From value to values: sustainable consumption at farmers markets

Advocates of environmental sustainability and social justice increasingly pursue their goals through the promotion of so-called “green” products such as locally grown organic produce. While many scholars support this strategy, others criticize it harshly, arguing that environmental degradation and social injustice are inherent results of capitalism and that positive social change must be achieved through collective action. This study draws upon 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork at two farmers markets located in demographically different parts of the San Francisco Bay Area to examine how market managers, vendors, and regular customers negotiate tensions between their economic strategies and environmental sustainability and social justice goals. Managers, vendors, and customers emphasize the ethical rather than financial motivations of their markets through comparisons to capitalist, industrial agriculture and through attention to perceived economic sacrifices made by market vendors. They also portray economic strategies as a pragmatic choice, pointing to failed efforts to achieve justice and sustainability through policy change as well as difficulties funding and sustaining non-profit organizations. While market managers, vendors, and customers deny any difficulties pursuing justice and sustainability through local economics, the need for vendors to sustain their livelihoods does sometimes interfere with their social justice goals. This has consequences for the function of each market.

Experiences and perspectives of farmers from Upstate New York farmers' markets

Despite the growing popularityof farmers' markets (FMs) across the UnitedStates, the experiences and perspectives offarmers who sell at markets have received verylittle research attention. This study describesthe views of 18 farmers from Upstate New Yorkon the importance of FMs as part of theirlifestyle and livelihood, the challenges theyface selling at markets, and their conceptionsof ideal FMs. Through in-depth, semi-structuredinterviews, farmers expressed economic andsocial motivations for selling at FMs; socialbenefits from interacting with customers; andthe challenges they faced as small-scalefarmers and sellers, including extra-marketcompetition, uncooperative and problematicmarket vendors, rising farm input costs, andchanging consumer trends. Farmers alsodiscussed personal values associated withselling at FMs, such as pride in raising andmarketing one's own products, working togetherwith other farmer-vendors, and providingcustomers with honest information. Visions ofideal FMs were varied among farmers, but therewas general agreement that FMs should provide adiversity of products to attract customers andeducational opportunities for the public tolearn more about FMs and local produce. Theinterdependence of FM farmers was a majoremergent theme across interviews. Findingssuggested that market experiences of FMfarmers, including economic success, are notonly contingent on personal effort, but canalso be affected by the work of fellow vendors.Future research may look to further explore howFM farmers and other vendors interact ascooperative and competitive social and economicunits. At the community level, FM leadershipshould continue to focus on the experiences andperspectives of farmers and other marketvendors, in addition to identifying ways forenhancing cooperative FM enterprises.     

广州市农民培训状况的调查与比较

在城市化进程中,被征地的城市农民和进城农民工是城市的重要组成部分,政府对农民培训十分重视。以广州市为例,对不同农民群体的培训情况进行调查,结果表明,各群体得到的政府培训极不平衡,培训与就业脱节,农民总体上希望参加培训,对是参加什么培训却感到茫然。     

贵州苗族农户与城镇居民消费结构比较

笔者运用扩展线性支出系统模型(ELES),利用在贵州施秉县苗族农户调查资料,将其与城镇居民进行比较,对贵州省苗族农户的边际消费倾向、消费水平等作估计分析,提出现阶段贵州省苗族农户的消费结构、提高消费水平的相关措施,为制定有关经济政策提供一定的依据.     

A look from the inside: perspectives on the expansion of food assistance programs at Michigan farmers markets

There has been a recent push to offer more food assistance programs at farmers markets. Yet, as more programs are developed for farmers markets, little input has been sought from those who are ultimately responsible for their implementation. This ethnographic study explores the experiences of farmers markets that have been early adopters of federal food assistance programs. Participant observation and in-depth interviews were used in six early-adopting markets to understand staff perspectives on the challenges and benefits of administering food assistance programs. The results show that even markets with strong organizational capacity experienced significant burdens while operating food assistance programs. In addition, most worried about the sustainability of these programs due to the level of resources needed for their support. The findings suggest that calls to expand food assistance programs to all farmers markets will continue to be met with challenges as many markets will not have the capacity to operate them. Targeting farmers markets with strong organizational capacity may increase the probability of successful implementation, but building the organizational capacity of farmers markets may be necessary for widespread adoption. The study has implications for other sectors of civil society that are increasingly taking on the work of providing government programs.     

中美棉花期货市场泡沫风险测度与比较

为探究中美棉花期货市场泡沫风险的水平与特征,基于2004—2019年中美棉花期货价格日度数据,运用GSADF方法对中美棉花期货市场泡沫风险进行了测度与比较。结果表明:中美棉花期货市场均面临泡沫风险,并在泡沫出现时多伴随着价格的暴涨或暴跌;综合泡沫的持续时间、发生频率和发生强度来看,中国棉花期货市场的泡沫风险程度高于美国棉花期货市场;中美棉花期货市场泡沫风险特征存在差异,中国棉花期货市场的泡沫发生频率更高,但泡沫期内价格变动率较低。基于此,需要通过加快风险管理理论的发展并将其应用于棉花期货市场,完善期货市场监管体系,注重对棉花期货市场机构投资者的培育等措施,保障中国棉花期货市场的健康发展,进一步提升中国棉花期货的国际竞争力。     

新农村建设中的新型农民培育问题研究

农民是建设社会主义新农村的主体，培育新型农民就是培育新农村建设的主体力量，在新农村建设中必须要牢牢抓住这个根本。本文以此为思路，对我国农民素质现状进行说明，并分析了农民素质较低的原因，接着对新农村建设下新型农民培育的必要性进行阐述，最后对如何培育与新农村建设相适应的新型农民提出几点可行性建议，即大力发展农民义务教育，办好农村职业教育，营造良好的科技文化环境，强化带头人队伍建设，加强农村公共文化建设。     

山东农民素质状况与培养新型农民的对策

阐述了农民素质的基本概念和内涵,分析了山东省农民素质的现状,提出了提高农民素质、培养新型农民的对策措施。     

How farmers research and learn: The case of arable farmers of East Anglia,UK.

This study of arable agriculture in East Anglia, UK, draws on the experiences of farmer participatory research and the use of indigenous knowledge in agricultural development in less developed countries. Farmers were found to be continually doing research, although agricultural science has tended to play it down. Farmers' research was found to be closely linked to the specific locality and the strategies, aspirations, and experiences of farmers. The diversity of agriculture within East Anglia makes local research necessary and the idea of blueprints for agricultural production untenable. The process of generating information can come from learning while working, which may appear to be experiential rather than experimental. Other ideas are generated by observing chance occurrences and some farmers were found to be doing more structured experiments similar to agricultural science. Criticisms of farmers' own research are reviewed. However, this paper proposes that such research should not be compared to scientific method, since agricultural science has the primary objective of generating information while farmers' research is embedded in the local context and is part of the farming practice. It is therefore necessary to have complementary roles for farmers' own research and formal research rather than an attempt to combine or translate indigenous knowledge and farmers' experimentation in agricultural science.     

Farmers helping farmers: Constituent services and the development of a grassroots farm lobby

Two major episodes of farm protest have occurred in the past decade. In each case, protesting farmers have chosen to create new farm organizations rather than express their grievances through one of many existing farm interest groups. The result has been the development of a durable grassroots farm lobby, a hybrid mode of exercising political influence that combines features of interest group lobbying and social movement protest. The first episode saw the mobilization of the American Agriculture Movement (AAM), a nation-wide protest organization devoted to achieving a federal guarantee of parity prices. When AAM's attempt to change federal farm policy failed, it was unable to sustain a high level of member mobilization or organizational activity. This failure is attributed to the lack of a stable organizational structure, the lack of durable membership incentives, and the counterproductive effects of disruptive protest tactics. The second episode of protest occurred in reaction to the farm-debt crisis of the 1980s. Protesting farmers organized numerous crisis groups to provide emergency services to financially distressed farmers. The crisis groups coalesced into the National Save the Family Farm Coalition (NSFFC) in order to exert influence over federal farm policy. It is argued that this coalition structure, along with membership incentives provided by crisis groups through their constituent service programs, may allow this latest farm movement to exert more considerable and durable influence over federal farm policy than AAM was able to do in the late 1970s. The problems of maintaining a national coalition of grassroots groups are discussed and evaluated.     

农户绿色防控技术采纳意愿及其影响因素研究——基于湖南省长沙市348个农户的调查数据

为制定适合农户需求的绿色防控技术推广政策,利用微观调查数据,运用Binary Logistic模型,分析影响农户绿色防控技术采纳意愿的关键因素。结果表明:1)76.15%农户对绿色防控技术具有采纳意愿;2)性别、受教育程度、绿色防控技术感知易用性、绿色防控技术感知有用性、邻居的影响、生态环境关注程度是影响农户绿色防控技术采纳意愿的关键因素。据此提出顺利推广绿色防控技术的对策建议:加强适用性较强的绿色防控技术和产品的研发工作,加大对农村带头人的培训,发挥新技术采用示范户的辐射带动作用。     

Microtektites and tektites: a chemical comparison

Elemental abundance (20 trace elements, 3 major elements) comparisons for Ivory Coast microtektites and Australasian microtektites indicate that there are distinct chemical similarities between microtektites and nearby tektites. Several trace element abundances in microtektites are quite different from those observed in Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 samples.     

最低收购价格下降对农户稻谷种植面积的影响——基于小农户和规模户比较的视角

利用黑龙江、四川、安徽3省的农户调研数据,分析了农户对最低收购价政策以及最低收购价下降的认知,并基于小农户和规模户的视角实证分析了最低收购价下降对农户稻谷种植面积的影响,最后考察了如果取消最低收购价政策,农户稻谷种植面积变动情况。结果表明：1）农户对最低收购价政策了解程度较高,规模户对最低收购价下降的了解程度明显高于小农户。2）全样本回归显示最低收购价下降对农户稻谷种植面积减少有显著的正影响,分别对小农户和规模户回归时发现,最低收购价下降仅对小农户稻谷种植面积的减少产生显著的正影响,而对规模户并没有显著影响。3）如果取消最低收购价,与小农户相比,规模户减少稻谷种植面积的意愿会更加强烈。     

Engaging farmers in environmental management through a better understanding of behaviour

The United Kingdom’s approach to encouraging environmentally positive behaviour has been three-pronged, through voluntarism, incentives and regulation, and the balance between the approaches has fluctuated over time. Whilst financial incentives and regulatory approaches have been effective in achieving some environmental management behavioural change amongst farmers, ultimately these can be viewed as transient drivers without long-term sustainability. Increasingly, there is interest in ‘nudging’ managers towards voluntary environmentally friendly actions. This approach requires a good understanding of farmers’ willingness and ability to take up environmental activities and the influences on farmer behavioural change. The paper aims to provide insights from 60 qualitative farmer interviews undertaken for a research project into farmers’ willingness and ability to undertake environmental management, particularly focusing on social psychological insights. Furthermore, it explores farmers’ level of engagement with advice and support networks that foster a genuine interest, responsibility and a sense of personal and social norm to sustain high quality environmental outcomes. Two conceptual frameworks are presented for usefully exploring the complex set of inter-relationships that can influence farmers’ willingness to undertake environmental management practices. The research findings show how an in-depth understanding of farmer’s willingness and ability to adopt environmental management practices and their existing level of engagement with advice and support are necessary to develop appropriate engagement approaches to achieve sustained and durable environmental management.     

农户土地经营权抵押贷款需求意愿影响因素分析 ———基于辽宁省 385 个农户的调查

利用辽宁省14 个市随机抽取的385 个农户的调查数据,实证分析农户土地经营权抵押贷款需求意愿 与特点;采用二元蕴ogistic 模型探寻影响农户土地经营权抵押贷款需求的主要因素。结果表明,教育程度尧贷款经历尧 土地面积尧家庭年收入和对政策的认知与土地经营权抵押贷款需求意愿显著正相关;家庭人口数与土地经营权抵押 贷款需求意愿呈负相关。最后提出促进土地经营权抵押贷款发展的建议。 划项目（F13-315-5-03,F13-315-5-02     

新型农业经营主体有能力带动小农户发展吗——基于技术效率比较视角

为探究新型农业经营主体是否有能力带动小农户发展,从新型农业经营主体与小农户技术效率比较视角出发,利用对黑龙江省13市47村342个样本的调查数据,采用三阶段DEA-Tobit模型对新型农业经营主体与小农户玉米生产技术效率进行比较并分析导致技术效率差异的因素。结果表明:新型农业经营主体玉米生产技术效率普遍高于小农户,具备带动小农户发展的能力,其中带动能力最强的是农民专业合作社,其次是家庭农场、专业种植大户;环境因素对玉米生产技术效率有显著影响,在剔除环境因素和随机因素后,生产者管理因素是导致技术效率差异的主要因素。因此,重塑主体培育政策、巩固合作经营基础、创建优良生产环境将有助于充分发挥新型农业经营主体对小农户的带动作用。     

不同养殖规模下生猪疫病风险认知对养猪户生物安全行为的影响——基于河北省786个养猪户的调查

为了解动物疫病风险认知对养殖户生物安全行为的影响,本研究以河北省786个生猪养殖户为调研对象,通过建立多元有序Logistic模型,研究了生猪疫病风险认知对养猪户生物安全行为的影响,并引入养殖规模作为解释变量,分析了不同规模养猪户生物安全行为和生猪疫病风险认知差异。结果表明:1)养猪户生猪疫病风险认知对其生物安全行为采纳有显著影响,其中外部环境风险认知影响最大,其次是生猪易感性风险认知和生猪病原的危险性风险认知;2)大、中、小和散户4种养殖规模对养猪户生物安全行为有显著影响,且不同养殖规模下其生物安全行为偏好有所差异;3)不同规模养猪户的生猪疫病风险认知有一定差异;4)养猪户生物安全行为受其个人特征、经营特征等多种因素影响。据此,本研究提出加强养猪户生猪疫病风险认知培训,分类施策促进不同规模养猪户生物安全行为建设,鼓励养猪户向规模化、标准化方向发展,培养新型养猪人等政策建议。