Pesticide exposure and sprayer design: ergonomics evaluation to reduce pesticide exposure

Plant protection products are used in agriculture to improve yields, but this use can cause contamination of the environment and is also likely to have adverse short and long term effects on agricultural workers. This poster describes a systems approach to reducing the risk of operator exposure to plant protection products through the introduction of ergonomics to the design process of large agricultural sprayers.     

上海推进都市农业建设的实践与思考

本文以上海农业为例,通过对都市农业的功能定位和发展方向的分析,科学把握都市农业的主要特征和内在规律,探求都市农业实现农业现代化的基本途径。文章结合上海实际,提出紧紧围绕农业现代化这个主题,把握加快转变农业发展方式这条主线,凸显都市农业三大功能,确保农业增效农民增收这个落脚点,推进都市现代农业可持续发展。     

创新金融服务助力现代农业结构升级——新供给经济学的视角

从农业供给侧全产业链分析,金融在农业供给侧改革中发挥着全过程作用:一是现代都市农业生产要素的集约化,使得规模化金融服务需求增加;二是现代都市农业生产经营链条化,产业链金融服务需求增长;三是农业经营主体多元化,特色化金融服务需求增加;四是农村产业融合发展,功能型金融服务需求增加.     

气候变化与都市现代农业发展

本文讨论了在气候变化大背景下都市现代农业的未来发展,作为与先进的科学技术和生活方式紧密结合的一种农业经营方式,都市农业不仅可以借鉴传统农业的经验,而且有条件通过发挥自身的优势和不断的尝试,为气候变化下的传统农业寻找应对挑战的路径。     

Innovating Conservation Agriculture: The Case of No‐Till Cropping

Abstract The extensive sociological studies of conservation agriculture have provided considerable understanding of farmers' use of conservation practices, but attempts to develop predictive models have failed. Reviews of research findings question the utility of the conceptual and methodological perspectives of prior research. The argument advanced here is that actor‐network theory is useful in analyzing conservation agriculture as a radically different agriculture: a new paradigm with new beliefs about soils, plants, the environment, and farmers themselves as well as new crop production systems. The new indigenous cultures of conservation tillage and cropping are innovative products of social networks that join farmland, farmers, farm advisors, and farm supply representatives in new ways. The spread of conservation agriculture has occurred as the result both of new agricultural science of conservation tillage and cropping and the spread of these new networks and their innovative cropping systems.     

Uneven development and the restructuring process in British agriculture: a preliminary exploration

The development of a political economy approach to the understanding of agricultural development still remains in its infancy. This paper explores the significance of uneven development as a central concept with which to unify the approach. In the first part of the paper a set of scales are suggested which provide a framework for coping with uneven development in agriculture, both over space and temporally. Attempts to link theory and evidence are crucial in this process, and in the second part of the paper attention focuses upon the restructuring of British agriculture through an analysis of one such scale of uneven development, that of changes in internal production relations for the period 1970–1985.     

关于深化上海农村改革的若干思考

上海深化农村改革应着力发展现代农业经营的"三类主体":家庭农场、农民合作社和农业企业;着力保障农民的"三项权利":农民的土地承包经营权、农村集体经济组织成员权利和农民宅基地用益物权;着力盘活农村的"三块土地":农村承包土地、农民宅基地和农村集体建设用地;着力完善涉农的"三项制度":农产品价格形成制度、农业支持保护制度和土地征收制度;着力提升农村公共服务的"三项水平":农村义务教育水平、农村社会保障水平和农村医疗服务水平。     

Sector Programme Approaches: Will They Work in Agriculture?

This article explores why sector‐wide approaches, in which donor funds support a single sector plan under government leadership, have performed less well in agriculture than in the social sectors. Many problems stem from the more limited, more contested and shrinking role of the state in the agricultural sector. It is also argued that sector programmes have worked best where the key constraints on sector development are the responsibility of a single ministry, whereas agricultural development requires co‐ordinated interventions across sectors. The sector approach may have a limited role in delivering better focused agricultural services, but fundamental policy questions need to be resolved first. This is more likely if support for reforms is channelled through central economic ministries and other bodies outside the agriculture ministry.     

Sub-National State Institutions and the Organization of Agricultural Resource Use: The Case of the Dairy Industry1

Abstract Most studies of state/economy relationships focus on national and global institutions and minimize the importance of local, sub-national institutions. This lack of attention to sub-national states also characterizes most of the studies that examine the role of the state in the structure of agriculture. On the other hand, calls for a new type of sustainable agriculture argue that this type of economic system will be embedded in local political institutions. The nature of these local institutions, however, has gone largely unanalyzed. Through a comparative historical analysis of sub-national state intervention in the regional economic structure of the U.S. dairy industry in the New Deal era, this analysis shows how state dairy policy has reflected sub-national interest group politics surrounding food, agriculture, and rural land use. Sub-national states responded to the agricultural crisis of the 1930s by spatially reorganizing agricultural resource use within their territories. The three states examined—New York, Wisconsin, and California—influenced the resource intensiveness of dairy agriculture by managing the spatially segmented boundaries that separated resource-intensive and low-resource dairy production systems.     

Who Benefits from Production Outcomes? Gendered Production Relations among Climate‐Smart Agriculture Technology Users in Rural Ethiopia

The use of agricultural technologies is generally expected to increase production and household incomes. Gendered disparities in making use of agricultural outcomes could result in inequitable agricultural development. However, too little is known about whether the use of agricultural technologies improves gendered production relations, particularly in the Global South. This study investigates the question of gender‐equitable production relations by drawing on empirical data from women and men smallholders involved in conservation agriculture and small‐scale irrigation schemes in three study areas in Ethiopia. Findings show that the use of agricultural technologies does not improve unequal gendered production relations; rather, gender norms that exist within patriarchal social structures continue to influence production relations in at least three ways. First, societal norms restrict women from asserting their self‐interest in gendered bargaining. Second, there is a customary law in all the study areas that allows men (but not women) to inherit land—thus providing men with better bargaining and decision‐making positions over production outcomes, as they bring land to the marriage. Third, the restricted access of women to rural institutional services further contributes to unequal gendered production relations, as these services support men more than women in the use of agricultural technologies for enhanced production.     

Rural development and the regional state: Denying multifunctional agriculture in the UK

Under the emerging rural development paradigm, we argue that to be multifunctional an activity must add income to agriculture, it must contribute to the construction of a new agricultural sector that corresponds to the needs of the wider society and it must reconfigure rural resources in ways that lead to wider rural development benefits. By evaluating UK rural policies on the basis of whether or not they attempt to meet these conditions, this paper shows that an implicit recognition of agriculture's multifunctional character has occurred recently through the shift from a sectoral to a regional and territorial perspective that reintegrates farming into rural development. However, in practice, and especially in England, the UK government has been unable to turn multifunctional activities into a real rural development option. In fact, by continuing to support agri-industrial/retailer interests on the one hand, and post-productivist— environmental and amenity— interests on the other, the State is governing mostly by setting up competitively organized ‘projects’ and schemes that continue to justify the concentration (and limitation) of resources allocated to agriculture. Based upon a critique of policy developments over the past decade, this paper emphasizes the need for more innovative forms of state innovation that provide opportunities for new, creative and more spatially embedded forms of supply and demand management in agri-food. In the conclusions, the paper also argues that more critical research is needed to uncover the existing and potential role of both governments and producer networks in progressing sustainable rural development through agricultural multifunctionality.     

Embeddedness and local food systems: notes on two types of direct agricultural market

Direct agricultural markets, predicated on face-to-face ties between producers and consumers, are often seen as central components of local food systems. Activists and academic analysts often assume that trust and social connection characterize direct agricultural markets, distinguishing local food systems from the “global food system”. This article examines that premise about direct agricultural markets, using the concept of social embeddedness from economic sociology to analyze the interplay of the economic and the social. Specifically, it draws on Block's (1990) elaboration of the concepts of marketness and instrumentalism to qualify the concept of social embeddedness. Taken together, and augmented by consideration of how they relate to power and privilege, these concepts provide an analytical framework that more accurately describes the social relations of two types of direct agricultural markets — the farmers’ market and community supported agriculture. In providing an alternative market, farmers’ markets create a context for closer social ties between farmers and consumers, but remain fundamentally rooted in commodity relations. In attempting to construct an alternative to the market, as reflected in an explicit emphasis on community and in the distinctive “share” relationship, community supported agriculture moves closer towards the decommodification of food. Nonetheless, in both types of direct markets, tensions between embeddedness, on the one hand, and marketness and instrumentalism, on the other, suggest how power and privilege may sometimes rest more with educated, middle-class consumers than with farmers or less-advantaged consumers. Recognizing how marketness and instrumentalism complicate social embeddedness is critical for understanding the viability, development and prospects of local food systems.     

Transition pathways towards a robust ecologization of agriculture and the need for system redesign. Cases from organic farming and IPM

The growing criticism of intensive agricultural practices that lead to a deterioration of natural resources and a decrease of biodiversity has progressively led to more environmental constraints being put on agricultural activities through an “ecologization” of agricultural policies. The aims of these policies have been to protect environmentally sensitive areas, to improve groundwater quality and, more recently, to develop organic farming and/or reduce pesticide use. However, these efforts are still a far cry from a robust ecologization of agricultural practices. In order to identify the conditions for the implementation of such an ecologization, the changes in practices from conventional agriculture towards organic farming and integrated pest management (IPM) are investigated using a sociological study of farmers’ trajectories, coupled with the ESR (Efficiency-Substitution-Redesign) framework developed by biological and agricultural scientists. This combined approach reveals that a robust ecologization of agricultural practices requires us to take into account the specific and variable tempo of farmers’ trajectories and to redesign not only technical agricultural systems but also interactions within larger agrifood systems.     

关于加快转变上海农业发展方式问题的思考

加快转变农业发展方式,强化农业的基础地位,是促进工业化、城镇化的重要保障,也是实现上海城乡经济社会一体化发展的必然要求。上海有基础有条件在加快转变农业发展方式方面先行先试。结合上海实际,研究提出上海加快转变农业发展方式的总体要求、基本原则、目标任务和指标体系,在此基础上,研究确定加快转变农业发展方式的主要途径和保障措施。     

Do You See What I See? Examining the Epistemic Barriers to Sustainable Agriculture*

Abstract This paper examines the epistemic barriers to sustainable agriculture, which are those aspects of food production that are not readily revealed by direct perception: such as decreases in rates of soil and nutrient loss, increases in levels of beneficial soil micro‐organisms, and reductions in the amount of chemicals leaching into the water table. While many of sustainable agriculture's most touted benefits cannot easily or immediately be seen by producers, the opposite can be said of the benefits of conventional agriculture: from, for example, weed‐free rows and pest‐free fields to tall stalks, large yields, and commodity uniformity. Yet, while its benefits are readily apparent to many operators, the costs of conventional agricultural production often are not because conventional agriculture partly externalizes those costs to society at large. This paper investigates how the tension between the “visible” and the “nonvisible” plays out in the debate between sustainable and conventional agriculture. It concludes by suggesting potential solutions to overcoming these epistemic barriers, so as to make the epistemologically distant aspects of sustainable (namely, the benefits of) and conventional (namely, the costs of) agriculture more visible to all.     

The Production of Knowledge and the Production of Commodities: The Case of Rapeseed Technoscience1

Abstract A crucial issue in the theory of technological change—the transformation of knowledge into commodities in agriculture—is examined through the role that technoscience played in the transformation of rapeseed (Brassica campestris and B. napus) from a minor crop used largely for marine lubricants into a major global competitor in edible oil markets. The study is based on a content analysis of the worldwide bibliography of rapeseed. A network approach is used to show that emergence and successful development of the rapeseed commodity subsector included three simultaneously occurring and interacting developments: production of new knowledge, modification of commodities, and extension of rapeseed production networks. Implications of the network approach for the analysis of agricultural development are discussed.     

Migration Dynamics,Entrepreneurship, and African Development: Lessons from Malawi

Using data from Malawi, this study situates the discourse on migration, entrepreneurship, and development within the context of Africa's social realities. It examines self‐employment differences among three groups of migrants and corresponding group differences in agricultural and non‐agricultural self‐employment. International migrants are found to be more engaged in self‐employment than internal migrants. However, our results suggest that previous findings on the development‐related contributions of returning migrants from the West need to be appropriately contextualized. When returnees from the West invest in self‐employment, they typically shy away from Africa's largest economic sector – agriculture. In contrast, levels of self‐employment, especially in agricultural self‐employment, are highest among returning migrants and immigrants from other African countries, especially from those nearby. We also underscore the gendered dimensions of migrants’ contribution to African development by demonstrating that female migrants are more likely to be self‐employed in agriculture than male migrants. Furthermore, as human‐capital increases, migrants are more likely to concentrate their self‐employment activities in non‐agricultural activities and not in the agricultural sector. The study concludes using these findings to discuss key implications for policy and future research.     

Conversion to Organic Dairy Production in the Netherlands: Opportunities and Constraints*

Abstract Organic agriculture is perceived as being more sustainable than conventional agriculture. However, while there is a growing interest in, and market for, organic products, large‐scale conversion to organic agriculture is not taking place. Even though conversion from conventional to organic dairy production is not especially difficult in theory, conversion is slow in this specific sector. The conversion process to organic agriculture is often analyzed by investigating farmer motivations and attitudes. However, since modern agricultural production is organized in production chains, which are in turn subject to stakeholder influence, a wider focus that includes these interrelationships might provide new insights regarding the lagging conversion. Based on document analysis, policy analysis, and interviews, this article investigates opportunities for, and barriers to, conversion to organic dairy production in the Netherlands within the setting of the chain network. Opportunities and barriers are found at three levels within the chain network: the actor level, the chain level, and the network level. We conclude that, despite some involvement in organic production and a positive disposition toward it, the chain network is not ready for a large‐scale conversion.     

Multifunctional agriculture in policy and practice? A comparative analysis of Norway and Australia

Ideals of productivist agriculture in the Western world have faded as the unintended consequences of intensive agriculture and pastoralism have contributed to rural decline and environmental problems. In Norway and Australia, there has been an increasing acceptance of the equal importance of social and environmental sustainability as well as economic sustainability. Alongside this shift is a belief that primary production needs to move away from an intensive, productivist-based agriculture to one that may be defined as post-productivist. In this paper, we argue that the dualism of productivism and post-productivism as concepts on agricultural policy regimes are too simplistic and discuss whether multifunctional agriculture is a better concept for a comparison of rural primary production at two extreme points of the scale, the market-oriented, liberalistic Australian agriculture and the market-protected small-scale Norwegian agriculture. We argue that multifunctionality in Australia rates relatively weakly as an ideology or policy and even less as a discourse or practice and hence is situated toward a ‘weak’ end of a continuum of a level of multifunctional agriculture. In Norwegian agriculture, multifunctional agriculture has thrived within a protectionist setting with the support of the public, the state and agricultural actors. In this sense it is very clearly a policy, practice and discourse that aims to preserve and conserve rural spaces, the cultural landscape, the farming way of life and food safety. Norway is as such situated toward a ‘strong’ end of a continuum of a level of multifunctional agriculture.     

Farm Work Satisfaction and Acceptance of Sustainability Goals by Australian Organic and Conventional Farmers1

Abstract Farmer dependence on large-scale organizations for inputs to production is an attribute of Australian agriculture and has changed the character of farm work and how farmers see the future of agriculture. We discuss how these changes are related to farmer satisfaction with their work and their commitment to an alternative or conventional agricultural paradigm. Organic and conventional farmers are compared and findings show that organic farmers experience higher levels of work satisfaction and endorse the alternative agricultural paradigm more strongly than conventional growers. Personal success in using organic methods explains differences between organic farmers in their work satisfaction and commitments to the alternative paradigm. Similarly, conventional farmers confident about the future of their farms are satisfied with their work and express some commitment to the sustainability paradigm. Organic and conventional farmers share concerns about environmental sustainability, but are thinking differently about what sustainable farming is and how it will affect the future of Australian agriculture.