scholarly journals Six Collective Challenges for Sustainability of Almería Greenhouse Horticulture

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (21) ◽  
pp. 4097 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio J. Castro ◽  
María D. López-Rodríguez ◽  
Cynthia Giagnocavo ◽  
Miguel Gimenez ◽  
Leticia Céspedes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Ecological Model ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Shared Responsibility ◽  
Family Farming ◽  
Transdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Social Challenges ◽  
Greenhouse Horticulture ◽  
Market Driven ◽  
The 1960S

Globally, current food consumption and trade are placing unprecedented demand on agricultural systems and increasing pressure on natural resources, requiring tradeoffs between food security and environmental impacts especially given the tension between market-driven agriculture and agro-ecological goals. In order to illustrate the wicked social, economic and environmental challenges and processes to find transformative solutions, we focus on the largest concentration of greenhouses in the world located in the semi-arid coastal plain of South-east Spain. Almería family farming, predominantly cooperative, greenhouse intensive production, commenced after the 1960s and has resulted in very significant social and economic benefits for the region, while also having important negative environmental and biodiversity impacts, as well as creating new social challenges. The system currently finds itself in a crisis of diminishing economic benefits and increasing environmental and social dilemmas. Here, we present the outcomes of multi-actor, transdisciplinary research to review and provide collective insights for solutions-oriented research on the sustainability of Almeria’s agricultural sector. The multi-actor, transdisciplinary process implemented collectively, and supported by scientific literature, identified six fundamental challenges to transitioning to an agricultural model that aims to ameliorate risks and avoid a systemic collapse, whilst balancing a concern for profitability with sustainability: (1) Governance based on a culture of shared responsibility for sustainability, (2) Sustainable and efficient use of water, (3) Biodiversity conservation, (4) Implementing a circular economy plan, (5) Technology and knowledge transfer, and (6) Image and identity. We conclude that the multi-actor transdisciplinary approach successfully facilitated the creation of a culture of shared responsibility among public, private, academic, and civil society actors. Notwithstanding plural values, challenges and solutions identified by consensus point to a nascent acknowledgement of the strategic necessity to locate agricultural economic activity within social and environmental spheres.This paper demonstrates the need to establish transdisciplinary multi-actor work-schemes to continue collaboration and research for the transition to an agro-ecological model as a means to remain competitive and to create value.

scholarly journals How Do Women Overcome Gender Inequality by Forming Small-Scale Cooperatives? The Case of the Agricultural Sector in Uganda

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1797
Author(s):  
Amber Theeuwen ◽  
Valérie Duplat ◽  
Christopher Wickert ◽  
Brian Tjemkes
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Family Business ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Business Relationships ◽  
Female Farmers

In Uganda, the agricultural sector contributes substantially to gross domestic product. Although the involvement of Ugandan women in this sector is extensive, female farmers face significant obstacles, caused by gendering that impedes their ability to expand their family business and to generate incomes. Gender refers to social or cultural categories by which women–men relationships are conceived. In this study, we aim to investigate how gendering influences the development of business relationships in the Ugandan agricultural sector. To do so, we employed a qualitative–inductive methodology to collect unique data on the rice and cassava sectors. Our findings reveal at first that, in the agricultural sector in Uganda, inter-organization business relationships (i.e., between non-family actors) are mostly developed by and between men, whereas intra-organization business relationships with family members are mostly developed by women. We learn that gendering impedes women from developing inter-organization business relationships. Impediments for female farmers include their restricted mobility, the lack of trust by men, their limited freedom in communication, household duties, and responsibilities for farming activities up until sales. Our findings also reveal that these impediments to developing inter-organization business relationships prevent female farmers from being empowered and from attainting economic benefits for the family business. In this context, the results of our study show that grouping in small-scale cooperatives offers female farmers an opportunity to overcome gender inequality and to become economically emancipated. Thanks to these cooperatives, women can develop inter-organization relationships with men and other women and gain easier access to financial resources. Small-scale cooperatives can alter gendering in the long run, in favor of more gender equality and less marginalization of women. Our study responds to calls for more research on the informal economy in developing countries and brings further understanding to the effect of gendering in the Ugandan agricultural sector. We propose a theoretical framework with eight propositions bridging gendering, business relationship development, and empowerment and economic benefits. Our framework serves as a springboard for policy implications aimed at fostering gender equality in informal sectors in developing countries.

scholarly journals The Defining Characteristics of Agroecosystem Living Labs

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1718
Author(s):  
Chris McPhee ◽  
Margaret Bancerz ◽  
Muriel Mambrini-Doudet ◽  
François Chrétien ◽  
Christian Huyghe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
External Factors ◽  
Social Challenges ◽  
Rural Living ◽  
Living Lab ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Unique Nature ◽  
Living Labs ◽  
High Uncertainty

In response to environmental, economic, and social challenges, the living labs approach to innovation is receiving increasing attention within the agricultural sector. In this paper, we propose a set of defining characteristics for an emerging type of living lab intended to increase the sustainability and resilience of agriculture and agri-food systems: the “agroecosystem living lab”. Drawing on first-hand knowledge of case studies of large initiatives from Canada and France and supported by eight other cases from the literature, we highlight the unique nature of agroecosystem living labs and their distinct challenges with respect to their aims, activities, participants, and context. In particular, these living labs are characterized by exceptionally high levels of scientific research; long innovation cycles with high uncertainty due to external factors; and the high number and diversity of stakeholders involved. Both procedurally and conceptually, we link to earlier efforts undertaken by researchers seeking to identify urban living labs and rural living labs as distinct, new types of living labs. By highlighting what makes agroecosystem living labs unique and their commonalities with other types of living labs, we hope to encourage their further study and help practitioners better understand their implementation and operational challenges and opportunities.

scholarly journals Good Enough to Work, Not Good Enough to Stay : A Review of the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janna Pushkar
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Economic Benefit ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Temporary Workers ◽  
Family Farming ◽  
Temporary Migration ◽  
Citizenship Status ◽  
Agricultural Worker ◽  
Seasonal Agricultural Workers ◽  
Critical Literature

This critical literature review examines the ways in which the agricultural sector in Canada has changed from small family farming to largely mechanized and consolidated farms thus requiring the need for the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP). It also finds that the program was created not only for economic but also for political reasons and it continues to function for both economic and political motivations. Since the program's inception, there has been a shift from permanent to temporary migration in many industries in Canada because foreign temporary workers such as those involved in the SAWP, labour under unfree conditions making them a reliable and disposable workforce. The denial of citizenship status to seasonal agricultural workers serves to maintain their vulnerable position in the Canadian workforce. Finally it is revealed that the program is primarily beneficial for the Canadian Government and Canadian employers. Workers and sending countries receive an economic benefit from the program as well, however this impact is much more significant for the Canadian state.

scholarly journals Family Farming and The Emergence of an Alternative Sociotechnical Imaginary in Argentina

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-105
Author(s):  
Frédéric Goulet
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Family Farming ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Counter Model ◽  
Science And Politics ◽  
Security Challenge ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
The One

In this article, we analyse the mechanisms by which family farming established itself in Argentina over the 2004–2016 period as a legitimate solution to the food security challenge. We show that this process has played a role in the emergence of an alternative sociotechnical imaginary built as a counter-model to the one associated with industrial agriculture. We highlight the importance of the processes of demarcation and detachment at the heart of this shift, in the political, techno-scientific and agricultural spheres. The actors involved in the promotion of family farming associate this alternative approach to the development of the agricultural sector with the implementation of an alternative practice and organisation of science and technology. These shifts correspond to a narrative and mode of political action that put the emphasis on the production of a national future liberated from the mistakes and injustices of the past, in which science and technology play a central role. By highlighting the tensions at the heart of this dynamic, between the establishment of new boundaries and the challenging of existing ones, the article contributes to the analysis of the formation of alternative sociotechnical imaginaries, and in particular the underlying mechanisms of co-production between science and politics.

Benefits and Beneficiaries of the Oklahoma Mesonet: A Multisectoral Ripple Effect Analysis

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 499-519 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jadwiga R. Ziolkowska ◽  
Christopher A. Fiebrich ◽  
J. D. Carlson ◽  
Andrea D. Melvin ◽  
Albert J. Sutherland ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Safety ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Wildland Fire ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Ripple Effect ◽  
Oklahoma Mesonet ◽  
K 12

Abstract Since the Oklahoma Mesonet (the state’s automated mesoscale weather station network) was established in 1994, it has served a number of diverse groups and provided public services to foster weather preparedness, education, and public safety, while also supporting decision-making in agricultural production and wildland fire management. With 121 monitoring stations across the state, the Oklahoma Mesonet has developed an array of technologies to observe a variety of atmospheric and soil variables in 5- to 30-min intervals. These consistent observations have been especially critical for predicting and preparing for extreme weather events like droughts, floods, ice storms, and severe convective storms as well as for development of value-added tools. The tools, outreach programs, and mesoscale data have been widely utilized by the general public, state decision-makers, public safety officials, K–12 community, agricultural sector, and researchers, thus generating wide societal and economic benefits to many groups. Based on practical application examples of weather information provided by the Oklahoma Mesonet, this paper analyzes both benefits generated by Oklahoma Mesonet information to the public and decision-makers and ripple effects (spreading amplified outcomes/implications) of those benefits in the short and long term. The paper further details ongoing and anticipated Oklahoma Mesonet innovations as a response to changing needs for weather-related information over time, especially as a result of technological developments and weather variability.

Between Science and Politics: Science Fiction as a Critical Discourse in South Korea, 1960s–1990s

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 347-367
Author(s):  
Sunyoung Park
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Challenges ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Science And Politics ◽  
Cultural Texts ◽  
The 1960S

AbstractA positivist vision of science fiction as a discourse closely bound to science and technology has been influential in South Korea ever since the first flourishing of the genre in the 1960s. Using that normative vision as a reference, the present essay investigates the ways in which select science-fictional texts have actually represented the technoscientific enterprise in South Korea in the period spanning the 1960s through the 1990s. As the analysis suggests, the heyday of positivist-oriented science fiction in the country was largely limited to the 1960s, which was a time when Koreans looked keenly upon science for its utopian promise of development and modernization for the nation. As later years brought dictatorship and forced industrialization, however, a marked shift toward dystopia and social protest became evident in cultural texts that critically depicted technoscience and modernization as tools of oppression rather than as progress and liberation. The historical existence of this more critical vein of science fiction, it is argued, attests to the genre’s hitherto underappreciated potential for fruitful engagement with the political and social challenges of modernization both globally and within South Korea’s technologically saturated society.

scholarly journals New Method for Efficiency Evaluation of Digital Technologies in Agricultural Sector

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 495-504
Author(s):  
Артём Рада ◽  
Artem Rada ◽  
Елена Федулова ◽  
Elena Fedulova ◽  
Петр Косинский ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Development ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Quantitative Methodology ◽  
Direct Evaluation ◽  
Agricultural Enterprise ◽  
Social Components

The paper features digital technologies in satellite farming and introduces a quantitative methodology to evaluate various types of their effectiveness. The authors determined the main types of efficiency and components of evaluation and substantiated the algorithm of analysis. The paper also contains a list of related economic, environmental, and social components, as well as a set of formulas and dependencies. The methodology for assessing the effectiveness of digital technologies has a two-block structure. The first block determines the needs and opportunities for the implementation of digital technologies and helps to define the enterprises that may benefit from digital technologies. The second block involves a direct evaluation of the results and efficiency of the digital technologies to be implemented and substantiates management solutions. The paper describes approaches and procedures that help to assess the biological, technological, and economic benefits of digital technologies for an agricultural enterprise. The authors quantified the structure of the environmental effect of the introduction of digital technologies and introduced some dependencies can determine profitability and cost recovery indicators. The research used the methodological approach to assess the environmental and social efficiency of digital technologies for an agricultural enterprise. The approach corresponds with the requirements of sustainable agricultural development declared by the UN. The results can be used by enterprises of the agro-industrial complex and suppliers of digital technologies.

scholarly journals Agroecological Approach to Farming for Sustainable Development: The Indian Scenario

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ishwari Singh Bisht ◽  
Jai Chand Rana ◽  
Sarah Jones ◽  
Natalia Estrada-Carmona ◽  
Rashmi Yadav
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Food System ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Agricultural Systems ◽  
Farming Communities ◽  
Root Cause ◽  
Ecological Principles ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
System Sustainability

Agroecology is the application of ecological principles to agricultural systems and practices and the application of social justice principles to whole food systems. Agroecological farming, an unfamiliar concept to those who treat agriculture and ecology as separate subjects, refers to farming for producing food, employment and economic benefits in addition to cultural, social and environmental services and benefits. Additionally, agroecology empowers farming communities, as the key agents of change, and addresses the root cause of problems of unsustainable agricultural systems in an integrated way and provides holistic and long-term solutions to transform the food and agricultural systems. As agroecology is at the forefront of transforming farming and food system sustainability, the present chapter specifically explores the state of Indian traditional farming agroecosystems, evidence collected under the ongoing Indian UNEP-GEF project “Mainstreaming agricultural biodiversity conservation and utilization in agricultural sector to ensure ecosystem services and reduce vulnerability”. We discuss traditional Indian farming in view of FAO’s 10 principles of Agroecology which is key to help policymakers, practitioners and stakeholders, in planning, managing and evaluating agroecological transitions.

scholarly journals УПРАВЛІННЯ СІЛЬСЬКИМ ГОСПОДАРСТВОМ ПІВНІЧНОГО РЕГІОНУ В СИСТЕМІ ПРОДОВОЛЬЧОВОЇ БЕЗПЕКИ

2021 ◽  
pp. 100-107
Author(s):  
Валентин Олександрович Іванов
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Komi Republic ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Agrarian Economy ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Northern Territories ◽  
The 1960S

Agriculture and commercial economy of the Northern zone developed together with the development of the territory, is a way of life of the peoples rooted here. It was based on centuries-old agricultural traditions taking into account the extreme harsh natural conditions and agricultural features. The agro-industrial farm is designed to provide the population with biologically complete local food products, perform a social function. The purpose of the article is the sustainable development of agricultural production, providing an increase in the level of food self-sufficiency of the population of the northern territories on the example of the Komi Republic. The subject of the study is the process of managing the sustainable development of the agricultural sector. The research methods used were systematic, comparative analysis, analogies, statistical, generalization of accumulated experience. The hypothesis of the study. The development of local agricultural production will increase food self-sufficiency, which will lead to savings in investments in transport, reduce product losses and improve its quality. Presentation of the main material. The possibilities and limitations of the development of northern agriculture are revealed. The trends in the development of the agricultural sector in the 1960s-1980s and in the conditions of market transformations are considered. The reasons for the decline in agricultural production, the reduction of the coefficient of food self-sufficiency are established. Priorities for the development of agriculture have been determined. Practical significance. Conclusions and recommendations can be taken into account by the Ministry of Agriculture and Consumer Market of the Komi Republic and other government bodies when determining the directions for improving state policy on the development of the agricultural sector. Conclusions of the study. Sustainable development of agriculture and increasing food self-sufficiency will require strengthening innovative modernization, the formation of a multi-layered agrarian economy, improving the economic mechanism, priority development of rural infrastructure, improving the level and quality of life of peasants.

scholarly journals Policy Initiatives and Agricultural Performance in Post-independent Ghana

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (9) ◽  
pp. 425-434
Author(s):  
Samuel Asuming-Brempong
Keyword(s):  
Government Policy ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Agricultural Activities ◽  
Policy Effects ◽  
Policy Initiatives ◽  
Agricultural Performance ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Export Crops ◽  
Policy Incentives

The central role agriculture plays in the development of Ghana’s economy has been recognized by several authors, particularly because Ghana’s economy is basically agrarian. Nevertheless, the contributions agriculture can make to economic development depend on the policy environment within which agriculture thrives. Several policies, both general and specific to agriculture, which have been pursued under various governments have either promoted or mitigated against the performance of agriculture in Ghana. This paper reviews the various policies under which Ghana's agricultural sector has operated since independence, and provides a synthesis of the major existing policies and recent changes and how these have affected the agricultural sector. The analysis shows that the socialist model of the 1960s contrasted sharply with the liberalized market approach of the 1980s and 1990s, particularly under structural adjustment. These differing policy orientations have had significant effects on agricultural performance in Ghana, and the roles of agriculture at different periods. For instance, the policy effects of agricultural activities on the environment, such as the promotion of export commodities, the exploitation of timber and forest resources, mining, and indiscriminate sale and use of agro-chemicals in Ghana have been negative. On the other hand, promotion of cash and export crops through government policy incentives have improved rural incomes for farmers that cultivate such crops, and helped to reduce poverty among this group. In general, the policy effects on agriculture in Ghana have been mixed.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document