Social Innovation and Sustainability Transition

383 Pages·2022·20.427 MB·English

by  Geoff Desa, Xiangping Jia

Geoff Desa
Xiangping Jia   Editors
Social Innovation
and Sustainability
Transition
Social Innovation and Sustainability Transition
Geoff Desa (cid:129) Xiangping Jia
Editors
Social Innovation
and Sustainability Transition
Previously published inAgriculture and HumanValues Volume37,
Issue 4, December 2020
123
Editors
Geoff Desa Xiangping Jia
LamFamily Collegeof Business ChineseAcademy of Agricultural Sciences
SanFrancisco State University Beijing,China
SanFrancisco, CA, USA
ISBN978-3-031-18559-5 ISBN978-3-031-18560-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18560-1
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SwitzerlandAG2022
Chapters “Palatable disruption: the politics of plant milk”, “Feeding the melting pot: inclusive strategies for the
multi-ethnic city”, “A carrot isn’t a carrot isn’t a carrot: tracing value in alternative practices of food exchange”,
“Virtualizing the ‘good life’: reworking narratives of agrarianism and the rural idyll in a computer game” and
“‘Workable utopias’ for social change through inclusion and empowerment? Community supported agriculture
(CSA) in Wales as social innovation” are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
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Contents
Radical roots and twenty-first century realities: rediscovering the egalitarian
aspirations of Land Grant University Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Marcia Ostrom
Palatable disruption: the politics of plant milk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Nathan Clay, Alexandra E. Sexton, Tara Garnett, and Jamie Lorimer
To the market and back? A study of the interplay between public policy
and market-driven initiatives to improve farm animal welfare in the Danish
pork sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Lars Esbjerg
How farmers “repair” the industrial agricultural system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Matthew Houser, Ryan Gunderson, Diana Stuart, and Riva C. H. Denny
Agencing an innovative territorial trade scheme between crop and livestock
farming: the contributions of the sociology of market agencements
to alternative agri-food network analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Ronan Le Velly and Marc Moraine
Competing food sovereignties: GMO-free activism, democracy
and state preemptive laws in Southern Oregon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Rebecka Daye
Feeding the melting pot: inclusive strategies for the multi-ethnic city . . . . . . . . . . 93
Anke Brons, Peter Oosterveer, and Sigrid Wertheim-Heck
Acting like an algorithm: digital farming platforms and the trajectories
they (need not) lock-in. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Michael Carolan
Sustainability transitions in agri-food systems: insights from South Korea’s
universal free, eco-friendly school lunch program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Jennifer E. Gaddis and June Jeon
The real meal deal: assessing student preferences for “real food”
at Fort Lewis College. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Kathleen Hilimire and Carl Schnitker
From texts to enacting practices: defining fair and equitable research
principles for plant genetic resources in West Africa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
F. Jankowski, S. Louafi, N. A. Kane, M. Diol, A. Diao Camara, J.-L. Pham,
C. Berthouly-Salazar, and A. Barnaud
A carrot isn’t a carrot isn’t a carrot: tracing value in alternative practices
offood exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Galina Kallio
v
vi Contents
From left behind to leader: gender, agency, and food sovereignty in China . . . . . 177
Li Zhang
Effects of institutional pressures on the governance offood safety
in emerging food supply chains: A case of Lebanese food processors . . . . . . . . . . 191
Gumataw Kifle Abebe
Farmer field schools and the co-creation of knowledge and innovation:
the mediating role of social capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Chrysanthi Charatsari, Evagelos D. Lioutas, and Alex Koutsouris
Virtualizing the ‘good life’: reworking narratives of agrarianism
and the rural idyll in a computer game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Lee-Ann Sutherland
When farmers are pulled in too many directions: comparing institutional
drivers offood safety and environmental sustainability in California
agriculture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Patrick Baur
Political economy challenges for climate smart agriculture in Africa. . . . . . . . . . . 261
Helena Shilomboleni
Sustainability transitions in the context of pandemic: an introduction
to the focused issue on social innovation and systemic impact. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Geoffrey Desa and Xiangping Jia
Social entrepreneurship and impact investment in rural–urban transformation:
An orientation to systemic social innovation and symposium findings. . . . . . . . . . 283
Xiangping Jia and Geoffrey Desa
‘Workable utopias’ for social change through inclusion and empowerment?
Community supported agriculture (CSA) in Wales as social innovation . . . . . . . . 307
Tezcan Mert-Cakal and Mara Miele
Bridging the rural–urban divide in social innovation transfer:
the role of values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Imran Chowdhury
Blended finance for agriculture: exploring the constraints and possibilities
of combining financial instruments for sustainable transitions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
Tanja Havemann, Christine Negra, and Fred Werneck
Priming the pump of impact entrepreneurship and social finance in China . . . . . 359
Xiangping Jia
Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern: The new American farmer: immigration,
race, and the struggle for sustainability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
Eden Kinkaid
Carol Off: Bitter chocolate: anatomy of an industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
Allison L. Brown
Harvey S. James, Jr. (ed.): Ethical tensions from new technology:
the case of agricultural biotechnology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
Sonja Lindberg
Gina Rae La Cerva: Feasting wild: in search of the last untamed food. . . . . . . . . 385
F. E. Jack Putz
Contents vii
Stan cox: the green new deal and beyond: ending the climate emergency
while we still can . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
Jacob A. Miller
Books received. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
Agriculture and Human Values (2020) 37:935–943
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-020-10163-0
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
Radical roots and twenty‑first century realities: rediscovering
the egalitarian aspirations of Land Grant University Extension
Marcia Ostrom1
Accepted: 26 September 2020 / Published online: 20 October 2020
© Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract
Anniversaries and funding crises prompt periodic calls to reevaluate the mission and public perceptions of the U.S. Land-
Grant University system. One such call was issued by the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State Colleges and Land
Grant Universities in their 1999 report, “Returning to Our Roots: the Engaged Institution.” Written by leaders of state uni-
versities and land-grant colleges, this report urges these institutions to engage more authentically and equitably in two-way
relationships with their local constituents. Twenty years later, Land-Grant Universities continue to struggle with building
widespread public support for their missions and equitable involvement in research, teaching, and extension functions across
diverse constituencies. While largely discounted by the Kellogg Commission, a fresh look at the role originally envisioned
for the extension arm of the trifold land-grant mandate suggests that we may be conceiving of this system too narrowly.
The establishment of statewide extension systems was once seen as a way to ensure that Land-Grant Universities would
be accessible and responsive to all of a state’s residents. Extension systems continue to offer a front-door to a major public
university in almost every county of the United States, but they tend to be viewed primarily as a way to translate science or
distribute information from the university to the public. This discussion uses a historical and modern lens to reimagine the
role that Extension could potentially play in catalyzing reciprocal, co-learning relationships between Land-Grant Universi-
ties and their diverse local constituencies.
Keywords Land-Grant University · Extension · Cooperative Extension · Community engagement · Community
development · Educational organizing
Introduction
it was built. Two recent addresses at past AFHVS annual
meetings asked hard questions about the consequences of the
A major university in each U.S. county. This is the prom- commercialization of our public agricultural research sys-
ise of Land-Grant University Extension: placing the best of tem for society and the environment: Leland Glenna’s 2017
science within local reach and holding science accountable Presidential Address, “The Purpose-Driven University: the
to local needs. Today, this vision faces unprecedented chal- role of university research in the era of science commerciali-
lenges. Loss of funding, public indifference, environmental zation” (Glenna 2017)  and the 2018 Keynote by agronomist
disruption, and social inequity all threaten the democratic Ricardo Salvador, “Science is not Neutral.”
aims of our national Extension system. In the face of con- While these speakers posed questions about the direction
temporary challenges, I find it instructive to consider the of our public research system, I ask questions about what is
origins of this system and the bold aspirations on which at stake if we lose our vision of a rigorous, publicly-driven
extension system. First, I consider the historical purpose and
ideals of early Land-Grant University Extension based on
Presidential Address, Agriculture Food and Human Values the words and work of its founding leaders. Second, I take
Society, Anchorage Alaska, June 29, 2019.
a look inside today’s Extension and its publicly stated pur-
* pose. Finally, I compare and contrast these sketches from the
Marcia Ostrom
[email protected] past and present to inform consideration of future possibili-
ties. How should we conceive of this system and its purpose
1 School of the Environment, Washington State University, going forward? What are its roles and responsibilities? I
Wenatchee, WA, USA
123
1 Reprinted from the journal
M. Ostrom
approach this topic from my personal experience as a long- the Hatch Act of 1887 that established public Agricultural
time, Land-Grant University faculty member with an Exten- Experiment stations to be managed by the Land-Grant Uni-
sion appointment. versities in each state. The Morrill Act of 1890 established
You may have seen periodic calls to reexamine the mis- historically black colleges and universities (HBCU). It was
sion of our land-grant system, particularly at anniversaries the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 that formalized a national
or when budget cuts loom. One of the more notable calls in Cooperative Extension System to be jointly financed by
recent years was the 1999 Kellogg Commission report on county, state, and federal governments. A system of tribal
the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities, “Returning colleges and universities was established in 1994 (Land
to our Roots: the Engaged Institution.” Written by 25 state Grant Impacts 2019a; NIFA 2008a, 2008b, 2009, 2019a).
and Land-Grant University presidents, the report warned Despite stated goals of countering the elitism of private
of “growing public frustration with what is seen to be our universities by creating widespread access to higher edu-
unresponsiveness” and “a perception that we are out of touch cation, this successive legislation reflected deeply flawed
and out of date.” The proposed solution was to profoundly politics of domination, discrimination, and segregation by
re-envision the concept of “university engagement” based class, gender, and race (INFAS 2018; Stein 2017). Much of
on principles of sharing and reciprocity. The Commission the land comprising the original “grants” had been recently
set out seven-part guidelines for transforming “inherited appropriated from tribes (Stein 2017). The 1890 land grant
concepts” of extension and outreach that “emphasize a one- colleges had to be created because Black residents in the
way process in which the university transfers its expertise Confederate States were being shut out of the original 1862
to key constituents” to “two-way streets defined by mutual colleges. Even then funds for research and extension were
respect among the partners for what each brings to the table” not allocated fairly across the 1862 and 1890 institutions
(1999, p. 9). These guidelines emphasized accessibility and (Comer et al. 2006; Lee and Keys 2013). The tribal col-
working in partnership with diverse community groups to leges and universities were also added because of a lack
bring university knowledge resources to bear on the actual of access. An account of the land-grant systems’ founding
problems faced by communities. ideals would be incomplete without acknowledging these
More recently, my university brought in Steven Gavazzi foundational contradictions. Such recognition is imperative
to talk about his book, The Land Grant Universities of the when considering how the past informs future opportunities
Future written with Gordon Gee, a Land-Grant University and responsibilities in Extension. To explore some of these
president and former member of the Kellogg Commission questions in more human terms, I look to the example of its
(Gavazzi and Gee 2018). In their book, Gavazzi and Gee ask first leaders.
how Land-Grant Universities can reclaim their place as the
Cornell University extension
“people’s universities.” Their recommendation for renewing
public support is to ensure widespread access and prioritize
community-based work as “mission-critical” across all uni- Liberty Hyde Bailey of Cornell has the distinction of leading
versity functions and disciplines, an organizational orienta- the first continuous, government-funded Extension program
tion they refer to as being a “servant university” (p. 160). at a Land-Grant College. New York State allocated its first
While some might think that this is exactly what the funds in 1894, well before the Smith-Lever Act. I was first
Extension system was set up to accomplish (Smith 1949), it introduced to Bailey’s ecological approach to agriculture
is barely mentioned in this book. Making sense of why these and his democratic views of education from a talk by Scott
publications do not turn towards this century-old organi- Peters at the (2001) annual AFHVS meetings. A well-known
zation for leading community engagement efforts requires horticulturist and prolific publisher of seminal works such as
revisiting its past and present and the ways that it has been the Encyclopedia of Plants in Agriculture and How Plants
portrayed. get their Names, Bailey’s extension programs followed his
philosophy that the “getting of information is but the begin-
ning of education” (1903, p. 14). He believed that the study
Historical roots and aspirations
of nature would inspire people to investigate for themselves
and wrote that “knowledge is not the peculiar property of
What is a Land-Grant University? The series of Land Grant the teacher, but is the right of anyone who seeks it” (1903,
Acts was designed to democratize access to higher education p. 29,145). For Bailey, the purpose of Extension was to
in three ways: Teaching, Research, and Extension. The Mor- improve the quality of individual and civic life through
rill Act of 1862 was about teaching. This Act apportioned building connections with nature, community, and a scien-
tracts of land to each state to finance a public college that tific spirit of observation and experimentation (Peters 2006).
would “promote the liberal and practical education of the His programs engaged tens of thousands of rural people in
industrial classes.” This was followed by a research measure, locally-led reading circles, farmer institutes and on-farm
123
Reprinted from the journal 2
Radical roots and twenty‑first century realities: rediscovering the egalitarian aspirations …
research and demonstration projects. Members of the pub- Nature Study Handbook became Cornell’s best-selling
lic were invited to campus for “Farm and home Weeks.” He publication (Comstock 1911; Smith 1949, p. 39).
eventually became Dean of the College of Agriculture and From her involvement with the nature study movement
chaired President Roosevelt’s 1908 Commission on Country as a county education commissioner, Martha Van Rens-
Life that recommended a national extension system. selaer was recruited by Comstock and Bailey in 1900 to
In his assessment of the Land Grant Acts, Bailey extolled organize Extension programs for rural women. The daugh-
their inclusive spirit. He considered the system of public ter of a suffragette, Van Rensselaer was committed to
agricultural colleges foundational to “the future welfare and empowering women through access to education. Within
peace of the people” (1915, p. 94). At the founding of Smith- 5 years, she had enrolled 20,000 women in reading courses
Lever Extension, he observed: and trained local women to lead study clubs (CU 2001;
Smith 1949). Initially hired to start a reading program, she
No such national plan on such a scale has ever been
went on to found the Department of Home Economics that
attempted and it almost staggers one when one even
later became Cornell’s College of Human Ecology. Van
partially comprehends the tremendous consequences
Rensselaer co-directed the Home Economics program with
that in all likelihood will come of it. The significance
her life and professional partner, Flora Rose, with whom
of it is not yet grasped by the great body of people.
she shared a professorship (Fig. 2).
Now the problem is to relate all of this public work to
Sometimes called the “Miss Van Rose,” they led efforts
the development of a democracy (1915:94).
both on and off-campus to mentor and empower women
Bailey’s ambitious vision illustrated the pivotal role he through organizing local civic organizations and creating
hoped that Extension and Land-Grant education would play access to education, professional positions, and leadership
in enhancing civic participation. opportunities for even “that last forgotten woman hidden
In his Extension program, Bailey hired the first women away on a back-roads farm” (Rose in Smith 1949, p. 89;
faculty at Cornell: Martha Van Rensselaer and Anna Bots- CU 2001). Some of you may know that Cornell’s Martha
ford Comstock. Comstock pioneered the field of nature study Van Rensselear Hall was built with funds raised by her
in the 1890s that spread across the country and helped to friend Eleanor Roosevelt (Smith 1949). Roosevelt and Van
popularize a conservation ethic (Smith 1949; Armitage Rensselaer’s views were in keeping with other leaders of
2009). The first report submitted by Cornell Extension to the emerging home economics movement who defined the
the legislature listed nature study as the most important agri- concept of "home" broadly in order to include health and
cultural extension method (Smith 1949, p. 66). Comstock nutrition, the environment, the community, and the city
taught farmers, academics, teachers, and youth about nature as arenas for women’s civic participation and leadership
study as a method of everyday, place-based scientific inquiry (Clancy 1999).
and self-discovery (Fig. 1).
Comstock’s popular nature study leaflets led to a jun-
ior naturalist magazine, teaching curricula, and a Nature
Study Handbook. Dubbed the “Nature Bible,” Comstock’s
Fig. 2 The Cornell Department of Home Economics, 1914, with
Fig. 1 Comstock (left) and Bailey (right) favored nature study as an Rose second from left and Van Rensselaer third from left on bottom
extension method (Cornell University Library 2019a) row (Cornell University Library 2019b)
123
3 Reprinted from the journal