recognizing and reclaiming seeds work beyond recovering agricultural knowledge to also mend severed kin relationships, rejuvenate cultural knowledge, and reestablish authority over Indigenous food systems.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7683,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture and Human Values","volume":"41 3","pages":"1007 - 1018"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139859574","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}
Catherine Littlefield, Molly Stollmeyer, Peter Andrée, Patricia Ballamingie, Charles Z. Levkoe
{"title":"Exploring settler-Indigenous engagement in food systems governance","authors":"Catherine Littlefield, Molly Stollmeyer, Peter Andrée, Patricia Ballamingie, Charles Z. Levkoe","doi":"10.1007/s10460-023-10534-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10460-023-10534-3","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Within food systems governance spaces, civil society organizations (CSOs) play important roles in addressing power structures and shaping decisions. In Canada, CSO food systems actors increasingly understand the importance of building relationships among settler and Indigenous peoples in their work. Efforts to make food systems more sustainable and just necessarily mean confronting the realities that most of what is known as Canada is unceded Indigenous territory, stolen land, land acquired through coercive means, and/or land bound by treaty between specific Indigenous groups and the Crown. CSOs that aim to build more equitable food systems must thus engage with the ongoing impacts of settler colonialism, learn/unlearn colonial histories, and build meaningful relationships with Indigenous peoples. This paper explores how settler-led CSOs engage with Indigenous communities and organizations in their food systems governance work. The research draws on 71 semi-structured interviews with CSO leaders engaged in food systems work from across Canada. Our analysis presents an illustrative snapshot of the complex and ongoing processes of settler-Indigenous engagement, where many settler-led CSOs aim to work more closely with Indigenous communities and organizations. However, participants also recognize that most existing engagements remain insufficient. We share CSOs’ practices, tensions, and lessons learned as reflections for scholars and practitioners interested in the continuous journey of building settler-Indigenous partnerships and reimagining more just and sustainable food systems, work which requires iterative and critically reflexive learning.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7683,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture and Human Values","volume":"41 3","pages":"1085 - 1101"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10460-023-10534-3.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140475954","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":"Exploring smallholder farmers’ climate change adaptation intentions in Tiruchirappalli District, South India","authors":"Hermine Mitter, Kathrin Obermeier, Erwin Schmid","doi":"10.1007/s10460-023-10528-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10460-023-10528-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Smallholder farmers are disproportionally vulnerable to climate change, and knowledge on cognitive factors and processes is required to successfully support their adaptation to climate change. Hence, we apply a qualitative interview approach to investigate smallholder farmers’ adaptation intentions and behavior. The theoretical Model of Private Proactive Adaptation to Climate Change has guided data collection and analysis. We conducted twenty semi-structured interviews with smallholder farmers living and working in Tiruchirappalli District in South India. We applied a qualitative content analysis by combining a content-structuring with a type-building approach. The systematic analysis resulted in four types of smallholder farmers that differ in the formation of adaptation intentions. Three of these types intend to adapt and follow different adaptation plans: (i) innovative measures that are new to the farm or region and are considered effective to overcome the detriments experienced from past efforts, (ii) contractive measures such as selling land or livestock, and (iii) retaining past measures they consider effective while relying on their access to resources. Only one type does not intend to adapt, emphasizing that rain is absolutely necessary to continue farming. We conclude that public efforts could focus on education and training programs adjusted to the farmers’ needs, measures to maintain or increase the fertility of land and farmers’ livelihood, flexible water conservation technologies and regular checking of dams, fostering combined adaptation and mitigation measures, providing access to loans up to debt cancellation, and offering physical and mental health programs.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7683,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture and Human Values","volume":"41 3","pages":"1019 - 1035"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10460-023-10528-1.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140482454","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":"Being a woman with the “skills of a man”: negotiating gender in the 21st century US Corn Belt","authors":"Carly E. Nichols","doi":"10.1007/s10460-023-10538-z","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10460-023-10538-z","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>There has been broad interest in the so-called rise of women farmers in United States (US) agriculture. Researchers have elucidated the diverse ways farmers ‘perform’ gender, while also examining how engaging in a masculine-coded industry like agriculture shapes individuals’ gendered identities as well as their social and mental wellbeing. While illuminating, this work is mostly focused on sustainable or direct-market farmers, with surprisingly little research examining women on conventional row crops operations. This paper works to fill this empirical gap and further theorize gender-agriculture intersections through analyzing interviews with Iowa women row-crop farmers to understand the ways they perceive their gendered identities, and how they see them shaping their farming experience and mental wellbeing. Deploying a conceptual understanding of gender as both discursive and embodied as well as relational and fluid, I find respondents see themselves operating in a somewhat liminal gender identity, where they feel adept at moving between masculinized spaces of agriculture and more feminized domains of homes and office jobs. Critically, while women rarely expressed stress about doing “masculine” coded agricultural labor, they had more complex feelings towards either disliking or imperfectly completing feminized care and reproductive labor. Younger women expressed particular ambivalence about assuming the identity of farmer while also fulfilling gendered norms around (heterosexual) marriage and childbearing. The liminality of women’s gender performance also cut both ways, and while they feel able to access different gendered spaces some feel they are not fully accepted in either. I conclude by reflecting on what these particular forms of gendered subjectivity might mean for women’s mental wellbeing and how agencies might better support gender equity in agriculture.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7683,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture and Human Values","volume":"41 3","pages":"1053 - 1068"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-01-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10460-023-10538-z.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139597371","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 essential work of feeding others: connecting food labor in public and private spaces","authors":"Teresa M. Mares, Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern","doi":"10.1007/s10460-024-10541-y","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10460-024-10541-y","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":7683,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture and Human Values","volume":"41 3","pages":"913 - 920"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139599107","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":"Role of the neo-rural phenomenon and the new peasantry in agroecological transitions: a literature review","authors":"Beatriz Vizuete, Elisa Oteros-Rozas, Marina García-Llorente","doi":"10.1007/s10460-023-10537-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10460-023-10537-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In the context of agricultural activity intensification and rural abandonment, neo-rurality has emerged as a back-to-the-land migratory movement led by urban populations seeking alternative ways of life close to nature. Although the initiatives of the new peasantry are diverse, most are land related, such as agriculture and livestock farming. A priori, neorural people undertake agri-food system activities in ways that differ from the conventional model, following the principles of environmental and social sustainability. We conducted a systematic review of the literature on the neo-rural phenomenon with the main objective of examining how neo-rurality has been found to support agroecological transitions. The corpus of neo-rural studies was analyzed from a social-ecological perspective, and a Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) was conducted to determine whether neo-rural agri-food system activities follow agroecological principles. The results indicate that neo-rural studies is an emerging research field that has received considerable attention in western countries. Diverse conceptualizations and terms have been used to address the phenomenon, but the literature agrees on political and environmental motivations and several barriers faced by neo-rural people. This population and in particular new peasants, are employing a wide variety of agroecological practices and strategies throughout the agri-food system. Overall, neo-rural people have been reported to contribute significantly to agroecological transition.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7683,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture and Human Values","volume":"41 3","pages":"1277 - 1297"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10460-023-10537-0.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139626865","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}
David Weisberger, Melissa Ann Ray, Nicholas T. Basinger, Jennifer Jo Thompson
{"title":"Chemical, ecological, other? Identifying weed management typologies within industrialized cropping systems in Georgia (U.S.)","authors":"David Weisberger, Melissa Ann Ray, Nicholas T. Basinger, Jennifer Jo Thompson","doi":"10.1007/s10460-023-10530-7","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10460-023-10530-7","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Since the introduction and widespread adoption of chemical herbicides, “weed management” has become almost synonymous with “herbicide management.” Over-reliance on herbicides and herbicide-resistant crops has given rise to herbicide resistant weeds. Integrated weed management (IWM) identifies three strategies for weed management— biological-cultural, chemical-technological, mechanical-physical—and recommends combining all three to mitigate herbicide resistance. However, adoption of IWM has stalled, and research to understand the adoption of IWM practices has focused on single stakeholder groups, especially farmers. In contrast, decisions about weed management often occur within a social ecosystem where multiple stakeholder groups co-create knowledge and practices. To more holistically investigate perceptions and decision-making related to herbicide resistant weed management, we conducted 23 in-depth interviews in combination with Q methodology with farmers and public-/private-sector agricultural professionals in the state of Georgia (U.S.). Our investigation focused on the management of an increasingly herbicide resistant weed, Palmer amaranth, which enabled broader conversations about agricultural systems, farmer livelihoods, and sustainability. Factor and thematic analyses allowed us to identify and characterize two distinct typologies: one primarily valued agronomic efficiency and relied upon chemical-technological management practices, while the other valued diversifying weed management strategies as the pathway to agronomic and economic success. Typologies diverged substantially in attitudes toward the three weed management strategies, the role of technology, and systems management generally. These two viewpoints have implications for how we understand underlying stakeholder motivations and choices around weed management strategies, both of which are crucial in promoting and supporting farmer use of diverse, ecologically-sound, weed management strategies.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7683,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture and Human Values","volume":"41 3","pages":"935 - 953"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139446591","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}
Bryony Sands, Mario Reinaldo Machado, Alissa White, Egleé Zent, Rachelle K. Gould
{"title":"Correction: Moving towards an anti-colonial definition for regenerative agriculture","authors":"Bryony Sands, Mario Reinaldo Machado, Alissa White, Egleé Zent, Rachelle K. Gould","doi":"10.1007/s10460-023-10527-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10460-023-10527-2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":7683,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture and Human Values","volume":"41 3","pages":"1307 - 1307"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139446948","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":"More than meat? Livestock farmers’ views on opportunities to produce for plant-based diets","authors":"Rhiannon Craft, Hannah Pitt","doi":"10.1007/s10460-023-10533-4","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10460-023-10533-4","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Promoting plant-based diets as a response to climate crisis has clear implications for producers of animal derived foods, but surprisingly little research considers their perspectives on this. Our exploration focused on farming strongly associated with meat production in Wales, UK. Mindful of polarised debates around plant-based diets, we considered dietary transition as an opportunity to produce for new markets. The first aim was to identify whether transition towards plant-based diets might trigger transformation of livestock agriculture. Findings indicate a potential trigger event once livestock farmers are certain that consumer trends and climate mitigation require change. Livestock farmers who regard their meat as climate-friendly might resist transitions felt to unfairly disadvantage them. We then considered livestock farmers’ likely capacity to produce plant crops, and how this transformational capacity might be enhanced. Participants highlighted forms of financial and environmental inflexibility, plus social norms regarding “good” Welsh farmers, combining to make transformation risky. Transformational capacity might be enhanced through levering occupational and place attachments by portraying plant crops as a revival of historic practices from traditional farming landscapes. Improved linking capacity will also be beneficial, as producing for new markets requires connections to new supply chains, and learning across divisions within rural communities. We present these preliminary insights to livestock farmers’ attitudes and transformational capacity to inform future research with them to advance just agricultural transitions. Our study indicates potential to avoid confrontational discussion of dietary transition and we hope that others will pursue its focus on opportunities for farmers.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7683,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture and Human Values","volume":"41 3","pages":"975 - 988"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10460-023-10533-4.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139147409","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}