The influence of perceptions of practice characteristics: An examination of agricultural best management practice adoption in two Indiana watersheds

Agricultural best management practices (BMPs), or conservation practices, can help reduce nonpoint source pollution from agricultural lands, as well as provide valuable wildlife habitat. There is a large literature exploring factors that lead to a producer’s voluntary adoption of BMPs, but there have been inconsistent findings. Generally, this literature has not examined specific attributes of BMPs that may affect acceptability to farmers and ultimately adoption. To address these limitations, a qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with farmers was conducted to determine which characteristics make four common BMPs more or less acceptable to agricultural producers. Interviews were conducted with forty-five producers in two watersheds in Indiana, USA. The producers were asked about their use of these conservation practices and the reasons behind their decisions. This study outlines the perceived characteristics of each conservation practice that are most important in either facilitating or impeding adoption of those practices. Results indicate that perceived high levels of relative advantage (e.g., reduced inputs, time-savings, and on-farm and environmental benefits), compatibility (with farm system and needs of producer), and observability (observing practice’s advantages) are most important in increasing adoption of conservation practices. Low levels of perceived relative advantage and incompatibility of practices were found to be most important in non-adoption of conservation practices. Perceived risk and complexity associated with specific practices were only found to limit adoption for a few practices, though it was an important barrier for conservation tillage. In order to increase adoption, conservation promoters should focus on raising awareness of the on-farm and financial benefits, the environmental benefits, and compatibility of conservation practices with current farm operations.     

Designing agroforestry innovations to increase their adoptability: a case study from Paraguay

The development of adoptable natural resource systems, to address the needs of rural populations, is a priority for many governments in less developed countries. This paper looks at agroforestry as an innovation, and at the factors which influence its adoptability. This is accomplished through an analysis of a case study on the development and diffusion of an agroforestry innovation in the Guayaybi region of Eastern Paraguay. In this case study a forestry extension team, working directly with the farmers, was successful in designing an adoptable agroforestry innovation. The innovation was ecologically adapted to the region and appeared to have good potential for economic return. It was readily adopted by the farmers who perceived it to have a relative economic advantage over their traditional land use systems. The agroforestry system was compatible with their agricultural practices and helped to meet their needs for wood products and fodder. The new system was simple to understand and easy to try on a limited basis which minimized risk. Also the tree species used were fast-growing, which impressed the farmers and made the plantations highly visible to others. This ‘observability’ of functioning agroforestry systems plus the belief in the potential for economic gain were the key factors in the rapid adoption of agroforestry as a new land use system.     

Farmers' perceptions of agrarian change in north-west Portugal

Geographers have consistently failed to analyse the perceptions of the inhabitants of rural areas, and in particular farmers' views of agrarian change. This paper analyses the perceptions of farmers in the agricultural region of Entre-Douro e Minho in north-west Portugal. Six villages with contrasting levels of innovation adoption were studied in 1983, and it is shown that there are major differences in the perceptions of farmers within these different parts of the region. These differences cannot be explained simply in terms of the age, tenure and education of the farmers, and it seems that the activities of rural extension officers, the general nature of the ‘place’ of each village, and its accessibility play important roles in influencing the perceptions of the farmers. Above all, it illustrates that, rather than being traditional and conservative, many of the farmers of north-west Portugal are keen to adopt new farming techniques.     

Towards a New Articulation of Alternative Development: Lessons from Coca Supply Reduction in Bolivia

Once heralded as the success story of coca supply reduction, Bolivia is now witnessing an increase in coca cultivation. Even as coca fields in Bolivia were forcibly destroyed in the past decade, new fields were being planted elsewhere, leaving coca production in the Andean region at a roughly constant level. This begs a rethinking of alternative development programmes, the policies being rendered ineffectual by the increasing use of force. This article seeks renewed momentum for alternative development by gleaning lessons from its earlier failures. Moreover, it suggests a new articulation of alternative development that emphasises the socio‐economic cause of coca cultivation – the demand by the rural poor of Bolivia for income and food security.     

Comparison of Amish and Non-Amish Farmers: A Diffusion/Farm-Structure Perspective1

Abstract Considerable attention has focused on farming practices and behavioral patterns that characterize Amish farmers from other agriculturalists. It has been suggested that Amish farmers are more concerned about the physical environment than non-Amish farmers because Amish employ fewer technology-intensive farming practices, though there is little empirical evidence to support such an assertion. To address this issue, data were collected from a sample of Amish and non-Amish owner-operators in Ohio to compare environmental attitudes and farming systems presently in use. Discriminant analysis was used to examine factors chosen to differentiate the two groups. Findings reveal that Amish respondents believed more strongly than other farmers that ground water pollution was an important environmental problem and that farmers should reduce chemical application rates to protect ground water resources. Other farmers exhibited greater willingness to participate in educational programs designed to reduce pesticide application rates. The two groups could not be differentiated by criteria used to make adoption decisions about farm technologies and farming practices; both used productivity and efficiency criteria when making adoption decisions.     

Environmental risks of urban agriculture in the Lake Victoria drainage basin: A case of Kisumu municipality, Kenya

This paper examines the environmental risks threatening sustainable urban agriculture in Kisumu municipality. The issues covered in the paper are: review of policy and institutional framework, infrastructure and service delivery, pollution analysis of irrigation water and crops and urban agriculture waste management. In addition, the paper proposes measures for sustainable urban agriculture. Household survey and pollution analysis of irrigation water and crops (kales and yams) were conducted in the study area. To capture spatial distribution of farmers in the municipality, the municipality was stratified into four strata and in each stratum a combination of stratified-systematic-simple random sampling was used to sample 194 households. Structured household questionnaire was administered to the sampled households.     

There is an app for that? The impact of community knowledge workers in Uganda

Rapidly expanding mobile network coverage in developing countries offers new ways to reach poor farmers in isolated places. This article explores the potential for Information and Communication Technology to provide agricultural information and extension services to smallholder farmers, and links this to empirical insights of an intervention in Uganda, where community knowledge workers rely on mobile devices to deliver context- and time-sensitive data to farmers. Consistent with theoretical insights related to information inefficiencies, we find that the intervention leads farmers to move away from low-risk low-return crops toward more commercially oriented commodities. Our analysis also suggests that, for the case of maize, the intervention causes farmers to sell less on the market, but at significantly higher prices.     

A Qualitative Study of “fa’a’amu” Kinship Care Experiences in Tahiti

“Fa'a'amu” is a type of adoption commonly found in French Polynesia involving open, informal adoption arrangements, in which the child maintains ties to the family of origin. Although the function that child circulation plays in Oceanic societies has been widely documented by anthropologists, the implications of fa'a'amu at the individual level have yet to be examined. To address this gap, an exploratory qualitative study was conducted to 1) examine the lived experiences of adults who were fa'a'amu as children, and 2) identify experiences and characteristics associated with positive psychosocial and mental health outcomes in adulthood. The sample consisted of 22 Tahitian adults, who had been fa'a'amu during childhood. Applying a developmental and attachment lens, we explored how participants experienced relationships with birth and adoptive families, and how being fa'a'amu impacted their sense of well-being, attachment, identity, and belonging. Data was collected through The Adult Attachment Interview and the Fa'a'amu Experience Interview, which were coded using thematic analysis. Factors associated with positive outcomes in adulthood included early age at adoption, sensitive fa'a'amu parents, positive or benign relationships with birth parents, and respect between fa'a'amu and birth families. Factors associated with emotional distress included late age at adoption, abandonment and rejection, exploitative fa'a'amu parents, and conflict between birth and fa'a'amu families.     

Flex crops neverland: finding access to large-scale land investments?

This paper explores a neglected aspect of the financialization of land grabbing. Whereas financialization is a multifaceted phenomenon, a straightforward link has been established between financialization and land grabbing. On the one hand, market-oriented views claim that large-scale land investments benefit both the agrifood industry and small-scale farmers. On the other hand, structuralist scholarship explains how financialization creates new ways to accumulate profits by dispossessing small-scale farmers. We build on the call for a more nuanced account of large-scale land investments’ impact on land access by considering the crops involved. While finance’s attraction for flex crops has already been touched upon, we reverse the perspective by exploring whether flex crops influence the way financialization in agriculture unfolds in three areas: megamergers, contract farming, and land commodification. Building on Allaire’s concept of quality, we argue that flex crops can exacerbate unequal power relations and limit access to land for small-scale farmers.     

The Adoption of Integrated Pest Management Practices Among Texas Cotton Growers1

Abstract Agricultural technologies are becoming increasingly complex requiring farmers to bundle selected technologies. Technology bundling results in a variety of different farming systems. Features of diffusion and farming systems theories are combined to define an analytical model, which assesses background, diffusion, and technology belief factors' influence on growers' adoption of integrated pest management (IPM) practices and cotton yields. We selected a proportionate random sample of growers (n = 722) from 14 cotton-producing counties in Texas. A telephone survey was conducted in 1985 resulting in a response rate of 76 percent. Findings demonstrated the importance of different sources of IPM information to particular status groups of growers. Information sources produced positive effects on growers' beliefs about IPM benefits and growers' adoption of three IPM practices. IPM adoption resulted in higher yields of upland and pima cotton per acre.     

Why Don't They Just Change? Contract Farming,Informational Influence,and Barriers to Agricultural Climate Change Mitigation

Using a mixed‐methods study of contract seed‐corn farmers in southwest Michigan, we examine the effect of interlocking macro and micro social forces on climate change behavior and apply the theoretical frames of treadmills of production and informational influence. We find that competitive agricultural contracts in the seed‐corn industry impose significant structural barriers to adopting climate change mitigation behaviors. Seed‐corn contracts constrain adoption of those behaviors through competitive rankings based solely on net commodity production and by limiting farmers’ access to information to make judicious management decisions. At the micro level, our findings suggest that informational influence—that is, where farmers turn for trusted information—also affects climate change mitigation behaviors, and that these informational networks are embedded within structural constraints. Our findings suggest that agricultural contracts serve as a significant structural constraint on the adoption of mitigation practices and that climate scholarship and policy must address both macro and micro dimensions simultaneously to encourage adoption of climate change mitigation.     

Determinants of domestic waste input use in urban agriculture lowland systems in Africa: The case of Yaoundé in Cameroon

This paper suggests policy actions for safe urban and peri-urban agriculture and domestic waste recycling in urban lowland areas of Africa, in particular, in lowland areas of the capital of Cameroon, Yaoundé. We identify the explanatory variables of recycling domestic waste and their use in three selected lowland areas. Data were collected between August and September 2005 among 126 farmers. Results show that the factors contributing to the adoption of recycled fresh and decomposed kitchen waste are: vegetable production, the distance between the house and its crop field and the use of livestock waste. The factors contributing to the adoption of recycled livestock wastes are the age of the farmers, the distance between the house and its crop field, the educational level of farmers and land size. Young farmers are more likely to adopt recycled livestock wastes, and short distances between houses and crop fields are more likely to contribute to the adoption of both recycled kitchen waste and recycled livestock wastes. In this context, the implementation of transfer stations for domestic waste, inside or next to lowland areas, appears to be an adequate solution of transport and sanitary constraints faced both by farmers and municipalities in Africa.     

Adoption of Sustainable Agricultural Practices: Diffusion,Farm Structure,and Profitability1

Abstract This paper employs diffusion and farm-structure variables to explain variations in Montana farmers' adoption of two kinds of sustainable agricultural practices: those involving intensive management and those which require fewer purchased inputs. While perceived profitability was found to be the most important factor affecting adoption of both, the independent variables had different effects on beliefs about net economic returns as well as on adoption of the two practices. Type of farm enterprise played a larger role in adoption of the low-input practices than the management intensive ones; access to information was more important for the latter. Implications for policy are discussed.     

The city in the country: Growing alternative food networks in Metropolitan areas

Alternative food networks (AFNs) are commonly defined by attributes such as the spatial proximity between farmers and consumers, the existence of retail venues such as farmers markets, community supported agriculture (CSA) and a commitment to sustainable food production and consumption. Focusing upon processes rather than attributes, this paper identifies two place-based processes that both promote and constrain the emergence and development of AFNs. Urbanization and rural restructuring are critical to the development of AFNs. AFNs are not a “thing” to be described, but rather emerge from political, cultural and historical processes. The interactions of urbanization and rural restructuring produce AFNs that are differentiated and marked by uneven development that does not necessarily support all farmers participating in the network. This indicates both the fragility and the dynamism inherent in AFNs that are tied to metropolitan development and change. Paradoxically, increasing urban demand for seasonal, and organic produce grown ‘close to home’ and the processes of rural restructuring which emphasize small-scale sustainable family farming and its direct food linkages to cities do not necessarily enable all farmers to consistently make a living from season to season. Evidence for these claims comes from an in-depth, qualitative case study reliant upon participant observation, in-depth interviews and draws from a statewide farmer survey and a regional consumer survey in Washington State.     

Rural transport in eastern Amazonia: Limitations, options, and opportunities

In rural Amazonia farmers rely on a variety of conveyances for overland transport ranging from burros through horse-drawn carts and bicycles to motorized carts and trucks. We compared the costs of purchasing and operating these different conveyances and determined how transport mode, road quality, distance to market, and product value affect the profitability of farming in this region. We conclude by suggesting policy changes necessary to both increase the effectiveness of rural transport in regions of Amazonia where colonization has already occurred and slow encroachment into unoccupied areas.     

The propagation of agrarian change in North-West Portugal

Geographers have generally failed to pay sufficient attention to the role of agencies propagating change in studies on the spread of innovations. This paper supplements previous studies on the influence of household structure on the pattern of adoption of new agricultural equipment and chemicals in northern Portugal, by analysing the activities of the Ministry of Agriculture, co-operatives, and companies selling tractors, chemicals and agricultural machinery. It concludes that the most significant influence on change in the last twenty years has been the activity of the companies involved in propagating that change, but that the roles of the Ministry of Agriculture and the co-operatives could be particularly important in limiting the adverse effects of future changes on the poorest farmers in the region.     

The Production Function,Crop Diversity,and the Debate Between Conventional and Sustainable Agriculture1

Abstract Organizational assumptions embedded in the production function of neoclassical economics have served to structure production agriculture in the United States for the past 100 years. The narrow focus of the production function on the inputs of land, labor, capital, and management and the use of on-farm profitability as the primary definition of sustainability have come under attack from sustainable agriculturalists, who argue that the social and environmental consequences of production are as important as the economic outcomes. Using diversity of crops harvested as an indicator of sustainability, the production function is operationalized to inform the debate between the conventional, neoclassical model of production and the alternative, sustainable model. Census of agriculture data from 1978, 1982, and 1987 are used in both cross-sectional and temporal models. Results show that increases in expenditures for equipment and machinery, prevalence of corporate farms, higher rates of tenancy, and the prevalence of large farms are associated with lower levels of diversity at the county level. Conversely, higher levels of diversity are found in counties with greater farm labor expenses, where there are more medium-size farms, and where farmers are more likely to farm full-time.     

The paradox of illicit economies: survival,resilience, and the limits of development and drug policy orthodoxy

ABSTRACT

The illicit drug crops opium and coca are conventionally regarded as sources of instability, an ‘evil’ that breeds fragility and violence. Fragile states are supposed to be most vulnerable to their production and consequent harms. Yet by looking into the local contexts of the world’s leading opium and coca producers – Afghanistan, Myanmar, Colombia and Bolivia – these illicit crops are found to also be sources of stability, even drivers of economic growth. They enable marginalized communities and territories abandoned by the state to be reinserted into national and global markets. Within so-called ‘fragile’ and conflict-affected areas are displaced and dispossessed households adopting innovative and unorthodox strategies for coping and survival in changing and insecure environments. This paper maps out an approach, useful for examining the resilience that has emerged amidst violence and uncertainty in illicit-crop-producing territories, and which can hopefully tackle the continuing disconnect between drugs and development policy.     

Soil erosion and perception of the problem

Most efforts to reduce soil erosion have included an educational component designed to make farmers aware of their erosion problem. These strategies implicitly assume that once farmers become aware of an erosion problem, they will take appropriate action. It is recognized that various social and economic factors influence the adoption process at a later stage, but their influence on perception of the problem has not been explored. This analysis indicates that perception of a soil erosion problem may be influenced more by social and economic factors than by the actual extent of the problem. Perception of environmental problems, therefore, is based not only on awareness, but also on the ability to do something about the problem. Therefore, structural constraints influence both the adoption of conservation practices and perception of an environmental problem. It is suggested that if an effective soil conservation program is to be developed, we must understand the unique problems, interests, and goals of farmers.     

The Structural Context of City Adoption of War on Poverty and National Flood Insurance Programs*

A theoretical formulation is presented that represents an abstract and parsimonious conception of public policy adoption at the subnational level. The formulation consists of two components: the principle that social phenomena exist in contexts with which they are compatible, and several distinguishing attributes of subnational collectivities and public policies. Taken together, these statements lead to the conclusion: if there is a match between attributes of a policy and those of a collectivity, then the probability increases that the policy will be adopted by the collectivity. General hypotheses derived from the formulation appear generally consistent with findings of previous research. Specific hypotheses derived from the formulation regarding city adoption of War on Poverty and National Flood Insurance programs are tested with cross–sectional data for a sample of U.S. cities. Results of an ordinary least-squares regression analysis reveal support for derived hypotheses. It is concluded that the explanatory and predictive powers of the theoretical formulation are high.