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2. Learning from exploratory rural practices of the Yangtze River Delta in China: New initiatives, networks and empowerment shifts, and sustainability
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Huang, Huang (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2020-07-20
- Published:
- International: Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 201 Document Number: D11854
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Notes:
- 12 pages, via online journal, This paper charts two exploratory practices of rural transformation in the Yangtze River Delta that began around 2008, aimed at revitalising villages and exploring new urban-rural interrelationships while simultaneously expanding the knowledge base on possible development opportunities, risks and existing diversities in rural China. Using a comparative case study, the study shows that both practices promoted a redefinition of urban-rural relationships, a reconnection of rural networks, and the introduction of alternative spatial intervention methods. However, they also led to the intrusion of certain social values which were alien to the local population and resulted in the further exclusion of rural residents. By revealing the substantial changes and analysing the interactions of actors involved in the practices according to actor-network theory, this paper highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the new initiatives and thus allows for a more rigorous understanding of how emerging bottom-up and top-down initiatives affect rural transformation. The paper argues that the inclusion of the locals primarily in the form of land-leasing contracts and a limited number of job opportunities are far from sufficient to stimulate sustainable development processes and to address the major social challenges facing rural areas. It further identifies 23 key factors distilled from the empirical evidence that closely related to rural sustainable development and proposed to constitute a checklist for assessing the sustainability of emerging rural practices. The practical insights from the study thus enrich the theory of sustainability with regard to rural development by expanding the scope and dimension.
3. Identification of the human-land relationship involved in the urbanization of rural settlements in Wuhan city circle, China
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Zhu, Siyang (author), Kong, Xuesong (author), and Jiang, Ping (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2020-07-20
- Published:
- China: Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 201 Document Number: D11855
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Notes:
- 9 pages, via online journal, The conversion of population and land from rural to urban areas has been widely explored; however, the spatial change in rural settlements and its relations to population changes involved in urbanization have been ignored. This paper aims to reveal the underlying human-land relationship from the perspective of rural settlement urbanization (RSU). Based on identifying the spatiotemporal characteristics of RSU in Wuhan city circle from 2009 to 2016, we analyzed the human-land relations using a combination of a dynamic coupling model and a decoupling model. The results showed that a total area of 27.77 km2 (accounting for 0.81% of the level in 2009) of rural settlements was converted to urban construction land from 2009 to 2016. Although the rural population decreased by 32.21%, the overall size of rural settlements increased by 104.62 km2, and 37 counties had a low-level coordination between population urbanization and RSU. Only 2 counties emerged with high-level coordination in this process. Additionally, the changes in rural settlements and rural population showed a strong negative decoupling; that is, the population decreased while the area of rural settlements increased. Combining the decoupling results with the coupling analysis, eight human-land relationship patterns in rural settlement urbanization were identified, and “strong negative decoupling–low-level coupling” was the main pattern observed in counties, which summarized the human-land relations in most RSU and should be given priorities in improving rural human-land relationships. The question of how to promote harmonious human-land relationships lies at the core of promoting balanced urban-rural development. This research could provide a decision-making basis for formulating a sustainable development strategy for urban-rural integration.
4. Who is the winner? Relocated rural communities and stratification in urbanizing northwestern China
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Song, Jing (author), Du, Huimin (author), and Li, Si-ming (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2020-07-20
- Published:
- China: Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 201 Document Number: D11856
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Notes:
- 10 pages, via online journal, Under China's “Western Development” plan, inland China has witnessed massive urban expansion and land development, but little is known about the consequent stratification among relocated communities. This study examines the urbanization process on the outskirts of the Municipality of Yinchuan in northwestern China. Previous studies have focused on how urbanization impoverished or enriched rural communities, while this study examines how relocated communities (or teams) were differentiated in their compensation and relocation outcomes, as a combined outcome of policies and resource structures. Quantitative evidence suggests that urbanization has led to both between-team and within-team variations, and qualitative analyses illustrate why even the “lucky” teams always had “unlucky” villagers in compensation outcomes. Between-team variations were often used to mobilize collective resistance to strive for better compensation, but the rise of within-team variations has undermined the grassroots alliance against “unfair” policies. Villagers were more obsessed with individual competition of property investment based on their wealth and self-financing capabilities, but they also complained about “unjust” competition, such as the appropriation of resources based on cadres' privileges and connections. Although individual competition was celebrated under the official neoliberal market-oriented narratives, the decline of collective patronage and the resentment toward cadres' rent-seeking behaviors have added to tensions within relocated communities and contributed to their fragmentation.
5. The impacts of land fragmentation on irrigation collective action: Empirical test of the social-ecological system framework in China
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Wang, Yahua (author), Zang, Liangzhen (author), and Araral, Eduardo (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2020-07-20
- Published:
- Internatioanl: Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 201 Document Number: D11857
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Notes:
- 11 pages, via online journal, Land fragmentation is an interesting physical character in some developing countries, especially China. This study aims to discover the direct and mediated effects of land fragmentation on collective action in China based on an empirical test and the social-ecological system framework. We introduce three innovations to the literature on collective action in the commons. First, we focus on the mechanism of land fragmentation on collective action in the commons, which has been largely ignored in the literature. Second, building on the social-ecological system framework, we use structural equation modeling, which is robust to endogeneity and latent variable problems. Third, we use original survey data from 3895 households and 284 villages from 17 provinces/regions in China, a critical case because China has some of the most fragmented farmland use in the world. We find that land fragmentation has a direct negative effect on irrigation collective action. And besides the direct negative effect, there are four indirect factors: dependency on farming, irrigation rule-making, economic pressure and land circulation. Of these, the first three have a negative effect, and the last one, a positive effect. Our findings add to the theoretical literature on collective action in the commons and suggest new policy handles for more efficient land and labor markets in China.
6. Rural community unbound: Trans-locality, rural-to-rural connections and the formation of inter-regional surname associations in China
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Chen, Ningning (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2020-07-20
- Published:
- Singapore: Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 201 Document Number: D11858
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Notes:
- 9 pages, via online journal, Rural communities are not restricted to bounded territories but increasingly reproduced by intensified rural connections with the outside. Extant research tends to suggest that the production of rural community unbound relies on the movement and activities of mobile groups while ignoring the trans-local practice of community-making by local villagers who stay in the countryside. This paper draws on ethnographic insights on the formation of inter-regional surname associations in contemporary China, a contemporary form of Chinese lineage communities which is relatively unknown both in and outside China. By adopting a trans-local approach, it explores how rural lineage members and groups initiate the alliance with their same surname fellows in different rural localities to forge trans-local communities. Such rural-to-rural alliance is consolidated through various meanings and practices, producing the idea of a big ‘family’. This trans-local community not only enables rural members to enhance their mobilities and cultural and socio-economic capital but is also grounded in lineage groups' assertion of territorial identity, power, and social status. With a nuanced analysis of the trans-local agency of local villagers, this paper contributes to understanding the production of trans-local communities and trans-local rurality based on rural-to-rural connections. It also offers insights into the reconstruction of rural people's identities in contemporary China.
7. Definitions of “rural” and “urban” and understandings of economic transformation: Evidence from Tanzania
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Wineman, Ayala (author), Yélognissè Alia, Didier (author), and Anderson, C. Leigh (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2020-10-01
- Published:
- International: Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 201 Document Number: D11859
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Journal Title Details:
- Vol. 79
- Notes:
- 14 pages, via online journal, Designing effective policies for economic development often entails categorizing populations by their rural or urban status. Yet there exists no universal definition of what constitutes an “urban” area, and countries alternately apply criteria related to settlement size, population density, or economic advancement. In this study, we explore the implications of applying different urban definitions, focusing on Tanzania for illustrative purposes. Toward this end, we refer to nationally representative household survey data from Tanzania, collected in 2008 and 2014, and categorize households as urban or rural using seven distinct definitions. These are based on official administrative categorizations, population densities, daytime and nighttime satellite imagery, local economic characteristics, and subjective assessments of Google Earth images. These definitions are then applied in some common analyses of demographic and economic change. We find that these urban definitions produce different levels of urbanization. Thus, Tanzania's urban population share based on administrative designations was 28% in 2014, though this varies from 12% to 39% with alternative urban definitions. Some indicators of economic development, such as the level of rural poverty or the rate of rural electrification, also shift markedly when measured with different urban definitions. The periodic (official) recategorization of places as rural or urban, as occurs with the decennial census, results in a slower rate of rural poverty decline than would be measured with time-constant boundaries delimiting rural Tanzania. Because the outcomes of analysis are sensitive to the urban definitions used, policy makers should give attention to the definitions that underpin any statistics used in their decision making.
8. Emerging rural spatial restructuring regimes in China: A tale of three transitional villages in the urban fringe
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Zhang, Xiaoling (author) and Pan, Mingmin (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2020-09-18
- Published:
- China: Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 201 Document Number: D11877
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Notes:
- 14 pages, via online journal, China's rapid urbanization process has pushed rural villages into an urban-rural integration movement. Several modes and approaches have been applied to remake space in rural China, which differ greatly in restructuring outcomes. In response, this article builds on the insights of regime theory to develop a conceptual framework to reveal the mechanism behind China's rural spatial restructuring and seeks to explore the underlying reasons that affect the outcomes. It is found that resource adequacy, the quality of resource coalition, and the effectiveness of implementation determine the rural regime's capacity to manage spatial restructuring. Case studies from Hua County, Chaohu City, and Shenzhen are used to illustrate the conceptual framework's application and facilitate a comparative analysis from the perspective of rural regime capacity. The findings provide a critical rethinking of the “sustainable remaking of rural space”, which could therefore shed light on the rural governance of countries in the global south generally.
9. Evolution of rural settlement in an inland nonmetropolitan region of China at a time of rapid urbanisation: The case of Gongyi
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Li, Li (author), Li, Xiaojian (author), Hai, Beibei (author), Wang, Xuefeng (author), and Xu, Jiawei (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2020-08-20
- Published:
- International: Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 201 Document Number: D11878
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Journal Title Details:
- Vol. 79
- Notes:
- 12 pages, via online journal, Rural settlements in China have been experiencing unprecedented transformation since the economic reforms of the late 1970s. This paper examines population movement over the post-reform era and how this affects settlement patterns in an inland nonmetropolitan county-level city region with a well performing economy. It is found that the settlement size distribution in Gongyi is generally transforming from a traditional rural pattern to one that features an urban system, taking place in the form of “in situ urbanisation” and “rural urbanisation”. Without experiencing mass out-migration and in line with the transition of China's political economy, Gongyi has developed its local urban system in parallel with the life and spatial cycles of city-based urbanisation in China. From the perspective of urbanisation cycles, “in situ urbanisation” underpinned by relevant socioeconomic and political conditions is argued to be both theoretically meaningful and practically useful in the context of the evolving settlement systems in China and less urbanised countries.
10. Embedding food in place and rural development: Insights from the Bluefin Tuna Cultural Festival in Donggang, Taiwan
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Lin, Yi-Chieh Jessica (author) and Bestor, Theodore C. (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2020-09-07
- Published:
- International: Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 201 Document Number: D11880
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Journal Title Details:
- Vol. 79
- Notes:
- 9 pages, via online journal, This paper examines the role of the “Bluefin Tuna Cultural Festival” in developing and sustaining regional identities within the context of rural regeneration, sustainability, and the creation of closer relationships between production and consumption in the countryside. It focuses on Donggang, Southern Taiwan, an area with rural development issues, increasing tourism impacts, and contested issues of local identity, sustainability, and an aging society. This paper draws on public discourse and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders in Donggang to understand the conditions required for substantiating authenticity of the gastronomic products and experiences and the promotion of an appealing gastronomic image. This study traces the process of embedding bluefin tuna in Donggang through marketing,branding and provides a preliminary conceptualization of interrelations between gastronomic tourism and community development in East Asia. The paper draws attention to these particular issues issues: the commodification of local heritage and countryside capital, strategies and challenges of hosting culinary festivals and resolving the issue of return migration.
11. What to do with the farmland? Coping with ageing in rural Thailand
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Januswan, Para (author) and Zander, Kerstin K. (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- unknown
- Published:
- United States: Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 202 Document Number: D11985
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Journal Title Details:
- Volume 80
- Notes:
- 10 Pages, As Thai farmers get older they need to plan what to do with their farm business and land given younger people tend to out-migrate to urban areas and shift their interests away from farming. Such demographic trends may reduce agricultural productivity and increase food insecurity, both among farmers and in the region. Using data collected through interviews with 368 farmers in the Prachin Buri province of Thailand, this research aims to examine how ageing is affecting farm activities of older farmers (60 years and older) and how they are adapting. We found that, while a small percentage of older farmers intended to continue farming without making any changes over the next five years (~9%), most were concerned about their health and farm work capacity, and were looking to leave farming and implement strategies to reduce both work intensity and time. Most farmers intended to stop farming and transfer farmland to their children (~40%), or continue farming while making some changes (~30%), such as employing additional workers or switching to less labour intense crops. Some intended to stop farming altogether and dispose of farmland outside their family (~21%; e.g. leasing out or selling or returning farmland to owner if leased). As expected, the chosen strategy depended on personal (old-age income security and gender) and farm characteristics (e.g. successor, farm activities, and subsidy). Having a dedicated successor had a substantial impact on transferring land to the children, reflecting the importance of commitment for farming by the next generation, which will be challenging. A pension higher than the widely available old-age allowance could support farmers in maintaining a better living standard after retiring. However, only a fraction of farmers currently had access to a pension. Both short- and long-term policies are, therefore, needed to support elderly farmers, improve their living standards after retirement, and attract young people back to farming.
12. Biased or balanced? Assessing BBC news and current affairs performance in covering the badger cull in England
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Stanyer, James (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- unknown
- Published:
- United States: Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 202 Document Number: D11986
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Journal Title Details:
- Volume 80
- Notes:
- 9 pages, This article represents the first systematic examination of BBC coverage of one of the most controversial rural issues in a generation, namely the culling of badgers (a protected species) to stop the spread of bovine TB in England. While the BBC has certain regulatory responsibilities set out in its guidelines to provide duly impartial coverage it has been regularly criticised for being biased. Little is known about the BBC's performance other than what is suggested by critics, previous research having focused on press coverage. Based on an original content analysis of news, current affairs and factual output this article assesses the BBC's coverage. It shows that while competing voices and perspectives were balanced its coverage was not that distinct from its commercial rivals, with both framing the issue as a conflict over badgers rather than about the spread of a disease affecting livestock and livelihoods, and both focusing on a narrow set of voices involved in the conflict.
13. Social sustainability in agriculture – A system-based framework
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Janker, Judith (author), Mann, Stefan (author), and Rist, Stephan (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2019-01-01
- Published:
- Netherlands: Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 203 Document Number: D12237
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Journal Title Details:
- Vol. 65
- Notes:
- 11 pages, Sustainability has become a key term for linking environmental, economic and social issues, in both the sciences and politics. Conceptions and frameworks of sustainability have thus arisen to evaluate agricultural systems on their sustainability. Within these conceptions and in political and scientific discourses, what can be understood as the social pillar of sustainability in agriculture varies greatly, especially in regards to the scope and the sustainability standards applied. While rural inhabitants have been subject of various ‘sustainability studies’, the consideration of the social dimension in agriculture is still rather underrepresented. Our conceptual framework can contribute to enhance the understanding of the social dimension of sustainability by utilizing a social science-based approach to comprehend the complexity of social interaction in agriculture: Based on Parsons' system approach, we capture the components of a social system that encompasses agriculture and its embeddedness in society. This includes all major actors, their interactions and institutions. Further, we develop Maslow's hierarchy of needs as well as the rights approach into a sustainability scale. We call the conceptual framework the sustainable agricultural social system. This general framework can later be adapted to local cultural and social settings, serving as a more comprehensive and flexible sustainability framework.
14. Agriculture, communities, and new social movements: east european ruralities in the process of restructuring
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Gorlach, Krzysztof (author), Lostak, Michal (author), and Mooney, Patrick H. (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2020-02-01
- Published:
- Netherlands: Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 203 Document Number: D12238
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Journal Title Details:
- v24 n2
- Notes:
- 3 pages, 11 pages, This paper examines the usefulness of the new social movements (NSMs) paradigm in the changing context of East European post-communist societies and their agricultural systems and rural communities. Starting with statements formulated in Western sociology in the context of Western democratic societies about NSMs as a protest against modernity, the paper analyses the role of such movements in the still modernizing Eastern European reality. The first part of the paper briefly examines some basic elements of the NSMs paradigm in European and American social science. The goal of this section is not only to identify the basic characteristics of NSMs, but also to identify the typical frames used by them. The second part of the paper focuses on the presence of NSMs in the communist era. Drawing on the idea of NSMs as indicators of a "post-materialist shift" as well as of "anti-establishment" and "pro-participatory democracy", the paper examines the frames of democratic opposition in Eastern Europe before 1989. The final part of the paper considers several selected examples from Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to explore the role of NSMs in the process of shaping new ruralities during the post-communist transformation.
15. The cultural imaginary of ethical meat: A study of producer perceptions
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Johnston, Josee (author), Weiler, Anelyse (author), and Baumann, Shyon (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2022-01-05
- Published:
- United States: Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 205 Document Number: D12564
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Journal Title Details:
- 89
- Notes:
- 12 pages., Because of concerns about human health, the environment, and animal welfare, meat is a highly contentious food. Accordingly, a broad range of alternative, small-scale practices for raising livestock and producing non-industrial meat are in the spotlight. While scholars have examined consumer perspectives on “ethical” meat, less is known about producers' perceptions of how small-scale meat production fits into the broader food system, and how their perceptions relate to broader sustainability debates surrounding meat. We explore producer perspectives on small-scale “ethical” meat production and its role in a sustainable food system. We do so through interviews and site visits with 74 people working within alternative meat production in four Canadian provinces, a sample that includes farmers, ranchers, butchers, and meat-focussed chefs. We find that, in the face of practical challenges linked to small-scale production, producers are passionately committed to the project of small-scale animal rearing that they regard as humane and sustainable. Despite these similarities, producers have radically different ideas about the purpose and potential of ethical meat. We observed major differences among producers' cultural imagination of meat, exemplifying varied ideas for fitting meat into a sustainable food system. Our findings underscore the importance of charting not only producers’ practices, but also their cultural orientations.
16. Adoption and perception of farm management information systems by future Swiss farm managers – An online study
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Ammamm, Jeanine (author), Walter, Achim (author), and Benni, Nadja (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2022-01-10
- Published:
- United States: Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 205 Document Number: D12567
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Journal Title Details:
- 70
- Notes:
- 8 pages, The use of digital technologies in agriculture offers various benefits, such as site-specific application, better monitoring, and physical relief. The handling of these technologies requires a specific skill set. Therefore, the question arises of when and how farm managers learn about digital technologies. Aiming to analyse the current situation, the present research investigated the role that digital technologies play in vocational training for future farm managers. Taking the example of farm management information systems (FMIS), the present study also analysed various predictors of adoption, including the effect of training. To investigate these research questions, an online survey among teachers and students of the farm management vocational programme across Switzerland was conducted in the spring of 2021. In total, 150 individuals participated, 41 of whom were teachers. Participants answered questions about the learning content in the farm management programme and their perception of digital technologies in general. Students further reported whether they already had a farm they would be managing in the future and how they perceived FMIS. The results indicate that both teachers and students are convinced that digital technologies play an important role in agriculture and will gain more importance in the future. A substantial part of 43% of the students who participated indicated that they had learned neither about digital technologies during their basic agricultural training nor the subsequent farm management programme. In terms of FMIS, 51% of the student sample indicated that they had never heard about FMIS during their agricultural training. While having learned about FMIS was not a significant predictor for adoption, gender, perceived ease of use, and intention to use more digital technologies in the future significantly predicted the adoption of FMIS. The paper concludes that, to support the adoption of digital technologies and FMIS specifically, training for future farm managers should focus on how to operate an FMIS to increase the perceived ease of use of this technology.
17. Adoption as adaptation: Household decision making and changing rural livelihoods in Lombok, Indonesia
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Williams, Liana J. (author), van Wensveen, Monica (author), Grunbuhel, Clemens (author), and Pupsadi, Ketut (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2022-01
- Published:
- United States: Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 205 Document Number: D12575
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Journal Title Details:
- 89
- Notes:
- 9 pages, In agricultural research for development adoption of new technology tends to be cast in categories: adoption, partial adoption, dis-adoption or non-adoption. While these may serve for pragmatic classification and measures for project success or impact they fail to properly acknowledge the ongoing and independent efforts of farmers (and others) in experimentation and integration of knowledge across a range of sources. This paper explores responses to practices for cattle management introduced during a research project, at project close, and five years after the project has finished. We consider the perceptions and application of new knowledge by farmers, extension staff, and policy makers. By taking a longer-term view, we demonstrate how farming households adapt and integrate knowledge from different sources into their daily practice, influenced by local institutions and changing cultural expectations, as well as external researchers. We also consider the influence of changing government priorities and incentives in steering farm-management decisions. Results suggest that a focus on measures to build capacity and empower farmers with information to adapt and respond to change, regardless of project activities, is a much more important goal and indicator of impact than measuring adoption.