Negotiating agricultural change in the Midwestern US: seeking compatibility between farmer narratives of efficiency and legacy

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,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAgriculture and human values Vol. 39; no. 4; pp. 1465 - 1476
Main Authors Shipley, Nathan J., Stewart, William P., van Riper, Carena J.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.12.2022
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Agricultural Economics
Agricultural ecosystems
Agricultural Ethics
Agricultural management
Agricultural policy
Agricultural practices
Agricultural technology
Agriculture
Climate change
Compatibility
Competition
Crop yield
Decision analysis
Decision making
Development Studies
Education
Efficiency
Emotions
Environmental Sociology
Everyday life
Farmers
Farms
Global marketing
Humanities and Social Sciences
Land
multidisciplinary
Narratives
Philosophy
Rural areas
Rural populations
Science
Sustainable Development
Sustainable practices
Midwest
Sustainable agriculture
Narrative analysis
Farmer decision-making
Place meanings
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Summary: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.
ISSN:0889-048X
1572-8366
DOI:10.1007/s10460-022-10339-w