Doctoral Dissertation Research: Exploring on-farm innovation, environmental change, and rural livelihoods in the US hop industry

博士论文研究：探索美国啤酒花产业的农场创新、环境变化和农村生计

基本信息

批准号：
1946941
负责人：
Paul Stock
金额：
$ 1.52万
依托单位：
University of Kansas Center for Research Inc
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2020
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2020-03-01 至 2022-05-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1946941&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Doctoral Dissertation Research Exploring farm

项目摘要

Agricultural technological development in North America has been largely directed by large companies controlling innovations in machinery, plant genetics, and agrichemicals. However, hop growing is one agricultural industry that confounds this model. Hops are an herb used in beer-making applications and many of the large Yakima Valley hop growers have invested both in local breeding programs and on-farm infrastructure innovations. The goal of this project is to understand the conditions under which some farmers research and develop their own agricultural technologies while others rely on outside research and to examine the innovations yielded by these diverging approaches to agricultural technologies. Hop farming in the United States offers a natural experiment to understand these differences. This project collects data from hop farmers through on-farm visits and in-depth interviews with farm owners and operators to better understand the social and applied scientific worlds of hop growing in the Northwestern and Midwestern United States. Doing so has the potential to help enhance understanding of how including farmers as research contributors may yield a more vibrant and sustainable agricultural and environmental future for farming in the United States.Drawing on qualitative data collected through on-site interviews and on-farm participant observation, this project responds to two core research questions: (1) How do environmental and market pressures impact decisions about technologies used on the hop farm? (2) What comparative lessons do hop producers have for environmental and technical considerations in other agri-food regimes? Responding to these questions in the context of hop farmers’ novel agricultural practices yields insights into broad societal concerns about labor, culture, and environment at the human-technology frontier. This is especially evident when studying agricultural practices where genetic and mechanical technological innovation has widely been employed to the detriment of farmer profits and the social health of farming communities. The unique position of hop farmers as on-farm innovators yields insights for alternative futures for agricultural technologies in cognate industries. This project contributes to research discourses in both STS and environmental sociology by critically considering where expert agricultural scientific knowledge is produced and maintained, and by questioning who may be considered an expert in agricultural science, particularly plant science. The implications of these queries are important for science-based policy in agricultural and environmental sectors if such policies are to be both inclusive as well as evidence-based. This original research provides novel insights into potential environmental alternatives to conventional models for other agricultures of scale.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.

北美的农业技术发展主要由控制机械，植物遗传学和农业化学物质的创新的大型公司指导。但是，Hop Growing是一个混淆该模型的农业产业。啤酒花是一种用于啤酒酿造的草药，许多大型Yakima Valley Hop种植者都投资于当地的育种计划和农场基础设施创新。该项目的目的是了解一些农民研究并开发自己的农业技术的条件，而其他人则依靠外部研究，并研究这些不同的农业技术方法所产生的创新。美国的跳农业提供了一个自然的实验，以了解这些差异。该项目通过农场访问和对农场所有者和运营商的深入访谈从跳农民那里收集数据，以更好地了解美国西北部和中西部美国的社会和应用科学世界。这样做的潜力能够帮助增强对研究贡献者的了解如何产生更加充满活力和可持续的农业和环境未来，以绘制美国的耕作。绘制通过现场访谈和农场访谈参与参与观察的定性数据，该项目对两个核心研究问题响应：（1）环境和市场对技术的影响如何影响技术，因此对技术的影响如何进行，因此对技术进行了努力。（2）在其他农业食品制度中，哪些比较的课程会吸引生产者对环境和技术考虑的影响？在Hop农民的新颖农业实践的背景下回答这些问题，可以洞悉人类技术领域对劳动，文化和环境的广泛社会关注。在研究遗传和机械技术创新的农业实践中，这是尤其是证据，广泛用于确定农民利润和农业社区的社会健康。 Hop农民作为农场创新者的独特地位为同源行业的农业技术提供了替代期货的见解。该项目通过批判性地考虑了在何处生产和维护专家农业科学知识，并通过质疑谁被认为是农业科学专家，尤其是植物科学的专家，从而为STS和环境社会学的研究论述做出了贡献。这些查询的含义对于基于科学的农业和环境部门的政策至关重要，如果这些政策既包含在内，又是循证的。这项原始研究为其他同意规模的传统模型的潜在环境替代方案提供了新的见解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的审查标准来评估值得获得支持。