TY - JOUR
T1 - Negotiating agricultural change in the Midwestern US
T2 - seeking compatibility between farmer narratives of efficiency and legacy
AU - Shipley, Nathan J.
AU - Stewart, William P.
AU - van Riper, Carena J.
N1 - This research was supported by a University of Illinois, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, Future Interdisciplinary Research Explorations seed grant [Grant No. ILLU-741-380], a USDA-NIFA grant [Grant No. 2018-68002-27918], and a USDA-NIFA Hatch project [accession number 1012211]. We are grateful to the members of the Kaskaskia Watershed Association for their partnership and support of this research, as well as our project collaborators including Ben Leitschuh, Seunguk Shin, Suresh Sharma, Maria Chu, Cory Suski, and Jeff Stein, as well as undergraduate research assistants, including Haley Ware, Ava Traverso, and Yen-Hsuan Chuang.
PY - 2022/12
Y1 - 2022/12
N2 - Agroecosystems in the Midwestern United States are undergoing changes that pressure farmers to adapt their farming practices. Because farmers decide what practices to implement on their land, there are needs to understand how they adapt to competing demands of changes in global markets, technology, farm sizes, and decreasing rural populations. Increased understanding of farmer decision-making can also inform agricultural policy in ways that encourage farmer adoption of sustainable practices. In this research we adopt a grounded view of farmers by interpreting their decision-making through their stories of everyday life. We use a narrative analysis to identify recurrent themes that characterize farmer decisions as active negotiations between the demands of efficiency in maximizing crop yields with a desire to steward land through past, present, and future generations. Together these narratives portray farmer decisions as a place-making process that seeks compatibility among distinct aspirations for their land.
AB - Agroecosystems in the Midwestern United States are undergoing changes that pressure farmers to adapt their farming practices. Because farmers decide what practices to implement on their land, there are needs to understand how they adapt to competing demands of changes in global markets, technology, farm sizes, and decreasing rural populations. Increased understanding of farmer decision-making can also inform agricultural policy in ways that encourage farmer adoption of sustainable practices. In this research we adopt a grounded view of farmers by interpreting their decision-making through their stories of everyday life. We use a narrative analysis to identify recurrent themes that characterize farmer decisions as active negotiations between the demands of efficiency in maximizing crop yields with a desire to steward land through past, present, and future generations. Together these narratives portray farmer decisions as a place-making process that seeks compatibility among distinct aspirations for their land.
KW - Farmer decision-making
KW - Midwest
KW - Narrative analysis
KW - Place meanings
KW - Sustainable agriculture
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U2 - 10.1007/s10460-022-10339-w
DO - 10.1007/s10460-022-10339-w
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85133605812
SN - 0889-048X
VL - 39
SP - 1465
EP - 1476
JO - Agriculture and Human Values
JF - Agriculture and Human Values
IS - 4
ER -