Gender,ecology, and the science of survival: Stories and lessons from Kenya

Sustainable development and biodiversity initiatives increasingly include ethnoscience, yet the gendered nature of rural people's knowledge goes largely unrecognized. The paper notes the current resurgence of ethnoscience research and states the case for including gendered knowledge and skills, supported by a brief review of relevant cultural ecology and ecofeminist field studies. The author argues the case from the point of view of better, more complete science as well as from the ethical imperative to serve women's interests as the “daily managers of the living environment”. In the interests of both objectives the paper advocates an ethnoscience research approach based on empowerment of rural people, rather than simple extraction of their knowledge. The Kenyan case study of women's agroforestry work follows their response to the drought and famine of 1985 and chronicles the unfolding discovery of women's ecological, political, and social science as gendered survival skills. The case is re-counted as a story, in keeping with an explicit choice to learn through participation and to report through storytelling. The experience of rural women and researchers during the drought provides several lessons for both groups about their respective knowledge systems, their agroforestry work, and the relationship of both to local and national political economy.     

Exploring the theory and practice of participatory research in US sustainable agriculture: A case study in insect pest management

Farmers have always played a key role in developing and testing agricultural technology. Scientist initiated agricultural research models and methods that explicitly include the participation of farmers principally have been developed and implemented in the Third World. Recently, these strategies have begun to receive attention in the US sustainable agriculture research community. This paper presents a case study where scientists collaborated with farmers in developing, implementing, and revising research in peach insect pest management in sustainable agroecosystems in California. A theoretical framework constructed from emerging epistemological and philosophical premises is used to point out the imperative of including participatory strategies in US sustainable agriculture. Methods drawn from Rapid Rural Appraisal were adapted to fit the local circumstances of working within intensive peach production systems and with a US farmer or ganization, California Clean Growers Association, in developing a research agenda. Farmer-scientist participation continued throughout the research implementation phases via individual and group meetings. A mid-project workshop provided a forum where farmers had explicit decision-making power over the course of the research project. Selected natural science research results are presented to illustrate the value of merging farmers' and scientists' knowledge in achieving relevant and scientifically interesting information. It is argued that the adoption and innovation of participatory research strategies in US sustainable agriculture will require confronting philosophical and methodological issues at individual and institutional levels.     

Back to the future: Lessons from ethnoveterinary RD&E for studying and applying local knowledge

Ethnoveterinary research, development, and extension (ERD&E) has emerged as a rich field for discovering, adapting, and transferring appropriate and sustainable animal health technologies to rural and peri-urban stockraisers, especially in Third World countries. This field is defined as the holistic, interdisciplinary study of local knowledge and practices, together with the social structure in which they are embedded, that pertain to the healthcare and healthful husbandry of animals used for a multitude of purposes. Especially in the Third World, livestock play a large number of important roles that are little understood or appreciated in today's First World. Study of these benefits and their role in Third World livelihoods offers numerous lessons that span not only the virtues but also some of the technical, ethical, and methodological challenges of working with local knowledge. ERD&E emerged as an internationally recognized branch of research in the mid-1970s largely in response to an increasing concern with animal health in the context of practical, field-level projects in animal agriculture. As many as 90% of the world's population continue to rely mainly on their own localized ethnomedicine for the bulk of their personal healthcare as well as their veterinary needs. With the escalating costs of Western healthcare technologies, it is essential to build upon this local knowledge. Of course, ethnoscience is not perfect, and recognition of the immense value of ERD&E does not imply that conventional science is to be abandoned. Rather each has much to learn from the other. Making knowledge by judiciously drawing upon insider and outsider, site-specific and universalistic, and both old and new understandings can take us back to a brighter development future.Constance McCorkle is an ecological anthropologist (PhD Stanford) specializing in agriculture, environment, and rural development. As a faculty member in the Department of Rural Sociology at the University of Missouri-Columbia, between 1980 and 1990 she served as Research Scientist and Coordinator for the Sociology Project of a worldwide (Bolivia, Brazil, Indonesia, Kenya, Morocco, Peru) 18-year $100+ million R&D program in sustainable animal agriculture. From 1990 to 1992, McCorkle was Director of the U.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID) staff environmental training program in Washington DC. Thereafter, she served as Director for Research and Evaluation for USAID's global GENESYS Project (Gender in Economic and Social Systems). The sole or senior editor of three volumes and some 30 articles on livestock development, Dr. McCorkle currently works as an independent researcher, author, and public speaker; and she consults for such organizations as USAID, FAO, the African Development Bank, the World Bank, and various private voluntary organizations that promote grassroots rural development.     

民族贫困地区农村科普的现状及其工作绩效对提升农民收入水平的影响:以贵州省望谟县为例

为民族贫困地区农村科普事业发展和农民增收的政策制定提供参考,以贵州省望谟县为例,通过基本统计方法分析其农村科普现状,并通过构建排序选择模型,分析科普知识、技术和培训的工作绩效以及农民的年龄和受教育程度对提升农民收入水平的影响。结果表明:电视传播是研究区农村科普传播的主要手段;农民整体的科普意识较弱,认为获得科普知识较难,且参与科普培训的意愿低,培训内容的供需匹配不足。科普知识、技术和培训的工作绩效与提升农民收入水平正相关,科普知识与年龄、科普技术与受教育程度的交叉影响阻碍农民收入水平提升。     

中国农业女性化研究综述

20 世纪80 年代末、90 年代初以来,中国农村劳动力大规模向非农转移的过程中,在农村,妇女逐渐开始肩负起耕地种粮的重任,这一现象被称为农业女性化。农业女性化是在农业生产发展过程中,农村地区的劳动力构成、组成发生变化下产生的一种新的现象。农业女性化的提出对于研究中国农业生产、乡村治理、农业部门劳动力构成以及农村女性自身福利等问题都有重要意义。通过对的国内外农业女性化问题文献的整理与梳理,总结了农业女性化的起源、发展与影响,并指出农业女性化中存在的问题,建议关注提升性别平等,提高农村地区妇女福利,希望为之后更为深入的研究提供参考。     

公共财政支出与农民增收的实证分析

从公共财政支出视角来看,制约农民收入增长的因素主要有：（1）落后的基础教育,制约了农民智力素质的提升;（2）落后的交通环境和市场交易环境袁使农村发展面临较高的成本;（3）水利设施严重不足,降低了民族地区农村抵御自然灾害的能力,使农业生产面临较大风险。从理论上来看,公共财政支出对农民收入的影响是通过两大途径发挥作用的：（1）通过社会支出提高农民的健康水平和知识水平,从而增加农民的人力资本积累,增强农民的自我发展能力,提升农民获得更多收入的机会和能力,而且社会支出还通过再分配途径为那些收入特别低下的农民提升社会保障;（2）通过投资于农业、农村基础设施和农业科技,从而促进农业经济增长。利用我国1978-2009年有关统计资料进行实证分析,结果表明,公共财政支出对农业增收有较大影响。因此,促进农民增收、缩小城乡差异的一个重要途径就是加大对农业的财政支持。     

浅析呼叫中心技术在农业中的应用

新时代解决"三农"问题的基本方针政策之一是推进农业农村现代化，传统农业转变为现代农业是建立在现代科学的基础上。建立一个综合性农业呼叫中心，为农业主管部门、科研单位、科技人员与农民之间架起信息连接的桥梁，对提高我国的农业现代化水平、提高科技信息服务三农的能力，以及推进农村信息化有着重要意义。它可实现农村科技信息快捷、有效的扩散，切实帮助农民解决农业生产中缺信息、缺技术、缺服务的问题，提供农业信息满足农民获取农业知识的需求，提升农业生产效率，提高农业科技贡献率。主要介绍呼叫中心技术概况，并简要探讨呼叫中心技术在农业领域中的应用。     

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.     

On the relationship between feminism and farm women

Much international research haspointed out that farm women in a Westernagricultural context have not identified withthe ideas and politics of feminism. This issuehas troubled feminist scholars in the field,since much research has documented thesubordinate position of farm women. However,concerning the question of why farm women have notadopted feminism, assumptions ofprogress can be read: gender equality and emancipationof women will eventually take place once theagricultural sector has reached a higher stageof development; concerning universalism: thereexists a common women's identity and experienceof male oppression that forms the basis foridentity politics. The question may beidentified as a researcher question embeddedwithin the assumptions of the feminist researchcommunity, which struggles with establishing asubject-subject relationship between theresearcher and the researched. As such, it is thebasis for the production of partial, situatedknowledge and must be recognized as such.     

科技小院模式助力农业科技推广的实践与思考

科技小院是"产学研用"紧密结合的新模式,是精准服务"三农"发展的新举措,在创新农业科技、培养农技人才、助力农技推广等起到重要作用。本文采用多案例研究的方法,梳理科技小院运行的特点和成效,深入探讨科技小院发展过程中的制约因素,并为科技小院的高效推广和持续发展提出相应对策建议。结果表明:缺少政策引导与法规保障、科技小院建设效率不高、农民与农技推广人员存在知识代沟等因素制约了科技小院的发展。据此,提出健全科技小院推广政策制度、提高科技小院的建设效率、缩小农户与农技推广人员的知识差距等建议,以期为农业创新体系建设、农业科研体制改革和农业科技推广服务提供理论指导,更好地服务乡村振兴工作。     

数字普惠金融、社会支持与农村女性创业

基于中国综合社会调查（CGSS）2021年数据，运用Probit模型和调节效应模型进行实证研究，探究数字普惠金融对农村女性创业的影响效应及作用机制。结果显示：数字普惠金融能够促进农村女性创业，且其使用深度和数字化程度均对农村女性创业有促进作用；社会支持在数字普惠金融对农村女性创业的影响路径中发挥了正向调节作用，强化了数字普惠金融对农村女性创业的促进作用；异质性分析结果显示，数字普惠金融对不同人力资本农村女性创业的影响存在异质性，对低人力资本的农村女性创业影响更显著。因此，应大力发展数字普惠金融，同时加大社会支持力度，最大程度激发农村女性创业积极性。     

杨凌地区农户科技吸纳能力评估研究

结合中国新农村建设以及政府大力推广农业科技的发展背景,根据中国"三农"问题现状,以杨凌地区农户为研究对象,通过对杨凌地区农户科技吸纳情况的调查研究,从文化程度、市场、政府等方面分别建立评价指标体系系统,最后通过对各个子系统的整合得出了杨凌地区农户科技吸纳能力的评价指标体系,并就当前杨凌地区农户科技吸纳能力存在的问题进行了分析,并提出了建议。     

Gender power in Kenyan dairy: cows,commodities, and commercialization

In Western Kenya, smallholder dairy production is becoming incrementally commercialized through the commodification and sale of milk through formal market channels. While commercialization is often construed as a way to boost rural livelihoods through increased income from milk, emerging evidence suggests that married women are not directly benefiting from formal milk market participation. This critical issue of gender power imbalance has been framed by development interventions in economic efficiency and social justice perspectives, but thus far interventions in the sector have not addressed how underlying social-market mechanisms embedded in gendered ideology influence smallholder engagement in dairy commercialization. Drawing on feminist theories of power and social embeddedness, this study investigates how gendered power relationships materialize and influence formal milk marketing engagement and practices in Western Kenya. Facilitated discussion groups with smallholder farmers revealed the gendered ideologies and norms that ascribe masculinized meaning to cattle, milk, and commercial enterprise. Key informant interviews with commercial dairy management and farmers were used to identify current practices for increasing women’s formal market participation—namely, direct payments to women for milk deliveries. Findings from this study indicate that cattle and formal dairy market participation are imbued with gendered meaning that create legitimacy around men’s privilege over dairy proceeds. Interventions in the sector aimed at addressing gender power imbalances must acknowledge this dynamic, and accept the social trade-offs and gendered costs of dairy commercialization.     

文水县农民增收问题研究

为加快县域农村经济发展,以山西省文水县为研究对象,采取实地考察、调查数据、文献查阅等方法,分析了当前文水县农民收入现状,并针对该县以农业为特色的特点,结合当前全县转变农业发展方式的工作部署,指出农民收入呈现增长缓慢、城乡收入差距缩小、增长不均衡等特点,分析原因主要是村级组织、土地流转、农产品流通、科技服务等方面发展缓慢造成的。在此基础上提出了加快文水县农民增收步伐的几点建议：科学布局产业发展,加强村级组织建设,发展农民专业合作社,提高农产品收益,统筹农业资金。     

图书馆文化下乡工作初探

图书馆开展文化下乡工作,就是要通过开展多层次、全方位、多类型的宣传教育服务,把先进的农业科技知识和文化送进千家万户,帮助农民依靠科技脱贫致富,丰富人民群众的文化生活。     

Rethinking the role of U. S. development assistance in third world agriculture

International agricultural development as practiced by U. S. sponsored research groups in developing countries has emphasized technical questions of production, ignoring more fundamental social and economic issues that underline rural poverty and hunger. Rethinking the role of U. S. development assistance will require transcending the view that the only way to impact agriculture in the Third World is by increasing the intensity of land use in high potential agricultural areas. The challenge is to find ways of how to further increase agricultural productivity so that the rural poor significantly benefit, while at the same time conserving and regenerating the resource base. U. S. scientists must realize that this is only possible by improving the access of resource-poor farmers to land, water, other natural resources, as well as to equitable credit, markets, appropriate technologies, etc. Solidarious collaboration will emerge from the U. S. siding with progressive governments and/or community-based initiatives that promote political change aimed at securing farmers' control over resources and inputs, and changing the structural conditions and policies that perpetuate poverty. Miguel A. Altieri is Associate Professor at the Division of Biological Control, University of California, Berkeley. He teaches courses in agroecology and rural development, agroforestry, and biological control. His research emphasizes the development of sustainable agricultural systems both in California and in Latin America.     

高校服务乡村振兴的知识溢出实现路径与政策建议

乡村振兴战略亟需农村人才、科学技术、社会服务等方面的深化改革,其中人才是知识的载体,"知识"是农村建设和发展的核心要素;高校作为知识的生产者和创新者,服务于农村建设和发展是时代赋予的光荣使命。基于三螺旋理论和乡村振兴战略背景,从知识溢出视角出发,以江苏省农村经济组织和基层政府为研究对象,分析高校在服务乡村振兴战略过程中的知识溢出,探讨知识溢出的主体、动机、过程和实现路径。结果表明,高校服务乡村振兴的知识溢出是动态循环的过程,包含了显性知识和隐性知识两种方式,知识的需求与匹配程度决定了三螺旋演化路径;高校服务乡村振兴的知识溢出绩效受知识源因素、农村行政组织和农村经济组织的吸收能力以及高校与农村之间溢出途径等相关因素的影响。研究表明,加强面向乡村振兴的高校人力资本流动、助力乡村振兴的官产学合作、促进高校与农村组织的知识交流和人才共享等三条路径可以保障高校服务乡村振兴的知识溢出效率,优化当前政策机制。因此,建议在知识源层面,注重提高知识的供需匹配度;在知识接收方层面,努力培养高素质的新型职业农民;在溢出环境方面,构建合作平台与制度环境。     

国内主要省份农村科技特派员对比研究及对广东的启示

改革开放以来,我国逐步建立了从中央到乡镇的五级政府农技推广服务体系.农村科技特派员工作对于满足农民群众科技服务需求,提高农民收入,具有重要意义.选取国内农村科技特派员建设较有代表性的省份,从投入、激励、协调管理和派驻4个方面分析研究各个省特点,通过与广东省的对比,得出对广东省农村科技特派员的启示.     

增加京郊农民财产性收入途径探究

增加农民财产性收入,对于提高农民整体收入水平,促进城乡统筹协调发展,有着重要的作用。近年来京郊农民财产性收入虽有一定提高,但在农民增收中的作用尚未充分体现。基于北京市2011—2015年农民财产性收入数据资料,并结合对京郊3个区县实证调查,分析农民财产性收入现状及增长潜力。结果表明:制约农民财产性收入增长的主要因素有土地制度、集体分配制度、金融制度,以及农民财产拥有量、受教育程度、与增加财产性收入相关的知识和技能掌握程度等。因此增加京郊农民财产性收入需要政府、农村集体经济组织、金融机构和个人形成合力,通过壮大农村集体经济组织实力、盘活农村现有宅基地、创新农村金融模式等途径,让农民的土地流转起来,资产经营起来,手中的钱财流动起来,共促农民财产性收入的提高。     

女书与妇女文学

女书是普通农村妇女创造、掌握的一种文字工具.运用这种工具,她们可以随时随地记录自己的生活,表达自己的感情,形成了江永县道县历史上女性文学最繁荣的一个时期.