Agriculture Commons^™

Fear, Racism, Agriculture: The Drive For Japanese Internment, Brandon James March

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The focus of this dissertation is the timing of the forced evacuation of the ethnic Japanese population from the West Coast in 1942. This work focuses on three key factors driving the timing of the evacuation: racism, security concerns, and agriculture. Racism has been studied and written about extensively; however, an overview of this factor is critical as it directly influenced the removal of Japanese American citizens in addition to Japanese immigrants. This dissertation will focus on the intellectual origins of racism and prejudice by focusing on key figures and tracing the ideas and beliefs and how they influenced the …

Maine Hunger Dialogue And Climate Action Summit Safeguarding Food Systems From A Warming Planet, University Of Maine Cooperative Extension

General University of Maine Publications

Promotional flyer for the Maine Hunger Dialogue and Climate Action Summit. "Join students, faculty, and staff from colleges, community colleges, and high schools across the state for this one-day conference. Participants will have an opportunity to network, discuss food security, and climate change, and find solutions to combat these issues within our own communities."

Seed & Story Conservation: A Rooted Historical Documentation And Analysis Of Living Seed Stories In The Us Northeast, Celia Luanna Nesbitt

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

Often a neglected item in our current industrialized food system, seed is now typically seen as a commodity. Agrobiodiversity is in decline with diverse crop varieties being lost from cultivation and memory, further threatening levels of biodiversity. Research indicates that seed systems are crucial for the conservation of crop diversity and local adaption of cultivars. Globally, people are working to grow and share seeds that support seed production based around the premises of community-based production and (agro)biodiversity. This project and paper draw attention to the regional seed work in the US Northeast. Through a participatory approach, and an active participation …

Mf121 Maine Organic Farmers And Gardeners Association (Mofga), Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University Of Maine

Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History Finding Aids

This collection contains interviews with people associated with the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) and the Common Ground Fair in Unity, Maine. Themes include the process of beginning to farm organically, the early development of MOFGA and its growth; the Common Ground Fair and its expansion; marketing organic food; farming strategies; raising livestock; and MOFGA's interactions with conventional farmers and the wider community.

American Horse Power During The Great War, Hanna K. Lipsey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation charts the significant, if understudied, history of American horses during the era of World War I, from roughly 1914 to 1919. Its chapters trace how the US Army acquired, used, cared for, and ultimately demobilized horses over the course of that conflict. Beginning with their acquisition, via either an Army Horse Breeding Program or a complicated buying process, horses faced a complex introduction into military service. Life for these animals did not get any easier once they reached the European front. Although the US military was beginning to replace horses with motor trucks and tractors, horses remained central …

What Makes Mad Honey “Mad”? An Investigation Into The Obsession Of The Himalayan Wild Cliff Honey, Codi Farmer

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Mad honey is a rare variety of cliff honey found in the mountainous regions of Turkey and Nepal and has been harvested by Indigenous groups for centuries. In Nepal, it is found on high-hanging cliffs that people risk their lives to face, but what makes this honey so special to cause generations of Nepalis to brave the formidable heights? Through a series of reading primary and secondary sources, watching first-hand accounts of honey hunting, and interviewing honey hunters, filmmakers, authors, and laypeople alike, I work to find the answer to the puzzling question – what makes mad honey "mad"? In …

Total Prevention: A History Of Schistosomiasis In Japan, Alexander Bay

History Faculty Articles and Research

In Japan, schistosomiasis was endemic in Yamanashi Prefecture and a few other hotspot areas where the Miya’iri snail lived. The parasite’s lifecycle relied on the intermediary Miya’iri snail as well as the human host. Parasite eggs passed into the agrarian environment through untreated night soil used as fertiliser or through the culture of open defecation in rural Japan. Manmade rice fields and irrigation ditches, night soil covered paddies and highly refined growing seasons put people in flooded rice paddies to intensively work the land in the spring and summer. The disease was equally dependent on human intervention in the natural …

Autobiography Of George Washington Owens: First African American Graduate Of Kansas State University, Anthony R. Crawford

Special Publications

George Washington Owens was the son of former slaves who migrated to Kansas in the early 1870s to find free land, finally settling in Wabaunsee County, Kansas, near Alma. It was there that he was born in 1875. In his handwritten autobiography, Owens chronicles the difficulties and successes of working hard growing up on the plains and as a student at District School #3 of Alma, and then at Kansas State Agricultural College. After learning that no African American had graduated from KSAC (now Kansas State University), “he resolved to be the first.” He did so, graduating in 1899. Owens …

Oxen: Status, Uses And Practices In The U.S.A., Encouraging A Historic Tradition To Thrive, Andrew B. Conroy

Faculty Publications

Oxen in the United States of America have played an important role throughout its history. Unlike other countries,oxen were never completely given up for horses, mules, or tractors. Instead, the culture of keeping oxen has been maintained by a small group of teamsters in the North- eastern states collectively called New England. Their continued presence has been largely due to agricultural fairs and exhibitions where they have been used in competition for the last 200 years. Ox teamsters were sur- veyed in 2021via social media using Qualtrics. The 423 ox teamsters responding owned 1791 oxen in 39 states, with the …

Sewing And Dressmaking In Martha Mcmillan's Day (1891), Elizabeth G. Allen

Martha McMillan Research Papers

This paper describes the process of sewing and dressmaking in America from the mid 1800s to the early 1900s and provides historical context for Martha McMillan's discussion of sewing and dressmaking in her 1891 journal.

"The Third Power": James A. Everitt And The American Society Of Equity, Mark Kristian Myrdal

Masters Theses

The late 19th century marked a golden age for farmers’ movements in the United States. Crushing debt, deflation, increased urbanization, and industrial acceleration generated much discontent in America’s agricultural communities, and unleashed “a Populist moment” of farmer protest and organization. While the early 20th century witnessed significant economic improvement, farm organizations continued to operate and, in some cases, even thrived. Established in 1902 by seed merchant and newspaper editor James A. Everitt of Indiana, the American Society of Equity was one of the first major farmer’s movements founded in the twentieth century and helped to spread the concept of cooperative …

January Highlights From The College Of Natural Sciences, Forestry, And Agriculture, College Of Natural Sciences, Forestry, And Agriculture

General University of Maine Publications

Weekly update from the College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture. Stories include Dean Diane Rowland's tour of the Dwight B. Demeritt Forest in Old Town; the receipt of a $225,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture to establish a Farm to School Institute; Brian Olsen, professor ornithology, being interviewed about the January 2022 sighting of a Stellar's sea eagle in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

A Call For The Library Community To Deploy Best Practices Toward A Database For Biocultural Knowledge Relating To Climate Change, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Abstract

Purpose – In this paper, a call to the library and information science community to support documentation and conservation of cultural and biocultural heritage has been presented.

Design/methodology/approach – Based in existing Literature, this proposal is generative and descriptive— rather than prescriptive—regarding precisely how libraries should collaborate to employ technical and ethical best practices to provide access to vital data, research and cultural narratives relating to climate.

Findings – COVID-19 and climate destruction signal urgent global challenges. Library best practices are positioned to respond to climate change. Literature indicates how libraries preserve, share and cross-link cultural and scientific knowledge. …

“To Multiply Corn Two-Hundred-Fold”: The Alchemical Augmentation Of Wheat Seeds In Seventeenth-Century English Husbandry, Justin Niermeier-Dohoney

Arts and Communication Faculty Publications

Agricultural reform movements proliferated in seventeenth-century Europe. For many who sought to make farming more economically productive, the practices of chymistry offered a way to accomplish these goals. Placed in the context of the development of a “vegetable philosophy,” or a theory of generation and growth across mineralogical and botanical domains, this article examines the application of chymical techniques in the attempt to enhance wheat seeds through seed-steeping and “fructifying” experiments among seventeenth-century agricultural reformers, particularly in England. I focus on three main sources: instructional husbandry manuals describing how to create “fructifying waters” to fertilize these seeds, the writings of …

"Rusticall Chymistry": Alchemy, Saltpeter Projects, And Experimental Fertilizers In Seventeenth-Century English Agriculture", Justin Niermeier-Dohoney

Arts and Communication Faculty Publications

As the primary ingredient in gunpowder, saltpeter was an extraordinarily important commodity in the early modern world. Historians of science and technology have long studied its military applications but have rarely focused on its uses outside of warfare. Due to its potential effectiveness as a fertilizer, saltpeter was also an integral component of experimental agricultural reform movements in the early modern period and particularly in seventeenth-century England. This became possible for several reasons: the creation of a thriving domestic saltpeter production industry in the second half of the sixteenth century; the development of vitalist alchemical theories that sought a unified …

Fruits Of Our Labor: Exploring The Impacts Of A Nonprofit Seed Bank On Indigenous Communities In The Southwestern United States, Rachel Mary Davis

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This thesis explores the ways that the nonprofit Native Seeds/SEARCH, of Tucson, Arizona interfaces with Indigenous communities and the local seed and food systems in the Southwest United States. The thesis argues that Native seed and food sovereignty have different meanings for different Indigenous people, and that nonprofits working with Indigenous communities need to consider input from them when deciding how to catalogue, regenerate and sustain healthy grow outs for the future, especially in the light of climate change and drought.

Bullet-Proof Boll Weevil: The History Of Boll Weevil Eradication, Evan A. Berg

Theses and Dissertations

Farmers and entomologists have all experimented with various methods to find the best way to defeat the United States' boll weevil. The techniques themselves, while expansive, can be examined within the scope of the years that they were used. This provides an exciting insight into how cotton pest management became more complex as the decades moved on and revealed how the science of cotton pest management evolved to deal with the boll weevil and other future cotton threats.

To Know The Land With Hands And Minds: Negotiating Agricultural Knowledge In Late-Nineteenth-Century New England And Westphalia, Justus Hillebrand

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ever since the eighteenth century, experts have tried to tell farmers how to farm. The agricultural enlightenment in Europe marked the beginning of a long arc of new experts aiming to change agricultural knowledge and practice. This dissertation analyzes the pivotal period in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in Germany and the United States when scientists, improvers, and market agents began to develop comprehensive ways to communicate agricultural innovation to farmers. In a functional approach to analyzing the negotiation of agricultural knowledge through its communication in things, words, and practices, this dissertation argues that the process of change …

Greening The Archive: The Social Climate Of Cotton Manufacturing In The "Samuel Oldknow Papers, 1782-1924", Bernadette Myers, Melina Moe

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This article re-examines the records and correspondence of Samuel Oldknow, a late eighteenth century textile manufacturer, within the context of the environmental humanities. Oldknow’s papers, a portion of which are held at Columbia University, are most often used by economic historians to date the beginnings of the factory wage labor system. We highlight, instead, the environmental implications of Oldknow’s cotton enterprise by juxtaposing documents related to the global reach of Oldknow’s empire with evidence of his transformation of the local landscape of northern England. This process of re-scaling captures a sense of what we call the “social climate” of the …

Solanum Jamesii As A Food Crop: History And Current Status Of A Unique Potato, David Kinder, John Bamberg, Lisbeth Louderback, Bruce Pavlik, Alfonso Del Rio

Pharmacy Faculty Scholarship

Solanum jamesii is a wild potato found in the US southwest. There is ample evidence that this potato was used by ancestral Puebloans as a food source, where some researchers think it was used as a starvation food while others consider it to be regular food source. Currently this potato is being grown by Native Americans, notably the Navajo, as a specialty food as well as a food crop. There are several attributes to this potato that make it especially suitable for development as our climate changes and food needs become more demanding, including its drought tolerance and ability to …

Has Maize Overtaken Our Reality? A Personal Briefing, Biochemical Comparison, Agrigenomics, And History Of Maize, Nader Pahlevan

Honors Theses

Maize (Zea mays ssp. Mays) is a revolutionary cereal grain that has raced to the world’s most popular staple crop, transforming societies and impacting history. This paper aims to build and portray the story maize has created through its journey to world domination. The important details that encompass this literature are maize’s cultural significance in my life’s story, the comparison of various starches broken down into amylose and amylopectin ratios, a summative historical account on maize’s spread throughout numerous parts of the old world, and the genetical analysis of maize that explains the key features that have led …

Cooperative Extension Covid-19_Maine Maple Tours: Guidance During Covid-19, University Of Maine Cooperative Extension

Cooperative Extension

Screenshot of the University of Maine Cooperative Extension's Bulletin #2517 with guidance for Maine Maple Tours during COVID-19.

Covid-19_School Of Economics_Malacarne And Colleagues Address The Impacts Of Covid- 19 On Maine's Food System, University Of Maine School Of Economics

Teaching, Learning & Research Documents

Screenshot of a University of Maine School of Economics news release webpage regarding Jonathan Malacarne (SOE Assistant Professor), Jason Lilley (University of Maine Cooperative Extension Professional), and Tora Jackson (Maine Farmer Resource Network) presenting a summary of the impacts of COVID-19 on Maine's food system at the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry's (DACF) 2021 virtual Maine Ag Trades Show.

Decolonizing Food Systems Research – The Case Of Household Agricultural Food Access In Bikotiba, Togo, Katryna Maria Kibler

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Indigenous West African farmers are among the most climate change threatened globally. Food insecurity is prevalent in West Africa because ecological, social, political, and economic instabilities, and globalization worsen climate pressures. In this study, I collaborated with the community of Bikotiba (bih-CO-ti-buh), Togo, to understand their household agricultural food access, one aspect of resilience to food insecurity. I adopted a feminist approach of reflexivity, radical vulnerability, and radical empathy, combined with decolonizing principles, to argue that there could be an ethical way for well-trained Western researchers to engage Indigenous communities, if negotiated carefully. Together, Indigenous Research Assistants and I developed …

Mitchell Center_Safety Nets And Boostraps Talk Webpage, University Of Maine Senator George J. Mitchell Center For Sustainability Solutions

Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions

Screenshot of webpage regarding a talk from the University of Maine Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions titled "Safety nets and bootstraps: Mainers and food security in the time of COVID-19".

Covid-19_Umaine News_Press Herald Talks With Savoie About Increased Interest In Canning, University Of Maine Division Of Marketing And Communications

Division of Marketing & Communications

Screenshot of UMaine in the News regarding the Portland Press Herald speaking with Kathleen Savoie, University of Maine Cooperative Extension educator, about attendance at UMaine Extension webinars focused on food preservation and the burgeoning demand for canning support and supplies.

Covid-19_Umaine News_Bdn Interviews Coffin About Contact Tracing For Livestock, University Of Maine Division Of Marketing And Communications

Division of Marketing & Communications

Screenshot of UMaine in the News regarding Donna Coffin, a University of Maine Cooperative Extension professor, being interviewed for a Bangor Daily News story about contact tracing for livestock

Covid-19_Umaine News_Mccarty Highlights Supply Shortages In Maine Public Segment, University Of Maine Division Of Marketing And Communications

Division of Marketing & Communications

Screenshot of UMaine in the News regarding Kate McCarty, a University of Maine Cooperative Extension food systems professional talking with Maine Public about the increase in home canning during the pandemic, and the resulting shortage of food preservation supplies.

Covid-19_Umaine News_Umaine 4-H Centers Partner With Maine K–12 Schools To Provide Outdoor And Stem Education For Students, University Of Maine Division Of Marketing And Communications

Division of Marketing & Communications

Screenshot of Maine News release regarding the University of Maine Cooperative Extension's 4-H Learning Centers playing a pivotal role in the education plans of K-12 schools in Maine communities.

Covid-19_Umaine News_Marble Talks With Daily Bulldog About Virtual Fair, University Of Maine Division Of Marketing And Communications

Division of Marketing & Communications

Screenshot of UMaine in the News regarding Tara Marble, University of Maine Cooperative Extension 4-H Youth development professional talking with Daily Bulldog about their virtual fair