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Agricultural transitions in the context of growing environmental pressure over water

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Abstract

Conventional agriculture, while nested in nature, has expanded production at the expense of water in the Midwest and through the diversion of water resources in the western United States. With the growth of population pressure and concern about water quality and quantity, demands are growing to alter the relationship of agriculture to water in both these locations. To illuminate the process of change in this relationship, the author builds on Buttel’s (Research in Rural Sociology and Development 6: 1–21, 1995) assertion that agriculture is transitioning to a post “green revolution” period where farmers are paid for conservation, and employs actor network theory (Latour and Woolgar Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986) and the advocacy coalition framework (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, Policy change and learning: An advocacy coalition approach, 1–56. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993) to frame discussions of water and agriculture in the upper Mississippi River watershed, particularly Iowa. The author concludes that contested views of agriculture and countryside, as well as differing views of how agriculture must change to adapt to growing water concerns, will shape coalitions that will ultimately play a significant role in shaping the future of agriculture.

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Notes

  1. As Paul Lasley pointed out in the Bultena lecture at Iowa State University in October 1999, this just represents a steepening, rather than a change in a trend that dates back at least to the 1930s.

  2. This same question has not been repeated in later summaries of the Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll.

  3. The draining of wetlands remained an important part of the Iowa farmer’s interaction with nature through the 1970s and 1980s. Only with the passage of wetland protection components of the 1990 Farm Bill did farmers have an incentive to reverse this trend.

  4. Water-quality professionals have divided water pollution into two types: point-source pollution, that is pollution that can be traced to a pipe leading from a municipal sewage disposal facility or an industry; and non-point-source pollution, which is pollution that when aggregated is significant, but comes from multiple, hard-to-identify sources.

  5. By this I mean a growing number of institutions (organizations, institutes, and agencies) formed in the late 1980s and early 1990s to address environmental issues and integrate them into policy analysis.

  6. Grubler (1998) and Grisar-Kasse(1997) describe the continued battles for foreign domination over phosphate mining in the context of the Pacific Islands, specifically Nauru, and West Africa, specifically Senegal.

  7. Farming in the upper Midwest is possible largely because of tiling systems that make the natural prairie wetlands cultivable. These systems also export the waste in the form of excess nitrogen and phosphorous that runs off of the farm land and ultimately ends up in the Gulf. For more information, see Schilling (2006).

  8. Here, I am drawing on Marcuse’s (1964) concept of “technological rationality,” from One Dimensional Man, which describes the development an industrial treadmill of production and progress that continues defining progress as industrial modernization regardless of signals of major system weaknesses.

  9. Thinking about civil society, the private sector, and the market sector is not new for sociologists, of course, but the application to the traditional policy-making models of political science provides us with a new conceptual tool for understanding the role of these actors in the policy context.

  10. Information derived from the National Agriculture Statistics Service (NASS; http://www.nass.usda.gov) and the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS n.d.).

  11. A study by the Iowa Water Survey in 1999 demonstrated that the majority of flowing streams and rivers in the state did not exist in 1850. Through investigation of tiling networks, they determined that many these formed through water channeled off of Iowa’s farmland. A report by Iowa DNR, Geologic Survey concluded that runoff from this process increased nitrate and nitrogen losses from the agricultural Midwest. (See Schilling 2006.)

  12. The state’s chronic water-quality issues were a driving force behind Governor Tom Vilsack’s water-quality initiative. See IDNR (2003).

  13. Portions of the Private Lands Summit, held at Iowa State University on 7 December 1999, contained this rationale. See Beeman (1999).

  14. Iowa Farm Bureau has launched a range of programs to assist farmers in addressing water quality issues. These include both programs unique to Farm Bureau and collaborative programs with other nonprofits such as Trees Forever. See, for instance, Iowa Farm Bureau (n.d.).

  15. I know of three new groups that have formed in the last year as well, adding to this number.

  16. See, for instance, advocacy by the Iowa Environmental Council.

  17. Note that the Leopold Center carries out research and programs explicitly aiming to demonstrate the viability of alternative agriculture and the ecological imperative of adjusting the conventional agricultural paradigm (Leopold Center 2007). It is also considered to be a partner to Iowa State University Extension in improving water quality (ISU Extension 2004).

  18. This figure is up from 353 certified organic operations in 2000. Iowa is 10th in overall certified organic acres, second in organic corn, and first in organic soybeans acres (USDA ERS 2005).

  19. This is based on NOAA supported modeling efforts by scientists at Louisiana State University and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (NOAA 2007).

Abbreviations

ACF:

Advocacy coalition framework

ANT:

Actor network theory

BMP:

Best management practice

CAFO:

Confined animal feeding operation

CAST:

Council for Agricultural Science and Technology

CRP:

Conservation Reserve Program

CSP:

Conservation Security Program

DMU:

Des Moines Municipal Utility

EPA:

Environmental Protection Agency

FSA:

Farm Services Agency

IDALS:

Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship

IDNR:

Iowa Department of Natural Resources

NRCS:

Natural Resources Conservation Service

RRWP:

Raccoon River Watershed Partnership

USDA:

United States Department of Agriculture

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Clare Hinrichs under whose tutelage this paper originally took shape back in the late 1990s. I would also like to thank Catherine Grosso and Stephanie Nevins for their valuable editing assistance. I would be remiss in not also giving thanks to the numerous Iowans who assisted me in developing an understanding water quality in their state.

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  1. Department of Human and Community Development, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 239 Bevier Hall, MC 180, 905 S. Goodwin, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA

    Stephen P. Gasteyer

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Gasteyer, S.P. Agricultural transitions in the context of growing environmental pressure over water. Agric Hum Values 25, 469–486 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-008-9137-x

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