The Changing Role Of Agriculture In Price County Wisconsin

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 374 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (813 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Changing Agricultural Expectations written by and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Multifunctional agriculture represents a recognition of the diverse functions of agriculture, including commodity and non-commodity values and public and private goods. It is often positioned as a desired outcome for agricultural systems and a policy goal. Currently, there are academic and policy debates as to the extent to which transition towards multifunctional agricultural represents a fundamental shift from productivism to post-productivism or is rather the maintenance of current regimes of accumulation along a Fordist to post-Fordist trajectory. In order to understand agricultural change I assert the need to recognize the iterative interaction of positive and normative forces in the system. Positive forces are the material and ideational structures of that which is. Normative forces are the aspirational goals of that which should be. The interaction of these forces creates a relational space of expectations, where aspirations are imagined and negotiated through process and politics, checked by material and ideational structures. Expectations can be understood as possibilities or inevitabilities. This investigation of relational space comes from ethnographic research in Richland County, Wisconsin, based around follow-up interviews done with former and current county residents who were surveyed as high school students in 1948 by sociologist William H. Sewell, regarding their occupational aspirations. My ethnography reveals differing relational spaces; identified as "traditional," "progressive," and "emergent multifunctionality." In the "progressive" relational space strong positive and normative interaction result in monofunctional or bi-functional agriculture, focused on economic and ecological functions. However, in the "progressive" space there is little focus on the social functions of agriculture due to weakness in the system of normative forces around social relationships. In the past social relationships were strongly embedded in and reproduced by systems of agricultural production. As production has changed social relationships have bifurcated, to the inclusion of some and the exclusion of others. I conclude that there is some evidence of the relational space of "emergent multifunctionality" in Richland County, Wisconsin. However, if the goal of multifunctionality is to be reached, positive and normative forces must be recognized and engaged in the economic, ecological, and social spheres of agriculture and rural community.