A key focus for agri-food scholars today pertains to emerging “alternative food movements,” particularly their long-term viability, and their potential to induce transitions in our prevailing conventional global agri-food systems. One under-studied element in recent research on sustainability transitions more broadly is the role of disruptive events in the emergence or expansion of these movements. We present the findings of a case study of the effect of a sudden acute food safety crisis—bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease—on alternative beef (...) production in the Province of Alberta, Canada. Employing the conceptual lens of Sustainability Transition Theory, we explore the perspectives of conventional and alternative beef producers, treating alternative beef production as a niche operating within the dominant regime of global industrial agri-business. Three key findings are presented here. First, food safety risks and disruptive events can emerge as a direct consequence of the socio-ecological contradictions embedded in industrial agriculture, representing an opportunity for expansion of agricultural niches. Second, certain features of socio-economic regimes can also contribute to niche emergence, such as an economic system that disenfranchises beef-producing families. Finally, our study highlights the high level of diversity among niche agents and the complex and nuanced nature of their support for the niche. (shrink)

This paper examines heterogeneous impacts of gendered household headship and control of resources on food security in rural Tanzania. Analysis with minimal attention to heterogeneity in gender considerations indicates no differences in household food security between male and female-headed households. But with a more differentiated household headship variable and accounting for gendered differences in resource ownership, the results differ markedly. Using more gender-disaggregated variables, our results show significant differences between female-headed and male-headed households. In these results we find support for (...) the claim that gender norms in the study villages often restrict women’s access to resources, resulting in more vulnerable female-headed households. Female-headed households with no male adults present are particularly vulnerable. The study also points to specific opportunities for enhanced food security with attention to female and joint ownership of livestock. These results represent a hopeful sign that efforts to enhance female livestock ownership could be a useful strategy to address lower levels of food consumption in these Tanzanian villages. (shrink)

Although beef and dairy production in Alberta, Canada, enjoys strong public support, there are enduring public concerns, including farm animal welfare. Evolving codes of practice and animal care councils prescribe changes and improvements to many areas of farm management, and may be seen by farmers as an appropriate response to public animal welfare concerns. However, codes of practice do not address every animal welfare concern, and new concerns can arise over time. Drawing on social practice theory and in-depth field research (...) with 36 cattle and dairy farmers, this paper explores the materials, competencies, and meanings of four animal husbandry practices: branding, dehorning, weaning, and on-farm handling and moving. Findings show that branding and dehorning are evolving slowly with attention to pain management, but remain firmly rooted in ranching tradition and communities of practice. Weaning and animal handling practices are evolving more quickly with attention to changing materials, attitudes, and values that are more prevalent within producer communities. (shrink)

This study employs an experiment investigating cognitive mapping of fifth-grade children living in a remote village environment, wherein characteristics of the landscape included paths, landmarks, nodes, edges, and districts. Two aspects of analysis were salient in this study. First, important landscape characteristics and their frequency of appearance in the cognitive maps were tabulated and illustrated as a layout map. Second, inaccurate cognitive maps were structurally analyzed to account for any incompleteness, distortions, and augmentation of actual environments found in some map (...) samples. Focus on gender differences in children’s environmental cognition in terms of symbolic representation skills utilized in cognitive mapping is of special interest in this case study. Results confirm Piaget’s theory that older children, aged ten or more, begin to use projective and Euclidean concepts. Furthermore, boys used a greater variety of symbols to represent a particular landscape characteristic, a cultural temple, than did the girls. Finally, we hypothesize that the ‘hunter–gatherer’ social divisions of labor between men and women in the village’s early historical social structure are consequentially related to gender discrepancies in cognitive mapping symbolic representation skills, in non-English-speaking children. (shrink)