Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c47g7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T01:49:16.160Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Midwestern land-grant university scientists' definitions of sustainable agriculture: A delphi study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2009

G. Walter  and
A. Reisner
G. Walter
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, Office of Agricultural Communications and Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801.
A. Reisner
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Office of Agricultural Communications and Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801.
Get access

Abstract

What scientists include among the essential attributes of sustainable agricultural systems can influence the development of agricultural research agendas and how research is done. Current perspectives on sustainability place varying emphasis on environmental and agrarian values and propose different amounts and kinds of change in agricultural production, agricultural science, and rural social institutions. In a delphi study, agricultural scientists at North Central region land-grant universities considered environmental management and development of new farming technologies as essential to a definition of sustainable agriculture, but gave little importance to social or scientific restructuring. With some qualifications, we characterize their view of sustainability as a stewardship perspective that does not include social considerations and explicitly rejects radical social change.

Keywords

agricultural valuesdelphi methodscience policysociology of scienceland-grant universities
Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of Alternative Agriculture , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , September 1994 , pp. 109 - 121
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Allen, P.L., and Sachs, C.E.. 1991. The social side of sustainability: Class, gender and race. Science as Culture 2(4):569–590.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2.Berry, W. 1977. The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture. Avon Books, New York.Google Scholar
3.Berry, W. 1984. Whose head is the farmer using? Who is using the farmer's head? In Jackson, W., Berry, W., and Colman, B. (eds). Meeting the Expectations of the Land. North Point Press, San Francisco, California, pp. 19–30.Google Scholar
4.Beus, C.E., and Dunlap, R.E.. 1990. Conventional versus alternative agriculture: The paradigmatic roots of the debate. Rural Sociology 55(4):590–616.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5.Beus, C.E., and Dunlap, R.E.. 1991. Measuring adherence to alternative vs. conventional agricultural paradigms: A proposed scale. Rural Sociology 56(3):432–460.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6.Beus, C.E., and Dunlap, R.E.. 1992. The alternative-conventional agriculture debate: Where do agricultural faculty stand? Rural Sociology 57(3):363–380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7.Busch, L., and Lacy, W.B.. 1983. Science, Agriculture, and the Politics of Research. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado.Google Scholar
8.Buttel, F.H., and Gillespie, G.W.. 1988. Agricultural research and development and the appropriation of progressive symbols: Some observations on the politics of ecological agriculture. Bull. 151. Dept. of Rural Sociology, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, New York.Google Scholar
9.Douglass, G. 1984. The meanings of agricultural sustainability. In Douglass, G. (ed). Agricultural Sustainability in a Changing World Order. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, pp. 3–30.Google Scholar
10.Evenson, R.E., Wagoner, P.E., and Ruttan, V.W.. 1979. Economic benefits from research: An example from agriculture. Science 205:1101–1107.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
11.Flora, C.B. 1992. Reconstructing agriculture: The case for local knowledge. Rural Sociology 57(1):92–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12.Freudenberger, C. 1986. Value and ethical dimensions of alternative agricultural approaches: In quest of a regenerative and just agriculture. In Dahlberg, K. A. (ed). New Directions for Agriculture and Agricultural Research. Rowman and Allenheld, Totowa, New Jersey, pp. 348–364.Google Scholar
13.Hadwiger, D.F. 1982. The Politics of Agricultural Research. Univ. of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.Google Scholar
14.Hamlin, C. 1991. Green meanings: What might “sustainable agriculture” sustain? Science as Culture 2(4):507–537.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15.Hightower, J. 1973. Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times. Schenkman Publishing Co., Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
16.Jackson, W. 1984. A search for the unifying concept for sustainable agriculture. In Jackson, W., Berry, W., and Colman, B. (eds). Meeting the Expectations of the Land. North Point Press, San Francisco, California, pp. 208–229.Google Scholar
17.Jackson, W. 1987. Altars of Unhewn Stone. North Point Press, San Francisco, California.Google Scholar
18.Kloppenburg, J.R. Jr., 1991a. Social theory and the de/reconstruction of agricultural science: Local knowledge for an alternative agriculture. Rural Sociology 56(4):519–548.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
19.Kloppenburg, J.R. Jr., 1991b. Alternative agriculture and the new biotechnologies. Science as Culture 2(4):482–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
20.Levidow, L. 1991. Cleaning up on the farm. Science as Culture 2(4):538–568.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
21.Linstone, H.A., and Turoff, M.. 1975. The Delphi Method: Techniques and Applications. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
22.MacRae, R.J., Hill, S.B., Henning, J., and Mehuys, G.R.. 1989. Agricultural science and sustainable agriculture: A review of the existing scientific barriers to sustainable food production and potential solutions. Biological Agric. and Horticulture 6:173–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
23.Molnar, J.J., Duffy, P.A., Cummins, K.A., and Van Santen, E.. 1992. Agricultural science and agricultural counterculture: Paradigms in search of a future. Rural Sociology 57(1):83–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
24.National Research Council. 1989. Alternative Agriculture. Board on Agriculture. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
25.Ruttan, V.W. 1982. Agricultural Research Policy. Univ. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.Google Scholar
26.Ruttan, V.W. 1987. Agricultural scientists as reluctant revolutionaries. Choices 2:3.Google Scholar