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、植物遗传学和农用化学品创新的大公司主导，然而，啤酒花种植是一种混淆了这种模式的农业产业。大型亚基马谷啤酒花种植者投资于当地育种计划和农场基础设施创新。该项目的目标是了解一些农民研究和开发自己的农业技术而另一些农民依赖外部研究和开发的条件。为了检验这些不同的农业技术方法所产生的创新，美国的啤酒花种植提供了一个自然的实验来了解这些差异，该项目通过农场参观和对农场主和经营者的深入访谈来收集数据。更好地了解美国西北部和中西部啤酒花种植的社会和应用科学世界，这样做有可能有助于加深人们对农民作为研究贡献者如何为农业带来更有活力和可持续的农业和环境未来的理解。联合该项目利用通过现场访谈和农场参与者观察收集的定性数据，回答了两个核心研究问题：（1）环境和市场压力如何影响啤酒花农场使用的技术决策？在啤酒花农民新颖的农业实践的背景下，啤酒花生产者在环境和技术考虑方面有哪些比较经验教训？技术前沿。在研究农业实践时尤其明显，其中遗传和机械技术创新已被广泛采用，损害了农民的利润和农业社区的社会健康，啤酒花农民作为农场创新者的独特地位为农业技术的替代未来提供了见解。该项目通过批判性地考虑专业农业科学知识的产生和维持，并质疑谁可以被视为农业科学，特别是植物科学领域的专家，为 STS 和环境社会学的研究话语做出了贡献。对以下方面很重要农业和环境部门的基于科学的政策，如果这些政策既具有包容性又基于证据，这项原创研究为其他规模农业的传统模式的潜在环境替代方案提供了新颖的见解。该奖项的法定使命是。通过使用基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，认为值得支持。