Wightman, Norma (author / University of California Cooperative Extension, San Luis Obispo, CA)
Format:
Conference paper
Publication Date:
1994
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 97 Document Number: C07900
Notes:
James F. Evans Collection, Ham, Mimeographed, 1994. 1 p. Presented at the Society for Nutrition Education, Portland, OR, July 16-20, 1994., A 10-hour training program was designed to teach volunteers to deliver short programs that demonstrate using the new nutrition label to select lower fat and/or low sodium foods. Volunteers contracted to "pay back" 10 hours of community service. In cooperation with the local Area Agency on Aging Nutrition Program, volunteers delivered 20-minute interactive programs at nutrition sites to nearly 400 seniors. Post-tests showed a majority of seniors could recognize the new nutrition facts label compared with the old nutrition label after the brief presentations. Information on sodium content was most frequently sought on nutrition labels by this audience. A survey of the volunteer extenders showed high job satisfaction and a feeling of contributing valuable information to the community. It was recommended that in addition to teaching experience, volunteers be required to have at least one college-level course in nutrition. Refinements in the training curriculum were also recommended and are being piloted on a second group of volunteers.
20 Pages, Springer Online, Aspirations to farm ‘better’ may fall short in practice due to constraints outside of farmers’ control. Yet farmers face proliferating pressures to adopt practices that align with various societal visions of better agriculture. What happens when the accumulation of external pressures overwhelms farm management capacity? Or, worse, when different visions of better agriculture pull farmers toward conflicting management paradigms? This article addresses these questions by comparing the institutional manifestations of two distinct societal obligations placed on California fruit and vegetable farmers: to practice sustainable agriculture and to ensure food safety. Drawing on the concept of constrained choice, I define and utilize a framework for comparison comprising five types of institutions that shape farm management decisions: rules and standards, market and supply chain forces, legal liability, social networks and norms, and scientific knowledge and available technologies. Several insights emerge. One, farmers are expected to meet multiple societal obligations concurrently; when facing a “right-versus-right” choice, farmers are likely to favor the more feasible course within structural constraints. Second, many institutions are designed to pursue narrow or siloed objectives; policy interventions that aim to shift farming practice should thus anticipate and address potential conflicts among institutions with diverging aspirations. Third, farms operating at different scales may face distinct institutional drivers in some cases, but not others, due to differential preferences for universal versus place-specific policies. These insights suggest that policy interventions should engage not just farmers, but also the intersecting institutions that drive or constrain their farm management choices. As my framework demonstrates, complementing the concept of constrained choice with insights from institutional theory can more precisely reveal the dimensions and mechanisms that bound farmer agency and shape farm management paradigms. Improved understanding of these structures, I suggest, may lead to novel opportunities to transform agriculture through institutional designs that empower, rather than constrain, farmer choice.
