Agriculture has long struggled to reconcile production with biodiversity conservation. Industrial farming practices that erode structural complexity within crop fields and across entire landscapes, as well as widespread pesticide use, have resulted in declining insect abundance and diversity globally. Recognition of socio-environmental consequences have spurred alternative pest management paradigms such as integrated pest management (IPM) and conservation biological control (CBC), which emphasize ecology as the scientific foundation for a sustainable agriculture. However, adoption of these approaches at scales large enough to (...) impact biodiversity has been slow, particularly in industrialized countries. Landscape-scale management is an integral component of ecological agriculture, making pest control and biodiversity conservation collective problems that require coordination among multiple stakeholders. The extent to which farmers recognize and act upon this perspective is not well studied. Through literature synthesis and a case study of Southern Wisconsin, I analyze factors shaping farmer adoption of insect and landscape management practices through the lens of constrained choice. I argue that multiple overlapping institutions (social networks, market forces, science and technology, and political-legal systems) co-produce farmer behaviors and landscape structure, largely to the detriment of ecological pest control and biodiversity. Wisconsin farmers' entomological concerns largely overlook beneficial insect species and eschew landscape thinking. Ultimately, slowing agricultural drivers of insect biodiversity declines will likely require large-scale coordination and political-economic change. (shrink)

The historical figure of the cow as a symbol is treasured and ancient, yet simultaneously this animal in many societies exists de facto for people’s plates. The cow, like other animals, exists in parts: as treasured symbol, and as commodity. Looking at collections by contemporary Anglophone poets, Ariana Reines, and Selima Hill, I will consider how each writer’s self-reflexive critique of animal representation reorients the material subjects of their poems, intersecting these innovative poetries with contemporary thinkers on animal studies, to (...) realize the limits of a poetic perspective on animal bodies. Both writers work either against or deliberately within a lyric mode critiqued for its objectifying address in order to interrogate modes of rendering that position the animal’s existence as a resource. From Reines’s scatological slaughterhouse to Hill’s surreal landscapes I will explore how the symbolic and literal exploitation of an animal’s “flesh” in their poems is counteracted. (shrink)

In this article I argue that the Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographs of the Greenbelt Town program in the late 1930s function beyond the goals for which the FSA photographs are typically known.1 The FSA photographs documented scenes of urban and rural poverty during the Great Depression to make the case for supporting President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal policies. In the midst of the Great Depression, the U.S. government planned and built three Greenbelt towns with a utopian vision of (...) modern living for displaced farmers and the urban poor. I argue that within the larger collection of FSA photographs, which typically portray images of American struggle and resilience, exists a group of photographs .. (shrink)

Current discussions on the utilization of information technologies for agriculture, place emphasis on the collection and processing of information on the farm, through the introduction and use of computers as management support in process control and database management. However, because of farm management's dependency on outside information support for the production control and market engagement, the communication of information and the improvement of its efficiency is of similar, if not greater, importance. This article, therefore, places its main focus on the (...) communication aspect. It provides a classification for “on-farm” communication patterns and highlights, using this classification, a number of European experiences with videotex applications in agriculture. It argues that new information technologies may open the way for new approaches to farm-related communication, and thus for a major change in farm management practices. For this progression to occur, its development and application should base itself upon the basic communication patterns that have evolved in practice, and reflect the actual use of information in agriculture. (shrink)

Taken collectively, consumer food choices have a major impact on animal lives, human lives, and the environment. But it is far from clear how to move from facts about the power of collective consumer demand to conclusions about what one ought to do as an individual consumer. In particular, even if a large-scale shift in demand away from a certain product (e.g., factory-farmed meat) would prevent grave harms or injustices, it typically does not seem that it will make a (...) difference whether one refrains from purchasing that product oneself. Most present-day food companies operate at too large a scale for a single purchase to make a difference to production decisions. If that is true, then it is not clear what point there is in refraining. This is “the problem of collective impact.” This chapter explores a range of proposals for how to solve this problem. (shrink)

Food labels serve important informational and signaling purposes however, the subjective beliefs associated with ethical labels such as farm animal welfare labels and their influence on anti-consumption behavior are not well-understood. This paper aims to address how subjective beliefs about FAW labels affect the milk anti-consumption behavior for different segments of consumers. Data from an in-person opt-in survey conducted in the US were used to address the objectives of this study. Information on respondents’ sociodemographic profile, milk choice and perceptions about (...) FAW was collected. Data were analyzed using multivariate regressions. The results show that FAW labels served as heuristic cues for higher environmental quality and health. The presence of labels also evoked a positive feeling in consumers. The FAW halos impacted milk anti-consumption. The effects however depended on preference type—milk versus plant-based alternative milk beverages. The results highlight the possibility of appealing to the relevant FAW subjective beliefs by stakeholders interested in fostering anti-consumption behavior as a means to achieving more sustainable consumption behavior. (shrink)

Efforts to recruit and retain farmers have traditionally supported the farm business through a focus on access to land, capital, and business skills. While these efforts are critical, a small body of work indicates that these may be insufficient because they rarely account for the social and economic needs of farm households and how the (in)ability to meet these needs interacts with the development and economic viability of the farm enterprise. Social and economic needs include, but are not limited to (...) access to health insurance and health care, childcare, adequate household and retirement income, affordable housing, and food security. This article introduces a symposium intended to shed light on these underappreciated needs and how they connect to the farm enterprise. We contend that a greater understanding of farm households’ lived realities meeting their social and economic needs could lead to a paradigm shift in how we understand and support farm families’ resilience. We set the stage for the eight articles in this symposium in two ways. First, we present the theoretical and empirical reasons why considering household-level needs is crucial when working towards supporting the agricultural sector. Second, we review the literature on farm households’ social and economic needs. We then thematically summarize the key insights from the eight articles. Despite variations in topics studied, research designs, and geographical contexts, we note a clear pattern in what the authors see as the implications of their findings. Namely, they reaffirm the need to challenge the traditional view that separates household needs from farm enterprise activities and outcomes. Their collective call for stronger social and agricultural programs and policies is noteworthy and may in part be connected to the structural underpinnings of the challenges meeting social and economic needs highlighted across the articles. (shrink)

Although telos has been important in farm animal ethics for several decades, clearer understanding of it may be gained from the close reading of Aristotle’s primary texts on animals. Aristotle observed and classified animals informally in daily life and through planned evidence gathering and collection development. During this work he theorized his concept of telos, which includes species flourishing and a good life, and drew on extensive and detailed assessments of animal physiology, diet and behaviour. Aristotle believed that animals, like (...) humans, have purpose, and that telos is natural and unchanging. Moreover, he greatly valued the economic, political and defence contributions of farmers to their communities. In his stockperson ethics, animals are ordered to rational human purposes through husbandry, and good practice is established and shared by experience, habituation and training. Aristotle provides a useful and demanding framework for farm animal ethics that goes well beyond negative theories of welfare as freedom from harms. (shrink)

This chapter is a product of a study undertaken to investigate the influence of gender related factors as regards to adoption of fish farming technology in selected villages of Morogoro Region, Tanzania. Data for this chapter had been collected in various studies conducted earlier and results published by the author about the study area from November 2005 to May 2008. These data were supplemented by primary data which had been collected by the author but not used before, and secondary information (...) from other sources. Descriptive statistics was used to report findings and data were validated by the level of significance and mean percentages. The overall results indicate that the adoption of fish farming technology was not gender neutral. More specifically, the results revealed that the probability of women to adopt fish farming technology was higher than that of men. This was likely because fish farming met women objectives of food security, immobility as they attend to household chores, and lack of alternative opportunities among themselves. Yet, women had lesser access to resources necessary for adoption of fish farming technology and were less reached by extension services than men. This was mainly attributed to the kinship system which favoured men than women, lack of legal information on ownership of productive resources and social-cultural and economic barriers to adoption among women such as high levels of illiteracy, low formal education, immobility, poverty in terms of low income and very heavy workload. In addition, although women participated in all activities of fish farming, men controlled income accruing from the activity. Three recommendations emerge from this study: First, there has to be alignment of extension methodology and activities to the task, needs, objectives, appropriate time and place and socio-cultural and economic barriers of women to technology adoption. Extension staff should be trained to take such aspects into account and plan for training sessions at times and locations suitable for women. Secondly, socio-cultural and economic barriers that hinder women’s access to productive resources should be identified and dealt with during project design. Finally, efforts should be made by women and other organizations to ensure that they are heard and they should exert pressure, through advocacy and lobbying, in order to bring equal distribution of income accruing from using fish farming technology. (shrink)

Farm to school is a popular approach to food systems education in K-12 schools across the United States. FTS programs are highly heterogeneous, but generally include serving locally grown fruits and vegetables in school nutrition programs, planting and maintaining school gardens, and engaging students in garden and food-based learning across the school curriculum. While FTS has been promoted as a “win–win–win” for children, farmers, and communities, it has also been critiqued for reinscribing neoliberal trends that exacerbate social inequalities. Through a (...) year-long, ethnographic study of FTS within one public middle school in the Southeast US, this paper contributes to these debates. Drawing upon theoretical frameworks of materiality and affective labor, we investigate how engagement with FTS activities can transform the social practice of everyday life in school for students, staff, and teachers. We find that FTS can reframe success in collaborative terms, engage the school around collective responsibility, and foster relationships across socioeconomic and racial difference. Although there is continued need to expand policies to ensure equitable funding for FTS, our research demonstrates that the hands-on work and collective subjectivities produced through FTS can mitigate the harms of neoliberalism and be a force for positive social change within a school. (shrink)

In face of rising flood losses globally, the approach of “living with floods,” rather than relying on structural measures for flood control and prevention, is acquiring greater resonance in diverse socioeconomic contexts. In the Lerma Valley in the state of Mexico, rapid industrialization, population growth, and the declining value of agricultural products are driving livelihood and land use change, exposing increasing numbers of people to flooding. However, data collected in two case studies of farm communities affected by flooding in 2003 (...) illustrate that the concept of flood as agricultural “hazard” has been relatively recently constructed through public intervention in river management and disaster compensation. While farming still represents subsistence value to rural households, increasingly rural communities are relying on non-farm income and alternative livelihood strategies. In this context, defining flooding in rural areas as a private hazard for which individuals are entitled to public protection may be counterproductive. A different approach, in which farmers’ long acceptance of periodic flooding is combined with valuing agricultural land for ecoservices, may enable a more sustainable future for the region’s population. (shrink)

The Goldschmidt Hypothesis posits that rural community welfare is negatively associated with the scale of farms surrounding them. The intervening mechanism that links a farm structure dominated by larger farms to negative rural community welfare outcomes is polarized class structure. There have been a number of studies that have found support for the basic relationship between increasing farm scale and negative rural community outcomes. However, since Walter Goldschmidt’s original study was completed in the 1940s, the agricultural market and (...) farming structures have changed dramatically. Market structure is now more differentiated than in previous decades. Vertical and horizontal integration, contract production, organic and other specialty markets, and direct marketing are examples of new marketing forms that have emerged over the past few decades. In addition, as farm and market structure have shifted, some states have enacted public policy to forestall negative outcomes related to the industrialization of agriculture. Previous studies which measured the effects on rural community welfare from the structure of the surrounding farming sector have been valuable contributions to the development of the sociology of agriculture and have led to increased understanding of agriculture and rural development. However, a new generation of studies should be undertaken to address the impacts of changing market structure as well as assess public policy attempts to mitigate negative impacts of agricultural industrialization. To that end I present a discussion of conceptual and methodological issues related to such a research program. And I offer a conceptual model intended to be useful in guiding future research in this area. (shrink)

Precision livestock farming (PLF) is the management of livestock using the principles and technology of process engineering. Key to PLF is the dense monitoring of variegated parameters, including animal growth, output of produce (e.g. milk, eggs), diseases, animal behaviour, and the physical environment (e.g. thermal micro-environment, ammonia emissions). While its proponents consider PLF a win-win strategy that combines production efficiency with sustainability goals and animal welfare, critics emphasise, inter alia, the potential interruption of human-animal relationships. This paper discusses the notion (...) that the objectification of animals by PLF influences the developmental pathways of conventional industrial farming. We conduct a conceptual analysis of objectification by comparing discussions in feminist ethics and animal ethics. We find that in animal ethics, objectification includes deontological arguments regarding instrumentalisation, de-animalisation, alienation, commodification and quantification of animals. The focus on socio-political context and relationality connects these debates to central ideas in care ethics. We adopt a care ethics perspective to assess the implications of the objectification of animals in livestock farming. The basic claim is that sensory knowledge symbolised by the farmers’ unity of hand, head and heart would make it harder to objectify animals than abstract and instrumental reasoning where the pursuit of knowledge is intertwined with the pursuit of control, as in mainstream PLF. Despite of what can be considered as a good caring relationship between farmers and animals that is mediated by PLF, people involved in conventional industrial farming still seem to become further detached from farmers and animals, because the PLF system itself is objectifying. PLF redefines the notion of care, in terms of data transparency, standardisation of methods for analysis, real-time collection and processing of data, remote control, and the use of digital platforms. This creates new expectations and requires a redistribution of responsibilities within a wider scope of relations in the value chain. (shrink)

Collective trauma refers to psychological effects that are experienced by a group of people in response to shared traumatic conditions. Farmers represent a unique population that is chronically exposed to potentially traumatic events and conditions particular to the agricultural industry. Farming communities in Iowa have experienced the farm crisis of the 1980s, decades of extreme weather events, rapidly fluctuating markets, trade wars, rising input costs, farm bankruptcies and foreclosures, and high rates of farmer suicides. Exposure to such conditions can (...) potentially have dramatic effects on the people who experience them and the communities they live in. While research exists examining the behavioral health aspects of stress in farmers, no studies have examined the lived experiences of farmers within the framework of collective trauma and its effects on decision-making. To investigate how Iowa farmers perceive their own experiences of these potential types of collective trauma, this study conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with farmers and farmer-oriented behavioral health experts. Particular focus is placed on how collective trauma affects individual farmers, their families, and their farming communities, as well as how this type of trauma impacts farm management decisions and sustainability outcomes. Qualitative data were analyzed using a grounded theory approach to develop a theoretical framework describing how collective trauma, in the form of environmental, financial, and community threats, impacts farm management decisions and, in turn, affects environmental, economic, and social sustainability outcomes. Potential implications for how agricultural policy can potentially address the effects and systemic causes of trauma are discussed. (shrink)

Life on the road was anything but glamorous for Farm Security Administration photographers traveling through southern Illinois in the mid-1930s. Often their most promising subjects lived at the end of the worst roads, many of which lacked bridges, drainage ditches, or gravel. Outfitted with three government-issue cameras, flashbulbs, tripods, and film-processing chemicals, their job was to help explain America to Americans by seeking out and photographing the one-third of the nation FDR described as ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-nourished. Featured in this (...) book are more than one hundred photographs from the collection of a quarter of a million taken by FSA photographers between 1935 and 1943. These pictures capture life during the Great Depression as viewed in the coal-mining towns of Herrin, West Frankfort, and Zeigler; the river communities of Shawneetown, Cairo, and Grayville; the farming regions near McLeansboro, Newton, and Harrisburg--more than two dozen southern Illinois county seats, hamlets, and landings. Together they comprise a photographic portrait of the determination, hard work, and capacity to find ways to celebrate life exemplified by the people of southern Illinois during one of the most difficult periods of American history. FSA photographers helped to invent and popularize the documentary style, a type of photography in which pictures and their arrangement carry much of the information in a story. Intended to document the success of a government project, these pictures survived to preserve for later generations the story of the people of southern Illinois and how they endured the difficult times of the Great Depression. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Collective Violence, Sacrifice, and Conflict Resolution in the Works of Paul Claudel Christopher G. Flood University ofSurrey, England Claudel's career as a writer spanned almost seventy years, from the 1880s to the 1950s. The publication of his collected works now runs to twenty-nine large volumes, excluding his correspondence and diaries, so a brief overview of any particular dimension of his writing must necessarily be reductive. On the other (...) hand, Claudel's work lends itself particularly well to discussion in terms of the relationship between violence, sacrifice and religion. In a valuable study published more than twenty years ago under the title, Claudel et l'usurpateur, Jacques Petit drew attention to the recurrence in Claudel's plays, and in many of his non- fictional writings, of a narrative structure hinging on acts of usurpation and counter-usurpation. There is a pattern of conflictual rivalry, domination and coercion, whereby acts of aggression are ultimately legitimized, or in some sense excused, in the light of a positive outcome, providential necessity and/or reconciliation between usurper and victim. Claudel's world is indeed "a world of violence," as Petit puts it (79, ch. title).1 It is also a world ofreligion: after his return to the Catholic Church in 1890, all of Claudel's major dramatic works intermesh the process of usurpation with themes deriving from his religious beliefs, and the same is true of many of his non-fictional writings. My aim is not to reinvent the wheel by going back over all of the terrain mapped out by Petit. Nor do I intend to rework Petit's empirical model wholesale in the light of René Girard's anthropological model of mimetic desire and sacrificial violence, although there are obvious areas of convergence between them. However, I shall draw implicitly on both, in order to Translations throughout this paper are my own. 160Christopher G. Flood argue that the notion of sacrifice, which is central to the resolution of rivalries in Claudel's major plays, is transformed into an idiosyncratic conception of international conflict resolution in various non-fictional writings which emerge from his forty years of experience in his parallel career as a profes sional diplomat.2 1 shall start with a schematic discussion of certain features of the plays. The first point relates to Claudel's assumptions concerning the mechanisms involved in the outbreak of individual or collective violence. It needs to be emphasized that in his plays the path towards violence is always opened by a withdrawal or weakening of temporal and/or spiritual authority. This allows the crystallization, and the direct expression, of latent rivalries which eventually lead to an explosion of aggression. The causes of the violence invariably center on the fact that one individual or group is in possession of an object which is coveted by another individual or group. The question of whether Claudel himself appears to recognize a mimetic element in this pattern of behavior would be too complex, and too fraught with imponderables, to discuss here, but there are some indications that he does so. Whatever the case, in the absence of authority, rivalry and jealousy engender verbal, and usually physical conflict, culminating in usurpation of the desired object. Thus, for example, in Tête d'or, the elderly Emperor of the unnamed kingdom has neither the authority nor the resolution to defend his kingdom against external invasion, or against the man who saves the kingdom only to usurp the throne and murder the Emperor himself.3 Similarly, in the second version of La Ville, neither Besme, the positivistic scientist and plutocrat who has created the godless City, nor his brother Lambert, the former politician, has the will to maintain or defend the society against the tensions emerging within it. Thus, the City dissolves first into immobility, then revolution. Or again, in the family drama of La Jeune Fille Violaine (second version), the obsessional rage andjealousy ofMara towards her elder sister, Violaine, explodes into coercion, slander, and horrific violence when their father absents himself from the farm for an indefinite period, leaving Violaine to marry Jacques Hury: the fact that Hury loves Violaine, but does not love Mara, makes the latter all the... (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of U.S. farmland owners, operators, and workers by race, ethnicity, and gender. We first review the intersection between racialized and gendered capitalism and farmland ownership and farming in the United States. Then we analyze data from the 2014 Tenure and Ownership Agricultural Land survey, the 2012 Census of Agriculture, and the 2013–2014 National Agricultural Worker Survey to demonstrate that significant nation-wide disparities in farming by race, ethnicity and gender persist in the U.S. In 2012–2014, White (...) people owned 98% and operated 94% of all farmland. They generated 98% of all farm-related income from land ownership and 97% of income from farm owner-operatorship. Meanwhile, People of Color farmers were more likely to be tenants rather than owners, owned less land, and generated less farm-related wealth per person than their White counterparts. Hispanic farmers were also disproportionately farm laborers. In addition to racial and ethnic disparities, there were disparities by gender. About 63% of non-operating landowners, 86% of farm operators, and 87% of tenant farmers were male, and female farmers tended to generate less income per farmer than men. This data provides evidence of ongoing racial, ethnic and gender disparities in agriculture in the United States. We conclude with a call to address the structural drivers of the disparities and with recommendations for better data collection. (shrink)

“Collective impact problems” refer to situations where there is a collective harm or benefit, but where no single action seems to make a difference one way or the other. Collective impact problems arise when considering several pressing ethical issues in business, such as shareholder and consumer activism, business and climate change, factory farming and animal welfare, fair-trade and sweatshop labor, and corporate philanthropy. Unfortunately, business ethics textbooks do not explicitly deal with collective impact problems and, as (...) such, students may be lacking the theoretical and practical skills necessary to deal with issues of significant moral concern. This paper helps to address this gap by introducing the reader to some collective impact cases in business ethics, detailing the challenges that collective impact problems pose for consequentialist and non-consequentialists alike, and highlighting some of the promising pedagogical benefits of using collective impact cases in a business ethics class. (shrink)

Publication date: 15 October 2018 Source: Author: Smiles I. Ume, C.I. Ezeano, R.O. Anozie Role of off-farm income in agricultural production and its environmental effect in Southeast, Nigeria was studied. Two hundred and forty respondents were selected through multi stage random sampling techniques. The objectives of the study were captured using percentage responses, multiple regression and factor analyses. Structured questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents. The result of socio-economic characteristics of commercial motor cycle riders showed that most (...) riders were youthful, single and experienced. Also, most of the riders used their money generated in the business in hiring labour, procurements of farm inputs, family welfare, expansion of business and procurement of equipment. As well, the menaces caused by motor cycle to the riders and the general society were accidents, traffic jam, crimes, health challenges and gang beating. More so, the determinant factors to the motor cycle riders’ income generated were number of years of experience and marital status. In addition, the effects of motor cycle operations to the environment were dusty and noisy situations, soil erosion, vegetation loss and oil spillage. The avenues in alleviating the affects of motor cycle operations on the environment were use of gadgets, educational programme, ban on the use of big motor cycle, use of traffic control and cleanliness of vehicular emission. The major problems encountered by the riders were extortions by the police, emblem, high cost of fuel and high cost of spare parts. Based on the findings the following recommendations were proffered. There is need to enhance riders’ access to hearing and head protective devices and goggle gadget at affordable prices. Also, experienced and novice riders should be encouraged to remain in business through among others provision of motor cycle parts at affordable prices and rehabilitation of rural roads by the government. Finally, all forms of extortions of the riders should be checkmated and the culprits brought to book. (shrink)

The agroecological transition of agriculture not only requires changes in practices but also in ways of thinking and in their underlying values. Agroecology proposes broad scientific principles that need to be adapted to the singularities of each farm. This contextualization leads to the identification of agroecological practices that work locally and could serve as evidence-based practices to be transferred to local practitioners. This strategy was tested in a 4-year experiment conducted with dairy-sheep farmers in the South of France. The aim (...) was to collectively engage in the agroecological transition. Our work focused on the creation of a diagnostic tool that was used to analyze local farms and identify virtuous practices to be promoted locally as evidence-based practices. But this strategy came up against the complexity and singularity of the situations to be transformed: not only was no evidence found but the construction of the diagnostic tool itself led to controversy concerning the models of agriculture to be promoted. The experiment then took a pragmatic turn: on-farm workshops were organized to enable farmers to benefit from the professional judgment of peer farmers who were willing to help their colleagues accomplish their agroecological transition. The diagnostic tool, which was designed to be prescriptive, was then used to judge the social acceptability of solutions that made sense in each farmer’s own situation. Our experiment led us to conclude that managing the agro-ecological transition of farmers and their farming system is better conceived as a value-based process than as an evidence-based one. (shrink)

The animal rights movement is a serious challenge to current agricultural practices. Agriculture's response, in part, depends on how successfully it can mobilize its natural constituency, farmers. However, theories of the mainstream press suggest that the mainstream press generally covers events, rarely reports or adopts the perspective of alternative movements, rarely includes mobilizing information, and suggests that routine social structures can, should, and will contain the movement. Hence, current theory indicates that the mainstream press does not act to mobilize the (...) general public. However, very little research has examined how specialized presses, such as the farm press, respond to movements. The study reported here was based on an analysis of 406 articles from ten farm magazines. The findings suggest that the farm press acted more as an advocacy press than does the mainstream press. Collectively, the farm press articles included as many positions pieces and stories explaining animal rights as an issue as they did event stories. The articles reported, and countered, the positions of the animal rights movement; suggested that routine social structures might not contain the animal rights movement; called for agriculture to mobilize; and included specific recommendations concerning how agriculture should mobilize. (shrink)

There is growing interest in the role of new urban agriculture models to increase local food production capacity in cities of the Global North. Urban rooftop greenhouses and hydroponics are examples of such models receiving increasing attention as a technological approach to year-round local food production in cities. Yet, little research has addressed the unintended consequences of new modes of urban farming and food distribution, such as increased competition with existing peri-urban and rural farmers. We examine how small-scale farmers perceive (...) and have responded to a recently established rooftop greenhouse and online marketplace enterprise in Montréal, Canada. Drawing on interviews with key informants and small-scale farmers, we find that peri-urban and rural producers have been affected in three key ways that represent tensions, adaptations, and synergies arising from this new urban agriculture and food distribution enterprise. First, many farmers are concerned about increased competition and value conflation with the ideals of community supported agriculture and organic farming. Second, some farmers have adapted by developing novel marketing strategies and working with local bridge organizations to collectively market their produce to urban consumers. Third, a few farmers have decided to wholesale their produce to this new enterprise, allowing them to specialize production and avoid marketing their produce directly to urban consumers. Our study suggests that the emergence of a new form of alternative food network in Montréal has created both positive and negative disruptions for existing small-scale producers. Advocates for the expansion of new urban food production and distribution models should therefore give greater consideration to the effects on other actors in the local food system. (shrink)

The objective of this study was to isolate endophytic bacteria from roots of Brachiaria humidicola cv. humidicola (Rendle) Schweick and to relate their presence to pH, organic matter and phosphorus contents of the soil of cattle farms located in the municipality of San Benito Abad. Soil sampling was carried out with roots of B. humicola for the isolation and counting of the population density of endophytic bacteria and soil samples were also collected for the determination of pH, organic matter (...) and phosphorus parameters. The results found indicate that there is an amount of endophytic bacteria in roots of B. humidicola when the soil contains optimum pH values of (6.1 ± 6.98); low to moderate phosphorus content (10.8 ± 16.28 mg/kg) and low to moderate organic matter content (1.7 ± 2.31%). The presence of endophytic bacteria was observed in a range of 3.0 ± 8.0 X 106 CFU/g of roots. There is a worldwide need to establish a relationship between endophytic bacteria and soil physical-chemical quality indicator parameters to predict a change in functional diversity under physical, chemical and biological conditions of the soil ecosystem. (shrink)

The health of farm owners and farmworkers has significant impacts on farm businesses, farming families, and local rural communities where agriculture is an important driver of social and economic activity. Rural residents and farmworkers have higher rates of food insecurity, but little is known about food insecurity among farm owners and the collective experiences of farm owners and farmworkers. Researchers and public health practitioners have stressed the need for policies that target the health and well-being of farm owners and (...) farmworkers while remaining sensitive to the nature of life on the farm, yet farm owner and farmworker lived experiences have been understudied, especially in relation to one another. In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with 13 farm owners and 18 farmworkers in Oregon. Modified grounded theory was used to analyze interview data. Data were coded using a three-stage process to identify salient core characteristics of food insecurity. Farm owner and farmworker meanings and interpretations of their food insecurity were often contradicted by evaluated food security scores using validated quantitative measures. According to such measures, 17 experienced high food security, 3 had marginal food security, and 11 had low food security, but narrative experiences suggested higher rates. Narrative experiences were categorized by core characteristics of food insecurity, including seasonal food shortages, resource stretching, working extended hours most days of the week, limited use of food assistance, and the tendency to downplay hardship. These unique factors have important implications for developing responsive policies and programs to support the health and well-being of farm livelihoods whose work enables health and well-being among consumers. Future studies to test the relationships between the core characteristics of food insecurity identified in this study and farm owner and farmworker meanings and interpretations of food insecurity, hunger, and nourishment are warranted. (shrink)

There is ongoing contestation around greenhouse gas emissions from ruminant livestock and how society should respond. Media discourses play a key role in agenda setting for the general public and policymakers, and may contribute to polarisation. This paper examines how UK news media portrayed ruminant livestock’s impact on climate change between 2016 and 2021. The analysis addresses a gap in the literature by comparing discourses in national and farming sector newspapers using a qualitative approach. Four national and two farming sector (...) news outlets were searched for articles published between 2016 and 2021. A corpus of 996 relevant articles was assembled, from which 154 were selected for in-depth examination using Critical Discourse Analysis. Four ‘Critical Discourse Moments’ (CDMs), each signifying a discursive shift in the debate, were identified over the 6-year studied period: 1) Low salience, diverging discourses, 2) We must eat far less meat, 3) Fighting the anti-meat agenda, and 4) Policy (in)action at COP26. There was a large increase in the number of published articles from January 2019 onward, partly associated with publication of the EAT/Lancet Commission report. CDM 2 (We must eat far less meat) occurred mainly in the national media, while CDM 3 (Fighting the anti-meat agenda) occurred mainly in the farming media. Our findings reveal both opinion polarisation and intergroup polarisation between national and farming sector media, and low engagement with food system power imbalances. Addressing polarisation will be important to enhance capacity for collective decision-making regarding methane emissions from ruminant livestock. (shrink)

With a vast majority of the land in the Driftless Region of the Midwestern United States dedicated to agricultural production, the future of farming has significant economic, social, recreational, agricultural, and ecological implications. An important literature stream has developed on ways agriculture can change to impact both human and ecological communities positively. In this study, we examine the processes and extent to which community narratives assert and inform regional identities that shape the meaning of being a good farmer. Using a (...) mixed methods approach, we examine what farmers consider good farming and how they utilize community narratives to assert their perspective of good farming. Employing a correlational analysis, we examined the relative importance of the four dimensions of good farming (productivist, conservationist, civic-minded, and naturalist). In addition, we used narrative analysis to explore the development of community narratives that assert a multi-dimensional view of good farming. Data for this study was collected through 21 semi-structured interviews with farmers, two focus groups of farmers, and a survey of farmers with 82 survey participants. The mean scores for conservationist, civic-minded, and naturalist dimensions were significantly higher than those for productivists. There was no significant correlation between the productivists dimension and the three other dimensions of good farming. Through analysis of transcripts, we identified a community narrative that actively problematized a dominant cultural narrative centered on production agriculture. Collectively, a community narrative is emerging in the Driftless Region that sought to normalize agricultural practices that promote profitable farms, vibrant communities, and a wide array of ecosystem services. (shrink)

Many consequentialists argue that you ought to do your part in collective action problems like climate change mitigation and ending factory farming because (i) all such problems are triggering cases, in which there is a threshold number of people such that the outcome will be worse if at least that many people act in a given way than if fewer do, and (ii) doing your part in a triggering case maximises expected value. I show that both (i) and (ii) (...) are false: Some triggering cases cannot be solved by appeal to expected value, since they involve infinities, and some collective action problems are not triggering cases, since they involve parity. However, I argue that consequentialism can still generally prohibit failure to do your part in those collective action problems where we believe that so acting would be impermissible. (shrink)

To combat the OneHealth threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the use of antibiotics in agriculture is subject to significant governance-led initiatives to change food system behaviours, including promoting more responsible use of antibiotics on farms through market-level interventions. To combat knowledge gaps about how consumers perceive risks associated with antibiotic use and AMR in farming, the current study carried out an in-depth qualitative focus group study incorporating a risk information exposure exercise with food consumers on the island of Ireland (...) (_n_ = 36). Using a theoretical lens of social representation theory, a thematic analysis of the collected data identified how participants made sense of, often new, information on agricultural antibiotic use and AMR. Participants displayed high awareness and concern for AMR but low understanding and misconceptions around AMR transmission from the agri-food sector. Social representations about antibiotics and food and farming systems shaped preferences for a movement away from antibiotics in farming, and in particular, prophylactic use. However, participants acknowledged the role of antibiotics to protect animal health and the integrity of the food supply chain. They debated the lack of a simple fix to antibiotics in the agri-food system and revealed preferences for preventive actions at farm level and supporting actions at market level. The study highlights the need to first tackle low levels of public understanding through effective risk communication including strategies such as targeted message framing and proactive, cross-sector OneHealth awareness campaigns, followed by the introduction of a trusted antibiotic use food labelling system. (shrink)

Around the world, practitioners and academics are engaging in the rise of regenerative farming. On the margins of the predominant farming system, and often with little support and acknowledgement, regenerative farming is surprisingly persistent and represents a radical response to industrialization, ecological crises and alienation. This study uses feminist theories to grasp farmers’ regenerative experiences and explores how dialogical methodologies can create collective thinking among farmers and between academia and practice. The study is based on dialogues and iterative writing (...) between three female researchers and two female regenerative farmers in Denmark in which we explore regenerative farming practices, female perspectives, feminist (more-than-human) care, and the sustainability crises we are facing today and in the future. The exchange of thoughts provides insights into what it is to be human in farming, including more-than-human relationships, as well as reflections on composting as a reproductive practice, and the (quiet) revolutionary potential of regenerative farming. Thus, we experience how creating collective thinking about common concerns across academia and practice can entail feelings of being part of a community as well as involve actual consequences and risks. Finally, it reminds us that sharing fragility by laying bare our work (and thoughts) as both researchers and practitioners allows for careful dialogues and valuable insights. (shrink)

Social change is slow and difficult. Social change for animals is formidably slow and difficult. Advocates and scholars alike have long tried to change attitudes and convince the public that eating animals is wrong. The topic of norms and social change for animals has been neglected, which explains in part the relative failure of the animal protection movement to secure robust support reflected in social and legal norms. Moreover, animal ethics has suffered from a disproportionate focus on individual attitudes and (...) behavior at the expense of collective behavior, social change, and empirical psychology. If what we want to change is behavior on a large scale, norms are important tools. This article reviews an account of social norms that provides insights into the possibility and limitations of social change for animals, approaching animal protection as a problem of reverse social engineering. It highlights avenues for future work from this neglected perspective. (shrink)

The modernization of agriculture in Northern countries has led to a loss of crop diversity, as well as a loss of knowledge, know-how and rights of farmers regarding on-farm seed breeding. In France, the _Réseau Semences Paysannes_ (RSP) brings together collectives of actors (farmers, bakers, citizens, gardeners) mobilized in a quest to reclaim these aspects. Within the framework of the decentralized participatory breeding program conducted in collaboration with INRAE, farmers have co-constructed knowledge in terms of dynamic management of heterogeneous wheat (...) populations. Yet, as the RSP network grows, these actors face new types of challenges regarding collective action. To address them, we proposed to consider peasant seeds as « common unknowns » rather than « common goods » and we adapted and applied an innovative design approach drawing upon the KCP (Knowledge-Concept-Proposals) method. This approach consisted in implementing, from 2019 to 2021, five decentralized design workshops with local seed breeding collectives. The replication of design workshops in different contexts provided a framework for interaction among RSP members, allowed the sharing of both scientific and experiential knowledge. Noteworthily, it fostered the generation of many proposals for enhancing collective action, and led to the development of operational proposals with a view to implement them in the future. This methodology-oriented paper mainly describes the decentralized design approach implemented, its outputs and outcomes, as well as its interests and limits in the context of crop diversity management. It also analyses how the workshop outputs enriches previous works in the field; in particular how such a participatory design approach leads to produce original operational solutions to respond to challenges identified in the literature. (shrink)

National scientists have elaborated the reform's gist, approaches, stages and consequences in the Ukrainian agricultural sector during the XX - XXI centuries. These studies have been conducted by N. Zhulkanych, S. Zhyvora, M. Zyza, M. Lendiel, E. Mazur, O. Malyarchuk, V. Nechytailo and many others. The paper aims to perform the comprehensive study of general trends and peculiar features of the agricultural development of the Ukrainian SSR in 1963-1990 and to define actual advances and drawbacks on the basis of analysis (...) of historical records and scientific literature. The object of research is agriculture as part of socialist economy in the USSR. The subject of research is the implementation features of agricultural policy of the Soviet power in the Ukrainian SSR, using the Western region of the Republic as an example. The economic strategy of the Soviet power involved a long-term industrialization of the agricultural sector. A distinguishing feature of the industrialization process was the use of systems of machinery in all branches of agriculture. The technological chain had to embrace the process from the sporadic application of machinery to the overall mechanization and automation of crop and livestock farming. The industrial background of production predetermined the implementation of the system of machinery with extensive power consumption, i.e. with the new technical bases. The resolutions of the March Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee defined the economic priorities and capacity development of the Republic. Capital investments were the economic basis for the increase of production potential of collective and state farms, solution of social problems in rural regions. The land productivity was increased mainly by means of land reclamation and production chemization, use of organic and mineral fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, etc. The supply of mineral fertilizers increased, but most of them were of low quality, non-concentrated and unbalanced in nutritional ingredients. In its turn it caused irreparable damage to the environment and polluted agricultural products with chemicals. The chemization undermined the population health and disrupted the ecological balance. Despite ultimate achievements in the rise of the industrial level of agriculture of the Ukrainian SSR, it didn't meet the needs of collective and state farms. A great number of labour-intensive processes in animal and crop farming were performed manually. In state farms, contrary to collective farms, the stock of tractors was newer, but much smaller. For many years the USSR was in the top ten countries of the world in terms of consumption of energy and proteins, contained in food products per capita. However, the food patterns were inconsistent with the scientifically grounded norm. Structural imbalance of the food ration was the manifestation of the food crisis in the USSR. To meet primary needs of Soviet citizens in food products the May Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee adopted the "Food Program of the USSR for the Period until 1990 and Measures of Its Implementation". The main issue of the Food program was to increase grain harvest. Grain production was the basis for food and fodder supply of the country. Alongside with a substantial increase in food products output in public economy the attention was given to the development of subsidiary individual holdings and fruit-and-vegetable cooperatives. The cooperatives and subsidiary holdings produced a great number of dairy and meat products, vegetables and fruits both for their own needs and for sale in collective farm markets. The state food program predetermined the solution of agricultural problems by means of formerly used methods. The major problem of agriculture had to be solved by means of increase in the gross grain harvest. Thus, the implementation of agricultural policy of Soviet power in the Ukrainian SSR lead to great changes in agricultural production. At that time there appeared such new branches of economy specialized in services to agricultural production as waterworks and land reclamation, feed mill industry, farm building, machine engineering for animal farming and fodder production, procurement of agricultural products and agricultural processing. The study of this policy implementation proves that the average annual rates of agricultural production increased but they were inconsistent with high investments. On the one hand, the Food program testified the "food crisis in the USSR", demonstrating the lag of the world socialist community from capitalist states. On the other hand, it had to increase the level of food self-sufficiency, decrease the procurement of agricultural products from abroad and promote the solution of the world food problem in general. (shrink)

This book is based on the assumption that "organic has lost its way". Paradoxically, it comes at a time when we witness the continuing of growth in organic food production and markets around the world. Yet, the book claims that organic has lost sight of its first or fundamental philosophical principles and ontological assumptions. The collection offers empirically grounded discussions that address the principles and fundamental assumptions of organic farming and marketing practices. The book draws attention to the core principles (...) of organic and offers different clearly articulated and well-defined conceptual frameworks that offer new insights into organic practices. Divided into five parts, the book presents new perspectives on enduring issues, examines standards and certification, gives insights into much-discussed and additional market and consumer issues, and reviews the interplay of organic and conventional farming. The book concludes with a framework for rethinking ethics in the organic movement and reflections on the positioning of organic ethics. (shrink)

The article discusses three versions of context. First, UK Government legislation, the British Cattle Tracing System, as a context that frames and guides good farming practices to promote accountability for cattle movements and to control disease. It describes how the legislative context creates particular constructions of farmers, cows, and good and bad farming practices. Second, the article creates context as the local farm-based practices of cattle movement and monitoring. Differences and similarities between the legislative requirements and the farm-based practices are (...) discussed. The farming practices are primarily practices of responsibility and care that are embodied, relational, collective, and responsive. The article draws upon feminist insights into responsibility and accountability that accountability is mundane practices of touch, regard, looking back, and becoming with. Thereby, the article creates a third context in which local farming practices, legislation, and feminism meet and interact with one another. Within this “meta-context” of interferences between contexts, accountability is revisioned as the very condition of farm-based practices of care and responsibility. At the same time, the article revisions context as emergent in interferences and enacts alternative versions of farmers, cows, and good and bad practices. (shrink)

Immigrant farmworkers from Latin America experience multiple challenges in rural Vermont. A large body of literature has shown the benefits that collective agency can represent for migrant farmworkers in the U.S. food system. These initiatives have mainly focused on the improvement of human and labor conditions by empowering farmworkers. However, little is known about what factors influence the creation and progress of these types of collaborative efforts to address challenges faced by immigrant farmworkers in rural areas. By analyzing work (...) completed by the non-governmental organization, Migrant Justice in Vermont, this article explores why and how collective agency was formed outside the state power to facilitate resources for Latinx farmworkers on dairy farms. Collaborative work led by this non-governmental organization has resulted in multiple efforts and achievements that address immigrant farmworkers’ needs and challenges. Results from this research unveil the complicated role of the state and how specific aspects of collective identity influenced the formation and progress of collective agency. This study aims to enrich the existing literature and/or ongoing initiatives on food movements, food justice, fair food programs, and immigration in the U.S. (shrink)

Lesley Loveless has selected the images that best represent the creativity of the photographer Pete Wettach and the poignancy of midwestern farm life during some of its most difficult years from the collection of tens of thousands of images ...

Prior research on sustainability suggests that ambitious sustainability strategies are often turned into “business-as-usual” practices. Although ecological embeddedness—that is, actors’ physical and cognitive anchoring in their ecological environment—can help maintain sustainability ambitions, its collective dynamics and pluralistic moral foundations remain understudied. We rely on the economies of worth framework and the revelatory case of a biodynamic farm business experiencing sustained commercial growth to explore these blind spots by analyzing how ecological embeddedness was maintained despite this growth. We found that (...) moral threats moved the organization away from its initial sustainability commitment and demonstrated how the farm maintained its ecological embeddedness through three mechanisms that involved multiple moral foundations: nurturing ecological inspiration, networking green projects, and unifying a green ethos. By inducing such mechanisms of moral recombination, our analysis advances sustainability studies by clarifying and bridging individual and collective dynamics of ecological embeddedness while revealing their multiple moral foundations; we also extend economies of worth research by demonstrating the role of ecological materiality in the alignment of organizations with the green world. (shrink)

The proportion of the world’s population living in urban areas is increasing rapidly, with the vast majority of this growth in developing countries. As growing populations in urban areas demand greater food supplies, coupled with a rise in rural to urban migration and the need to create livelihood options, there has been an increase in urban agriculture worldwide. Urban agriculture is commonly discussed as a sustainable solution for dealing with gaps in the local food system, and proponents often highlight the (...) many social, environmental, and economic benefits. We argue that the sustainability of urban agriculture should not be assumed. There is a need for research to take a bottom-up approach, exploring the influence that city-level conditions have on livelihood decisions by farmers and how this shapes the practice of urban agriculture. This paper uses a case study for an in-depth look at urban agriculture in Delhi, India to understand from the farmers’ perspective how urban agriculture is practiced and what factors influence farmers’ livelihood decisions. Using a team-based, multi-method Rapid Assessment Process, data were collected through preliminary key informant interviews, field observations, semi-structured interviews with urban farmers, and geographic information systems mapping. This research provides an in-depth description of market-oriented urban agriculture in a developing country, explores how farmers’ livelihood decisions are embedded in the urban context, and discusses the potential of urban agriculture as a sustainable city-system. (shrink)

The responsibility for the COVID-19 pandemic was first ascribed to persons associated with the Huanan Seafood Market. However, many scientists suggest that this pandemic is actually a consequence of human intrusion into nature. This opens up a whole new perspective for an examination of direct and indirect, individual and collective responsibility concerning this particular pandemic, but also zoonotic pandemics as such. In this context, one of the key issues are the consequences of factory-farming of animals, which contributes to circumstances (...) in which zoonotic pandemics emerge. Moreover, it is part of a larger economic system, global capitalism, whose logic implies certain coercion toward its participants to keep it essentially unchanged and therefore to make sure that livestock health remains?the weakest link in our global health chain?. However, even though the precise answer to the issue of moral responsibility for zoonotic pandemics outbreaks in general and the COVID-19 pandemic in particular cannot be given, it is possible to list certain indicators and make a framework helpful in ascribing moral responsibility to certain persons. The paper intends to do so by examining the notion of responsibility and by applying it to the issues mentioned. The results of this analysis show that it is misleading to place moral blame on people involved in actions that directly caused the animal-to-human transmission of a certain virus or on humanity as a whole. (shrink)

In this article, we expand the analytical and theoretical foundations of the study of knowledge commons in the context of more classical agrarian commons, such as seed commons. We show that it is possible to overcome a number of criticisms of earlier work by Ostrom (Governing the commons. The evolution of institutions for collective action, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990) on natural commons and its excludability/rivalry matrix in addressing the inclusive social practices of “commoning”, defined as a way of (...) living and acting for the preservation of the commons. Our empirical analysis emphasizes, using the most recent advances in the IAD/SES framework, the distributed and collaborative knowledge governance in a French peasant seed network as a key driver for reintroducing cultivated agrobiodiversity and on-farm seed conservation of ancient and landrace varieties. These inclusive peasant seed groups developed alternative peer-to-peer models of collaborative peasant-led community-based breeding and grassroots innovations in the search for more resilient population varieties. Our results highlight the various models of collective action within the network and discuss the organizational tradeoffs of opting out of peasant seed activities and recreating a shared collective knowledge base on the benefits of restoring cultivated agrobiodiversity. It helps us better understand how modern peasant seed groups function as epistemic communities which contributes to envisioning alternative agricultural systems. (shrink)

Digital tools may help to study socioeconomic aspects of agricultural development that are difficult to measure such as the effects of new policies and technologies on the intra-household allocation of time. As farm technologies target different crops and tasks, they can affect the time-use of men, women, boys, and girls differently. Development strategies that overlook such effects can have negative consequences for vulnerable household members. In this paper, the time-use patterns associated with different levels of agricultural mechanization during land preparation (...) in smallholder farming households in Zambia were investigated. A novel data collection method was used: a pictorial smartphone application that allows real-time recording of time-use, which eliminates recall bias. Existing studies analyzing the intra-household allocation of resources often focus on adult males and females. This study paid particular attention to boys and girls as well as adults. The study addressed seasonal variations. Compositional data analysis was used to account for the co-dependence and sum constraint of time-use data. The study suggests a strong gender differentiation for land preparation activities among mechanized households; for households using manual labor, such differentiation was not found. There is some evidence that the surplus time associated with mechanization is used for off-farm and domestic work. The study cannot confirm concerns about negative second-round effects: mechanized land preparation is not associated with a higher workload for women and children during weeding and harvesting/processing. The study provides a proof-of-concept that smartphone applications can be used to collect socioeconomic data that are difficult to measure but of high relevance. (shrink)

Section:ChooseTop of pageAbstract < (...) this paper analyses the correspondence between Berro and the Swiss pharmacist and landowner Teodoro Stuckert (1852–1932), who settled in the province of Córdoba, Argentina. Both of them began to assemble botanical collections in the 1890s, and maintained an intense correspondence for nearly 20 years, which provides insights into the practices of a vocational botanist from a rural area in the Rio de la Plata and the role of the network created to exchange specimens, data, and publications within South America as well as with Europe. (shrink)

According to media specialist and resident of multiple intentional communities Jesse Drew, “Communes and collectives provide the critical mass, the people power, and the collective wisdom to test out ideas in practice, not just in theory.”1 To test the vision of an ideal Vedic society grounded in devotion to the Hindu deity Krishna, in 1968, four followers of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada set out for Moundsville, West Virginia, to establish New Vrindaban. These devotees were members of the Hare Krishna (...) Movement, also called the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, which Bhaktivedanta founded in 1966 and which has established temples and intentional communities in the United States and around.. (shrink)

This article discusses the hitherto little-studied question of women workers’ empowerment through access to labor rights in the east African export horticultural sector. It is based on the work carried out by Women Working Worldwide and its east African partners, drawing on primary research on cut-flower farms in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda. The focus in discussions of women’s empowerment has tended to be on individual actors rather than collective strategies. We argue that strategies such as action research, education, (...) organization and advocacy focusing on labor rights are effective in gendered empowerment and can bring positive change to women’s working lives on African farms, and beyond. (shrink)

In organic philosophy, the concept of naturalness is of major importance. According to the organic interpretation of animal welfare, natural living is considered a precondition for accomplishing welfare and the principal aims of organic production include the provision of natural living conditions for animals. However, respective regulations are lacking in organic legislation. In practice, the life of a calf in organic rearing systems can deviate from being natural, since common practices in dairy farms include early weaning, dehorning, or cow-calf (...) separation soon after birth. This case study explores how calf welfare is approached in six different organic dairy farms and how far the concept of naturalness is implemented. The farms included in this study were located in Norway and Sweden. A semi-structured questionnaire was used for data collection. The interviewed farmers approach the concept of welfare in various ways and state that naturalness is an aspect of animal welfare. However, in practice in the calf rearing systems under study, only a few naturalness aspects were implemented. Reasons for the observed discrepancy might lie in differing understandings of naturalness, in economic restrictions, and in other trade-offs resulting from production system inherent characteristics and in limited regulation concerning provision of natural living aspects. (shrink)

Precision livestock farming is the management of livestock using the principles and technology of process engineering. Key to PLF is the dense monitoring of variegated parameters, including animal growth, output of produce, diseases, animal behaviour, and the physical environment. While its proponents consider PLF a win-win strategy that combines production efficiency with sustainability goals and animal welfare, critics emphasise, inter alia, the potential interruption of human-animal relationships. This paper discusses the notion that the objectification of animals by PLF influences the (...) developmental pathways of conventional industrial farming. We conduct a conceptual analysis of objectification by comparing discussions in feminist ethics and animal ethics. We find that in animal ethics, objectification includes deontological arguments regarding instrumentalisation, de-animalisation, alienation, commodification and quantification of animals. The focus on socio-political context and relationality connects these debates to central ideas in care ethics. We adopt a care ethics perspective to assess the implications of the objectification of animals in livestock farming. The basic claim is that sensory knowledge symbolised by the farmers’ unity of hand, head and heart would make it harder to objectify animals than abstract and instrumental reasoning where the pursuit of knowledge is intertwined with the pursuit of control, as in mainstream PLF. Despite of what can be considered as a good caring relationship between farmers and animals that is mediated by PLF, people involved in conventional industrial farming still seem to become further detached from farmers and animals, because the PLF system itself is objectifying. PLF redefines the notion of care, in terms of data transparency, standardisation of methods for analysis, real-time collection and processing of data, remote control, and the use of digital platforms. This creates new expectations and requires a redistribution of responsibilities within a wider scope of relations in the value chain. (shrink)

Aim: This aim of this study is to describe the development of a program logic model to guide arts-based psychosocial practice delivered in rural South African farming communities affected by transgenerational traumas.Background: The rationale for developing a program logic model for arts-based psychosocial practice in South Africa was based on the lack of evidence for effective community arts-based psychosocial interventions for collective trauma, unknown consensus about best practices and the need for developing cogent collective psychosocial practices. Further to (...) this, the aims and benefits of the practice required clarity given the psychosocial complexity of the environment within which the practices for this population are being offered. The logic model offers a valuable resource for practitioners, participants and funders to understand the problem being addressed, how practice is defined, as well as the impact of practice and on intermediate and longer term goals.Methods: The authors used a systematic iterative approach to describe the operationalization of arts-based psychosocial practice. This resulted in the design of the logic model being informed by data from focus groups, an overview of the literature regarding transgerenational trauma in this population, operational policies and organizational documents. The development of the logic model involved actively investigating with practitioners their work with remote farming communities. We thematised practitioners practice constructs to identify salient practice elements and their relationship to perceived benefits and lastly feedback from practitioners and participants following implementation to make adjustments to the logic model.Results: The results were clearly identified in the form of visual mapping using the design of a program logic model. The logic model was divided into 5 parts and was verified by practitioners following implementation. The parts of the program logic model are main presenting problem, operational processes, practice elements, benefits, and impact and review. (shrink)

Bear bile has long been used in the Asian traditional pharmacopoeia. Bear farming first started in China ~30 years ago in terms of reducing the number of poached bears and ensuring the supply of bear bile. Approximately 13,000 bears are today captivated on Asia’s bear farms: their teeth are broken and the claws are also pulled out for the sake of human safety; the bears are imprisoned in squeeze cages for years; and a catheter is daily inserted into a (...) bear’s gall bladder or a tube is implanted inside its body in order to collect the dripped bile—captive bears moan in severe pain whenever the bile is extracted. When the bears cannot produce sufficient bile, they are often left to die of starvation. It must be impossible to justify the bile extraction from living bears because (1) medicinal/herbal alternatives are similar to bear bile; (2) there is no evidence to suggest that bear farming has any beneficial effects on wild bear populations; and (3) ethical problems lie not only in the painful bile extraction but also the whole lifecycle of captive bears. In conclusion, human welfare (health care) based on traditional medicine is upheld by sacrificing bear welfare. Since a trial calculation suggests that it is economically unfeasible to keep a proper balance between bear welfare and the traditional pharmacopeia, the cultivation of herbal alternatives seems to be a possible solution to phase out bear faming and maintain the practice of traditional medicine in Asia. (shrink)

The recent proliferation of settler colonial and Indigenous studies of Palestine have addressed the historical and present-day enclosure of Palestinian land, yet the question of ‘indigeneity’ is underexamined in this literature. Claims to indigeneity in Palestine straddle varied definitions: a racial category; as constructed through the colonial encounter or preceding colonialism; and as a local relation or an international juridico-political category. Using discourse analysis and ethnography of a specific Palestinian sustainable agriculture initiative, I show how for Palestinians, claiming indigeneity brings (...) into tension potential political economic gains, social relations of struggle, and discursive formations of collective subjectivity. A valorisation and commodification of indigeneity as a racial category narrows notions of indigeneity to the biological-cultural, offering challenges for Palestinian struggles for sovereignty. I conclude by asking what theorising from Palestine offers to Marxist theories of racial capitalism and settler colonialism, and whether indigeneity can exceed its commodification. (shrink)