Global AIDS epidemic: time to turn the tide

HIV/AIDS is catastrophic both from a public health perspective and in terms of its impact on economic and social stability in many of the most severely affected nations, including virtually all of southern Africa. A public health response alone is insufficient to address this devastating epidemic. Political leadership at the highest levels is needed to mobilize a multisectoral response to the impact of HIV/AIDS on educational systems, industry, agriculture, the military, and other sectors. With a few notable exceptions, political response was slow to mobilize in the early years of the epidemic, but response has dramatically improved in the past 18 months. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) is involved in ongoing efforts to encourage political leaders to make a multisectoral response to the epidemic a major focus of their national plans.     

韩国“新村运动”起因研究

通过政治、社会经济发展和农业经济自身发展3个层面对韩国"新村运动"的起因进行分析。结果显示:韩国"新村运动"是当时韩国政治、社会经济、农业自身发展途中的一次必然的选择。     

Growing food,growing a movement: climate adaptation and civic agriculture in the southeastern United States

This article examines the role that civic agriculture in Georgia (US) plays in shaping attitudes, strategies, and relationships that foster both sustainability and adaptation to a changing climate. Civic agriculture is a social movement that attracts a specific type of “activist” farmer, who is linked to a strong social network that includes other farmers and consumers. Positioning farmers’ practices within a social movement broadens the understanding of adaptive capacity beyond how farmers adapt to understand why they do so. By drawing upon qualitative and quantitative data and by focusing on the cosmological, organizational, and technical dimensions of the social movement, the study illuminates how social values and networks shape production and marketing strategies that enable farmers to share resources and risks. We propose a conceptual framework for understanding how technical and social strategies aimed to address the sustainability goals of the movement also increase adaptive capacity at multiple timescales. In conclusion, we outline directions for future research, including the need for longitudinal studies that focus on consumer motivation and willingness to pay, the effects of scale on consumer loyalty and producer cooperation, and the role of a social movement in climate change adaptation. Finally, we stress that farmers’ ability to thrive in uncertain climate futures calls for transformative approaches to sustainable agriculture that support the development of strong social networks.     

美国公民教育对我国农林高校思想政治教育社会化的启示

介绍了美国公民教育实为客观存在的思想政治教育,分析了美国公民教育的社会化取向及其对我国农林高校思想政治教育社会化的启示。     

高校学生干部思想状况调查与分析——以郑州大学等五所高校为例

通过对郑州大学等五所高校学生干部政治信仰、理想信念、价值取向、诚信意识、社会责任感、艰苦奋斗精神的调查,认为广大学生干部思想的主旋律是理智、爱国、务实、进取的,但也存在着参与政治活动热情不高,重个人前途,轻社会责任,缺乏毅力等问题。     

Leaders,leadership, and democratization in West Africa: Observations from the cotton farmers movement in Mali

It is widely accepted that the success of rural nongovernmental organizations depends heavily on leadership and the organizational abilities of individual leaders. Drawing on the recent history of the cotton farmers' movement in Mali, this article identifies critical issues related to the development and sustainability of rural leadership. Special attention is given to how both heroic and post-heroic approaches to leadership might be joined in order to help nongovernmental organizations contribute to both political democratization and economic development.     

The social goals of agriculture

An analysis of social goals for agriculture presupposes an account of systematic interactions among economic, political, and ecological forces that influence the performance of agriculture in a given society. This account must identify functional performance criteria that lend themselves to interpretation as normative or ethical goals. Individuals who act within the system pursue personal goals. Although individual acts and decisions help satisfy functional performance criteria, individuals may never conceptualize or understand these criteria, and, hence, social goals for agriculture may not be intentionally sought or desired by any human being. The statement of social goals is not, therefore, reducible to statements about individual desires and preferences, and the validity of social goals does not depend upon deriving a social welfare function, nor upon measuring interpersonal utility. The paper examines a series of strategies for defining social goals for agriculture, beginning with the statement of goals offered by William Aiken in 1983. Aiken's view stresses individually based constraints upon action, but social goals cannot be adequately defined on this view. Successively more adequate approaches to the problem of social goals are examined with respect to production and efficiency, Jeffersonian democracy, and ecosystem goals of community and self-reliance. The role of family farms, and the change in farm structure is evaluated in light of this analysis for social goals.     

关于“共产主义”的三种理解

马克思和恩格斯的革命理论落脚点在于全人类的解放与自由,为此,马克思和恩格斯把一生都献给了伟大的共产主义事业。对于什么是共产主义,则从三个角度给出了解释:首先,共产主义是一种运动。其次,共产主义具有经济的性质。再次,共产主义是一种新的理想的社会制度。作为经济的共产主义是在运动中展开和实现的,共产主义社会制度的建立也不是最终的目的,而是为了实现人类的解放和全面发展。     

On food security and alternative food networks: understanding and performing food security in the context of urban bias

This paper offers one explanation for the institutional basis of food insecurity in Australia, and argues that while alternative food networks and the food sovereignty movement perform a valuable function in building forms of social solidarity between urban consumers and rural producers, they currently make only a minor contribution to Australia’s food and nutrition security. The paper begins by identifying two key drivers of food security: household incomes (on the demand side) and nutrition-sensitive, ‘fair food’ agriculture (on the supply side). We focus on this second driver and argue that healthy populations require an agricultural sector that delivers dietary diversity via a fair and sustainable food system. In order to understand why nutrition-sensitive, fair food agriculture is not flourishing in Australia we introduce the development economics theory of urban bias. According to this theory, governments support capital intensive rather than labour intensive agriculture in order to deliver cheap food alongside the transfer of public revenues gained from rural agriculture to urban infrastructure, where the majority of the voting public resides. We chart the unfolding of the Urban Bias across the twentieth century and its consolidation through neo-liberal orthodoxy, and argue that agricultural policies do little to sustain, let alone revitalize, rural and regional Australia. We conclude that by observing food system dynamics through a re-spatialized lens, Urban Bias Theory is valuable in highlighting rural–urban socio-economic and political economy tensions, particularly regarding food system sustainability. It also sheds light on the cultural economy tensions for alternative food networks as they move beyond niche markets to simultaneously support urban food security and sustainable rural livelihoods.     

An activist press: The farm press's coverage of the animal rights movement

The animal rights movement is a serious challenge to current agricultural practices. Agriculture's response, in part, depends on how successfully it can mobilize its natural constituency, farmers. However, theories of the mainstream press suggest that the mainstream press generally covers events, rarely reports or adopts the perspective of alternative movements, rarely includes mobilizing information, and suggests that routine social structures can, should, and will contain the movement. Hence, current theory indicates that the mainstream press does not act to mobilize the general public. However, very little research has examined how specialized presses, such as the farm press, respond to movements. The study reported here was based on an analysis of 406 articles from ten farm magazines. The findings suggest that the farm press acted more as an advocacy press than does the mainstream press. Collectively, the farm press articles included as many positions pieces and stories explaining animal rights as an issue as they did event stories. The articles reported, and countered, the positions of the animal rights movement; suggested that routine social structures might not contain the animal rights movement; called for agriculture to mobilize; and included specific recommendations concerning how agriculture should mobilize.     

Commentary social justice and sustainable agriculture: Moving beyond theory

One of the ongoing debates in the sustainable agriculture community is whether its platform should include social justice issues like farmworker rights, economic concentration, and hunger. The commentary describes the evolution of this controversy, and places it in the context of competing and complicated moral theories that turn out to be of somewhat limited use in political arguments. The essay also outlines ways in which the present political climate is presenting a challenge to sustainable agriculture proponents, who, in response, are building new linkages with urban interests, including anti-hunger organization. Despite abstract philosophical and more real political problems, a community food security agenda is being crafted, joining the interests of small farms, family farm, and sustainability advocates, and anti-hunger groups. Their focus is community and economic development as a way to improve the quality and availability of inner city food supplies, and to develop new markets and political allies for farmers.     

Tracing the linkages of world views,information handling,and communications vehicles

The animal rights movement is a serious challenge to current agricultural practices. Agriculture's response, in part, depends on how successfully it can mobilize its natural constituency, farmers. However, theories of the mainstream press suggest that the mainstream press generally covers events, rarely reports or adopts the perspective of alternative movements, rarely includes mobilizing information, and suggests that routine social structures can, should, and will contain the movement. Hence, current theory indicates that the mainstream press does not act to mobilize the general public. However, very little research has examined how specialized presses, such as the farm press, respond to movements. The study reported here was based on an analysis of 406 articles from ten farm magazines. The findings suggest that the farm press acted more as an advocacy press than does the mainstream press. Collectively, the farm press articles included as many positions pieces and stories explaining animal rights as an issue as they did event stories. The articles reported, and countered, the positions of the animal rights movement; suggested that routine social structures might not contain the animal rights movement; called for agriculture to mobilize; and included specific recommendations concerning how agriculture should mobilize.Ann Reisner is an assistant professor of agricultural communications and a fellow at the Program for the Study of Cultural Values and Ethics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her primary interest area is agriculture, communications, and values and she has written numerous research articles in this area. She is also co-editor of this special issue on communications.     

农林高校实施课程思政的价值、困境与优化路径

实施课程思政是健全高校育才、育人的重要举措,农林高校是乡村振兴人才的培育库。农林高校实施课程思政具有促进个体成才、推动学校建设和服务社会需要的价值。农林高校实施课程思政存在教师认知和能力不足的主体之困、思政元素挖掘偏颇的内容之困、管理低效的机制之困、校园文化育人不足的环境之困。针对农林高校实施课程思政的共性和特性问题,应发挥教师实施课程思政主体作用;厘定课程思政内容边界,贯通专业课程思政元素交互桥梁;健全教学组织运行机制;全面建设高辨识度校园文化。     

“It’s hard to be strategic when your hair is on fire”: alternative food movement leaders’ motivation and capacity to act

Despite decades of struggle against the industrial food system, academics still question the impact of the alternative food movement. We consider what food movement leaders themselves say about their motivation to act and their capacity to scale up their impact. Based on semi-structured interviews with 27 food movement leaders in Michigan, our findings complicate the established academic narratives that revolve around notions of prefigurative and oppositional politics, and suggest pragmatic strategies that could scale up the pace and scope of food movement impacts. In contrast to the apolitical perspective some scholars see guiding alternative food movements, local leaders we interviewed see the food system from a structural-political lens. Though some see strength in fragmentation, most are not under the illusion that they can work alone and aspire to build their collective strength further. Concerns about organizational survival and conflicting views about the goals of the food movement, however, present ongoing challenges. Ultimately, we argue that there is a middle ground food movement leaders can walk between prefigurative and oppositional politics, one that still attempts to intentionally change the state, while also maintaining the inventiveness that can come from autonomous, grassroots initiatives. Specifically, interviewees suggested that increased strategic capacity around policy advocacy, critical food systems education, and negotiation could help them extend cross-movement networks and mainstream more equitable food policies, while continuing to experiment with customized solutions.     

Sustainable agriculture in Michigan: Some missing dimensions

Michigan's approach to sustainability does not conflict with its efforts to reindustrialize state agriculture. As currently applied, agricultural sustainability remains a one-dimensional concept tightly focused on the condition of production resources and the larger physical environment. The social and political dimensions of sustainability, by contrast, are conspicuously absent. Using Michigan's livestock initiative as a case in point, it is argued that this conceptualization conforms to and reinforces the reindustrialization of agriculture and the existing structure of power within the industry.Laura B. DeLind is a Specialist in the Department of Anthropology at Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan. Her current research focuses on the economic and political structure of Michigan agriculture. She has written numerous articles critically evaluating the effects of state agricultural programs and policies at the local or community level.     

Water quality concerns and the public policy context

National water quality concerns are creating momentum for legislation that takes a proactive stance toward agricultural practices involving agrichemicals. In response, the Environmental Protection Agency has asked the states to design appropriate non-point source pollution policies. This article examines the issues involved in two ways. First, it reviews the literature on previous conservation policies and discusses the implications for stricter regulation. Second, in order to determine the public opinion context for non-point source pollution policies, it examines the responses of a sample of Oklahoma rural leaders to a set of environmental, water quality, political, economic, and family farm orientation items developed in previous surveys. The analysis considers areas of agreement and disagreement related to socio-economic status, education, and extent of involvement in farming. It concludes that although Oklahoma's rural leaders are concerned about water quality problems, an environmentally-sound formulation of rural values has yet to develop. The most serious obstacle appears to be the perceived threat of environmental regulations to the variability of production agriculture.     

政党意志与革命场景的背离——以晋绥边区农业互助合作运动的偏差为例

农业互助合作运动的开展是抗日战争和解放战争时期共产党经济政策中的重要环节。这一运动曾为共产党赢得战争并最后夺取政权获取合法性权威,但其发展过程中出现政党意志与革命场景背离的问题亦不容忽视。以战时晋绥边区农业互助合作运动中出现的偏差为线索,在分析这一现象的表现、产生原因及其纠正方式的基础上,深刻反思其给予今天党员自身建设与"三农"问题的启示。     

对农业战略地位的再认识

农业是经济发展和社会稳定的基础。重视和加强农业 ,第一可保证我国粮食安全 ;第二可实现我国经济发展战略目标 ;第三可顺利进行政治体制改革 ;第四可推动整个国民经济持续、稳定发展。     

多元功能视阈下我国农业现代化实践的新途径

全面分析了农业的多元化综合功能,一是政治功能：保障国家粮食安全;二是经济功能：提高农业竞争力、增加农民收入;三是社会功能：促进社会主义新农村建设;四是生态功能：涵养资源环境,保障农业可持续发展。从国际理论借鉴和国内农业现代化实践的主要创新体验2方面指出了我国农业现代化实践的新途径,并提出了基于农业多元化功能的制度保障：逐步推广以土地流转为主要内容的新型土地制度;建立合理的农村劳动力转移制度;建立良性循环的农业金融信贷制度;坚持农业科技创新与推广制度;建立严格的资源环境与生态保护制度;建立农业风险保障制度。