Marques, Andreia (author), Kamali, Farahnaz Pashaei (author), Asveld, Lotte (author), Osseweijer, Patricia (author), Silveira, Jose Maria F. J. de (author), and Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
Unicamp Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil
Format:
Online journal article
Publication Date:
2019-11-05
Published:
Netherlands: Elsevier
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 124 Document Number: D11216
16 pages, via online journal, Sugarcane expansion in Brazil during the 2000s was partly restricted by several discussions about the sustainability aspects of its cultivation. These discussions were mainly based on surveys that sometimes use highly aggregated data not including local perspectives and particularities, and sometimes used case studies with small samples which, while listening to local perspectives, cannot be considered representative of the whole sector. This work aims at filling this gap by considering both the perceptions of the local community, which add primary data on impact, and a large sample, to increase the research representativeness. To do so, we present the results of 353 interviews, covering 33 municipalities in five states of the Center-South region of Brazil (the largest cultivation area in the country). The results show that the expansion of biofuels has generated conflict mostly related to environmental and social issues, although there is good acceptance of the sugarcane mills in general. Our conclusions point to the importance of including local voices for a deeper understanding of the advantages and limitations of the expansion of biofuels.
Jackson, Janine (author) and Carpenter, Zoe (author / The Nation)
Format:
Interview
Publication Date:
2019-07-19
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 129 Document Number: D11275
Notes:
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), online via website. Episode of a CounterSpin radio interview. 8 pages., Issues in media coverage of politics, finance, and structural barriers in climate change legislation in Oregon, USA.
15 pages., Online via Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)., "In sum, the Africa rising myth and penetration of ICTs in rural areas masks the disposition of Maasai means of livelihood , and therefore worsening the groups' conditions of living.
Article examines relations between journalists and environmental nongovernmental organization. As well, it identifies barriers to in-depth, balance, and accurate news coverage of environmental issues and events in these former Soviet republics.
24 pages., Open access and online via ScienceDirect., The suggested model involves interactions and integration among knowledge (K), social practices (P), and values (V). Authors contemplated bottom-up relationships among scientists, environmental managers, science journalists, and other citizens operating within a context of top-down institutional constraints. They emphasized values and social practices, as well as knowledge, in addressing institutional change.
1 page., Research among those who ski reveals the dilemma they face in desiring to preserve the environment while using energy-intensive means of travel to and from skiing sites.
International: Two Sides North America, Inc., Chicago, Illinois.
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 142 Document Number: D11532
Notes:
3 pages., Online via publisher website., Article from the non-profit organization, Two Sides North America. It reported progress in a campaign to stop organizations from making misleading anti-print and anti-paper claims in their customer communications. It included findings of an international survey among more than 10,000 consumers assessing their document-storing preferences and attitudes about print versus digital communications.
13 pages., Online from publisher., Using a review of literature, authors identified most important factors hindering the rise of public concern about the environment. Categories they identified included obtainment of information on environmental problems and appraisal processes related to environmental problems.
11 pages., Online via publisher., Examined people's perceptions of their connection to nature as well as their ideas about what constitutes natural and unnatural environments. Results showed that even though the majority of the participants considered themselves part of nature (76.9%), natural environments were largely described as places absent from any human interference.
16 pages., Online via UI e-subscription, Using fieldwork and in-depth-interviews with key informants, researchers examined how two groups (landowner group and citizen group) framed their arguments involving proposed sale of water from this aquifer. The citizen group was found more articulate in opposing the sale of water to the broader public. Findings also suggested that the framing strategies used by both groups served to escalate community dissension and therefore limit opportunities for resolution.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 146 Document Number: D11566
Journal Title Details:
15(1) : 71-81
Notes:
11 pages., Online from journal., This autoethnographic analysis highlighted a number of obstacles and opportunities for engaging with environmental matters in church-based contexts.
11 pages., Online via journal by open access., Outlined a transdisciplinary research approach to issues of justice and equity in a real-life social conflict concerning the allocation of water for irrigation farming.
10 pages., Online via journal by open access., Authors examined the gap between environmental values and environmentally-supportive behaviour through a nationwide survey. Most (72%) of respondents reported a gap between their intentions and their actions. Analysis identified three categories of explanatory variables to account for the gap: individual, household, and societal.
21 pages., Online via UI e-subscription., Article described a negotiation simulation designed to incorporate skill building, process management, conflict analysis, and conflict management tools.
8 pages., Online issue., "Critics of climate science claim that climate models lack predictive skill. In fact, some of the earliest predictions made thirty years ago have performed remarkably well." ... "the bad news is that in terms of action, we are still only scratching the surface of responses needed...to prevent
'dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.' The real challenges lie ahead."
USA: Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, Arizona State University, Phoenix.
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 166 Document Number: D11683
Notes:
3 pages., Via online article., Description of proposed legislation in support of efforts to implement environmental/green practices and technologies. Describes seven features of the Green New Deal and provides questions reporters might ask in gather information about it.
Interational: Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 166 Document Number: D11693
Notes:
2 pages., Online from publisher website., Cites trends in lifestyles of sending as little to the landfill as possible and offers ideas for local new coverage of efforts along that line (including those of local grocery stores and restaurants).
Worthington, Thomas A. (author), Andradi-Brown, Dominic A. (author), Bhargava, Radhika (author), Buelow, Christina (author), Bunting, Pete (author), Duncan, Clare (author), Fatoyinbo, Lola (author), Friess, Daniel A. (author), Goldberg, Liza (author), Hilarides, Lambert (author), Lagomasino, David (author), Landis, Emily (author), Longley-Wood, Kate (author), Lovelock, Catherine E. (author), Murray, Nicholas J. (author), Narayan, Siddharth (author), Rosenqvist, Ake (author), Sievers, Michael (author), Simard, Marc (author), Thomas, Nathan (author), van Eijk, Pieter (author), Zganjar, Chris (author), and Spalding, Mark (author)
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2020
Published:
International
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 201 Document Number: D11696
27 pages., Authors provide an overview of recent and forthcoming global datasets and explore the challenges of translating these new analyses into policy action and on-the-ground conservation of mangrove forests. They describe a new platform for visualizing and disseminating these datasets to the global science community and other audiences - and they highlight future directions and collaborations.
Garcia, Claude A. (author), Sasvilaakso, Sini (author), Verburg, Rene W. (author), Gutierrez, Victoria (author), Wilson, Sarah J. (author), Krug, Cornelia B. (author), Sassen, Marieke (author), Robinson, Brian E. (author), Moersberger, Hannah (author), Naimi, Babak (author), Rhemtulia, Jeanine M. (author), Dessard, Helene (author), Gond, Valery (author), Vermeulen, Cedric (author), Trolliet, Franck (author), Oszwald, Johan (author), Quetier, Fabien (author), Pietsch, Stephan A. (author), Bastin, Jean-Francois (author), Dray, Anne (author), Araujo, Miguel (author), Ghazoul, Jaboury (author), and Waeber, Patrick O. (author)
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2020
Published:
International
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 201 Document Number: D11697
12 pages., Authors note no clear evidence that global efforts against forest loss, fragmentation,and degradation of land use are working. As key reason, they point to apparent ineffectiveness in involving all stakeholders involved. "Forest transitions are social and behavioral before they are ecological. Decision makers need to integrate better representations of people's agency in their mental models. ... Games can help decision makers in all of these tasks."
4 pages., Author suggests that"social forestry seeks to manage forests through local communities for their own plus national benefits, but is still falls short of the targets set. Reconciling local concerns for livelihood opportunities with the need for accountability requires intermediaries who successfully negotiate in the bureaucratic jungle of forestry as an institution."
Online via keyword search of UI ECatalog., Historical analysis of environmental journalism in Brazil, centered on the pioneering efforts of Euclydes da Cunha in his "masterful Os Sertoes published in 1897." Warnings of "the ecological devastation of the Brazilian backlands" continue to echo in public dialogue.
Online via keyword search of UI Library eCatalog., Overview of mass media strengths and weaknesses, in terms of how educators might help improve the natural symbiosis between science and journalism, with focus on reproduction and child development-hormone-mimicking pollutants such as pesticides in agriculture.
Online via keyword search of UI Library eCatalog., Report of Symposium III, an eight-nation, sea-borne (Danube River) conference hosted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate. It encouraged an increased level of responsibility and social conscience in parishes of the Black Sea region regarding ecological challenges. The symposium developed a 10-point action plan for the future, separate from the activities of the religious communities and based on conclusions of working groups.
Online via UI Library electronic subscription, To close the gap between ecologists and policy makers, the author proposed a program of embedding ecologists into the political syst4em in much the same way the U.S. military embeds journalists into combat units. Emphasized the importance of developing personal relationships.
Online via UI Library electronic subscription, Authors analyzed why some social movement organizations were more successful than others in gaining media attention. They drew upon organizational survey data from a representative sample of 187 local environmental organizations in North Carolina with complete news coverage of those organizations in 11 major daily newspapers in the state during the two years following the survey.
Online from publication. 3 pages., Editorial highlights the inaccuracies in a Burger King television advertisement that repeats misleading claims and data about the role of beef and dairy production in greenhouse gas emissions that harm climate.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 202 Document Number: D12108
Notes:
Online from Radio Free. 3 pages., Author reports on helping the U.S. Senate draft and pass the Physician Payments Sunshine Act a decade ago. It requires companies to report monies and gifts they give physicians, which are known to influence what doctors prescribe or promote. "We need a 'sunshine law' for science that would expose all sorts of conflicts of interest and industry manipulation that skew research on food, synthetical chemicals, pesticides, air pollution, genetic technology, and the climate."
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 202 Document Number: D12129
Notes:
Online via AgriMarketing Weekly. 2 pages., Research among registered dietitians indicates potential negative impact on fruit and vegetable consumption among consumers caused by the so-called "dirty dozen" list published by the Environmental Working Group (EWG).
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.
9 pages, To understand environmental conditions Pennsylvania agricultural producers had observed in the past and what their environmental concerns were for the future, we conducted a statewide survey. We used Spearman rank order correlations to show differences between past observations and future concerns regarding environmental conditions and found a disconnect between what respondents previously had observed and their anticipations for the future. Additionally, we used chi-square analysis to determine whether perspectives on environmental conditions were related to producer demographic characteristics. Two demographic variables were significant: generation of farmer and political affiliation. Our findings can assist Extension professionals in developing programs tailored to target audiences' environmental perceptions and demographics.
15 pages, This paper studies Chinese grape growers’ time discounting and its implications for the adoption of technology that can reduce the negative effects of increasing precipitation. Using primary data collected in Xinjiang Province, we undertook a contingent valuation of rain covers that protect fruit from rain and estimated a discounted utility model using these data. Using a hierarchical Bayesian approach, we find that local grape growers discount the future very heavily, with a discount rate of 0.17 per year, which is almost four times higher than the Chinese market interest rate. Farmers also tend to underestimate the benefits of adopting covers, with their purchase decisions appearing to largely depend on their past actual losses rather than future anticipated losses. These findings have broader implications for policies promoting proactive adaptation in response to likely increased rainfall in the region. Targeting farmers who give lower weight to events far off in the future and understanding that many farmers may tend only to make adoption decisions that have strong short-term benefits could improve the efficacy of climate policies that target agricultural technologies.
15 pages, Increasing popularity of economic experiments for policy impact analysis has led to an on-going debate about the suitability of students to substitute professionals as experimental subjects. To date, subject pool effects in agricultural and resource economics experiments have not been sufficiently studied. In order to identify differences and similarities between students and non-students, we carry out an experiment in the form of a multi-period business management game that is adapted to an agri-environmental context. We compare the compliance behaviour of German agricultural students and German farmers with regard to water protection rules and analyse their responses to two different green nudge interventions. The experimental results reveal that the direction of the response to the policy treatments is similar. Even unexpected behaviour could be reproduced by the student sample. Nevertheless, the magnitude of the treatment effects differed between the two samples. This implies that experimenters in the field of agricultural and resource economics could use the subject pool of students to analyse the direction of nudge policies. If predictions should be made about the magnitude effects, we suggest using a professional subject pool.
10 pages, This study looks at the role of Extension in helping local officials reduce plastic bag use at farmers markets in three Lake County, OH communities. We distributed free reusable bags to shoppers and conducted an education and outreach program. We then took observations to determine if the free reusable bags were being used. We also invited shoppers to take a voluntary survey about their environmental attitudes, why or why not they use the reusable bags, and how best to reduce plastic bag use moving forward. Results from the study suggest that supplying free reusable bags at farmer markets is not an effective strategy for Extension professionals attempting to reduce plastic bag use. Instead, we recommend working with local officials to develop financial incentives and disincentives tied to the type of bag option shoppers use, implement plastic bag bans at markets, and conduct locally-focused education and outreach. Although shoppers’ environmental literacy and desire for sustainability is high, it is shown that behavior change is unlikely to occur without financial or policy incentives.
19pgs, Advocates of indoor vertical farming have pitched the enterprise as key to the future of food, an opportunity to use technological innovation to increase local food production, bolster urban sustainability, and create a world in which there is “real food” for everyone. At the same time, critics have raised concerns about the costs, energy usage, social impacts, and overall agricultural viability of these efforts, with some insisting that existing low-tech and community-based solutions of the “good food movement” offer a better path forward. Drawing from a mix of participant observation and other qualitative methods, this article examines the work of Square Roots, a Brooklyn-based indoor vertical farming company cofounded by entrepreneur Kimbal Musk and technology CEO Tobias Peggs. In an effort to create a market for what I refer to as “techno-local food,” Square Roots pitches its products as simultaneously “real” and technologically optimized. As a way to build trust in these novel products and better connect consumers with producers, Square Roots leans on transparency as a publicity tool. The company’s Transparency Timeline, for instance, uses photos and a narrative account of a product’s life-cycle to tell its story “from seed-to-store,” allowing potential customers to “know their farmer.” The information Square Roots shares, however, offers a narrow peek into its operations, limiting the view of operational dynamics that could help determine whether the company is actually living up to its promise. The research provides a clear case study of an organization using transparency–publicity as market strategy, illustrating the positive possibilities that such an approach can bring to consumer engagement, while also demonstrating how the tactic can distract from a company’s stated social responsibility goals.
3pgs, Oil and gas wells left unattended pose an environmental danger and weigh heavily on tax payers’ pockets. The federal accountability system overseeing the companies involved needs a complete overhaul.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 207 Document Number: D12977
Notes:
194 pages., The concept of sustainable development is a source of inspiration for many, who see it as a call to cooperative action. In practice, however, policies intended to further this goal often generate conflicts of interest. The ensuing disputes occur among governmental organizations, but disputes also arise between public authorities, private interest groups, and the environmental movement. In the opinion of the authors, the fact that environmental policy can provoke such conflict may be attributed largely to decision making procedures in our society. Accordingly, the authors are convinced that a new approach to managing environmental disputes is needed in order to deal effectively with environmental problems. Indeed, this book presents a viable alternative, which is called network management.
