Showing papers in "Agriculture and Human Values in 1999"

Placing the food system on the urban agenda: The role of municipal institutions in food systems planning

Abstract: Food issues are generally regarded as agricultural and rural issues. The urban food system is less visible than such other systems as transportation, housing, employment, or even the environment. The reasons for its low visibility include the historic process by which issues and policies came to be defined as urban; the spread of processing, refrigeration, and transportation technology together with cheap, abundant energy that rendered invisible the loss of farmland around older cities; and the continuing institutional separation of urban and rural policy. Despite its low visibility, the urban food system nonetheless contributes significantly to community health and welfare; to metropolitan economies; connects to other urban systems such as housing, transportation, land use, and economic development; and impacts the urban environment. We examine existing or potential city institutions that could offer a more comprehensive look at the urban food system. These include the city department of food, the food policy council, and the city-planning department.

Reweaving the food security safety net: Mediating entitlement and entrepreneurship

Abstract: The American food system has produced both abundance and food insecurity, with production and consumption dealt with as separate issues. The new approach of community food security (CFS) seeks to re-link production and consumption, with the goal of ensuring both an adequate and accessible food supply in the present and the future. In its focus on consumption, CFS has prioritized the needs of low-income people; in its focus on production, it emphasizes local and regional food systems. These objectives are not necessarily compatible and may even be contradictory. This article describes the approach of community food security and raises some questions about how the movement can meet its goals of simultaneously meeting the food needs of low-income people and developing local food systems. It explores the conceptual and political promise and pitfalls of local, community-based approaches to food security and examines alternative economic strategies such as urban agriculture and community-supported agriculture. It concludes that community food security efforts are important additions to, but not subsitutes for, a nonretractable governmental safety net that protects against food insecurity.

The greening of the “barrios”: Urban agriculture for food security in Cuba

Abstract: Urban agriculture in Cuba has rapidly become a significant source of fresh produce for the urban and suburban populations. A large number of urban gardens in Havana and other major cities have emerged as a grassroots movement in response to the crisis brought about by the loss of trade, with the collapse of the socialist bloc in 1989. These gardens are helping to stabilize the supply of fresh produce to Cuba's urban centers. During 1996, Havana's urban farms provided the city's urban population with 8,500 tons of agricultural produce, 4 million dozens of flowers, 7.5 million eggs, and 3,650 tons of meat. This system of urban agriculture, composed of about 8,000 gardens nationwide has been developed and managed along agroecological principles, which eliminate the use of synthetic chemical pesticides and fertilizers, emphasizing diversification, recycling, and the use of local resources. This article explores the systems utilized by Cuba's urban farmers, and the impact that this movement has had on Cuban food security.

Platforms for collective action in multiple-use common-pool resources

Abstract: Collective action processes in complex, multiple-use common-pool resources (CPRs) have only recently become a focus of study. When CPRs evolve into more complex systems, resource use by separate user groups becomes increasingly interdependent. This implies, amongst others, that the institutional framework governing resource use has to be re-negotiated to avoid adverse impacts associated with the increased access of any new stakeholders, such as overexploitation, alienation of traditional users, and inter-user conflicts. The establishment of “platforms for resource use negotiation” is a way of dealing with complex natural resource management problems. Platforms arise when stakeholders perceive the same resource management problem, realize their interdependence in solving it, and come together to agree on action strategies for solving the problem (Roling, 1994). This article sets the scene for a discussion in this Special Issue about the potential of nested platforms for resource use negotiation in facilitating collective action in the management of complex, multiple-use CPRs. The article has five objectives. First, we define “collective action” in the context of this paper. Second, we discuss the importance of collective action in multiple-use CPRs. Third, we introduce the concept of platforms to coordinate collective action by multiple users. Fourth, we address some issues that emerge from evidence in the field regarding the role and potential of nested platforms for managing complex CPRs. Finally, we raise five discussion statements. These will form the basis for the collection of articles in this special issue.

Understanding how farmers choose between organic and conventional production: Results from New Zealand and policy implications

Abstract: Research on organic farmers is popular but has seldom specifically focused on their motivations and decision making. Results based on detailed interviews with 83 New Zealand farmers (both organic and conventional) are presented by way of a decision tree that highlights elimination factors, motivations, and constraints against action. The results show the reasons that lie behind farmers' choices of farming methods and highlight the diversity of motivations for organic farming, identifying different types of organic and conventional farmers. Policies to encourage organic production should focus on attitudes, technology, and finances.

Managing natural resources: A social learning perspective

Abstract: This article presents a social learning perspective as a means to analyze and facilitate collective decision making and action in managed resource systems such as platforms. First, the social learning perspective is developed in terms of a normative and analytical framework. The normative framework entails three value principles, namely, systems thinking, experimentation, and communicative rationality. The analytical framework is built up around the following questions: who learns, what is learned, why it is learned, and how. Next, this perspective is used to analyze two managed resource systems: Fishery management in Lake Aheme, Benin and water resources management in Gelderland, The Netherlands. To assess platform performance in resource use negotiation, emerging lessons from the case studies are combined with propositions concerning membership of platforms, accessibility of platform meetings, skills and relations of platform members, realization of platforms, and third party facilitation of platform activities.

Community food security: Practice in need of theory?

Abstract: Practitioners and advocates of community food security (CFS) envision food systems that are decentralized, environmentally-sound over a long time-frame, supportive of collective rather than only individual needs, effective in assuring equitable food access, and created by democratic decision-making. These themes are loosely connected in literature about CFS, with no logical linkages among them. Clear articulation in a theoretical framework is needed for CFS to be effective as a guide for policy and action. CFS theory should delimit the level of analysis (i.e., what are the boundaries of “community”); show how CFS relates to individual, household, and national food security and explain emergent properties, which are important at the community level of analysis; point to the best indicators of CFS or its lack; clarify the determinants of CFS; and clarify the stages of movement toward CFS. This theoretical base would allow researchers to develop valid and reliable measures, and allow practitioners to weigh alternative options to create strategic plans. A theoretical base also would help establish common ground with potential partners by making the connections to anti-hunger work, sustainable agriculture, and community development clear.

A cultural economy model for studying food systems

Abstract: In 1984, William Friedland proposed a Commodity Systems Analysis framework for describing the stages through which a commodity is transformed and how it acquires value. He challenged us to think of commodities as entities with a social as well as a physical presence. Friedland's argument enriched the concept of commodity production, but it remains essentially a supply side perspective.

The complexities of globalization: The UK as a case study of tensions within the food system and the challenge to food policy

Abstract: This article proposes a number of arguments about the contemporary food system. Using the UK as a case study, it argues that the food system is marked by tensions and conflicts. The paper explores different strands of public policy as applied to the food system over the last two centuries. It differentiates between various uses of the term globalization and proposes that the real features and dynamics of the new world food order are complex and neither as benign nor as homogeneous as some of its proponents allow. Opposition to the new era of globalization is emerging in the food system. This is already having some impact, questioning not just the products of the food system but the nature of its production and distribution.

The Restructuring of Food Systems: Trends, Research, and Policy Issues

Abstract: This issue brings together a selection of articles based on presentations at two Conferences in 1997. The aim has been 1) to offer clearer and more understandable descriptions of the major trends and relationships that are involved in the structural transformations that are occurring in food systems at all levels; 2) to help develop better theoretical and conceptual tools to aid us in analyzing such restructurings and their dynamics; and 3) to clarify a number of practical issues facing those seeking to promote more sustainable and just food systems, especially at the local level. With only one exception, all the articles here focus on Western economies where food systems are highly commodified, globally integrated, corporate, and state structures have been restructured by a series of neo-liberal reforms in recent years. In pointing out the problems with these food systems, the articles also discuss various possibilities for structural reforms for more healthy, sustainable, just, and equitable food systems and societies.

Right to food; right to feed; right to be fed. The intersection of women's rights and the right to food

Abstract: This paper explores conceptual and practical linkages between women and food, and argues that food security cannot be realized until women are centrally included in policy discussions about food. Women's special relationship with food is culturally constructed and not a natural division of labor. Women's identity and sense of self is often based on their ability to feed their families and others; food insecurity denies them this right. Thus the interpretation of food as a human right requires that food issues be analyzed from a gender perspective. For example, the paper asks how the rights to food intersect with the rights of women and other human rights; what the policy implications of these intersecting rights are; and how their integration will contribute to the effort to view all human rights as mutually reinforcing, universal, and indivisible. The second half of the paper speculates on the significance of distinctions between the right to be fed, the right to food, and the right to feed for understanding the relation between gender and food.

Improving technology delivery mechanisms: Lessons from bean seed systems research in eastern and central Africa

Abstract: This article addresses concerns of technology dissemination for small farmers, specifically focusing on the diffusion of new varieties of a self-pollinating crop. Based on bean seed systems research in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, it shows four commonly-held basic assumptions to be false, namely that: first, small-scale farmers do not buy bean seed; they mainly rely on their own stocks or obtain seed from other farmers; second, that small-scale farmers cannot afford to buy seed of newly introduced bean varieties or will not risk it; third, that farmer seed networks function efficiently in varietal diffusion; and lastly, that a good variety will sell itself. Grounded in the reality under which small farmers actually operate, the article offers recommendations for improving the delivery of newly introduced bean cultivars by NARS and seed suppliers. Most of the recommendations are relevant to other self-pollinating crops.

Advancing the human right to food in Canada: Social policy and the politics of hunger, welfare, and food security

Abstract: This article argues that hunger in Canada, while being an outcome of unemployment, low incomes, and inadequate welfare, springs also from the failure to recognize and implement the human right to food. Food security has, however, largely been ignored by progressive social policy analysis. Barriers standing in the way of achieving food security include the increasing commodification of welfare and the corporatization of food, the depoliticization of hunger by governments and the voluntary sector, and, most particularly, the neglect by the federal and provincial governments of their obligations to guarantee the domestic right to food as expressed in international human rights law. The interconnectedness of hunger, welfare, and food security issues in a first world society are explored from the perspective of progressive social policy and food security analysis and the development of alternative strategies. In terms of advancing the human right to food in Canada, particular emphasis is placed on the role of the state and civil society, and the social and economic rights of citizenship built on an inclusive social policy analysis and politics of welfare, food security and human rights.

Participatory research in integrated pest management: Lessons from the ipm crsp

Abstract: Integrated pest management has emerged as an important means of managing agricultural pests. Since the mid-1980s, the emphasis in IPM has shifted toward biologically-intensive and participatory research and extension approaches. Finding better means for solving pest problems is high on the agenda for most farmers, and farmers often have significant pest management knowledge and interest in IPM experimentation. This paper describes an approach to participatory IPM research that is being implemented by the IPM Collaborative Research Support Program (IPM CSRP). The approach emphasizes on-farm research with an extrapolation domain beyond the single farm, and in some cases beyond the local region or country. It considers many factors beyond the farm and research station that influence the generation and adoption of IPM technologies and strategies. It emphasizes linkages among farmers, scientists, consumers, bankers, marketers/processors, and policy makers in IPM research priority setting, conduct, and evaluation. The interdisciplinary approach described in the paper is illustrated with a case study from the Philippines. Lessons and conclusions draw on its recent application in other sites as well.

Agriculture and biodiversity: Finding our place in this world

Abstract: Agriculture has been recently viewed as the primary destructive force of biodiversity, but the places that produce our food and fiber may also hold the key to saving the richness of life on earth This argument is based on three fundamental positions First, it is argued that to value and thereby preserve and restore biodiversity we must begin by employing anthropocentric ethics While changing our understanding of intrinsic values (ie, the unconditional values of biodiversity as a state and process in-and-of-itself, without reference to human interests) is often advocated as the means by which our behavior will reflect the importance of biodiversity, a change in how we perceive and conditionally value biodiversity is proposed as a more effective and compelling approach Second, I suggest that anthropocentric values can be linked to a sense of “Place,” with agriculture playing a vital role in this context Agriculture forms a powerful basis for personal, experiential development of a profound meaning and connection to a setting or landscape The agricultural setting has tremendous potential for arational (emotional, aesthetic, and spiritual) values that ultimately compel our actions The constancy of relationship and mutuality of dependency between humans and agricultural lands, particularly extensive agroecosystems, fosters an intensity of association that transcends our recent affinity to wildlands Third, a mature understanding of places and their biodiversity must include those organisms that account for many of the ecological processes and the majority of the species richness -- the insects The importance of these insects in structuring the landscape and the effects of habitat destruction on these organisms both suggest a vital, intimate, and reciprocal link between insects and Places Finally, it is argued that the most important avenue for future efforts to protect and restore biodiversity on the part of agricultural and other scientists is educational -- the presentation of our research to the public in terms that provoke emotional, aesthetic, and spiritual meaning which lies at the core of human values and actions

Facing strategic narratives : An argument for interactive effectiveness

Abstract: The multiple commons is an important context in a world facing the eco-challenge. The platform for land use negotiation is a perspective concerning the good governance of the multiple commons. Platforms are devices or procedures for social learning and negotiation about effective collective action. They create collective decision making capacity at eco-system levels at which critical ecological services need to be managed. Taking platforms seriously as an option for designing a more sustainable society assumes a belief in the human capacity to engage in collective action. Unfortunately, human thinking about humans is dominated by perspectives that emphasize either technical solutions to given human ends, or perspectives that emphasize the selfish nature of human ends. This article focuses especially on the latter: the strategic narratives that have become dominant as society increasingly becomes designed on economic principles. The paper seeks to explain the dominance of strategic narratives and provides social science evidence for alternative perspectives. It concludes with cornerstones for an alternative narrative.

Challenging the boundaries of local and scientific knowledge in Australia: Opportunities for social learning in managing temperate upland pastures

Abstract: Evidence of an emerging focus on the role of farmer knowledge in developed countries is highlighted by the debate on the nature of local and scientific knowledge. Less attention has been paid to the interaction of different ways of knowing for sustainable capital-intensive agriculture. This paper explores the relationship between local and scientific knowledge in managing temperate pasture and grazing systems in Australia. The nature of farmer knowledge is firstly examined by describing the experiences of farm families in managing native and introduced perennial grasses in upland areas of the Murray-Darling Basin. The building of knowledge and skills through social learning was explored in group case studies and interviews with stakeholders involved in pasture research and development. The interchange of local and scientific knowledge in groups was shown to have a synergistic effect, whereby local knowledge was broadened and strengthened, and scientific knowledge adapted and molded to specific situations. The effectiveness of social learning was greatest in collaborative programs based on small, local groups involved in monitoring and evaluation of whole farm pasture and grazing systems.

Collective action in watershed management: Experiences from the Andean hillsides

Abstract: Watersheds constitute a special case of multiple-use common pool resources (CPRs). In a textual sense, watersheds tend to be mosaics of privately owned and managed patches of land. At the same time, however, watersheds are also ecosystems in which multiple resources and people interact through an infinity of bio-physical processes. Through such interaction, new watershed-level qualities emerge that, together with other factors, condition watershed users' continued resource use and access. In this perspective, watersheds become common-pool resources. Hence, watershed users do not only manage their individual plots, crops, forests, etc., knowingly or not, they manage landscape patterns and bio-physical processes that transcend their private property. In this context, drawing on experiences gained through participatory action research in a micro-watershed in the Andean hillsides of southern Colombia, this paper describes a process aimed at fostering collective watershed management. The paper illustrates the importance of platforms as a mechanism for negotiating and coordinating collective action by multiple users and discusses the issues of representation on such platforms as well as the importance of third party facilitation.

Bibliography: Farmer knowledge and management of crop disease

Abstract: Nearly all contemporary people subsist on cultivated plants, most of which are vulnerable to diseases. Yet, there have been few studies of what traditional people know – and do not know – about crop disease. Agricultural scientists in general are becoming aware of the potential contribution of social scientists and farmers in developing integrated management of crop diseases. The International Potato Center (CIP) has focused on stimulating farmer-scientist collaboration in developing management of late blight, a major fungal disease of potatoes and other plants. Understanding farmers' knowledge of this and other plant diseases is an important element in furthering such collaboration. Although not all agricultural scientists recognize the value of social science, this literature search shows that some agricultural scientists now actively collaborate with farmers, in ways that cross the boundary into social science research. During this search, much of the work we found was written by plant pathologists and entomologists. We found over fifty publications on farmer knowledge of crop disease, and we have annotated the material that we thought most relevant to farmer- scientist collaboration for research of crop diseases, especially late blight.

Synthesis: platforms for collective action in multiple-use common-pool resource management

Abstract: In this special issue, Steins and Edwards introduced the notion of nested platforms for resource use negotiation as a tool to facilitate collective action amongst multiple-users in complex common-pool resource management scenarios. Five discussion statements were put forward to aid the debate on multi-use platforms. This paper is a synthesis of the responses to these statements by the other contributors to this special issue. It aims to further stimulate the debate on the management of complex, multiple-use common-pool management scenarios.

Community food security: Salience and participation at community level

Abstract: Community food security (CFS) is an incipient movement based on the re-localization of many food system activities in response to values concerning the social, health, economic, and environmental consequences of the globalizing food system. This study examines the salience of these values based on the action agendas and accomplishments emerging from community planning events in six rural counties of New York, and the nature and type of participation and local support. The study finds a high level of agreement between CFS values as articulated by national leaders in this incipient movement and the action agendas. Further evidence of the salience of these themes is seen in the levels and types of activities and accomplishments taking place 8--12 months after the planning events. However, these follow-through activities appear to have been impeded by a variety of government regulations, uneven levels of support from community organizations and agencies, and a policy environment of fiscal austerity, narrow outcome-oriented accountability, and allocation of agency staff toward special-purpose grants and contracts. Many of these constraints are likely to exist in other communities and are beyond the scope of what community volunteers and practitioners can be expected to address on their own.

Irrigation systems as multiple-use commons: Water use in Kirindi Oya, Sri Lanka

Abstract: Irrigation systems are recognized as common pool resources supplying water for agricultural production, but their role in supplying water for other uses is often overlooked. The importance of non-agricultural uses of irrigation water in livelihood strategies has implications for irrigation management and water rights, especially as increasing scarcity challenges existing water allocation mechanisms. This paper examines the multiple uses of water in the Kirindi Oya irrigation system in Sri Lanka, who the users are, and implications for water rights and management policies. There are important residential, gender, and class differences among the water users. People use irrigation system water not only for field crops, but also for fishing, homestead gardens, and livestock. Even within irrigated farming households, men have more control over paddy crops in the main fields, whereas homestead gardens are women's domain. Because the irrigation system provides water for birds and animals, even wildlife and non-resident environmental groups can be considered stakeholders. Current policies emphasize user involvement in both irrigation and domestic water supply. While government agencies have had primary responsibility, institutions such as Farmers' Organizations are being promoted. These have the potential to serve as user platforms for negotiating water allocation among irrigated farmers. However, the user organizations reflect the sectoral responsibility of the government agencies. Their membership and structure do not take into account the multiple uses or users of water. Developing platforms that accommodate different user groups remains a major challenge for improving the overall productivity, as well as equity, of water use.

Not just what, but how: Creating agricultural sustainability and food security by changing Canada's agricultural policy making process

Abstract: Agriculture has been enormously productive in recent decades. The main problem is that fragmentation of issues, knowledge, and responsibilities has hidden the costs associated with this success. These are mainly environmental, social, and health costs, which have been assigned to other ministries, with their own histories unconnected to agriculture. Now that agricultural policy has achieved its success, its costs are becoming apparent. The current system is preoccupied with traditional views of competitiveness and efficiency. Policies, programs, and regulations are organized to support specific commodities, not farming and food systems. Responsibilities are extremely fragmented and frequently uncoordinated. In this environment, the focus on nourishment, food security, and environmental sustainability is subordinated to economic issues. The future lies in reorienting agricultural policy away from maximum production and towards sustainability. We propose a major transformation of the policy making apparatus in order to shift the focus of the system towards nourishment, food security, and sustainability. A new policy making system must be built on the themes of: integrated responsibilities and activities; emphasis on macro-policy; transdisciplinary policy development; proximity of policy makers to the diverse groups affected by problems needing resolution; food systems policy. The design principles for such a new system are taken from the theory of food security and ecology. Using these principles, we design a new provincial department of food and food security, and test this design with two case studies.

Intellectual property rights and agricultural biodiversity: Literature addressing the suitability of IPR for the protection of indigenous resources

Abstract: Recent debate has focused on the use of intellectual property regimes for the protection of indigenous resources. Both domesticated crops and useful wild plants are shaped by indigenous knowledge and by their uses within indigenous cultures. This implies that the preservation of cultural systems is as important as the conservation of the associated biological resources. Intellectual property has been suggested as a means to protect indigenous resources from misappropriation, and to create increased investment in their conservation. Four recent books that discuss the problems that arise from the application of IPR for the protection of indigenous resources highlight a salient issue: that current IPR systems may conflict and undermine the culture, social structure, and knowledge systems of indigenous societies. In order to support conservation through indigenous management of biodiversity, a number of steps are required for the negotiation of intellectual property systems that are more compatible with indigenous people's value systems and concepts of ownership.

Interactions of formal and informal knowledge systems in village-based tree management in central India

Abstract: This study critiques the idea of a “Western science -- indigenous knowledge” dichotomy in agricultural knowledge by examining the hybrid nature of knowledge use and incorporation by villagers in Madhya Pradesh, India. By analyzing knowledge systems as multi-leveled structures consisting of concrete practices linked to more abstract, explanatory concepts, this paper illustrates how information from multiple sources is integrated into local bodies of knowledge about tree management. Practices such as urea fertilization from formal global science might be explained by concepts such as that of a hot/cold duality from informal folk science. Similarly, other pieces of knowledge stemming from diverse knowledge systems are shown to become mixed and matched on practical and conceptual levels. Additionally, several knowledge elements used locally appear to be held in common by many knowledge systems around the world, rendering the determination of their origins in one system or another nearly impossible. These observations lead to the conclusion that local knowledge systems of tree management are better characterized as “open” systems rather than distinct, “closed” systems. Furthermore, the constant exchange of material between formal and informal, local and global systems renders untenable any strict dichotomy of knowledge systems.

Diversity in attitudes toward farming and patterns of work among farm women: A regional comparison

Abstract: Attention to diversity in women's attitudes toward farming and in women's patterns of farm work activity expands our understanding of the linkage between agrarian structure, regional history, and the behavior and values of individual farm women We combine several disciplinary and methodological approaches to reveal patterns in work and values in a Southern case and then verify the existence of similar patterns in the Midwest Two divergent conceptions of women's relationship to farm and marital partnership were found in a Georgia study, the agrarian and the industrial, and we explore how they emerged in the context of the political and economic history of the South We find these marital models are linked today to different patterns of farm work We then extend the Georgia analysis to a statewide survey of Ohio farm women, where attitudinal diversity is not as marked, due to the stronger agrarian traditions of the Midwest and its distinct political economy We find similar patterns, however, in Ohio farm women's work and affirm the validity of Carbert's categorization of Rosenfeld's survey items Attention to diversity in the work patterns, values, and attitudes of farm women highlights that the term “traditional” is a misnomer when applied to Southern women and reinforces the value of multi-disciplinary approaches and regional comparisons

Environmental values and forest patch conservation in a rural Costa Rican community

Abstract: Although conservation attention has generally focused on large forest tracts, there is increasing evidence that smaller forest patches are important for both conservation and rural development. A study of forest patch conservation in a rural Costa Rican community found that, although forest patch conservation was influenced by landholding size, material factors did not account for all the variation in forest patches conservation behavior or conservation orientations of farmers. A qualitative interpretive approach, using semi-structured interviews, found that environmental values were influenced by at least three factors. First, colonist farmers with direct experience with environmental degradation in other regions of Costa Rica were more likely to be concerned about environmental degradation. Second, childhood exposure to conservation played an important role in influencing conservation orientations. Third, the environment was frequently discussed in relation to the moral and social values present in religious doctrines. The study also found general support for forest conservation laws, and a clear indication that interest in forest conservation has grown in recent years. The study highlights the importance of environmental values, in conjunction with material factors, in influencing forest conservation in rural communities.

Restructuring food for corporate profit: The corporate genetics of Cargill and Monsanto

Abstract: It is important to talk about corporations as a class, about trade agreements, and about government policy; but without examining specific examples of how real corporations actually shape the world to suit their purposes, we stand little chance of understanding the determinative forces behind government policy and trade agreements, and even less chance of affecting them. This article uses the metaphor of “genetics” (inherent character) to examine two major transnational corporations operating at the extremes of restructuring life.