Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT SANTA CRUZ
1156 HIGH STREET
SANTA CRUZ,CA 950641077
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Interest in the promises of soil, and agricultural soil in particular, to sequester carbon is skyrocketing, often framed by proponents through the slogan, "Soil will save us!" This project looks beyond the slogan to identify key social processes on which successful long-term carbon storage depends. Much of the focus on agricultural soil carbon sequestration (ASCS) has been on developing new technologies for measurement and verification. However, while many technical issues remain, increasingly scholars are asserting that there are underpinning social processes that will be critical to enabling ASCS to meet its potential. The gap between what is technically attainable by ASCS and what is more feasibly attainable is mediated by numerous, contextually-specific, and poorly defined social processes. This proposal seeks support for an innovative project combining ethnographic research with computational social science that will work directly with farmers, foundations, startups and other US organizations at the forefront of ASCS efforts. This will support field research, data analysis, communication and training to build necessary skills for an impactful career focused on the social dimensions of food and agriculture. Ultimately, this inquiry aims to illuminate the practices and policies that can best incentivize ASCS efforts to better support the viability and sustainability of agriculture in the US.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
50%
Applied
50%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
GoalsThe overarching goal of this project is to better understand the gap between the technical potential of Agricultural Soil Carbon Sequestration (ASCS) and the socially obtainable potential. The US has set ambitious goals for ASCS, this project will enable a better understanding of how these goals might be achieved.Sub-goals:To engage with those undertaking ASCS to underlying social processes involved in undertaking ASCS and what incentives and barriers exist.To understand the ongoing work involved in long-term maintenance of these projects.To understand who can access these initiatives, who might be excluded from participation and through what mechanisms.To achieve these goals, there are a number of measurable objectives linked to the four project phases:Phase 1: Data Collection ObjectivesConduct 25-35 Interviews with stakeholders involved in ASCS, including a representative range of those who have opted in, those who have opted out, and those who remain open to their role.Participant-Observation: Attendance at nine events to gather field data about how ASCS goals are formed and negotiated, who is engaged, and how.Conduct stakeholder surveys deigned to elicit direct experience of under-explored factors related to labor and maintenance, justice and equity, and scalability.Assemble a multi-media corpus of images, text, and videos from digital sources (online convenings, reports, websites, and social media feeds) for computational text and network analysis.Phase 2: Analysis ObjectivesProduce ~80 coded transcripts from audio files, field notes, surveys analyzed.Prepare, refine, and run computational analysis on multi-media corpus. This involves using Large Language Models (LLMs) to assist in identify core concepts, controversies, and themes from larger datasets.Phase 3: Writing ObjectivesSubmit 3-6 papers to academic conferences on findings from this researchSubmit 3-5 articles to peer-reviewed journals on findings from this researchPrepare 1-2 summary reports with participating organizations.Phase 4: Dissemination ObjectivesReport back and present to stakeholders at industry conferences.Present findings at 4 academic conferences.Present research in progress at 3-5 academic symposia and working groups.Contribute as commentator through general interest platforms, including mainstream news outlets, podcasts, and social media.
Project Methods
This project combines in-depth ethnographic fieldwork methods with state-of-the-art computational analysis. By bringing together approaches not typically used in concert with one another, it will be possible to develop a rich data set, traced in real-time, which can illuminate previously unseen complex social factors. The project follows a sequence of four general and overlapping phases of data collection, analysis, writing, and dissemination as described in the Goals section.Data Collection: The PD will spend the first year of the project collecting data traveling to nine different sites or events; at key conferences, and other convenings; online through videoconferencing; and through both digital and library-based archival research. The PD proposes to build a rich qualitative and quantitative dataset derived from diverse complementary data collection procedures (summarized below). This innovative hybrid data collection approach includes both in-person convenings and field visits as well as multiple media types to assemble a digital archive.Semi-Structured Interviews (n=35): Interviews focused on stakeholder experience with ASCS, subjective understanding of enabling and limiting factors in adoption, and an account of the long-term maintenance labor anticipated. This will include: (1) policy makers, public sector employees, private sector managers, executives, and intermediaries advocating for but not directly participating in ASCS practices (n=10); (2) analysts, scientists, and intermediaries not involved directly with farming, but having some direct experience with the measurement, verification, and reporting of ASCS (n=10); (3) farmers associated with ASCS programs, either as active, prospective, or former participants, or as decided non-participants (n=15).Participant-Observation: Attendance at key events to gather field data about how high-level visions for ASCS are planned and elaborated, who is engaged, and how. This will be in-person and over videoconference. Events include: (1) multilateral initiatives associated with the UNFCC, including COP29, the climate week events held in conjunction with the 79th General Assembly of the UN in NYC, and spin-off summits such as Aim4C, and (2) industry-focused conferences, such as the Innovation Forum: The Future of Food USA, Transform USA, and the Regenerative Food System Investment Forum.Field Visits and Farmer Surveys (n=50): Proposed visits to the head offices of two independent research, measurement, and verification organizations, likely the (1) the Ecdysis Foundation in Estelline, South Dakota, and (2) TerraCarbon in Peoria, Illinois. Both firms are located in farming communities with many enrolled participants nearby, where the PD will seek out a diversity of views and experiences of participating (or not) in ASCS verification and credit programs.Digital Archive Assembly: Image, text, and video capture from public digital sources (online convenings, reports, websites, and social media feeds) for computational text and network analysis. This analysis will shed light on public narratives of ASCS, the origins and movement of shared knowledge or trust, and the relationships, commonalities, and gaps between how technical potentials are communicated and how social potentials are received and perceived.Analysis and interpretation: Between interview transcripts, field notes, and digital materials gathered from both archival (i.e. published reports) and ephemeral (i.e. social media activity) sources, the PD will assemble a large integrated dataset. The PD will combine both manual and computational analyses to address these specific research questions and use insights from environmental geography, rural sociology, and science and technology studies (STS) to analyze and understand the social dimensions of knowledge production unfolding across these networks. This analysis will be used to prepare new research articles for submission and will be incorporated into the preparation of a monograph for publication with an academic press, combining the findings of the PD's doctoral and postdoctoral research.Evaluation: Evaluation will be directly linked to assessing the outputs from objectives detailed in the Goals section of these materials. These are summarized in the following table:Project phaseOutputs to evaluate success of project phaseData Collection35 digital audio files from interviews10-15 sets of field notes from participant-observation events50 survey responses from farmer respondents~0.5TB multimedia file corpus assembled (HTML, image, video, etc.)Analysis ~80 coded transcripts from audio files, field notes, surveys analyzedComplete computational text analysisWriting Monograph proposal preparation for academic press4 academic conference submissions4-6 peer-reviewed journal submissions1 summary report for participating organizationsDissemination1 monograph proposal submitted to academic press3-4 submitted articles under review or in press4 academic conference presentations4-6 research presentations at academic symposia and working groupsReport back to research participant networkCreation of a profile on a professional social networking site focused on this research, revise PD's academic website.