Recipient Organization
UNIV OF WISCONSIN
21 N PARK ST STE 6401
MADISON,WI 53715-1218
Performing Department
Community and Environmental Sociology
Non Technical Summary
It is not easy to maintain a farm or food enterprise. One has to find a continually changing point of balance amid a host of tensions from the vagaries of climate, to a fluctuating labor market, to constantly morphing cultural values, and more - an entire "ecology of contexts" that range the biophysical to the social to the economic to the political. The many needs that must be satisfied for the enterprise to endure require that it do many things at once. It cannot serve only one function but must, as scholars like to say, be "multifunctional."The theory of holon agroecology is intended to provide some clarity on the complexity and frequent conflicts involved. Its basic point starting point is recognizing that an entity like a farm or food enterprise is a whole but also a part of many other wholes. Indeed, it can only be a whole by being part of many other wholes, which both constrain and enable that enterprise. The farm does not stop at the farmgate. The restaurant does not stop at its front door. The etymology of the word "holon" seeks to remind us of this necessary part-wholeness; the "hol-" comes from whole and the "-on" from the same Greek root of the word atom.Central to maintaining a farm or food holon are its stories or, in more technical language, its narratives. A story is not just a tale that we should oppose to real facts. The stories that we tell about ourselves and to ourselves explain our motives and give direction to our intensions. In a situation of complexity and conflict, we need ways to leap beyond what we know for sure - beyond the real facts - because there is so much that we can never completely know. Holon agroecology gives us analytic tools for recognizing the workings of that story-telling, including both the troubles it can cause and the assistance it can give.This Hatch project seeks to build on earlier work by Bland and Bell (2007 & 2009) in holon agroecology, both by further developing the theory and by applying it to three case studies, using qualitative case study methods. Our threecases aredomestic fair trade, perennial agriculture, and ecosystem services in agriculture, and draw on on-going projects at the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.Ultimately, we seek to produce new knowledge that will be of interest to agriculture and food researchers, but alsowill assist extension professionals and food and agriculture practitioners in better recognizing the challenges involved in meeting the Hatch Act's mandate for the "maintenance of a permanent and effective agricultural industry."
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
50%
Applied
50%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
In this project, we build on Bland and Bell's promising early holon theory of agroecology (Bland and Bell 2007, Bland and Bell, 2009), operationalizing it through a series of agroecological case studies. Holon theory straddles and combines the ontologies of whole systems and mechanisms, thus retaining and expanding well-developed and widely-used systems-theoretical approaches, while rendering them responsive to scientific analysis. Originally put forward by Koestler (1967), the holonic approach to applied science has remained largely underdeveloped. Despite its promise for agroecology, it has yet to be applied in the field. In one of the most widely-cited papers in modern agroecology, Wezel et. al. (2009) emphasize the need for continued work to develop and operationalize this promising approach to agroecological practice. Wezel et al.'s revised 3-part framework for agroecology - agroecology as science, practice, and movement - has clear parallels with nascent holon theory and thus underscores its potential for a reinvigorated and more useful agroecological science. Wezel et al. emphasize the explanatory power in Bland and Bell's approach to understanding agency and intentionality as unfolding in an ever-changing "ecology of contexts," as holon theory terms the inherently contextual character of agricultural endeavor. By leveraging insights from other theoretical traditions, this contextual approach is a novel addition to the systems-theoretical framework characteristic of current work.In this project, we propose to conduct three case studies to implement holon theory in practice. We will examine the cases of domestic fair trade, perennial agriculture, and ecosystem services in agriculture, rendering explicit their holonic structures and narrative ecologies. Each of these case studies builds on work in progress and ongoing grant activity in the Center for Integrated Agricultural Studies (CIAS) at the University of Wisconsin.This project will generate an integrative framework of action for addressing the Hatch Act's mandate for the "maintenance of a permanent and effective agricultural industry," as well as 4 of the USDA's national priority areas for research:Global Food Security: Crops & Agronomic PlantsSustainable Use of Natural ResourcesClimate Change and Energy NeedsRural Prosperity
Project Methods
The first phase of the project is theory development, based on synthesis of existing literature.This second phase of the project will make use of interviews and documents relevant to ongoing research activity at CIAS in the three case studies. Holon agroecology places the intentionality of agroecological actors at the center of analysis (Bland and Bell, 2009, p. 86). Given the complexity of intentionality, the methods employed by this project will be qualitative case studies, allowing for rich data that is sensitive to contexuality. We will use interviews, participatory observation, documentary evidence, and qualitative ethnographic techniques. However, in order to allow for a comparative frame within a two-year study, as noted above, the case studies in this project leverage ongoing research at CIAS, making the most of available data and the expertise and strengths of our existing colleagues and collaborators.Domestic Fair Trade: An agriculture of the middleThe first case study is the push towards a domestic fair trade certification and implementation in the food supply chain. This study is an agroecological success story and an example of holon change. Here we leverage ongoing work on a USDA supported grant (Bell, 2015). The project of domestic fair trade is characterized by coalitions, certification, negotiations, and changes to public policy intended to improve working conditions and returns to agricultural labor. This 'agriculture of the middle' seeks to intervene in the paradox of demographic and labor changes that have resulted in a labor shortage on mid-scale farms simultaneous to a marked increase in demand for value-added regionally sourced agricultural products. We look at holons unfolding across the supply chain - from the labor and land, to the farm, food vendors, and eaters. The resulting regional value-based supply chain is a concatenation of holon dynamics. The storyworld of domestic fair trade is held together by a vision of cooperation around ideals of justice and enforcement. A successful 'agriculture of the middle' would require a powerful fundamental shift in inertial dynamics of current large-scale industrial agricultural systems. Though many actors are united in this vision of change, its emergence isn't entirely explainable through the material instrumentalism of a field-theoretic approach. How, then, do we explain the endogenous change? Has a new 'field' been created around justice-oriented rules? How are we to understand agency in this complex context of multi-scale and often diffuse change? Here we draw on the heterogeneity and complexity of actor-network theory to examine the association of a multiplicity of nested, recursive, and hierarchical stories about agroecology across the supply chain. This case study has clear linkages with 3 USDA priority areas: rural prosperity, sustainable use of natural resources, and global food security and availability.Perennial AgricultureThe second case study examines the promise of perennial crops to provide a synthetic answer to multiple seemingly discrete problems. This participatory and interdisciplinary project leverages experts from diverse social worlds to implement a narrative of agroecological sustainability (Picasso et. al, 2016). As such, it is also an example of narrative continuity and holon cohesion. The multidisciplinary research project integrates plant science, agronomy, horticulture, soil science, forest and wildlife ecology, as well as sociology and economics. The goal is to demonstrate the viability of 'kernza,' a perennial cool-season grass, to provide a number of integrated social and agroecological benefits. The project seeks to implement a strategic collaboration between researchers, farmers, and industry partners in a project that will be successful in ecological, agricultural, and economic terms. We hypothesize that kernza cultivation has the potential to simultaneously solve a number of pressing social, agriculture, and ecological problems related to the USDA priority areas of food security and availability, climate change, and sustainable use of natural resources. Kernza's biophysical characteristics (extensive root systems) combine with agricultural needs (reduced pesticide requirements), labor availability (reduce annual farmer inputs), ecological goals (reduced runoff and soil erosion), consumer demands (for locally sourced nutritious and innovative food products), to grant it clear agricultural, ecological, and cultural potential. Here a narrative of integration and synthesis has the potential to take hold. Here we explore the possibility of the creation of a 'new' field appealing to identity, belief, and material interests. Within this new field - an environment of increased complexity and confusion - we see resonance in the approach to agency taken by actor-network theory. In reconciling atomistic and holistic approaches to analysis, as well as structural and agenetic approaches to analysis, the holon theory of perennial agriculture offers a novel perspective on both the boundaries of the agroecological system. It also provides clues as to real possibilities for lasting sources of change to that system.Ecosystem Services in Agriculture as a NarrativeThe third case study examines what happens when holons fall apart. Despite concerted efforts and partnerships between farmers and civil society organizations, many agroecological interventions are not successful. Using interviews with the figures involved and primary documents, we examine the case of the Wisconsin 'eco-potato.' In 1996, the Wisconsin potato growers association partnered with the World Wildlife fund and the International Crane Society in a certification scheme for value-added 'eco-potatoes' (Briles, 2004). For 20 years this coalition put together a conservation and marketing program for potato growers, intended to create a value-added product that would pay for itself in the consumer marketplace. An important precursor to ecosystem-services based approaches to integrating conservation goals with consumer products, the eco-potato was billed as 'healthy for you & healthy for the environment.' The program included both practice-based and outcome-based production standards, including 3rd party certification, consumer-targeted marketing labels ('Healthy Grown') endorsed by the World Wildlife Fund. This label was unique in that it expanded the scope of certification beyond an individual product to encompass an entire farm ('whole farm labeling'). Its comprehensive growing guidelines were intended to support communities of wild pollinators through a variety of mechanisms, and even restore portions of farmland to pre-colonial habitat (Locke et. al., 2015).Despite the best efforts of a number of actors, the eco-potato effort was not successful. Nevertheless, the intervening years have seen attempts at a number of similar consumer products. A holon based analysis of the failure of the eco-potato will develop a novel theoretical approach to understanding the dynamics behind collaborative disintegration. Here, we will employ a narrative framework to uncover the ontological and spatiotemporal dynamics of the eco-potato storyworld. Our analysis will look for semiotic cues as well as spatial elements in the narrative form, interleaving these considerations with field-theoretic structural approaches to considering the material dynamics of context-shaping competition. We aim to explain the failure of strategic control over a potential whole-farm certification context through a multiplicity of stories - undoing the taken-for-granted assumptions about the basis for holon disintegration. An improved understanding of these ecologies of context will advance USDA's priority research areas in: rural prosperity, food security and availability, and the sustainable use of natural resources.