Agricultural and Resource Economics Commons^™

The Dark Past Of Rhode Island In New Light, Yulyana Torres, Marcus Nevius

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

¡El Agua Es Nuestra! Pensar Desde Afuera Del Discurso De ‘Público Vs Privado’ / The Water Is Ours! Thinking From Outside The 'Public Vs. Private' Speech, Julius Figueroa

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Cualquier persona que haya vivido en Cochabamba por más de unos pocos años puede decir que la ciudad tiene una larga historia de problemas de agua. La respuesta del Estado a estos problemas ha sido variada y, a veces, problemática. En el año 1999, el gobierno de Bolivia firmó un contrato con una empresa transnacional llamada Aguas del Tunari en una tentativa de privatizar el suministro municipal del agua de Cochabamba. Después de un drástico aumento en los precios del agua, protestas y manifestaciones estallaron por toda la ciudad de Cochabamba. La gente de Cochabamba finalmente logró presionar al gobierno …

Losing Faith: An Exploration Of Village Ponds In The Thar Desert, Pentti Hanlon

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The intention of this study is to provide a holistic look at the Naadi: a rain-fed common property resource used for drinking water collection in the Thar Desert, Rajasthan. A sustainer of human life in the Thar, Naadis have decided how and where residents of the Thar lived. This study examines both current and historical naadi use in the Jodhpur district of Rajasthan. The format of the study is a compilation and analysis of 15 field visits, a series of interviews, and investigation of recent alternatives to naadis. The success of a naadi is a function of geology, geography, and …

Optimized Organic Waste Treatment System An Assessment Of Composting And Biogas Potential At Santos Organics, Abbie Winter

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Food waste holds incredible environmental degradation implications due to its ability to produce and emit potent greenhouse gases, as well as allow for the resources initially used to produce it to go to waste. When in a gloabal crisis of environmental degradation as well as food security, it is a shame to see food be wasted when other more optimal outlets are available.

This study utilizes the Triple Bottom Line to assess the ideal systems with which the three branches of Santos Organics should manage their food waste to optimize its lifecycle in order to further promote the business’ status …

Luchadoras: Resistencias Contra La Violencia De Género Por Las Mujeres En La Región De San Ramón, Olivia "Livey" Beha

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This qualitative study describes the dynamic resiliency-building process against gender-based violence in two rural coffee-producing communities in the region of San Ramon, Nicaragua. It examines the methods and efficacy of economic empowerment and educational interventions facilitated by the Union of Agricultural Cooperatives Augusto Cesar Sandino (UCA San Ramón) in addressing gender inequality, preventing gender-based violence, and increasing access to resources for women in the cooperatives of El Privilegio and Danilo Gonzales. This complex ecology, comprised of the interactions between women, their communities, available resources, and institutions, is assessed through the lens of women’s individual perspectives as they engage in three …

Water Injustice In Jendouba Governorate, Wilder Mccoy

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Water is a precious resource even in a tropical rainforest, and in a dry country like Tunisia it is essential. Located in the south central region of the Mediterranean Sea, Tunisia, like nearly every other Mediterranean country, faces a stark challenge in providing clean drinking water to its growing population. Compared to its neighbors, Tunisia, with a few minor exceptions, does a good job in meeting this goal. In the rural northwestern governorate of Jendouba, where most of the country’s surface water comes from, there is ironically a dire need for clean drinking water in the rural areas outside the …

Land Insecurity In Gulu, Uganda: A Clash Between Culture And Capitalism, Zachary Slotkin

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper presents the causes and consequences of land insecurity in Gulu, Uganda. In order to address this important and often sensitive issue, the paper analyzes the role of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency and the government’s policy of forced encampment during the insurgency in contributing to land insecurity, causing widespread displacement among former internally displaced persons (IDPs). It further explores the importance of land ownership in providing economic productivity to rural landowners, as well as the nature of customary land tenure in Acholi culture and the government’s efforts to privatize communal land, to give a background on the …

International Migration, E. Wesley F. Peterson

Cornhusker Economics

Labor is the world’s most valuable commodity—yet thanks to strict immigration regulation, most of it goes to waste. (Caplan and Naik, 2015) World economic output (currently about $75 trillion) could double if people were allowed to move freely in response to economic opportunities in other countries (Caplan and Naik, 2015). Workers in developing countries have very low productivity because they lack the capital and technology available in high-income countries. In addition, they live in countries in which the rule of law is often absent. Moving to high-income countries would increase their productivity substantially leading to much greater world economic output. …

Exploring The Empirical Relationship Between Civic Agriculture And Community Resilience, Beth Joanna Person-Michener

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Smaller-scale, qualitative and mixed method studies indicate that civic agriculture generates positive, local-level social change, specifically by increasing social, human and economic capital. These social benefits are also identified as some of the crucial components needed for community resilience to disasters. However, literature directly linking civic agriculture to community resilience is sparse and there is little if any research explicitly examining a relationship between civic agriculture and community resilience. This study lends national scope and an empirical examination of evidence for a positive relationship between civic agriculture and community resilience along the applicable domains of social, human and economic capital …

Food For Thought: Analyzing The Impacts Of Livestock Factory Farming In The United States, Mallory Russo

Student Theses 2015-Present

The practice of large scale factory farming in the United States has raised moral and ethical questions since its establishment in the mid twentieth century. Though a relatively modern development in the field of agribusiness, factory farming has already accounted for drastic damage to both public and environmental health. Factory farming requires the unsustainable use of resources, gives off toxic waste, and poses a serious threat to public health. This paper aims the further analyze those damages, as well as investigate the lack of transparency and political corruption carried out by factory farm industry leaders. Major factory farming companies have …

The Passage Of The 2016 Ballot Question #3 In Massachusetts And Its Implications, Hannah Silverfine

Sustainability and Social Justice

In the 2016 Massachusetts primary election, ballot question #3, “Massachusetts Minimum Size Requirements for Farm Animal Containment”, aimed to improve welfare standards for cows raised for veal, female sows confined to gestation crates, and chickens caged for eggs. This study seeks to analyze the complex relationship between local and national food systems, and articulate the multi-level implications of Question 3. Research examines the rationale behind voting, campaign narratives, and campaign financing in Massachusetts, and ultimately compares the implications of Question 3 with those of California’s 2008 Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act. The lenses of animal geographies and the political …

"Transnational" Eating: The Food Culture Of Dominican Immigrants In Ri, Vanessa Garcia Polanco

Senior Honors Projects

Food, as an universal topic that transcends borders, times, and places, is a pathway towards understanding a group's transnational and local identity (Mares). Food culture as it refers to the practices, attitudes, and beliefs as well as the networks and institutions surrounding the production, distribution, and consumption of food provides fundamental understanding of a group (Long).Sociologists defined “transnationalism” as the process by which immigrants build social fields that link together their country of origin and their country of settlement (Glick Schiller et al. 1992:1). At the same time, migration flows influence the local context structure and the impacts of global …

Barriers To The Diffusion Of Renewable Energy Technology In Mongolia Lee, Madeline Academic Director: Sanjaasuren, Ulziijargal Claremont Mckenna College International Relations Mongolia: Ulaanbaatar, Darkhan, Salkhit, Hatgal Nomadism, Geopolitics, And The Environment Sit Study Abroad Spring, Madeline Lee

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As the international community looks promote sustainable development in developing countries, many policies have focused on the introduction of renewable energy technology (RET). For Mongolia specifically, RET is both a viable and optimal option, considering the country’s vast natural resources and the unsustainability of the country’s existing energy system. However, Mongolia has faced challenges with the development of its RET sector and still largely relies on international assistance and funding to develop largescale projects.

This study analyzes the barriers that Mongolia faces to the effective diffusion of RET into Mongolian society. Over the course of four weeks, 10 individuals were …

Agrarian Reform In Sumber Klampok, Emma Trainor

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Agrarian reform in Indonesia is part of a movement beginning after independence was gained in 1945. Farmers have been fighting to obtain rights to their land from a government that has a history of violence, repression, and corruption for decades. Environmental, indigenous peoples’, peasant, and agrarian movements were given a legitimate, legal framework to work within after 1960 when the Basic Agrarian Law was passed, protecting the rights of the people to their land. However, during both the Old Order and especially New Order regimes, the law was often ignored by the government, and many grassroots organizations had to work …

Environmental Education In Post-Green Revolution Punjab, Qing Fan

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In India, environmental education (EE) became compulsory for Classes I-XII nationwide in 1991, with curricula designed by central and state governments. Meanwhile, in the interest of food security, the government-promulgated Green Revolution of the 1960s brought about commercial agriculture practices have led to environmental degradation, with negative impacts on farmers’ livelihoods. This paper presents a case study in a rural region in the state of Punjab, the heartland of the Green Revolution. Through interviews with students, teachers and community members as well as a review of school curricula, it seeks to understand how EE in schools is impacting the perceptions …

Munnar Plantation Strike, 2015: A Case Study Of Keralan Female Tea Workers’ Fight For Justice, Shoshana Levy

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In the southern state of Kerala, tea leaf pickers are nearly all women. They work 14 hour days, six days a week, rain or shine. What’s more, they earn the lowest minimum daily wage of any sector in the state, bringing home a meager average of Rs. 231 a day. With women constituting more than half of the workforce on tea plantations across India it is becoming increasingly crucial to understand the challenged, yet integral role they play. Through a case study of the Munnar Plantation Strike of 2015 - a strike organized by the Pempilai Orumai women, against the …

Vulnerability And Resilience: The Farmers Of Sagara Village, Nick Olkovsky

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Agriculture is a large part of the economy and society of Tanzania, equating to 28% of the country’s GDP. Up to 80% of these farms are owned and worked by 19 million smallholder agriculturalists (FAO, 2015). Smallholder farmers are an inherently vulnerable demographic, due to their high reliance on agriculture for food and income in addition to their limited financial, technological, and labor resources (Morton, 2007). Simultaneously, these farmers are often uniquely adapted for the challenges they face, having developed strategies of addressing and mitigating risks over many generations. This study investigates the adaptative capacity of smallholder farmers in Sagara …

Fruit And Vegetable Bucks: Adams County Grocery Store Snap Incentive Program, Meredith A. Cox, Amy B. Dailey, Kim Davidson, Kathy Gaskin, Etta Saltos, Audrey Hess, Megan Shreve, Cherry Arvin, Elizabeth Weller

Student Publications

Veggie Bucks provides a 50% discount on all fresh fruits and vegetables sold through Kennie’s Market produce department at the point of sale for the 5 highest cost items. The incentive period ran January - April, 2017. Intended outcomes include an increase in the number of fresh fruits and vegetables purchased by SNAP recipients at Kennie’s Market locations in Biglerville and Gettysburg by 10% in January-April 2017 compared to baseline figures obtained in 2016, and to familiarize SNAP recipients with fresh fruits and vegetables and to provide information about the ACFMA markets’ Double Dollars program. SNAP recipients were invited to …

Eco-News March 2017, Office Of Sustainability, University Of Southern Maine

Eco-News

In this issue:

• Trash Talk
• Upcoming Events
• Green Cleaning
• Sustainability Tip

Overpopulation And The Impact On The Environment, Doris Baus

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this research paper, the main focus is on the issue of overpopulation and its impact on the environment. The growing size of the global population is not an issue that appeared within the past couple of decades, but its origins come from the prehistoric time and extend to the very present day. Throughout the history, acknowledged scientists introduced the concept of “overpopulation” and predicted the future consequences if the world follows the same behavioral pattern. According to predictions, scientists invented the birth control pill and set population control through eugenics. Despite that, population continued to increase and fight with …

Small Landholders Battle The Leaf Folder: Improving Livelihoods In The Solomon Islands, Dalia Tayseer Najjar

Bard Center for Environmental Policy

Sweet Potato is an important staple food crop grown by subsistence farmers in the Solomon Islands. It plays an important food security role and a major source of nutrition and livelihood in the rural areas as well as urban areas in the country. However, the spread of agricultural pests, in particular, the green leaf folder pest (Psara hipponalis), has significantly increased in recent years leaving many smallholder farmers with reduced yields and food insecurity. In this thesis, I reviewed the literature on the common mechanisms used to evaluate the drivers of pest presence and identified the major factors …

Cultivating A Culture Of Food Justice: Impacts Of Community Based Economies On Farmers And Neighborhood Leaders In The Case Of Fresh Stop Markets In Kentucky, Heather Hyden

Theses and Dissertations--Community & Leadership Development

In this thesis, I focus on two tensions within the alternative agro-food movement. First is a question of who/what community is allowed to define food systems problems and then implement solutions. For example, food desert metaphors rely discursively on defining communities as being “without”, which perpetuates needs-based narratives, in which only professional “experts” know how to solve problems of food access. These representations ignore the creativity, agency, and resiliency of everyday food justice mobilizations happening at the grassroots level. Second, what form can solutions take within hegemonic constructions of development? I build a theoretical model based on Black geographies (McKittrick, …

A Synthesis Of James Howard Kunstler’S Themes Of Urbanization And The Impending Oil Crisis In The Geography Of Nowhere, Home From Nowhere, The City In Mind, And The Long Emergency, William S. Humphrey

Tenor of Our Times

This paper examines and synchronizes the thoughts put forth by American social critic and author James Howard Kunstler in his four books, The Geography of Nowhere, Home from Nowhere, The City in Mind, and The Long Emergency. Kunstler asserts that human beings are losing their sense of being while simultaneously facilitating daily life, thus leaving a world rife with nothingness. A large portion of Kunstler’s argument deals with how humans have knowingly increased suburban sprawl while depleting valuable resources; such activity, left unchecked, will worsen the state of the world. The United States, in particular, is the most problematic. …

Closing Abandoned Livestock Lagoons Effectively To Utilize Nutrients And Avoid Environmental Problems, Leslie J. Johnson, Charles Shapiro, Amy Schmidt

Nebraska Cooperative Extension: Faculty and Staff Publications

In Nebraska alone, nearly 400 earthen manure storage structures are in operation; approximately four dozen requests to cease operation of permitted lagoons were received by the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality in the prior decade with many more non-permitted storage structures being in need of proper closure. Abandoned livestock lagoons, earthen manure storage basins, and other manure storages (e.g. concrete pits) need to be decommissioned in a manner that controls potential environmental risk and makes economical use of accumulated nutrients. Currently, limited guidance is available to support lagoon closure planning and implementation and few professionals who support livestock producers have …

The Treadmill Of Destruction In Comparative Perspective: A Panel Study Of Military Spending And Carbon Emissions, 1961-2014, Alex Stoner, John H. Bradford

Journal Articles

This article analyzes a unique panel data set to assess the effect of militarism on per capita carbon dioxide emissions. We extend previous research examining the effects of military expenditures on carbon emissions by including in our analyses over 30 years of additional data. In addition, we compare our preliminary results to those obtained from other estimation procedures. Specifically, we report and visually illustrate the results of 54 cross-sectional models (one for each year) and 36 unique panel regression models on both balanced and unbalanced panels. We assess how this relationship has changed over time by testing for interactions between …

Who’S The Fairest Of Them All? The Fractured Landscape Of U.S. Fair Trade Certification, Daniel Jaffee, Philip H. Howard

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

In recent years, consumers in the United States have been confronted by no fewer than four competing fair-trade labels, each grounded in a separate certification system and widely differing standards. This fracturing is partly a response to the recent split by the U.S. certifier Fair Trade USA from the international fair trade system, but also illustrates longstanding divisions within the fair trade movement. This article explores the dynamics of competition among nonstate standards through content analyses of fair trade standards documents from the four U.S. fair-trade certifications for agrifood products (Fair Trade USA, Fairtrade America, Fair for Life, and the …

Give A Man A Fish: A Narrative Approach To A Case Study Of Soup Kitchens In The Wentworth Community, Evelyn Shen

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study uses a narrative approach to explore the role of soup kitchens in the predominantly Coloured and English-speaking Wentworth community. Many of the community’s churches1 and non-profit organizations host soup kitchens regularly, rotating so that there is a meal available each day of the week.

Qualitative data was gathered through volunteering with the soup kitchens as a participant observer and having conversations and open-ended interviews with soup kitchen guests and hosts. Institutional context was provided by interviews with the Convener of the War Room and the Ward Councillor, and representatives of three non-profits in the community. In order to …

A Road To Somewhere: Changing Trade And The Adaptation To Survive In Humla, Sophie Louaillier

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper is an investigation of the changing trade in Humla, one of the most remote regions in Nepal. I particularly focus on the road being built from the village of Hilsa, which lies on the border of China and Nepal, to Simikot, the main town. This road will be accessible by all the villagers who live on the link trail now – the trail they walk on with their animals in order to reach the border site. Trade is especially important in Humla; there are no roads available to get there from the Nepal side, so everything must be …

A Study Of The Integration Of Artificial Insemination Into The Dairy Sector Of The Alaotra Mangoro Region Of Madagascar, Tara Hammonds

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The region of Alaotra Mangoro in central Madagascar is one of the country’s focal points for the development of the dairy industry. The Coopération Décentralisée, a partnership between Alaotra Mangoro and the French department Ille et Vilaine, has since 2007 been offering and subsidizing artificial insemination (AI) services for increased dairy production and the amelioration of local breeds. The program benefits about 150 local dairy farmers, who have noted a significantly higher level of production than those farmers who have chosen to continue using natural service to inseminate their cattle. Artificial insemination use in the region has increased since the …

Urban Agriculture As Embedded In The Social And Solidarity Economy Basel: Developing Sustainable Communities, Isidor Wallimann

Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration

The Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) is a viable strategy in dealing with some contemporary problems known both in industrial and developing countries. Addressed is how local populations could reach certain objectives and satisfy certain needs using techniques characteristic of SSE and, thus, carve out a social and economic space of their own vis-à-vis anonymous markets, global actors, local and national elites. Illustrated further is this strategy on the example of Urban Agriculture Basel, a unit of the Social Economy Basel. Within this self governed space, it is suggested, a path can be laid for the necessary transition towards local, …