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42. How farmers “repair” the industrial agricultural system
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Houser, Matthew (author), Gunderson, Ryan (author), Stuart, Diana (author), and Denny, Riva C.H. (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2020-03-31
- Published:
- USA: Springer
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 202 Document Number: D12059
- Journal Title:
- Agriculture and Human Values
- Notes:
- 15 pages, via Online journal, Scholars are increasingly calling for the environmental issues of the industrial agricultural system to be addressed via eventual agroecological system-level transformation. It is critical to identify the barriers to this transition. Drawing from Henke’s (Cultivating science, harvesting power: science and industrial agriculture in California, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2008) theory of “repair,” we explore how farmers participate in the reproduction of the industrial system through “discursive repair,” or arguing for the continuation of the industrial agriculture system. Our empirical case relates to water pollution from nitrogen fertilizer and draws data from a sample of over 150 interviews with row-crop farmers in the midwestern United States. We find that farmers defend this system by denying agriculture’s causal role and proposing the potential for within-system solutions. They perform these defenses by drawing on ideological positions (agrarianism, market-fundamentalism and techno-optimism) and may be ultimately led to seek system maintenance because they are unable to envision an alternative to the industrial agriculture system.
43. ‘I will know it when I taste it’: trust, food materialities and social media in Chinese alternative food networks
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Martindale, Leigh (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2021-06
- Published:
- United States: Springer Nature
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 203 Document Number: D12225
- Journal Title:
- Agriculture and Human Values
- Journal Title Details:
- v. 38, iss. 2
- Notes:
- 15 pages, Trust is often an assumed outcome of participation in Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) as they directly connect producers with consumers. It is based on this potential for trust “between producers and consumers” that AFNs have emerged as a significant field of food studies analysis as it also suggests a capacity for AFNs to foster associated embedded qualities, like ‘morality’, ‘social justice’, ‘ecology’ and ‘equity’. These positive benefits of AFNs, however, cannot be taken for granted as trust is not necessarily an outcome of AFN participation. Using Chinese case studies of AFNs, which are characterised by a distinct form of trust pressure—consumers who are particularly cynical about small scale farmers, food safety and the organic credentials of producers—this paper highlights how the dynamics of trust are in constant flux between producers and consumers. I suggest that it is the careful construction of the aesthetic and multi-sensory qualities of food, which is often celebrated via social media, that human centred relations in Chinese AFNs are mediated. This leads to two key conclusions: first, that the key variable for establishing trust is satisfying the consumer’s desire for safe (i.e. "fresh") food; and second, the materiality of the food and the perception of foods materiality (especially through social media), must both be actively constructed by the farmer to fit the consumer’s ideal of freshness.
44. Impacts on food policy from traditional and social media framing of moral outrage and cultural stereotypes
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Small, Virginia (author) and Warn, James (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2020-06
- Published:
- United States: Springer Nature B.V. 2019
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 203 Document Number: D12228
- Journal Title:
- Agriculture and Human Values
- Journal Title Details:
- v. 37, iss. 2
- Notes:
- 16 pages, Food policy increasingly attempts to accommodate a wider and more diverse range of stakeholder interests. However, the emerging influence of different communities and networks of actors with localized concerns and interests around how food should be produced and traded, can challenge attempts to achieving more open, sustainable and globally-integrated food chains. This article analyses how cultural factors internal to a developed country can disrupt the export of food to a developing country. A framing analysis is applied to examine how activists using social media to interact with the traditional news media in Australia were able to inflame public opinion and provoke outrage to disrupt the policy agenda. The paper contains a case study analysis of the media controversy in 2011 around the slaughter of beef cattle in Indonesian abattoirs and the subsequent banning of live cattle exports to Indonesia by Australia. The analysis draws on the theory of binary cultural oppositions to examine how practices in relation to the slaughter of beef cattle in Indonesia were reframed, through extensive media coverage of moral outrage into a critique of the values and cultural practices of Indonesian society.
45. Hashtag hijacking and crowdsourcing transparency: social media affordances and the governance of farm animal protection
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Rodak, Olga (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2020-06
- Published:
- Netherlands: Springer
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 203 Document Number: D12240
- Journal Title:
- Agriculture and Human Values
- Journal Title Details:
- Vol. 37 Iss. 2
- Notes:
- 15 pages, The post-war Western world has seen a gradual shift from government to governance, a process that also concerned the issues related to agro-food sustainability, such as food quality, environmental impact, social justice, and farm animal welfare. Scholars believe that social media are a new site that reconfigures relations between various actors involved in the governance of these problems. However, empirical research on this matter remains scarce. This paper fills this gap by examining the case of Februdairy, a Twitter hashtag campaign to promote the British dairy industry, hijacked by animal protection activists. For this case, I employ the relational perspective on technology affordances—as operationalised by Faraj and Azad (in: Leonard et al. (eds), Materiality and organizing. Social interaction in a technological world, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012)—to highlight two distinct strategic modes of embracement of social media functionalities by the opposing groups: hashtag hijacking and crowdsourcing transparency. The analysis reveals also that a pre-existing social structure of the agro-food system conditions reconfiguration of social relations by technology in a way that actually strengthens the tendency to govern the issue of farm animal protection with market mechanisms.
46. Growing food, growing a movement: climate adaptation and civic agriculture in the southeastern united states
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Furman, Carrie (author), Roncoli, Carla (author), Nelson, Donald R (author), and Hoogenboom, Gerrit (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2014-03
- Published:
- Netherlands: Springer Science & Business Media
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 203 Document Number: D12244
- Journal Title:
- Agriculture and Human Values
- Journal Title Details:
- v. 31, iss. 1
- Notes:
- 15 pages, his article examines the role that civic agriculture in Georgia (US) plays in shaping attitudes, strategies, and relationships that foster both sustainability and adaptation to a changing climate. Civic agriculture is a social movement that attracts a specific type of "activist" farmer, who is linked to a strong social network that includes other farmers and consumers. Positioning farmers' practices within a social movement broadens the understanding of adaptive capacity beyond how farmers adapt to understand why they do so. By drawing upon qualitative and quantitative data and by focusing on the cosmological, organizational, and technical dimensions of the social movement, the study illuminates how social values and networks shape production and marketing strategies that enable farmers to share resources and risks. We propose a conceptual framework for understanding how technical and social strategies aimed to address the sustainability goals of the movement also increase adaptive capacity at multiple timescales. In conclusion, we outline directions for future research, including the need for longitudinal studies that focus on consumer motivation and willingness to pay, the effects of scale on consumer loyalty and producer cooperation, and the role of a social movement in climate change adaptation. Finally, we stress that farmers' ability to thrive in uncertain climate futures calls for transformative approaches to sustainable agriculture that support the development of strong social networks.
47. book review: patricia hill collins: intersectionality as critical social theory
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Whitley, Hannah T. (author)
- Format:
- Book review
- Publication Date:
- 2020-09
- Published:
- United States: Springer
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 203 Document Number: D12254
- Journal Title:
- Agriculture and Human Values
- Journal Title Details:
- Vol. 37, Iss. 3
- Notes:
- 2 pages, Moving beyond single-issue organizing, advocacy, and inquiry, intersectionality has become widely popular in academic and activist circles. Despite intersectional scholar/activists' best attempts to separate problems on the basis of factors like race, gender, sexuality, or class, Patricia Hill Collins cautions that "Intersectionality is one of those fields in which so many people like the idea of intersectionality itself and therefore think they understand the field as well" (4). Collins reasons that for intersectionality to fully realize its power, its practitioners must critically reflect on its assumptions, epistemologies, and methods. Placing intersectionality in dialogue with several theoretical traditions, Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory offers a set of analytical tools for those wishing to develop intersectionality's capability to theorize social inequality in ways that would facilitate social change. "Without sustained self-reflection," Collins writes, "intersectionality will be unable to help anyone grapple with social change, including change within its own praxis" (6). Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory introduces and develops Collins' core concepts and guiding principles that demonstrate what it will take to develop intersectionality as a critical social theory.
48. Delivering too much, too little or off target—possible consequences of differences in perceptions on agricultural advisory services
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Kraft, Jannica (author), Hockert, Jenny (author), Ljung, Magnus (author), Lundberg, Sara (author), and Lunner Kolstrup, Christina (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2022-04-01
- Published:
- United States: Springer Link
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 204 Document Number: D12495
- Journal Title:
- Agriculture and Human Values
- Journal Title Details:
- 39
- Notes:
- 15 pages, Advisory services are considered to play an important role in the development of competitiveness and sustainability in agriculture. Advisory services have been studied at policy level, structural level and within case studies, but there is still restricted knowledge about advisors’ and farmers’ view on advisory services in general. This paper presents the views of Swedish advisors and farmers on advisory services. In a survey-based study, perceptions of farm advisors and full-time farmers in commercial Swedish agriculture on advisory services were identified and statistically analysed, comparing differences between and within the groups. The results are structured around three main themes; motives for a farmer using or not using advisory services, preferred approach by the advisor and future demands on advisory services and their importance today. Possible consequences of differences in perceptions for on-farm service delivery were assessed. Similarities in perceptions on advisory services among advisors and farmers, were found in areas characterised by well-defined questions or production-related issues. Significant differences in perceptions of advisors and farmers emerged in less concrete areas and on topics connected to change, management and strategy. Consequences of discrepancies in perceptions are that advisors may deliver too much, too little or off target, especially when expectations on advisory services are not clearly expressed. A strong and proactive back-office supporting the advisors is needed to prevent these possible consequences.
49. Liberation extension: building capacities for civilizational transition
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Copeland, Nicholas (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2022-01-27
- Published:
- International: Springer Link
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D12541
- Journal Title:
- Agriculture and Human Values
- Journal Title Details:
- 2022
- Notes:
- 12pgs, COVID 19 has exacerbated and underscored structural inequalities and endemic vulnerabilities in food, economic, and social systems, compounding concerns about environmental sustainability and racial and economic justice. Convergent crises have amplified a growing chorus of voices and movements calling for new thinking and new practices to adapt to these shifts, mitigate their impact, and address their root causes through far reaching changes in social and economic life and values, including breaking with the free market paradigm. In the face of a historic choice between transition or multiple systems collapse that deepen injustice and threaten planetary survival, I make the case for expanding on liberatory tendencies in Extension programs to build capacities for response-ability to transition toward more just and sustainable futures.
50. All roads lead to the farmers market?: using network analysis to measure the orientation and central actors in a community food system through a case comparison of yolo and sacramento county, california
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Fuchs‑Chesney, Jordana (author), Raj, Subhashni (author), Daruwalla, Tishtar (author), and Brinkley, Catherine (author)
- Format:
- Online article
- Publication Date:
- 2022-08-18
- Published:
- USA: Springer
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 205 Document Number: D12600
- Journal Title:
- Agriculture and Human Values
- Journal Title Details:
- Online
- Notes:
- 17 pages, Little is known about how farms and markets are connected. Identifying critical gaps and central hubs in food systems is of importance in addressing a variety of concerns, such as navigating rapid shifts in marketing practices as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic and related food shortages. The constellation of growers and markets can also reinforce opportunities to shift growing and eating policies and practices with attention to addressing racial and income inequities in food system ownership and access. With this research, we compare network methods for measuring centrality and sociospatial orientations in food systems using two of America’s most high-producing agricultural counties. Though the counties are adjacent, we demonstrate that their community food systems have little overlap in contributing farms and markets. Our findings show that the community food system for Yolo County is tightly interwoven with Bay Area restaurants and farmers’ markets. The adjacent county, Sacramento, branded itself as America’s Farm-to-Fork capital in 2012 and possesses network hubs focused more on grocery stores and restaurants. In both counties, the most central actors differ and have been involved with the community food system for decades. Such findings have implications beyond the case studies, and we conclude with considerations for how our methods could be standardized in the national agricultural census.