Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: In the United States, the Department of Agriculture has encouraged consumers to “know your farmer” because, as the bumper sticker tells us, “know farmers, know food.” In part, these statements aim to broaden agricultural knowledge beyond the farm sector, creating a more agriculturally literate population. In a larger sense, though, they aim to make visible the intricate web of farming practices, market and state dynamics, and individual food ‘consumer’ actions that, together, condition food access, food security, and agricultural sustainability. The papers in this issue of CAFE bring together ideas about two elements of that web: agricultural producers’ knowledge and practice, on the one hand; and concepts and practices underlying efforts to increase food security, on the other. What do we need to understand about farmer knowledge and learning, as farmers respond to changing conditions? And what do we need to know about increasing food security, especially in the context of long-standing social, political, and economic conditions that have worked to create economic and food insecurity? Glenn Davis Stone starts the issue out by ambitiously outlining a new theoretical approach to agricultural knowledge in Towards a General Theory of Agricultural Knowledge Production: Environmental, Social and Didactic Learning. Stone closely examines anthropological theories of agricultural knowledge, including well-known ideas about farmer experimentation and decision making, and the nuances of social learning in agriculture. He adds another element to these theoretical approaches by including “didactic learning,” in which third parties, including NGOs, agricultural input dealers, and government agencies, contribute to agricultural knowledge, even as their interests are at times different from those of farmers. Taking a long perspective—over three thousand years, to be specific—Verónica Pérez Rodríguez uses an innovative methodological approach to reflect on questions of continuity and innovation in farming knowledge. In Terrace Agriculture in the Mixteca Alta Region, Oaxaca, Mexico: Ethnographic and Archeological Insights on Terrace Construction and Labor Organization, she undertakes research with contemporary Mixteca farmers on agricultural terrace construction and use to expand our understandings of the fundamental significances of terracing in social organization and agricultural resilience, from Prehispanic times through the current period of globalized markets, products, and agricultural technologies. In Monilia (Moniliophtora roreri) and the Post-Development of Belizean Cacao, Erik Stanley offers a case study of the causes of and responses to the emergence of disease in Belize's Maya-dominated cacao production. Stanley's exploration is a good complement to Stone's expanded theory of farmer learning, as it tracks the effects of “didactic learning” in a particular time and context. Stanley is concerned with the ways in which “Western” agri-science not only works to change indigenous relational interactions with nature, but how, in creating the physical conditions for plant disease, it also further perpetuates its dominance in attempting to resolve them. Interestingly, Stanley's exploration raises questions about ways in which the knowledge politics of agricultural extension and development both do and do not succeed in transforming Maya knowledge and practices. In “The Earth Gives Us So Much”: Agroecology and Rural Women's Leadership in Uruguay, Beatriz Oliver illuminates yet another layer of agricultural knowledge and practice, showing how farmer-to-farmer interactions can enhance agricultural practices and success. Through ethnographic work among a women's herb cooperative in Uruguay, she shows how women's knowledge and leadership is critical to the development of an economically sustainable agricultural system. She reminds us of the importance of women's voices in agriculture to ensure social justice and sustainable practices. The final two research articles in this issue look at the assumptions and practices of increasing food security. Nila Ginger Hofman examines how food practices have changed in Croatia during the post-socialist era in Bridging Food Scarcity: Croatian Women's Responses to Consumer Capitalism. Based on her work with women of diverse age groups, Hofman finds that their food practices are closely related to their perceptions about changing opportunities for consumers in Croatia and their past experiences working in a socialist society. Some forage for food and emphasize a cultural connection to Croatian cuisine, while others embrace the new convenience foods and western-style grocery stores that the post-socialist era has accommodated. Katherine Lambert-Pennington and Kathryn Hicks take us to the southern United States, where farmers markets work toward serving patrons of all ages, races, and income brackets. In Class Conscious, Color-Blind: Examining the Dynamics of Food Access and the Justice Potential of Farmers Markets, they tell the story of implementing the Senior Farmers Market Nutritional Program in Memphis farmers markets. Despite the intentions of both federal programs and local initiatives to increase food access among underserved populations, their work exposes some of the unanticipated ways in which class and race dynamics continue to reproduce exclusion among “alternative food networks.” They show the ultimate importance of local and senior activism in moving these Memphis initiatives toward understandings that actually promote greater inclusion. Finally, Bradley M. Jones reviews Katherine J. Black's Row by Row: Talking with Kentucky Gardeners, a rich collection of oral histories and vignettes that reveal the greater significances—beyond just provisioning of food and substances—of gardening and farming in the 21st century. Gardening is, according to the book, “a site where moral or spiritual actions are mediated and life's lessons are cultivated,” and according to reviewer Jones, “a metonym for the moral order, made manifest in material and edible form.” With this issue, we mark the transition of Jeanne Simonelli, valiant CAFE editor and reformer since 2010, to other pursuits. Jeanne took the helm at a time of CAFE transition to an expanded scope, helped increase our readership and journal quality significantly, and worked at taming publication costs. Culture & Agriculture will stay tuned to Jeanne's endeavors as she turns her talents to other areas, such as mining and extraction impacts, that also desperately need them. At the same time, we welcome Brandi Janssen as new co-editor to Stephanie Paladino. Together and with the growing CAFE community, we look forward to expanding and enriching our journal's role as one of the few venues exclusively focused on anthropologically relevant analyses of agricultural and environmental concerns. Please join us!
DOI: 10.1111/cuag.12060
Authors: Stephanie Paladino, Brandi Janssen
Language: English
Domain: Life Sciences
SDG: Zero hunger
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2553499445