Doctoral Dissertation Research: Evaluating Technological Innovation in Agriculture and Food Security

博士论文研究：评估农业和粮食安全的技术创新

• 批准号: 1823873
• 负责人: Joao Biehl
• 金额: $ 1.75万
• 依托单位: Princeton University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-07-01 至 2019-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1823873&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Evaluating; Technological

Scientists warn that food security will only become more challenged in the coming decades as environmental shocks intensify and agriculture grows increasingly vulnerable to disruption. Amid a new sense of urgency regarding environmental change and food production, policymakers are deciding how to allocate development aid to improve food systems under the banner of climate-smart agriculture (CSA). CSA aims to be an experimental and data-driven approach, with a focus on introducing new technologies, improved and transgenic seeds and novel farming techniques among small-scale farmers to mitigate the effects of rapid environmental change more efficiently. The United States is an early adopter of the climate-smart concept since 2010 but has only recently started to direct official development aid toward expressly climate-smart agricultural (CSA) programs elsewhere, in conjunction with international organizations, philanthropic foundations, and multinational corporate partners. To date, the technological and relational content of climate-smart agriculture in practice has received little in-depth scholarly investigation. Both academics and practitioners of development puzzle over what climate resilience actually entails and how its success can be achieved and measured. This study, which trains a graduate student in methods of rigorous, empirical data collection and analysis, explores the relationship between climate-smart agriculture and practices related to food security. Further, this project will build capacity and scientific infrastructure through international scientific cooperation, and enhance public scientific understanding by broadly disseminating findings to organizations engaged in issues related to agricultural development and food security.Serena Stein, under the supervision of Dr. Joao Biehl of Princeton University, will investigate how agricultural aid is remade with experimental, relational, and ethical implications for smallholder farmers, through a grounded study of three unfolding climate smart projects in Mozambique in southeastern Africa. Mozambique is an appropriate site for assessing climate-smart agriculture in practice. The high volume of development aid invested historically and currently, especially in the area of sustainable development, makes it an ideal laboratory for evaluating climate-smart agriculture longitudinally. Climate-smart commitments take place via bilateral aid partnerships with traditional donors such as the United States, as well as emerging donors like Brazil, and private corporations. Using ethnographic methods of participant-observation and interviews with farmer beneficiaries and development practitioners, the researchers will examine how development discourse, technology transfer and farming practice is reconfigured when agricultural aid is mobilized around the climate-smart paradigm. Of particular interest are the ways that women farmers respond to these initiatives, and the local perceptions and lived experiences of environmental change, land rights and food security that emerge in the context of these interventions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

科学家警告说，随着环境冲击加剧和农业越来越容易受到破坏，粮食安全在未来几十年只会面临更大的挑战。面对环境变化和粮食生产的新紧迫感，政策制定者正在决定如何分配发展援助，以在气候智能型农业（CSA）的旗帜下改善粮食系统。 CSA 旨在成为一种实验性和数据驱动的方法，重点是向小农户引入新技术、改良和转基因种子以及新型农业技术，以更有效地减轻快速环境变化的影响。美国自 2010 年以来就是气候智能型概念的早期采用者，但直到最近才开始与国际组织、慈善基金会和跨国公司合作伙伴合作，将官方发展援助直接用于其他地方的明确气候智能型农业 (CSA) 项目。迄今为止，气候智能型农业在实践中的技术和相关内容很少受到深入的学术调查。发展领域的学者和实践者都对气候适应力到底意味着什么以及如何实现和衡量其成功感到困惑。这项研究对研究生进行严格的实证数据收集和分析方法的培训，探讨了气候智能型农业与粮食安全相关实践之间的关系。此外，该项目将通过国际科学合作建设能力和科学基础设施，并通过向从事农业发展和粮食安全相关问题的组织广泛传播研究结果来增强公众科学理解。Serena Stein，在普林斯顿大学 Joao Biehl 博士的监督下大学将通过对非洲东南部莫桑比克正在开展的三个气候智能项目进行扎根研究，研究如何重新制定农业援助，从而对小农产生实验性、关系性和道德影响。 莫桑比克是评估气候智能型农业实践的合适地点。历史上和目前投入的大量发展援助，特别是在可持续发展领域，使其成为纵向评估气候智能型农业的理想实验室。气候智能型承诺是通过与美国等传统捐助者以及巴西等新兴捐助者和私营企业建立双边援助伙伴关系来实现的。研究人员将利用参与观察的人种学方法以及对农民受益者和发展实践者的访谈，研究当围绕气候智能范式动员农业援助时，发展话语、技术转让和农业实践是如何重新配置​​的。特别令人感兴趣的是女性农民对这些举措的反应方式，以及在这些干预措施的背景下出现的当地对环境变化、土地权利和粮食安全的看法和生活经验。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并被认为是值得的通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来获得支持。