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.
Brodt, Sonja B. (author), Klonsky, Karen (author), Tourte, Laura (author), Duncan, Roger (author), Hendricks, Lonnie (author), Ohmart, Cliff (author), and Verdegaal, Paul (author)
Format:
Research paper
Publication Date:
2004-12
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 147 Document Number: C23445
The authors consider the adoption of biologically integrated agricultural practices from the perspective of farm management style. Adoption decisions for farming practices must fit into a broader farm decision-making context that incorporates economic, environmental, social, family and personal considerations, as well as use of agricultural information sources. Drawing from a study of California almond and winegrape growers, the authors demonstrate that management styles differ substantially among farmers and that these differences affect use of information sources and adoption of biologically based practices on the farm. A two-season mail survey of farming practices and information sources demonstrated that differences in management styles affect the adoption of practices.
