6 pages., Evidence overwhelmingly supports the view that we need to drastically reduce our consumption of animal products for reasons related to the environment and public health, while moral concerns about the treatment of animals in agriculture are becoming ever more common. As governments increasingly recognize the need to change our food production and alternative protein products become more appealing to consumers, agriculture finds itself in a unique period of transition. How do farmers respond to the changing atmosphere? We present secondary analyses of qualitative and quantitative data to highlight some of the uncertainty and ambivalence about meat production felt throughout the farming community. Survey data from France and Germany reveals that in both countries, those who work in the meat industry have significantly higher rates of meat avoidance than those who do not work in the industry. While non-meat-industry workers are more likely to cite concerns for animals or the environment, meat industry workers more often cite concerns about the healthiness or safety of the products. Concurrently, interviews with people who raise animals for a living suggest that moral concerns among farmers are growing but largely remain hidden; talking about them openly was felt as a form of betrayal. We discuss these findings in the context of the ongoing agricultural transition, observe how tension has manifested as polarization among Dutch farmers, and offer some thoughts about the role of farmers in a new world of alternative proteins.
Via UIUC online collection., "Existing empirical studies mostly focus on the construction technology or the agricultural technique of Vertical Farming. So far, no research addressed the factors contributing to the acceptance or rejection of Vertical Farming. ... A comprehensive literature reviewed on public acceptance of Vertical Farming in relation to the food security." ... "Public perception will be a key factor predicting the success of a project."
9 pages, Despite agriculture’s great potential to Tanzania agricultural development, the sector faces diverse challenges. For example, existence of gender gaps in accessing agricultural production resources and benefits obtained from the same impede the sector’s growth. Therefore, adoption of conservation agriculture (CA) has been seen as one of the measures to address the sector limited productivity. Nonetheless, there is limited knowledge on how CA has managed to reduce gender inequalities in accessing both reproductive resources and benefits accrued from agriculture. This paper examines gender gaps in conservation agriculture programme implemented by Sustainable Agriculture in Tanzania (SAT), by specifically analyzing gender participation and relations in CA in Morogoro municipality and Morogoro district. This study adopted a mixed method approach whereby both qualitative and quantitative data were collected from four sites where SAT implements its activities. Findings show that CA has significantly reduced gander gaps in accessing production resources and services as well as raising women’s participation in decision making with regards to production and use of income obtained from sales of produce. Farmers regardless of the gender can access extension services, and credit, and are involved in various initiatives collectively. Despite the economic benefits, findings show that CA is laborious and takes much of farmers’ time, women being more affected. Therefore, it is recommended that the central and local governments and various stakeholders should promote the spread of conservation agriculture technologies since it reduces the biasness in agriculture and empowering women. Ensuring access to advanced cheap technologies to farmers. Nonetheless, there is need to ensure that female farmers are not overburdened in the process.
8 pages, In the face of rapidly advancing climate change, biodiversity loss, and water scarcity, it is clear that global agriculture must swiftly and decisively shift toward sustainability. Fortunately, farmers and researchers have developed a thoroughly studied pathway to this transition: agroecological farming systems that mimic natural ecosystems, creating tightly coupled cycles of energy, water, and nutrients. A critical and underappreciated feature of agroecological systems is that they replace fossil fuel- and chemical -intensive management with knowledge-intensive management. Hence, the greatest sustainability challenge for agriculture may well be that of replacing non-renewable resources with ecologically-skilled people, and doing so in ways that create and support desirable rural livelihoods. Yet over the past century, US agriculture has been trending in the opposite direction, rapidly replacing knowledgeable people with non-renewable resources and eroding rural economies in the process. Below, we suggest how US policy could pivot to enable and support the ecologically skilled workforce needed to achieve food security in the face of climate change.
