Approches to Agriculture
Featured Sustainably Transforming our Food Systems: The Case of Plant-Based Meat, Plant-Based Dairy, and Sustainable Palm Oil View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Katie Major-Smith
Meat, dairy and palm oil are among the most environmentally damaging foods we produce, with global recommendations proposing to substitute meat and dairy with plant-based alternatives and to produce palm oil sustainably. Despite this, the availability of plant-based meat and dairy substitutes is low compared to meat and dairy and only 19% of palm oil is certified as sustainable, emphasising the need to change patterns of food production and cultures of food consumption. This research examines the drivers and barriers of producing and using plant-based meat, plant-based dairy and sustainable palm oil from the perspectives of stakeholders within these supply chains, to understand the changes required within these industries to increase growth and enhance sustainable food production and consumption. Stakeholders’ understanding of sustainable food and perceptions of who is responsible for increasing sustainable food production and consumption is also explored. Semi-structured interviews are used with stakeholders across these three industries, including retailers, manufacturers and consumers, and thematic analysis is being applied to identify emerging themes from the data. Understanding the factors which influence plant-based meat, plant-based dairy and sustainable palm oil production will aid efforts to increase uptake of these sustainable food items, thus helping sustainably transform our food systems and reducing the environmental damage caused by some of the most environmentally impactful foods we produce.
Mobile Pastoralism for Sustainable Future: Converstations from Northern Niger
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sarah Lunaček
After discrediting mobile pastoralism for overgrazing based on wrong assumptions, it became appreciated in last years as sustainable practice supporting rangelands biodiversity and as most sustainable meat production. The knowledge of human as mediator between rangelands and herds is gaining importance. Mobility is getting perceived as normal activity in use of highly variable climate and pasture distribution. Therefore, sustainable development directions should adapt to mobility instead of promoting sedentarisation of mobile pastoralists. In Northern Niger regional development directions try to combine parallelly irrigated gardening, modernised herding practices, transformation of agricultural products, mobile pastoralism and diverse mining activities, including uranium mining. They are trying to incorporate all resources in land management scheme. The research is based on qualitative interviews and observations with diversity of actors (traditional and regional elected authorities, civil society actors, schooled (ex)pastoralists and pastoralists practicing traditional mobile pastoralism). Here we ask what kind of coexistances on what territories are possible for sustainable future? Is a state with high poverty indexes forced to submit to extractivist mining practices instead of supporting existing sustainable practices and knowledge?
Farmers’ Perceptions and Context-dependence of Social Sustainability View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Rita Saleh
Social sustainability is the least understood dimension of sustainability, especially in the agriculture sector. Despite efforts to capture social sustainability empirically, it remains unclear how to define it, how it is relevant to individual farms and how it depends on their contexts. This mixed method study examines the meaning of social sustainability at the farm-level as an example of the context-dependence of social sustainability. Qualitative interviews and an online survey of 354 farmers from the three main production types in Switzerland (dairy, crop, other livestock production) are undertaken. Associations of farmers’ perceptions on importance and lived experience of social sustainability with several socio-economic values (social life, labour rights, stakeholder relationships, public relations) are assessed. Farmers’ identities are also measured (i.e., productivist, conservative, passionate caretakers, forward looking). Meanings and aspects of importance of social sustainability differs across production type of farms, with public relations being highly relevant to farmers, especially to crop farmers. The lived experience of farm social sustainability appears dependent on the farmers’ identity, with forward looking farmers who are open to digitalization and sustainable ways of farming having the better experience of social sustainability on their farms then other farmers. The findings can inform the development and implementation of social sustainability indicators and interventions in the farming sector. They also warn that their context-dependence and dynamic nature could lead to misleading insights and undesired intervention outcomes
