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2. Soil conservation practices and stakeholder’s participation in research projects—empirical evidence from Southern Italy
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Salvia, Rosanna (author), Simone, Rosaria (author), Salvati, Luca (author), and Quaranta, Giovanni (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2018-06-14
- Published:
- MDPI
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 11 Document Number: D10333
- Journal Title:
- Agriculture
- Journal Title Details:
- 8(6) : 85
- Notes:
- 20 pages., Via open source journal., Adoption of soil conservation practices is promoted by increased engagement between researchers and stakeholders. By reporting a case study from southern Italy where farmers have been involved in research projects dealing with soil conservation over several years, we demonstrated that the rate of adoption of conservative technologies is positively linked to the degree of stakeholder participation in the project and that farmers (and other stakeholders) have been driven toward more conscious perception of the complex link between agricultural practices, environmental impacts and socioeconomic effects. The results of this study reinforce the pivotal role of effective participatory processes in soil conservation—evidencing the importance of (i) time required to build relationships and (ii) intensity (and persistence) of collaboration among similar initiatives. Empirical evidence highlights the need to combine different approaches to deal with soil degradation. As well as the participatory time length, the synergies between the methods utilized, and the range of interacting mind sets are also very important.
3. Tracing social capital: how stakeholder group interactions shape agricultural water quality restoration in the Florida Everglades
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Yoder, Landon (author), Chowdhury, Rinku Roy (author), and School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University Graduate School of Geography, Clark University
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2018
- Published:
- Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 16 Document Number: D10459
- Journal Title:
- Land Use Policy
- Journal Title Details:
- 77 : 354-361
- Notes:
- 8 pages., Via online journal., Agricultural nonpoint source pollution remains a pressing environmental problem despite decades of policy and environmental initiatives. Cooperative local actions are a crucial element of effective multilevel governance solutions to such problems, but securing farmer participation for water quality protection remains challenging. Social capital—relations of trust, reciprocity, and shared social norms within and between key stakeholder groups—has been found to enable cooperation for environmentally desirable outcomes. However, the downsides of social capital remain under-examined in multilevel governance, where cooperation within one stakeholder group (bonding social capital) may undermine cooperation with other stakeholders (bridging social capital). Given this important gap, researchers need to examine how bonding and bridging social capital may be formed, maintained, or undermined through stakeholder interactions, and the corresponding environmental consequences. In this paper, we address these gaps through a case study of south Florida’s sugar-producing region, whose drainage water flows south into the Florida Everglades. In contrast to persistent water quality impairment elsewhere, Everglades water quality has improved steadily over the past 20 years. These improvements have taken place under a complex set of governance arrangements that established a mandatory long-term numeric water quality target but which relies on shared compliance among farms. These dynamics encouraged interactions among three key groups of stakeholders—farmers, agricultural extension agents, and state regulators—to implement management changes. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, we find that bonding social capital among farmers encourages them to improve their management through a sense of shared responsibility, while also potentially limiting restoration by maintaining perceptions that the regulations are unfair. Bridging social capital helps to legitimize new management efforts, while court-mandated water quality targets incentivize farmers to draw on multiple forms of social capital. We also discuss the relevance of this case for governing agricultural nonpoint source pollution in similar settings elsewhere.