Around the world, practitioners and academics are engaging in the rise of regenerative farming. On the margins of the predominant farming system, and often with little support and acknowledgement, regenerative farming is surprisingly persistent and represents a radical response to industrialization, ecological crises and alienation. This study uses feminist theories to grasp farmers’ regenerative experiences and explores how dialogical methodologies can create collective thinking among farmers and between academia and practice. The study is based on dialogues and iterative writing between (...) three female researchers and two female regenerative farmers in Denmark in which we explore regenerative farming practices, female perspectives, feminist (more-than-human) care, and the sustainability crises we are facing today and in the future. The exchange of thoughts provides insights into what it is to be human in farming, including more-than-human relationships, as well as reflections on composting as a reproductive practice, and the (quiet) revolutionary potential of regenerative farming. Thus, we experience how creating collective thinking about common concerns across academia and practice can entail feelings of being part of a community as well as involve actual consequences and risks. Finally, it reminds us that sharing fragility by laying bare our work (and thoughts) as both researchers and practitioners allows for careful dialogues and valuable insights. (shrink)

The succession of shocks—sudden social and environmental crises, whether they be episodic or erratic, such as extreme weather events, pandemics, and economic recessions—has dire consequences on the ability of people, especially the vulnerable and precarious, to secure safe, nutritious, and culturally appropriate foods. While the scholarship on multiple shocks and stressors is increasingly recognized in the academic literature, there remains a dearth in scholarship that critically interrogates the impacts of successive and overlapping shocks on the various dimensions and temporalities of (...) food security. In this paper, we adapt the double exposure framework to examine how a triad of shocks—a catastrophic typhoon, the COVID-19 pandemic, and high economic inflation—has led to varying magnitudes of transitory and chronic food insecurity among the fisherfolk in coastal communities in Capiz, the Philippines. Drawing from field research, we illustrate that the succession of shocks induced a decline in household incomes, an escalation of dependence on credit, and the consequential accumulation of debt among the fisherfolk. Credit and debt have allowed the fisherfolk to sustain meal frequency to some extent during periods of high vulnerability, but the succession of shocks continued to aggravate their lack of access to nutritious food. Looming in the background is the gradual crisis of declining fish stocks, which may exacerbate the impacts of successive shocks in the future. (shrink)

How do agricultural policies in the EU need to change to increase the sustainability of livestock production, and what measures could encourage sustainable practices whilst minimising trade-offs? Addressing such questions is crucial to ensure progress towards proclaimed targets whilst moving production levels to planetary boundaries. However, a lack of available evidence on the impacts of recent policies hinders developments in this direction. In this review, we address this knowledge gap, by collating and evaluating recent policy analyses, using three complementary frameworks. (...) The review highlights that recent policy reforms, and especially those of the Common Agricultural Policy, have had a large impact on the sustainability of the livestock sector by contributing to intensification and simplification. This has often resulted in negative impacts (e.g. on greenhouse gas emissions and animal welfare) and while financial support has enabled production, it can also lead to a culture of dependency that limits innovation. At the same time, a lack of regulation and concrete targets, and low levels of stakeholder engagement in policy design have led to delays in the delivery of sustainability objectives. Future policies could take on-board more innovative thinking that addresses the interrelatedness of society, animals, and the environment, to deliver effective targets and support. (shrink)

How do agricultural policies in the EU need to change to increase the sustainability of livestock production, and what measures could encourage sustainable practices whilst minimising trade-offs? Addressing such questions is crucial to ensure progress towards proclaimed targets whilst moving production levels to planetary boundaries. However, a lack of available evidence on the impacts of recent policies hinders developments in this direction. In this review, we address this knowledge gap, by collating and evaluating recent policy analyses, using three complementary frameworks. (...) The review highlights that recent policy reforms, and especially those of the Common Agricultural Policy, have had a large impact on the sustainability of the livestock sector by contributing to intensification and simplification. This has often resulted in negative impacts (e.g. on greenhouse gas emissions and animal welfare) and while financial support has enabled production, it can also lead to a culture of dependency that limits innovation. At the same time, a lack of regulation and concrete targets, and low levels of stakeholder engagement in policy design have led to delays in the delivery of sustainability objectives. Future policies could take on-board more innovative thinking that addresses the interrelatedness of society, animals, and the environment, to deliver effective targets and support. (shrink)

Smallholder farm workers are important actors in global agricultural value chains. However, there is limited research on the extent to which certification affects their working conditions. This study analyzes the effects of GlobalGAP certification on the working conditions of smallholder farm workers in Ghana’s mango sector, drawing on insights from the International Labor Organization (ILO) decent work framework and qualitative interviews with farmers, wage workers on both certified and non-certified mango farms, and key stakeholders. We found that GlobalGAP certification has (...) the potential to improve working conditions by increasing wages and the number of people employed, creating a healthy working environment, establishing a grievance mechanism, and securing worker health and safety. However, we argue that the certification scheme does not necessarily promote decent work due to limitations in both the guidelines and implementation. We also found that financial constraints and the limited supply of an educated labor force impede the implementation of social standards stipulated in certification schemes. Based on these findings, we recommend that trade unions organize wage workers on mango farms to enhance social dialogue between the state and certification bodies. This can enhance the spread of social protection mechanisms in rural areas. (shrink)

The modernization of agriculture in Northern countries has led to a loss of crop diversity, as well as a loss of knowledge, know-how and rights of farmers regarding on-farm seed breeding. In France, the _Réseau Semences Paysannes_ (RSP) brings together collectives of actors (farmers, bakers, citizens, gardeners) mobilized in a quest to reclaim these aspects. Within the framework of the decentralized participatory breeding program conducted in collaboration with INRAE, farmers have co-constructed knowledge in terms of dynamic management of heterogeneous wheat (...) populations. Yet, as the RSP network grows, these actors face new types of challenges regarding collective action. To address them, we proposed to consider peasant seeds as « common unknowns » rather than « common goods » and we adapted and applied an innovative design approach drawing upon the KCP (Knowledge-Concept-Proposals) method. This approach consisted in implementing, from 2019 to 2021, five decentralized design workshops with local seed breeding collectives. The replication of design workshops in different contexts provided a framework for interaction among RSP members, allowed the sharing of both scientific and experiential knowledge. Noteworthily, it fostered the generation of many proposals for enhancing collective action, and led to the development of operational proposals with a view to implement them in the future. This methodology-oriented paper mainly describes the decentralized design approach implemented, its outputs and outcomes, as well as its interests and limits in the context of crop diversity management. It also analyses how the workshop outputs enriches previous works in the field; in particular how such a participatory design approach leads to produce original operational solutions to respond to challenges identified in the literature. (shrink)

The modernization of agriculture in Northern countries has led to a loss of crop diversity, as well as a loss of knowledge, know-how and rights of farmers regarding on-farm seed breeding. In France, the Réseau Semences Paysannes (RSP) brings together collectives of actors (farmers, bakers, citizens, gardeners) mobilized in a quest to reclaim these aspects. Within the framework of the decentralized participatory breeding program conducted in collaboration with INRAE, farmers have co-constructed knowledge in terms of dynamic management of heterogeneous wheat (...) populations. Yet, as the RSP network grows, these actors face new types of challenges regarding collective action. To address them, we proposed to consider peasant seeds as « common unknowns » rather than « common goods » and we adapted and applied an innovative design approach drawing upon the KCP (Knowledge-Concept-Proposals) method. This approach consisted in implementing, from 2019 to 2021, five decentralized design workshops with local seed breeding collectives. The replication of design workshops in different contexts provided a framework for interaction among RSP members, allowed the sharing of both scientific and experiential knowledge. Noteworthily, it fostered the generation of many proposals for enhancing collective action, and led to the development of operational proposals with a view to implement them in the future. This methodology-oriented paper mainly describes the decentralized design approach implemented, its outputs and outcomes, as well as its interests and limits in the context of crop diversity management. It also analyses how the workshop outputs enriches previous works in the field; in particular how such a participatory design approach leads to produce original operational solutions to respond to challenges identified in the literature. (shrink)

Multicultural cities in the Global North are rapidly developing and releasing urban food policies that outline municipal visions of sustainable food systems. In turn, these policies shape conceptions of food citizenship in the city. While these policies largely absorb activities previously associated with “alternative” food systems, little is known about how they respond to critical food and race scholars who have noted that these food practices and spaces have historically marginalized immigrants. A critical discourse analysis of 22 urban food policies (...) from Global North cities reveals that most policies do not meaningfully consider immigrant foodscapes, foodways, and food-related labour. Many promote hegemonic and/or ethno-nationalistic understandings of “healthy” and “sustainable” food without recognizing immigrants’ food-related knowledge and skills. Policies largely fail to connect the topic of immigrant labour with goals like shortening supply chains, subject immigrant neighbourhoods to stigmatizing health discourses, and lack acknowledgement of the barriers immigrants may face to participating in sustainable food systems. Relatedly, policy discourses articulate forms of food citizenship that emphasize individual obligations over rights related to food. This jeopardizes the potential for immigrants to be seen as belonging to dominant political urban food communities and benefitting from the symbolic and material rewards associated with them. (shrink)

Pacific Island communities are facing rapid changes to their food systems in the context of globalization, environmental degradation and climate change. While in urban areas residents face a rapid nutrition transition, in rural environments, concerns are being raised about how to best maintain traditional food systems that are nutritious and sustainable. Mangrove forests are part of biodiverse food environments that support rural communities in the Pacific, but they are often overlooked in food system research because they occur between sea and (...) land, and because gleaning mollusks and invertebrates from mangroves are considered mere subsistence practices carried out by women. In this paper, we draw from a feminist foodscape approach in feminist political ecology to discuss qualitative fieldwork from mangrove-adjacent communities in the Solomon Islands. We highlight the socio-ecological importance of mangrove foodscapes, along with the gendered and generational aspects of how environmental and food system change are experienced differently by community members in Marovo Lagoon. While conservationists are increasingly interested in the potential of mangroves for carbon sequestration, this research addresses the critical need to engage with mangroves’ social, cultural and gendered aspects– towards intertwined goals of gender equity, biodiversity and indigenous food sovereignty in the Pacific. (shrink)

Food systems are being affected by multiple shocks related to climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical events. Food prices and food insecurity are rising globally as a result, raising questions about the effective governance of food security during shocks. This paper critically examines the governance of food security in Melbourne, Australia during a major food system shock, the COVID-19 pandemic. It draws on document analysis and 34 stakeholder interviews with 41 participants from government, industry and civil society between May (...) 2020 and March 2021. The paper examines the role of these actors in governance mechanisms for two important aspects of food system governance during the COVID-19 pandemic, continuity of food supply and delivery of emergency food relief. Clark et al.’s (2021) “governance engagement continuum” is used to show how civil society groups were excluded from these formal governance mechanisms, instead establishing their own spaces of “self-governance”. The resilience aims associated with these governance mechanisms are also analyzed using Zurek et al.’s (2022) “three R’s” (robustness, recovery and reorientation) framework. Our study highlights the significant role of food industry actors in the continuity of food supply and delivery of emergency food relief, and it shows the vulnerabilities of emergency food relief that depends on industry food “surpluses” as a model for addressing food insecurity during food system shocks. We conclude that greater government leadership is needed in the governance of food security during food system shocks, and in implementation of legislative and policy approaches that are grounded in the human right to food. (shrink)

Shifting dietary patterns from animal-based proteins to more plant-based and alternative protein sources – the protein transition – is urgently needed to improve planetary and human health. Public food procurement is considered to be an effective policy instrument to accelerate the protein transition and to be a potential game changer towards a sustainable food system. However, this potential has remained far from leveraged, and it is largely unknown which barriers and enablers exist in that context. Therefore, this study aimed to (...) gain insight into the barriers and facilitators that are perceived by relevant stakeholders when implementing the protein transition in public food procurement. Our study was conducted in the Netherlands, because of the policy goals set by the Dutch government with regard to the protein transition (50% of the proteins consumed should include animal-based proteins and 50% plant-based proteins by 2030) and because the extent to which the protein transition has been included in the food procurement of Dutch (semi-)public organizations is still largely unknown. However, findings are also relevant for other countries. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants from a wide range of (semi-)public organizations (e.g., universities, hospitals, governments), in 2022. Five main themes of barriers and facilitators were identified: (1) support and motivation, (2) food availability and offerings, (3) financial considerations and incentives, (4) policies, processes, and contracts, and (5) environmental factors. The insights from this study can strengthen the scientific evidence base and can serve as a foundation for future research. Moreover, the insights can be beneficial to officials working in (semi-)public organizations to effectively design and execute their procurement process, and can help policymakers in policy development to foster (semi-)public organizations to implement the protein transition in their own contexts. (shrink)

As interest in women’s roles in agriculture increases, research on women livestock-keepers remains limited. Advances in feminist scholarship highlight farming women’s dual roles in agricultural production and biological and socio-cultural reproduction, including women’s uncompensated labor in child-bearing, child-rearing and home-making. To expand knowledge about women pastoralists’ lived experiences, we conducted life-history interviews with 25 herder women in two regions of Mongolia, following-up with participatory workshops in each region. As mothering and carework emerged as key themes, we drew on feminist care (...) ethics and the anthropology of mothering and motherhood to analyze interview data and co-interpret results with workshop participants. Our findings reveal three caring conflicts experienced by Mongolian herder women: between caring for nutag (homeland) and caring for herds, between caring for herds and caring for children, and between caring for family, herd and nutag and caring for self. These conflicts highlight contradictions between normative Mongolian motherhood as depicted in cultural images and narratives, and the lived reality of herder mothers, and between public valorization of and incentives for motherhood and the lack of sufficient public support for mothers and carework in rural Mongolia. Unmet needs for care, resulting risks to maternal and child health, and the extraordinary workload associated with mothers’ multiple caring tasks likely contribute to rural–urban migration and increasing masculinization of the Mongolian countryside. Although Mongolian culture frames mothers as leaders who unify their communities through their wisdom, many herder-mothers today live isolated lives where their multiple caring responsibilities preclude active participation in community development and governance. (shrink)

In this article, we analyse the tensions associated with the emergence of microorganism-based agricultural inputs in two Latin American countries, Brazil and Mexico. More specifically, we examine the ways in which these technologies, which are based on the use of living organisms, leave public microbiology research laboratories and are further developed by manufacturers or farmers. To this end, we draw on the concept of the ‘laboratorisation’ of society, part of the actor-network theory. We show that the emergence of these technologies (...) is currently facing a number of challenges, due to the risks associated with their biological nature and the difficulty involved in establishing production processes as reliable as those used in reference laboratories. Whether produced by companies or on farms, the quality and safety of the practices and of these products are the subject of debate, as well as the focus of scientific, economic and political scrutiny. These microbiological inputs are evidence for the transformation of the relationship between science, industry, users and politics that is taking place around the emergence of alternatives to synthetic chemical inputs in agriculture, and more broadly, about the use of microbiological resources in agriculture. (shrink)

The concept of well-being of rural families is part of a theory under construction in which new theoretical elements are constantly being incorporated. This research aims to determine the influence of farmers’ knowledge on the well‑being of cocoa growing families in the departments of Santander, Huila, Meta and Caquetá, Colombia. Four categories of farmers were identified with different levels of knowledge in the management of cocoa cultivation obtained through a cluster analysis. The well-being of cocoa farmers, understood as the balance (...) in the capital endowment of rural households, was obtained through the application of a semi-structured interview with 49 variables of human, cultural, social, political, natural, built, and financial capitals. The results show that cocoa knowledge is heterogeneous in the study area, with a slight improvement towards harvesting, post-harvest and transformation links. There is a positive relationship between cocoa knowledge and the well-being of cocoa farming families. Thus, producers with greater integral knowledge, with emphasis on post-harvest and bean transformation links, showed greater well-being. The Random Forest analysis identified that human capital (political, social, human, and cultural) made the greatest contribution to well-being. The findings show that cocoa knowledge contributes to the well-being of rural households to the extent that it favors vertical relationships (linkages with local governments) and horizontal relationships of producers (participation of association managers, sharing knowledge with friends, neighbors and partners, and cocoa training). (shrink)

Although digital technologies often receive the bulk of media and academic attention, there is another crucial aspect of the data revolution in agriculture: governance frameworks for collecting and analyzing data. Metrics are increasingly being used to facilitate the collection of data and convert it into useful forms. While there is growing interest in using metrics and data to enhance the sustainability of food and agriculture, there is a lack of research on how metrics are put into practice and to what (...) degree their use leads to improved sustainability. To address this knowledge gap, this article examines the implementation of sustainability metrics in produce agriculture in the United States. Specifically, the focus is on the processes of on-farm metrics use– data generation, data analysis, and data-based decision-making. We find that implementing metrics involves several tensions for farmers, including metrics’ ability to capture the complexity of produce agriculture, how metrics align with farmers’ tacit and experiential knowledge, and the impact of metrics on farmer autonomy. Our findings suggest that for the use of metrics to improve sustainability it is crucial to understand how social, cultural, and material conditions intersect with metrics. To better account for such conditions, farmers need more voice in how metrics are implemented and data is used. (shrink)

In her 2024 Agriculture, Food & Human Values Society (AFHVS) Presidential Adress, Shoshanah Inwood reflects on our role as researchers, teachers, practitioners, and as engaged citizens in public scholarship, and the role of our Agriculture Food and Human Values Society in public scholarship. Inwood first defines public scholarship and shares how her research examining the connections between farm viability and access to affordable quality health insurance and childcare has led to proposed new policy in the U.S. Farm Bill. The address (...) reflects on strategies for surviving the perils of public scholarship, and the role AFHVS as a society has in nurturing and supporting public scholarship. (shrink)

In many high-income countries, agricultural land is highly concentrated in a few hands, but detailed knowledge of ownership structures is limited. We examined land ownership structures and agricultural land concentration for the entire state of Brandenburg, Germany (1.3 million ha), using cadastral and company network data. Our aim was to characterise all landowners, analyse the degree of ownership concentration, and examine the role of the largest landowners in more detail. We found a high fragmentation of ownership among 185,000 different owners. (...) Most of the land was owned by individuals not active in agriculture and only a third of the land was owned by farmers and other agricultural actors. Absentee ownership covered a quarter of the land. Ownership concentration was low to moderate in most regions and reached high levels in only a few areas. The largest owners were public institutions, private investors and nature protection institutions. Areas where public institutions owned a lot of land showed high concentrations, but also some areas where private landowners owned a lot of land. In summary, our analysis provides rare information on the concentration of agricultural land ownership in a large region. Such analysis facilitates better justification and design of policies that regulate agricultural land markets. (shrink)

Although being essential to sustaining food production, migrant workers continuously find themselves at the bottom of the social and power hierarchy in food and agrarian systems around the world. Effects and origins of hierarchical ordering in food and agrarian systems increasingly gather public, political, and academic attention, however, how it matters for these systems remains little understood. As such, this paper aims to understand how hierarchical ordering shapes migrant worker marginality and links it to the contemporary formations of food and (...) agrarian systems. To do so, this paper explores engaged and embodied dimensions of disadvantaged migrant worker realities. This is done by drawing on research conducted in Norway, mainly consisting of interviews with migrant agri-food worker and farmers, as well as ethnographic data from Norwegian berry farms and supporting document analysis. The analysis reveals a complex picture of the power and reach of hierarchical ordering as it directly and indirectly impacts migrant workers in the Norwegian berry fields, as well as ideas around narrow divisions in food and agrarian systems and society more broadly that are implicated in naturalizing and internalizing such ordering. Following these insights, the paper proposes a theorization of food and agrarian systems as hierarchical projects– structures that find their foundations in patterned ordering that arranges and regularizes power hierarchies on the count of differences. (shrink)

Although being essential to sustaining food production, migrant workers continuously find themselves at the bottom of the social and power hierarchy in food and agrarian systems around the world. Effects and origins of hierarchical ordering in food and agrarian systems increasingly gather public, political, and academic attention, however, how it matters for these systems remains little understood. As such, this paper aims to understand how hierarchical ordering shapes migrant worker marginality and links it to the contemporary formations of food and (...) agrarian systems. To do so, this paper explores engaged and embodied dimensions of disadvantaged migrant worker realities. This is done by drawing on research conducted in Norway, mainly consisting of interviews with migrant agri-food worker and farmers, as well as ethnographic data from Norwegian berry farms and supporting document analysis. The analysis reveals a complex picture of the power and reach of hierarchical ordering as it directly and indirectly impacts migrant workers in the Norwegian berry fields, as well as ideas around narrow divisions in food and agrarian systems and society more broadly that are implicated in naturalizing and internalizing such ordering. Following these insights, the paper proposes a theorization of food and agrarian systems as hierarchical projects– structures that find their foundations in patterned ordering that arranges and regularizes power hierarchies on the count of differences. (shrink)

Anthropomorphism, the attribution of human-like qualities to non-human entities, can influence comprehension of the surrounding world. Going beyond previous research on the general assessment of anthropomorphism, the current study aimed to explore how anthropomorphising a specific animal species influences public acceptance of livestock keeping practices. Specifically, we focused on welfare-infringing practices that limit animals’ freedom, describe disruptive procedures, social isolation, or other stressful situations. Lacking experience in livestock keeping, it is likely that people project their own preferences to animals when (...) judging livestock keeping practices. Questionnaire data from a sample of the Swiss German public (N = 1232) were analysed regarding their acceptance of livestock keeping practices, as well as anthropomorphism for three animals: cattle, pigs, and poultry. We showed that judgement of livestock keeping was related to an anthropomorphic view of animals. This takes two opposite directions: (1) anthropomorphising was connected to a more critical view of livestock keeping practices and (2) the attribution of more cognitive capabilities to cattle and poultry was associated with a higher acceptance of welfare-infringing livestock keeping practices. The tendency to anthropomorphise was species-dependent, with the two mammals eliciting a higher tendency to anthropomorphise than poultry. The results suggest that the tendency to anthropomorphise plays a significant role in shaping the public’s opinion on livestock keeping. We argue that, when activating the tendency to anthropomorphise in the media, advertisements, or political publicity (e.g. by highlighting human-like features), a certain level of caution should be taken to avoid undesirable outcomes. (shrink)

Despite their status as high-income food producing nations, children and their caregivers, both in the United States (U.S.) and Australia can experience food insecurity. Nutrition researchers formed a joint U.S.-Australia collaboration to help advance food security for households with young children aged 0–5 years. This study investigated food insecurity from the perspective of caregivers, especially their perceptions of the impact of food insecurity on their own childhood, their current life, and for the children in their care. Semi-structured interviews were conducted (...) from July to September 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were recruited in Omaha, Nebraska, U.S. (n = 19) and Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (n = 22), during periods of stay-at-home public health orders. These two case study sites enabled an exploration of some universal, and some context-specific, social, economic, and health conditions that buffer, or exacerbate, food insecurity for families in these neo-liberal political settings. An inductive thematic analysis was conducted and established six themes:growing up poor, lessons learned, feeding a family amidst a pandemic, caregiver coping strategies, food security in the early years and protecting (young) children. Perspectives on local anti-hunger strategies were organized to outline participant’s preferred solutions. Household food insecurity is conceptualized in public policy in the U.S. and Australia as a short-term crisis for people, justifying austere, time-limited and patchwork solutions. A narrative of caregivers’ lived experience of food insecurity suggests that it is inter-generational, and exacerbated by a food system shock (i.e., COVID-19). These findings from two varying cities and nations offer a different conceptualization of the timespan and nature of the phenomenon of food insecurity, challenging a dominant policy narrative and highlighting the inadequacy of current so-called solutions. (shrink)

Geographies of food are not only shaped by political economic forces but also by individuals who resist dominant ways of subjectivation. Based on ethnographic research on forty-seven agroecological farms in Switzerland and Morocco, this article proposes a philosophical reconsideration of the role of utopia, hope and enchantment in shaping people’s actions. It contributes to the understanding of the emotional, spiritual and embodied experiences that lead farmers to engage in alternative agricultures at the margins of state planning and agro-industry. The adoption (...) of an etic research approach to ‘alternativity’ allows me to capture ‘quiet alternativities’, or farming experiences with beneficial socio-ecological outcomes but which are not represented as alternative or disruptive by the farmers themselves. This is especially important for Swiss and Moroccan farmers who do not always identify with a social movement or express any explicit opposition to agricultural policies and the dominant agri-food system, although their practices may effectively incorporate an alternative experience from where to envision different agri-cultures. Drawing from diverse conceptions of utopia, hope and enchantment, I unravel different manifestations of utopia as mental creations of ‘no-where’ and as embodied experiences of ‘no-when’. This enables me to attend to ‘quiet expressions’ of hope manifested not in speech but in daily practices and to discuss farmers’ motives to engage in alternative agricultures, despite a sometimes bleak outlook. I theorise these multiple experiences as ‘glimpses of utopias’ to explore the embodied and embedded dimensions of utopia to broaden what utopia can mean beyond purely speculative thinking. (shrink)

Regenerative agriculture is an approach that places soil conservation at the center of its practices. As part of this approach, regenerative agriculture seeks to address concerns related to environmental and socio-economic dimensions of food production through the promotion of a range of best management practices. While regenerative agriculture has received support at various levels in many countries, including Canada, adoption remains low. Systems thinking strength has been recognized as facilitating farmer adoption of several regenerative agricultural practices including rotational grazing (RG). (...) However, few approaches have examined multiple types of systems thinking nor the breadth of a system which may underlay the diverse ways that systems thinking influences agricultural practice adoption and persistence. Furthermore, few studies have taken a quantitative approach into understanding how different systems are emphasized by adopters of RG within the context of systems thinking. Using survey data from program participants in a national producer training program, we explored the use of two measures of systems thinking, systems thinking strength and diversity of a system in RG adopters. Our research highlights how the inclusion of the breadth of systems farmers consider can help us better understand RG adopters and support efforts to recruit new adopters. Furthermore, our results suggest that adopters are not homogenous in the types of systems they emphasize in their farming nor in the strength of their systems thinking. Future training programs can utilize these insights to leverage existing system emphases of RG producers and integrate them in the development of training programs to attract potential adopters. (shrink)

Precision Agriculture (PA) uses sensors, drones, and machine learning algorithms to provide farmers with site-specific information for targeted farm management decisions. These technological systems can reconfigure farm labor, replacing or displacing agrarian workers, especially unskilled, seasonal, hired, and migrant labor. Therefore, PA raises critical social questions that have implications for farmers’ autonomy and control over agrarian production systems. We critically examine the social consequences of PA through the theoretical lenses of accumulation by dispossession and the agrarian question of labor. We (...) use data from six focus group discussions conducted during the Fall of 2019 in heterogeneous production systems in South Dakota and Vermont. We assert that agritech firms design PA technologies as accumulation strategies predicated on the dispossession of farmers’ autonomy and control over agrarian production systems. As such, PA is fundamentally reconfiguring the future of agrarian labor in the US food system. (shrink)

Industrial food systems are being increasingly challenged by alternative food movements globally that advocate for better environmental, social, economic, and political outcomes as part of societal transitions to more sustainable food systems. At the heart of these transitions are local food producers operating within shorter food supply chains, their experiences, and their knowledge of ecologically sustainable food production, biodiversity and climate, and their communities. Despite their important contributions to the resilience of food systems, society and ecology, local food producers' experiences (...) and knowledges are often undervalued, ignored, or inaccurately reflected. This systematic literature review identifies the values, motivations, and concerns as key elements of the experiences of local food producers within short food supply chains across literature globally, their contributions to social-ecological resilience, and discusses how these experiences and contributions can influence transitions to sustainable food systems. Eighty-five research articles were distilled from 5 databases and thematic analysis revealed four major themes: (1) concerns for exploitative operating contexts and hidden labor expectations within short food supple chains, (2) local food producers’ value and need for social networks, (3) their environmental values, connections, and concerns, and (4) how they can value and be motivated by alternative models but are concerned by their economic viability. This review also observed an important paradox within local food producers’ experiences showing that whilst farming is a demanding profession and lifestyle, they can feel a deep fulfilment when they live and work in harmony with their values and motivations. This systematic review is significant for how it values and synthesizes the experiences of local food producers and the diverse personal, social, ecological, and economic contributions that local food production has for social-ecological resilience of communities. By better communicating these experiences and contributions to decision-makers, policy makers and planners, this research can have major implications for enabling societal transitions that are fairer and more just in ways that empower, protect, and privilege local food producers’ voices. (shrink)

Preparedness is an anticipatory approach developed in the military and health sectors in response to unforeseen and unforeseeable crises and emergencies. It has recently entered the debate over the resilience and sustainability of European food systems. The paper seeks to shed light on the implications of the European Union's adoption of preparedness in its food security policy, particularly focusing on the preparatory phase and the early activity the European Food Security Crisis Preparedness and Response Mechanism (EFSCM), a consultative body launched (...) by the European Commission in 2021. Through an analysis of documents and meeting minutes, we illustrate how debates on implementing preparedness are influenced by conflicting sociotechnical imaginaries of sustainable food security. Results show that the EU's shift towards preparedness combines elements of continuity and novelty in its food policy. Continuity concerns the acknowledged need to deal with growing turbulence and unpredictability affecting food systems. Novelty involves attempts at building bridges between diverging imaginaries of sustainable food security to address both short-term and long-term challenges to food security. Also new is the shift to a ‘management,’ as opposed to a ‘problem-solving,’ outlook on crisis and emergency. (shrink)

To develop effective public health management strategies, it is necessary to account for the viewpoints of all stakeholders. Thus, anthropological approaches can potentially inform strategies for preventing and managing zoonotic diseases. Here, we use Q fever as a starting point for exploring how small ruminant farmers perceive the reality of microbes by disentangling the farmers’ often subtle relationships with their livestock, disease, and the world in general. We found that livestock farmers feel like they exist in the borderlands between two (...) worlds: the non-naturalistic World A, characterised by long timespans and complex relationships with non-humans, and the naturalistic World B, characterised by short timespans and the control of non-humans. The occurrence of diseases leads to tension and shifts between the worlds, depending on how much farmers entrust World B with health risk management and relations with non-humans. Significant or complete delegation of these responsibilities may result in a sense of unease and dispossession, particularly when World B fails to provide productive solutions. Whether farmers view Q fever as mysterious and threatening is also highly dependent on the degree of health risk delegation. Overall, the agent that causes Q fever is perceived in one of two ways: as a fearsome pathogen or a normal denizen in the farm’s ecosystem. These results have implications beyond Q fever and clearly illustrate the concept of the “microbial turn”, which emphasizes the plurality and ambivalence of the relationships between humans and microbes. (shrink)

To develop effective public health management strategies, it is necessary to account for the viewpoints of all stakeholders. Thus, anthropological approaches can potentially inform strategies for preventing and managing zoonotic diseases. Here, we use Q fever as a starting point for exploring how small ruminant farmers perceive the reality of microbes by disentangling the farmers’ often subtle relationships with their livestock, disease, and the world in general. We found that livestock farmers feel like they exist in the borderlands between two (...) worlds: the non-naturalistic World A, characterised by long timespans and complex relationships with non-humans, and the naturalistic World B, characterised by short timespans and the control of non-humans. The occurrence of diseases leads to tension and shifts between the worlds, depending on how much farmers entrust World B with health risk management and relations with non-humans. Significant or complete delegation of these responsibilities may result in a sense of unease and dispossession, particularly when World B fails to provide productive solutions. Whether farmers view Q fever as mysterious and threatening is also highly dependent on the degree of health risk delegation. Overall, the agent that causes Q fever is perceived in one of two ways: as a fearsome pathogen or a normal denizen in the farm’s ecosystem. These results have implications beyond Q fever and clearly illustrate the concept of the “microbial turn”, which emphasizes the plurality and ambivalence of the relationships between humans and microbes. (shrink)

Agrifood scholars have long called for changes to the dominant food system, with the goal of making food systems more sustainable and just. This paper focuses on the ways in which recent and future food system shocks provide an opportunity for sustainable transitions in the food system. However, this requires strategic engagement on the part of alternative agrifood initiatives—agrifood niches—otherwise food systems are likely to return to business as usual. Drawing on the multi-level perspective (MLP) within the sustainability transitions framework, (...) core themes that emerge from social science studies of disasters in agrifood systems are identified. These are summarized as resources, polices, and practices that can assist niches in transforming agrifood regimes in response to disasters. The results highlight that while niches are generally independent of governments, niches would be better positioned to engage in post disaster agrifood change if they have some pre-existing connections with local or regional governments. (shrink)

Recent research into climate shocks and what this means for the on-farm production of food revealed mixed and unanticipated results. Whilst the research was triggered by a series of catastrophic, climate related disruptions, Australian beef producers interviewed for the study downplayed the immediate and direct impacts of climate shocks. When considering the changing nature of production under shifting climatic conditions, producers offered a commentary on the digital technology and data which interconnected with climate solutions deriving from both on and off (...) the farm. Perceptions of digital technologies were mixed. Some viewpoints outlined how data driven climate solutions supported on farm planning and decision making, helping to manage climate risks and shocks. However, alongside these narratives, concerns were raised about satellite-based sustainability surveillance and their implications for producer agency. These concerns include the data-informed actions of non-farming third parties, such as bank loan call-ins for properties perceived to be a climate risk, remote surveillance of ground cover, and the commercial re-appraisal of pastoral lands as carbon sinks. Digital solutions to climate shocks thus emerge as inherently ambivalent, a response to shocks and a potential catalyst for renewed crisis. Drawing upon the theoretical lens of relationality, we argue that digital data are increasingly entangled with other material and non-material elements that may disrupt and/or reconfigure the management of farming and with that, the future security of food production. In some instances, data-based solutions to climate risks and shocks present even greater risks to producer agency than climate risks and shocks themselves. (shrink)

The global food system has been subject to a multitude of shocks in recent years, drawing renewed attention to food insecurity vulnerabilities. Extreme weather events, economic crises, a global pandemic and wars have caused significant disruptions, compromising food security for significant portions of the population. Shocks impacting upon food systems bear additional adverse outcomes where populations are already vulnerable to poverty and other social inequalities, and increasingly, shocks are affecting populations not previously considered food insecure. This paper, and the Symposium (...) it introduces, articulates an emerging field of study that explores the dynamic interplay of food system shocks and food security through multiple disciplinary perspectives. The articles in this Symposium address the impacts of and responses to shocks such as weather events and the COVID-19 pandemic and consider these through the theoretical lenses of actor perspectives, governance, and transitions. This Symposium looks beyond the short-term acute event and contributes to a systemic understanding of ‘food shocks’ by reflecting on how enduring and persistent disruptions reverberate through multiple layers of food systems, how they are experienced and addressed across global and local scales, and how they may deeply transform food systems and impact people over time. (shrink)

Understanding the meaning of land–water entanglement is increasingly important today, in an age of climate change and desertification. Despite the close ties between water and land, literature largely focuses on each of them separately or ignores the attempts to disconnect them. This paper examines the connections and disconnections between water and land in the southern desert of Israel in the shadow of political use and environmental disaster. Drawing on ethnographic research, the paper explores the challenges and successes of intensive agriculture (...) in arid regions, and how water allocation plays a crucial role in making the desert bloom. Weaving between the theoretical framework of 'agricultural infrastructure' and 'water-land imaginations', the paper separates between the different imaginations that enable the various dimensions of the water-land entanglement, the efforts made to expand the connection or disconnect them, and between their political, environmental and cultural realization as infrastructures. Overall, this paper provides insights into the ways by which Imaginations, infrastructures and land–water entanglement shape human-environmental interactions in arid regions and agriculture projects in the Anthropocene era. (shrink)

Understanding the meaning of land–water entanglement is increasingly important today, in an age of climate change and desertification. Despite the close ties between water and land, literature largely focuses on each of them separately or ignores the attempts to disconnect them. This paper examines the connections and disconnections between water and land in the southern desert of Israel in the shadow of political use and environmental disaster. Drawing on ethnographic research, the paper explores the challenges and successes of intensive agriculture (...) in arid regions, and how water allocation plays a crucial role in making the desert bloom. Weaving between the theoretical framework of 'agricultural infrastructure' and 'water-land imaginations', the paper separates between the different imaginations that enable the various dimensions of the water-land entanglement, the efforts made to expand the connection or disconnect them, and between their political, environmental and cultural realization as infrastructures. Overall, this paper provides insights into the ways by which Imaginations, infrastructures and land–water entanglement shape human-environmental interactions in arid regions and agriculture projects in the Anthropocene era. (shrink)

The rise of multi-stakeholder institutions (MIs) involving the ultra-processed food (UPF) industry has raised concerns among food and public health scholars, especially with regards to enhancing the legitimacy and influence of transnational food corporations in global food governance (GFG) spaces. However, few studies have investigated the governance composition and characteristics of MIs involving the UPF industry, nor considered the implications for organizing global responses to UPFs and other major food systems challenges. We address this gap by conducting a network analysis (...) to map global MIs involving the UPF industry, drawing data from web sources, company reports, business and market research databases, and academic and grey literature. We identified 45 such global food system MIs. Of these, executives from the UPF industry or affiliated interest groups held almost half (_n_ = 263, or 43.8%) of the total 601 board seat positions. Executives from a small number of corporations, especially Unilever (_n_ = 20), Nestlé (_n_ = 17), PepsiCo Inc (_n_ = 14), and The Coca-Cola Company (_n_ = 13) held the most board seat positions, indicating centrality to the network. Board seats of these MIs are dominated by executives from transnational corporations (_n_ = 431, or 71.7%), high-income countries (_n_ = 495, or 82.4%), and four countries (United States, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the Netherlands) (_n_ = 350, or 58.2%) in particular. This study shows that MIs involving the UPF industry privilege the interests of corporations located near exclusively in the Global North, draw legitimacy through affiliations with multi-lateral agencies, civil society groups and research institutions, and represent diverse corporate interests involved in UPF supply chains. Corporate-anchored multi-stakeholderism, as a form of GFG governance, raises challenges for achieving food systems transformation, including the control and reduction of UPFs in human diets. (shrink)

The rise of multi-stakeholder institutions (MIs) involving the ultra-processed food (UPF) industry has raised concerns among food and public health scholars, especially with regards to enhancing the legitimacy and influence of transnational food corporations in global food governance (GFG) spaces. However, few studies have investigated the governance composition and characteristics of MIs involving the UPF industry, nor considered the implications for organizing global responses to UPFs and other major food systems challenges. We address this gap by conducting a network analysis (...) to map global MIs involving the UPF industry, drawing data from web sources, company reports, business and market research databases, and academic and grey literature. We identified 45 such global food system MIs. Of these, executives from the UPF industry or affiliated interest groups held almost half (n = 263, or 43.8%) of the total 601 board seat positions. Executives from a small number of corporations, especially Unilever (n = 20), Nestlé (n = 17), PepsiCo Inc (n = 14), and The Coca-Cola Company (n = 13) held the most board seat positions, indicating centrality to the network. Board seats of these MIs are dominated by executives from transnational corporations (n = 431, or 71.7%), high-income countries (n = 495, or 82.4%), and four countries (United States, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the Netherlands) (n = 350, or 58.2%) in particular. This study shows that MIs involving the UPF industry privilege the interests of corporations located near exclusively in the Global North, draw legitimacy through affiliations with multi-lateral agencies, civil society groups and research institutions, and represent diverse corporate interests involved in UPF supply chains. Corporate-anchored multi-stakeholderism, as a form of GFG governance, raises challenges for achieving food systems transformation, including the control and reduction of UPFs in human diets. (shrink)

Agri-environmental policies programmes mainly focus on economic incentives for the agri-environmental transition in grassland use. However, barriers rooted in farmers’ self-identities, which determine their behavioural intentions toward environmentally friendly practices, are often unaddressed in policy design. We conceptualise two self-identity gradients, productivist–multifunctionalist–conservationist and traditionalist–innovationist, to analyse drivers and barriers of agri-environmental transition processes among farmers. In order to grasp the complex multidimensional and hierarchical concept of self-identity as initially proposed by Stryker (Journal of Marriage and Family 30: 558–564, 1968), our (...) analysis comprises a triangulation of qualitative and quantitative methods on a comprehensive dataset of 75 interviews with Swiss alpine grassland farmers. Through the semi-deductive coding of responses to open questions (revealing hierarchical aspects) and a factor analysis of closed, Likert-scale questions (revealing multidimensional aspects), we positioned each farmer along the conceptualised self-identity gradients. Our framework allows to explain contradictory behaviours exhibited by farmers: Our results revealed a mismatch between the farmers’ prevailing conservationist-innovationist self-identity and their actual intensification behaviour. This mismatch can be explained by the discrepancy between the individual self-identity and the prevailing productivist–innovationist idea of a good farmer, on which farmers continue to base their decisions. Within this discrepancy, however, lies the potential for a shift in the idea of what constitutes a good farmer and a consequential agri-environmental transition. (shrink)

The ‘new normality’ of food crises requires nuanced understandings of emergent responses. Through an exploratory analysis of public-facing reports from major food governance actors, this study empirically outlines mainstream solution frames for addressing the contemporary food crisis and the ways in which these differ from the 2008 food crisis. Using food regime theory as the theoretical underpinning, four con­sistently used solution frames are identified that provide insight into the organizing principles of the third food regime: promoting trade liberalization, emphasizing agricultural (...) productivism, mobilizing private finance, and leveraging data. The latter two involve recent shifts in governance responses that shape global food governance and impact global food insecurity in novel ways. (shrink)

Since 1983, legislators and advocates have introduced Land Access Policy Incentives in twenty of the fifty United States. These bills share a demographic goal: to fund land rental or purchase for young and beginning farmers and ranchers. States’ efforts to facilitate land access are part of a global movement to support farmers’ entry into agriculture and to resist farmers’ increasing exclusion from land. We examine the policy creation processes of nine states to describe how coalitions and government leaders are translating (...) their values around land access barriers into policy tools whose political appeal is broad. The bills often pass unanimously, and enrollments are strong: about 2,000 young and beginning US farmers and ranchers will purchase or rent farms this year through a few states’ land access policy programs. We trace the themes from interviews with 66 of the bills’ authors and advocates, and their documentation and media coverage, to demonstrate the values that bipartisan coalitions enlist to construct successful bills and the compromises that make them politically feasible. The coalitions’ values turn on the threats of rising land costs, farm expansion or consolidation, and land conversion out of agriculture. As a group, the policies serve broadacre farming operations while leaving specialty crop farms largely unserved. Two states have endeavored to include all farmers of color among their policies’ beneficiaries. Our findings demonstrate tradeoffs of states’ current Land Access Policy Incentives and suggest next steps for research and advocacy to inform policy development to support next generation farming opportunities. (shrink)

Since 1983, legislators and advocates have introduced Land Access Policy Incentives in twenty of the fifty United States. These bills share a demographic goal: to fund land rental or purchase for young and beginning farmers and ranchers. States’ efforts to facilitate land access are part of a global movement to support farmers’ entry into agriculture and to resist farmers’ increasing exclusion from land. We examine the policy creation processes of nine states to describe how coalitions and government leaders are translating (...) their values around land access barriers into policy tools whose political appeal is broad. The bills often pass unanimously, and enrollments are strong: about 2,000 young and beginning US farmers and ranchers will purchase or rent farms this year through a few states’ land access policy programs. We trace the themes from interviews with 66 of the bills’ authors and advocates, and their documentation and media coverage, to demonstrate the values that bipartisan coalitions enlist to construct successful bills and the compromises that make them politically feasible. The coalitions’ values turn on the threats of rising land costs, farm expansion or consolidation, and land conversion out of agriculture. As a group, the policies serve broadacre farming operations while leaving specialty crop farms largely unserved. Two states have endeavored to include all farmers of color among their policies’ beneficiaries. Our findings demonstrate tradeoffs of states’ current Land Access Policy Incentives and suggest next steps for research and advocacy to inform policy development to support next generation farming opportunities. (shrink)

Transhumance is a form of extensive livestock production that involves seasonal movements among ecological zones or landscape types. Rangeland-based transhumance constitutes an important social and economic relationship to nature in many regions of the world, including across the Western US. However, social and ecological drivers of change are reshaping transhumant practices, and managers must adapt to increased demands for public rangeland use. Specifically, concerns for wildlife conservation have led to reduced access to seasonal public lands grazing for western US livestock (...) producers. To understand how managers adapt to loss of grazing areas (called “seasonal ranges”) we create agroecological calendars from manager records spanning 35 years (1986–2021) at the US Sheep Experiment Station in Idaho and Montana, US. The calendars illustrate how a loss of winter and summer ranges after 2013 coincided with shifts in the operation’s adaptive strategies, leading to more grazing of fall crop residue and purchased winter feed, and reducing flexibility to move livestock to cope with variable forage conditions. These changes shifted the job duties and experiences of farm workers and managers, and raised several new questions related to sheep production and vegetation management outcomes that merit future research. Transhumant system transformation has implications for human relationships with nature, rural communities, sheep genetics, production, and vegetation communities. For livestock operations that rely on government-managed lands to sustain transhumant traditions, innovative forms of collaboration and social adaptation that help secure access to seasonal ranges will be as important as technological innovations to address biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation, and food system sustainability issues that are reshaping access to grazing lands. (shrink)

As the term regenerative agriculture caught fire in public discourse around 2019, it was promptly labelled a buzzword. While the buzzword accusation tends to be regarded as negative, these widely used terms also reflect an important area of growing public interest. Exploring a buzzword can thus help us understand our current moment and offer insights to paths forward. In this study, we explored how and why different individuals and groups adopt certain key terms or buzzwords, in this case the term (...) “regenerative agriculture”. We used an interpretivist approach to understand how “regenerative agriculture” is being constructed, interpreted, understood, and employed, drawing from 19 semi-structured interviews conducted with farmers, researchers, private companies, and NGO/nonprofits. Several interviewees felt that regenerative agriculture is making an important societal shift in thinking towards addressing major issues like climate change and parity in our food and agricultural systems. However, farmers in particular felt that the term is being greenwashed, coopting the work they do, and even diluting the meaning. We also found that regenerative agriculture is being advanced as mobilizing “win-wins”—for farmers, for consumers, for society—but that this discourse may be veiling the political and economic agendas of the big companies using the term. Our findings further illustrated the debates over standardizing the term regenerative agriculture, with some contending that there should be room for “continuous improvement” but others felt it is meaningless without a definition. (shrink)