Progress 05/01/20 to 04/30/24
Outputs
Target Audience: The target audiences that were the focus of this project included the agricultural research community, public readers of science and conservation news, farm owners and operators, extension agents, and graduate students in environmental and social sciences. Efforts to reach out to these audiences included presentations at academic research conferences and local farm conferences, publication of peer-reviewed papers, public sharing of project code via GitHub, publication and on-request sharing of developed datasets, university press releases, invited seminars, guest lectures, podcasts and short YouTube videos, a story map, an organized focus group session, and informal in-person and phone or Zoom conversations. Specifically, project personnel have presented project results in more than 11 academic presentations at more than 7 regional and national conferences. More than 15 manuscripts have been published in peer-reviewed journals, with additional manuscripts forthcoming. All publications not published as open access have been shared via institutional repositories or the National Agricultural Library's PubAg. At least 9 invited guest lectures at institutions of higher education have been given, including several presentations to international audiences at universities in Europe. Undergraduate and graduate student audiences were reached via: educational lectures in graduate seminar courses at Kansas State University and Arizona State University, inclusion of landscape diversity content in geospatial analysis and environmental data sciences courses at Kansas State University and Emory University, guest speaking at outreach activities aimed toward increasing participation of underrepresented groups in research (KLSAMP), and through experiential learning opportunities for undergraduate researchers on the project. Data produced via the project has been publicly shared via USDA's Ag Data Commons and with individuals from organizations such as American Farmland Trust upon request. Data analysis and modeling code has been made publicly available via GitHub. Additional outreach efforts have resulted in several products reporting project results in alternate formats including one story map, one podcast, and one video (with more planned) that are all accessible via Dr. Nelson's website. Project personnel have also directly shared information about the project with farmers and agricultural professionals via invited presentations at farmer conferences, an organized focus group session, and via one-on-one conversations with more than 50 study participants and other interested parties. A hard-copy project summary report for project participants is also in production. In addition, university press releases and articles in public science news outlets like Phys.org about project products have reached a broader public audience. Changes/Problems:With the project starting shortly after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic the team encountered some unanticipated challenges, particularly in regard to student recruitment/onboarding and human subjects data collection. Few applications for the GRA position which was posted near the start of the pandemic were submitted and a second round of recruiting in the fall was required. The primary graduate research assistant on the project, Mr. Francois, started in spring 2021 however all onboarding and the first six months of training were conducted entirely remotely due to social distancing requirements at the time. Mr. Francois has made admirable progress, however these unusual circumstances likely resulted in a slower start to his training and progress on the project. Reduced undergraduate enrollment associated with the pandemic also led to a lack of suitable undergraduate research assistants at KSU. This gap in student support was filled, in part, by part-time and temporary support by KSU Geography graduate students. Administrative challenges related to the pandemic and the loss of a research technician also led to significant time conflicts for co-PD Dr. Cowan. Originally tasked with leading Objective 3 and personally conducting the focus groups and a significant portion of the interviews originally planned in Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and Montana, lack of progress led to a major restructuring of responsibilities and a reduction in the scope of interview collection and focus group activities. In early 2022 Dr. Nelson took the lead on the survey portion of Objective 3 and hired a part-time graduate research assistant to assist Dr. Cowan by conducting in-person interviews. Regardless, insufficient recruitment efforts and lack of follow-up communication with potential participants by Dr. Cowan limited the ability of the team to obtain the desired number of interviews in the plains regions and reduced the number of case study counties from six to four. Despite these limitations we feel confident that we achieved saturation and that the set of interviews across four counties allows for meaningful inter- and intra-regional comparisons. In addition, Dr. Cowan was unable to sufficiently engage with county extension agents and other agricultural professionals to recruit participants, publicize the survey, and disseminate project findings as agreed upon in spring 2022. Given the low survey response rate, these efforts could have greatly benefited the project by increasing the visibility and acceptance of our project, particularly outside of Kansas and Nebraska. To address the unexpectedly low response rate from the online survey the team pivoted to a paper survey format, reallocating funds originally intended for interview-related travel. However the final response rate for the paper survey was also surprisingly low. Communication with survey participants and prospective participants also pointed to two unexpected challenges with the survey. First, the contact information provided by DTN was out-of-date and included people who had been retired or deceased for up to a decade. Second, multiple surveys appear to have been sent out during this same time frame, including one from USDA or the FRS and another from Kansas State University researchers, leading to confusion over which survey/s had been completed. While the survey response rate is much lower than expected, preliminary analyses suggest that the responses provided will allow us to address many of the questions related to barriers to diversification that we originally planned to examine. Dr. Cowan formally stepped away from the project early in 2023, at which point Dr. Nelson also took the lead on the last remaining task of Objective 3, focus groups. Originally planned to take place in multiple on-site locations, the team pivoted to conducting a single virtual focus group session, drawing from the network of prospective participants available via the survey responses. While less rigorous than originally planned, this focus group allowed the team to triangulate findings across three different human subjects data collection approaches and generally support the main findings of the interviews and survey. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Overall, the project provided professional development and training support for three early career faculty, one post doctoral researcher, five doctoral students, three masters students, and six undergraduate students. The project supported professional development for Drs. Nelson, Burchfield, and Cowan via support for attendance at annual conferences and enabled Dr. Nelson's attendance at a Sustainable Wheat Value Chain workshop held in Manhattan, KS in spring 2024. The project also supported training activities for student and post-doctoral researchers involved in project activities via individual skill training and research mentoring with the project PDs and via support for graduate degree coursework. Specifically, at Kansas State University Geography PhD graduate student Jean Francois received one-on-one training in qualitative coding, survey data analysis, data science and programming, statistical modeling, academic professionalism, manuscript and grant writing, and oral presentation from Dr. Nelson. Jean Francois's PhD degree coursework focused on agricultural sustainability and mixed-methods in geography was supported in full by the project. During the project period he successfully completed the PhD comprehensive exams and dissertation proposal defense and advanced to PhD candidacy. During the project period Jean Francois co-wrote a graduate student research grant proposal that was funded by NC-SARE, has published two peer-reviewed manuscripts (one as lead author), is lead author on more than two manuscripts pending submission, and has given oral presentations at more than five regional and national conferences. KSU geography PhD student Amariah Fischer was also supported on a part-time basis by the project and gained experience in conducting in-person interviews and one-on-one training in programming and data analysis from Dr. Nelson. Dr. Fischer successfully completed her PhD in Spring 2024. KSU geography student Dong Luo was supported on a part-time basis and received training in raster reclassification and landscape ecology metric computation from Dr. Nelson. Dr. Luo successfully defended his PhD dissertation in spring 2021. KSU Masters student Mobashsira Tasnim received summer support on the project and one-on-one training in human subjects data management, spatial data analysis and programming, and landscape ecology from Dr. Nelson. Ms. Tasnim completed her Masters in geography summer 2024 and will pursue her PhD in geography at Penn State University in fall 2024. In addition, KSU PhD student, Michael Madin (not funded on the project), gained training and experience in statistical modeling and academic writing via a co-authored publication on landscape diversity and ecosystem services with Dr. Nelson and an interdisciplinary research collaboration experience was provided for two agricultural economics post-doctoral researchers (Becatien Yao and Buddhika Patalee) from Kansas State University working with Dr. Nelson on a co-authored paper. At Emory University, Dr. Andrea Rissing completed a year as a Postdoctoral Researcher in 2021-2022. She accepted a tenure-track position at Arizona State University in the Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems, where she started in August 2022. Dr. Rissing received individual mentoring from Dr. Burchfield during her tenure at Emory while conducting interviews and qualitative data analysis on crop diversification trajectories. Dr. Rissing lead-authored one publication related to her field work on the project and has continued to collaborate with the project team on work related to Objective 3. During the project period Dr. Burchfield's PhD student, Dr. Kaitlyn Spangler (not funded on the project), successfully defended her PhD thesis and started a tenure-track position at Penn State in 2023. Dr. Spangler led a paper from her fieldwork in the Magic Valley, Idaho on the ways in which farmers do(n't) engage in diversification and was actively involved in the project interview protocol development and several manuscripts that utilized data products developed by Dr. Burchfield for the project. Another of Dr. Burchfield's unfunded graduate advisees, Britta Schumacher, was also actively involved in the development of data products generated by Dr. Burchfield for the project (and associated manuscripts). Ms. Schumacher successfully completed her Masters degree during the project period and is currently pursuing her PhD at Utah State University. Several undergraduate students at KSU and Emory were supported by the project. At Emory University, training and development activities associated with undergraduate research assistant positions (3) included participation in research meetings, coding and transcription of qualitative data, data visualization and exploration, and literature reviews. At KSU, one-on-one training on geospatial modeling and suitability analysis using ArcGIS Pro was provided to three undergraduate research assistants by Dr. Nelson. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The results of the project have been widely disseminated via peer-reviewed publications and presentations at regional, national, and international conferences (e.g. Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society & Association for the Study of Food and Society Annual Conference, 2022 & 2024; American Association of Geographers, 2022 & 2023 & 2024; SECU Conference in Leuven, Belgium, 2024; Symposium on Transdisciplinary Research for a Healthy Planet at l'Universite de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, France, 2024) in addition to other seminars, podcasts, and conversations with study participants. News articles, blogs, and social media posts on project research have appeared in Anthropocene magazine, phys.org, Mirage magazine, Emory University's eScience Commons blog, Kansas State University's K-State Today newsletter, and academic Twitter. In addition, the results have been disseminated via invited seminar talks at the Kansas State University Department of Plant Pathology, Kansas State University Department of Geography & Geospatial Sciences, Kansas State University Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Seminar Series, the University of Kansas Department of Geography & Atmospheric Science, the Earth Life Institute at the University of Louvain Belgium, the CERES group at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Vanderbilt University, and the Department of Geography at Indiana University Bloomington. Additional guest lectures and talks have included a graduate seminar (SOS 520) in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University, an outreach seminar for the Kansas State University Office for the Advancement of Women in Science and Engineering Career Chat series, and an outreach seminar for the Kansas Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (KS-LAMP) Pathways to STEM summer research program. To reach a broader audience, a podcast was created from a guest lecture by Dr. Rissing is publicly available on the internet at https://ges-center-lecturesncsu.pinecast.co/episode/690ca6f6/andrea-rissing-diversification-as-landscape-change-in-nc and via Dr. Nelson's project webpage. (North Carolina case-study interview participants were invited ahead of time, an extension agent from the area of interest attended and participated in the Q&A discussion, session was also recorded and turned into a podcast, and the link shared with participants afterwards.) Dr. Rissing has stayed in touch via email with the county extension agents who helped connect her to participants and kept them abreast of the project developments (ie, that an article was published). A story map created by graduate student Jean Francois was publicly published in 2023 and is available on Dr. Nelson's project webpage and the NC-SARE web site. Mr. Francois was also invited to, and presented at, a local Kansas Rural Farm Conference where the audience included local producers. In addition, a short video summarizing the primary results of Objective 1 was recorded and posted to YouTube and linked on the project webpage. Additional video shorts related to Objectives 2 and 3 are planned. In addition, a dataset of county landscape diversity and complexity metrics was published to the USDA Ag Data Commons to enable public sharing of the landscape ecology metrics produced in the project. Manuscripts resulting from the project have either been published as open-access or hosted on the Kansas State University institutional open digital repository (KREx) or in the National Agricultural Library. The team intends to submit all project publications, including open access publications, to the National Agricultural Library to facilitate access to results from the project among agriculture science communities. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Impact Statement: Key outcomes of this project include a change in knowledge on the relationships between landscape diversity and crop productivityand a change in knowledge on the factors that influence diversification of cropping systems. The results of this project generally support claims of the benefits of increasing crop diversity for crop production in the U.S. and provide evidence of a measurable positive relationship between high county crop diversity and yields of corn and winter wheat that supports decision-making related to diversification. The project has also contributed to understanding of the barriers to diversification and potential pathways to diversification. Specifically, the results of this project suggest that biophysical conditions with sub county levelspatial variaion should be taken into account when designing diversification strategies and incentives. In addition this project has supported efforts towards crop diversification and crop diversity researchas evidenced by requests for landscape diversity data from other researchers, consultants associated with NGOs, and downloads of the published dataset. 1.Objective 1 employed Bayesian regression toquantify how landscape diversity relatesto crop production across theU.S. During the project period, the project team developeddatasets and conducted quantitative analysis and modeling activities that have, thus far,contributed to three peer-reviewed publications, one dataset published on Ag Data Commons, three academic conference presentations, two manuscripts in preparation, and one additional planned manuscript.Specifically, Dr. Burchfield constructed a dataset integrating climate, soil, crop yield, and more than 10 different landscape metrics for all counties in the coterminous US from 2008 to 2018. This dataset was used by Dr. Nelson to conduct analyses using landscape and climate data. These analysessuggest that high levels of landscape diversity are associated with corn and wheat yields that are 10% above national averages, and that landscapes that are both diverse and have moderate spatial complexity are associated with yields that are 20% above average for corn and wheat.Additional landscapediversitymetrics were recalculated by Dr. Nelson using reclassified land use data. This data has been appliedin a sensitivity analysis led by Dr. Nelson. Dr. Nelson worked with collaboratorDr. Brennan Bean to develop a simulation approach for creating a probabilistic estimate of the relationship between landscape diversity and yield across ensembles of models with five diversity metrics - each calculated using two types of spatial boundaries, two types of extents, and two classification schemas - and five crops. The resulting manuscript that summarizes the results of more than 450 different model ensemble permutations is in production. This work provides additional evidence that supports existing hypotheses regarding the ecosystem service benefits provided by higher levels of diversity at large spatial scales, generally confirming that more diverse agricultural landscapes tend to have higher and more resilient crop yields. 2.Objective 2 identifiedpotential reasons why the relationship between landscape diversity and crop production varies across regions. During the project period, the project team integrated developed datasets of landscape metrics with publicly available data on social, agricultural, and biophysical characteristics of U.S. counties and conducted quantitative analysis and modeling. This work hascontributed to five peer-reviewed publications, five academic conference presentations, two manuscripts in preparation and two data sampling schemes. Key outcomes of this work include a change in knowledge on the factors that limit or enable diversification while maintaining or improving crop productivity.Specifically, Dr. Burchfield built a dataset of integrated social, agricultural, biophysical and landscape characteristics for all counties in the U.S. and all years from 2008 through 2018 that includes more than 73 variables and conducted hierarchical Bayesian, multinomial logistic, and random forests modeling to examine associations between farm, social, and economic characteristics of counties and overall crop yield. The results of this work indicate that surprisingly high yields of corn and other major crops are most strongly associated with agricultural inputs (chemical applications and labor) and federal monetary support. Thisdataset was also employed in an archetype analysis of diverse and productive counties in the U.S. led by Dr. Nelson that examined how contextualfactors varied across counties classified as high diversity-and-high productivity to low diversity-and-low productivity. Wefound that biophysical and farm management factors are most predictive of diversity-productivity class, suggesting strong biophysical limitations to diversification, but also pointing to a comparable influence of human agency on the shaping of diversity-productivity regimes.This work was associated with the development of a new collaboration with Dr. Mike Crossleyexamining how complexity of crop rotations across U.S. counties is associated with crop yields. The results showthat high average rotation complexity across counties does not yet have an observable positive association with county crop yields for corn or soybean and suggest that the ecosystem function benefits complex rotations provide do not explain the positive relationship between landscape diversity and yields observed in Objective 1. 3.Objective 3 addressedthe need to understand how human decision-making impacts landscape diversification processes. During the project period,the project team collected data from farm owners and operators and agricultural professionals that has been analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively to provide a richer understanding of barriers to crop diversification across the U.S. and identify pathways towards future diversification. This work has contributed to two peer-reviewed publications, eight academic conference presentations, four manuscripts in preparation and three human subjects data collection protocols. Key outcomes of this work include a change in knowledge on the impacts of meso-scale landscape factors on decision-making and agricultural landscape changeSpecifically, during the project period the project team developed and implemented: a protocol for semi-structured interviews conducted in four counties, a survey instrument deployed to farm owner/operators in 30 counties, and a focus group protocol. Dr. Rissing, former co-PD Dr. Cowan, and KSU graduate student Amariah Fischer conducted more than 50 interviews of producers and experts in four counties in North Caraolina, Kansas, and Nebraska. Approximately half of these interviews were transcribed, coded and analyzed by Dr. Rissing, resulting in a publicationin 2024 that suggests that actors in neighboringcounties with diverging diversification trajectories employed similar logic and values vis-à-vis markets, equipment, labor, and relationships, but were embedded within distinct ecological and political contexts.. All interviews were also independently coded and analyzed by KSU graduate student Jean Francois to examine patterns associated with landscape diversification and simplification across U.S. Farm Resource Regions. An associated manuscript in collaboration with Drs. Nelson, Burchfield, and Rissing is pending submission. Survey results were manually digitized and GRA Jean Francoishas conductedmodeling using this data to examine the individual farmer-level characteristics and regional factors associated with varying crop diversity levels, intentions to diversify, and attitudes towards diversification.Two manuscripts using the survey data are in preparation.Preliminaryanalysis of thefocus group data suggests general agreement with the barriers to crop diversification that emerged fromthe interview and survey data.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Francois, J. R. (2023, November). Agricultural stakeholders discussing implications of cropping system decision factors for U.S. agricultural diversification. Poster Presentation at the 2023 Annual Meeting of Research and the State. Manhattan, Kansas, United States.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Francois, J. R. (2023, November). Harvesting well-being: Examination of consideration for community by agricultural producers. Invited Panelist at the 2023 Annual Food and Farm Conference organized by Kansas Rural Center. Topeka, Kansas, United States.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Francois, J. R. & Nelson, K. S. (2024, March). Examining Farmers' Perspectives on Community Considerations in Agricultural Decision-Making in the United States. Paper Presentation at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the K-State Graduate Research, Arts, and Discovery Forum. Manhattan, Kansas, United States.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Francois, J. R. (2023, October). Exploring the implications of cropping system decision factors for diversification of US agriculture: Insights from agricultural experts and farmers. Paper Presentation at the 2023 Regional Annual Meeting of the Great Plains/Rocky Mountain Division of the American Association of Geographers. Sioux Falls, South Dakota, United States.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Nelson, K.S., Burchfield, E., Rissing, A., Cowan, J., Francois, J.R. (2022, December). Features of Diverse and Productive Agricultural Systems: Biophysical and Human Dimensions of Crop Production in US Counties. A Community on Ecosystem Services (ACES) Annual Conference, Arlington, VA.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Francois, J. R., & Nelson, K. S. (2024). Examining the State of Community Well-Being at the Intersection of Rurality and Agricultural Engagement in the Contiguous United States. International Journal of Community Well-Being, 1-29.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Burchfield, E. K., Crossley, M. S., & Nelson, K. S. (2024). Rotational complexity across US counties is currently insufficient to observe yield gains in major crops. Environmental Research Letters, 19(4), 044024.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Rissing, A., and Burchfield, E. Diverse entry points for diverse geographies: Toward a political ecology of crop diversification. Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society & Association for the Study of Food and Society Annual Conference. Athens, GA.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Madin, M. B., & Nelson, K. S. (2023). Effects of landscape simplicity on crop yield: A reanalysis of a global database. Plos one, 18(12), e0289799.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Francois, J.R. & Nelson, K. (2024, April). Understanding the Diversification Trajectories of U.S. Agricultural Landscapes through a Qualitative Comparative Analysis. American Association of Geographers (AAG) Annual Conference, Honolulu, HI. (virtual)
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Nelson, K. (2023, October). Uncertainty in landscape diversity measures arising from land use misclassification errors. DA3 - Digital Ag & Advanced Analytics Symposium, Manhattan, KS.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Rissing, A., & Burchfield, E. (2024). Crop diversification as landscape change: using land systems science to understand agricultural trajectories in North Carolina. Regional Environmental Change, 24(1), 3.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Burchfield, Emily K.; Nelson, Katherine S. (2023). County-level Estimates of Landscape Complexity and Configuration in the Coterminous US. Ag Data Commons. https://doi.org/10.15482/USDA.ADC/1529163.
|
Progress 05/01/22 to 04/30/23
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience reached during this reporting period include the agricultural research community, public readers of science and conservation news, farmers and extension agents, and graduate students. Efforts to reach out to these audiences included presentations at academic research conferences, publication of peer-reviewed papers, public sharing of project code via GitHub, university press releases, invited seminars, guest lectures, a podcast, and informal in-person and phone conversations. Changes/Problems:Many of the projects current challenges are related to lack of progress on Objective 3, led by co-PD Dr. Cowan. Reassignment of survey responsibilities to Dr. Nelson has slowed completion of other stated goals related to Objective 1 (uncertainty/sensitivity analysis) in addition to lengthening the timeline for other manuscripts. Lack of substantial progress in conducting case study interviews (Objective 3.1), despite the hiring of a part-time graduate student to conduct in-person interviews, has subsequently hindered the completion of interview-based analyses. This lack of progress stems in large part from a lack of prioritization of recruitment and follow-up communication with potential participants by Dr. Cowan (due to overcommitment of time). In addition, Dr. Cowan has failed to engage with county extension agents and other agricultural professionals to publicize the survey and disseminate project findings as agreed upon in spring 2022. Given the low survey response rate, these efforts could have greatly benefited the project. Co-PD Dr. Cowan is expected to step-away from the project this year. Therefore, a high priority for Summer 2023 is determining how to best accomplish and finalize the goals of Objective 3 (including redelegation of responsibilities). An additional related challenge relates to the survey (now led by Dr. Nelson). The pilot online survey deployed in 2022 had a response rate of ~0.1% but was used to refine and shorten the survey and develop an improved survey introduction and reminder email strategy. The full online survey, sent to ~8,000 email addresses, was deployed in late January 2023. Despite adjustments to the survey, this full-scale deployment also resulted in a response rate of ~0.1%. To address these low response rates, a paper-survey was produced. Unfortunately, our OEIE consultants did not agree to support this transition or a paper-survey deployment, so this work was carried out almost exclusively by Dr. Nelson. Due to cost constraints a ~3,600 subset of the original ~8,900 contacts provided by DTN was extracted (randomly by county) to send a pre-survey informational postcard, full survey, and post-survey reminder postcard to. The pre-survey postcard was delivered in late February and subsequent communications reduced the survey mailing list to ~3,500. Unfortunately, the full survey, which was supposed to be delivered in mid-late March was delayed due to a printing and mailing services error until mid-April. The post-survey reminder post-card was delivered in early to mid-May. Preliminary estimates of the response rate for the mail survey are ~5%. Communication with survey participants and prospective participants point to two unexpected challenges with the survey. First, the contact information provide by DTN is out-of-date and includes people who have been retired or deceased for up to a decade. Second, multiple surveys appear to have been sent out during this same time frame, including one from USDA or the FRS and another from Kansas State University researchers, leading to confusion over which survey was which. While the response rate is much lower than expected or hoped for, we believe that the responses provided will allow us to address many of the questions related to barriers to diversification that we hoped to examine. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?During the reporting period, an Undergraduate Research Assistant position was provided for Caroline Maki (ENVS undergraduate at Emory). Training and development activities associated with this postion include:participation in research meetings, coding and transcription of qualitative data, data visualization and exploration, literature reviews. Graduate student Jean Francois (funded, Kansas Statue Unviersity) continues to receive training on academic professionalism and research methods in geography. This includes: co-development of a research proposal, submitted to a funding agency, with Dr. Nelson; co-writing of two research papers (one as a co-author and one as lead author) with Dr. Nelson; oral presentation practices; giving an oral presentation at a national conference; and giving a public seminar (dissertation proposal presentation). Part-time graduate student Amariah Fisher (Kansas State University)gained experience in conducting in-person interviews and expanded her network of farmer contacts for her own research. Unfunded graduate student Michael Madin (Kansas State University) gained training and experience in statistical modeling and academic writing via a co-authored publication with Dr. Nelson (under review). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The results of this project have been disseminated via peer-reviewed publications and presentations at national conferences (e.g. Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society & Association for the Study of Food and Society Annual Conference, 2022; American Association of Geographers, 2023) in addition to other seminars, podcasts, and information conversations with study participants.News articles, blogs, and social media posts on project research have appeared in Anthropocene magazine, phys.org, Kansas State University's K-State Today newsletter, and academic Twitter. A podcast created from a guest lectureby Dr. Rissing is publicly avaialable on the internet athttps://ges-center-lectures-ncsu.pinecast.co/episode/690ca6f6/andrea-rissing-diversification-as-landscape-change-in-nc. (North Carolina case-study interview participants were invited ahead of time, an extension agent from the area of interest attended and participated in the Q&A discussion, session was also recorded and turned into a podcast, and the link shared with participants afterwards.) Dr. Rissing has stayed in touch via email with the county extension agents who helped connect her to participants and kept them abreast of the project developments (ie, that an article is currently under peer review). In addition, the results have been disseminated via a invited seminar talks at the Kansas State University Department of Plant Pathology, the University of Kansas Department ofGeography & Atmospheric Science,the Earth Life Institute at the University of Louvain Belgium, and the Department of Geography at Indiana UniversityBloomington in addition to guest lectures in the graduate seminar (SOS 520) in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?During the next reporting period, Dr. Burchfield will lead a paper examining the factors that moderate the relationship between diversity and yields. She will also work with Dr. Nelson to publish and share the county-level land use data created through this project. Drs. Burchfield and Nelson intend to seek grant funding to continue this growing research program on agricultural diversification. In the next year, Dr. Nelson will finalize the uncertainty analysis on the relationship between landscape diversity and yields with Dr. Burchfield and collaborator Dr. Bean. Redistribution of Objective 3 responsibilities regarding the survey and the sweeping scope and associated large computational requirement have slowed completion of this work. Dr. Nelson's funded graduate student Jean Francois will finalize interview coding and analysis, which has been delayed by lack of interview completion, and will lead at least one collaborative manuscript for publication with Drs. Nelson, Burchfield, and Rissing. Jean Francois and part-time graduate student Amariah Fischer will also complete analysis of the collected survey data and lead preparation of a manuscript for publication. Co-PD Dr. Cowan is expected to step-away from the project this year. Therefore, a high priority for Drs. Nelson and Burchfield in Summer 2023 is determining how to best accomplish and finalize the goals of Objective 3 (including redelegation of responsibilities).
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective 1 employs Bayesian regression to quantify how landscape diversity relates to crop production across the U.S., using a sensitivity analysis to quantify the bounds of this relationship. During the reporting period additional landscape configuration and composition (including diversity) metrics were recalculated by Dr. Nelson using reclassified USDA Cropland data Layer raster files from 2008 to 2020 for the coterminous U.S. Dr. Bean, a specialist in applied spatial statistics, worked with Dr. Nelson to develop a simulation approach for creating a probabilistic estimate of the relationship between landscape diversity and yield across and ensemble of models with varying diversity metrics and crops. This method and associated preliminary results were presented by Dr. Bean at an applied statistics conference in 2023. In addition, Dr. Burchfield led preparation of the constructed landscape indices dataset for submission to AgDataCommons. Objective 2 integrates big geospatial datasets of social, agricultural, biophysical and landscape characteristics and employs hierarchical, random forests and Bayesian modeling to identify potential reasons why the relationship between landscape diversity and crop production varies across regions. During the reporting period, Drs. Nelson and Burchfield finalized and published a manuscript on an archetype analysis of diverse and productive counties in the U.S. This work examined how contextual biophysical, farm management, landscape, farmer characteristics, regional socio-economic conditions, and farmer livelihood factors varied across clusters of diverse and highly productivity to simple and low productivity counties and were predictive of the county diversity-productivity classification. We found that different diversity-productivity classes can be accurately predicted (~90% overall) by these contextual factors suggesting that distinct agricultural production regimes tied to specific contextual factors exist and may be responsible for, or a result of, observed diversity-productivity co-occurrence. In addition, we find that biophysical and farm management factors are most predictive of diversity-productivity class suggesting strong biophysical limitations to diversification but also pointing to a comparable influence of human agency on the shaping of diversity-productivity regimes. In addition, a study with new collaborator Dr. Mike Crossley at University of Delaware examining the relationship between rotational complexity across landscapes and county crop yields (pending submissions) suggests that rotational complexity across most of the U.S. where corn, soy, winter wheat, or cotton is grown lags far behind the complexity that field experiments show is beneficial leading to no observed net gain in yields for corn or soy with increasing rotational complexity at the county-level. Objective 3 addresses the need to understand how human decision-making impacts landscape diversification processes by collecting data via stakeholder interviews and an electronic survey. This objective will also assess the viability of landscape diversification strategies using focus groups. During the reporting period, Dr. Cowan, and a part-time graduate student supervised by Dr. Nelson Amariah Fischer) conducted ~16 in-person or Zoom interviews with farmer and agricultural professional participants in one county in Kansas and one county in Nebraska. An online survey developed with the assistance of Dr. Burchfield, Dr. Rissing, Dr. Cowan, graduate student Jean Francois, and consultants at the Office of Educational Innovation and Evaluation was piloted late summer 2022 using email contacts obtained from DTN (formerly FarmMarketID). The pilot survey was used to refine and shorten the survey and develop an improved survey introduction and reminder email strategy. The full online survey, sent to ~8,000 email addresses, was deployed in late January 2023. Due to low response rates, Dr. Nelson created a paper version of the survey, along with introductory and reminder postcards sent pre- and post-survey delivery. Deployment of this survey began in late February 2023 and is now complete. A summer graduate student has been hired to digitize these records while another part-time student hired will conduct preliminary analyses of the survey response data. Dr. Cowan submitted revisions of the IRB for approval and delivered gift-cards to three pilot survey participants. Work led by former post-doc Dr. Rissing to conduct in-depth case studies in North Carolina in 2021-2022 continued in 2022-2023. Interviews transcripts from the case studies conducted in North Carolina in 2021-2022 were coded and analyzed by former post-doc Dr. Rissing. A manuscript under review describes this mixed-methods project that used national datasets to identify counties with crop mixes trending strongly towards simplification or diversification, then used in-depth interviews and fieldwork to understand local factors illuminating these trajectories. In North Carolina, two neighboring counties' crop mixes trended strongly in opposite directions for the time period between 2008 and 2020. We found that actors in both counties employed similar logic and values vis-à-vis markets, equipment, labor, and relationships, but were embedded within distinct ecological and political contexts. To explain these counties' evolving agricultural landscapes, we draw upon Turner et al.'s (2020) recent framework synthesizing theories of land systems science. We argue that crop diversification is more productively understood as a process of landscape change than a function of individual decision making. Based on our fieldwork, we suggest further refinements to land change theory to account for overlapping historical influences and refine its utility for adaptive agricultural transformations. During the reporting period, interviews from all case study locations were, and continue to be, coded by graduate student Jean Francois, under Dr. Nelson's supervision, to enable a comparative study of the four counties that interview data is currently available for. During the reporting period Dr. Burchfield's PhD student, Dr. Kaitlyn Spangler, successfully defended her PhD thesis and will be starting a tenure-track position at Penn State in the Fall. Dr. Spangler led a paper from her fieldwork in the Magic Valley, Idaho on the ways in which farmers do(n't) engage in diversification. The paper applies a political agroecology and spatial imaginaries lens to the analysis of 15 farmer and 14 key informant interviews between 2019 and 2021 to gauge what farmers are doing to manage crop diversity (the present) and how they imagine alternative landscapes (the imaginary). We show that farmers in this region have established a regionally diversified landscape by relying primarily on temporal diversification strategies--crop rotations and cover cropping--but do not necessarily pair these with other spatial diversification strategies that align with an agroecological approach.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Rissing, A., Burchfield, E., Spangler, K., Schumacher, B. (2023). Implications of U.S. agricultural data practices for sustainable food systems research. 4, 213-217. Nature Food. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00711-2
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Nelson, K. and Burchfield, E. (2023). Defining features of diverse and productive agricultural systems: An archetype analysis of U.S. agricultural counties. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. 7 (76). https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2023.1081079
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Spangler, K., Burchfield, E., Radel, C., Jackson-Smith, D., Johnson, R. (2022). Crop diversification in Idaho's Magic Valley: the present and the imaginary. Agronomy for Sustainable Development. 42 (99). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-022-00833-0
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Nelson, K. S., Nguyen, T. D., Francois, J. R. , & Ojha, S. (2023). Rural sustainability methods, drivers, and outcomes: A systematic review. Sustainable Development, 1 24. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2471
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Nelson, K.S.*, Appuhamilage, B.M. *, & Yao, B. *. (2022). Higher landscape diversity associated with improved crop production resilience in Kansas-USA. Environmental Research Letters. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac7e5f
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Rissing, A., Burchfield, E. (2022). Crop diversification as landscape change: Using land systems science to understand agricultural trajectories in North Carolina. (Under review at Regional Environmental Change.)
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Madin, M. & Nelson, K.S. (2023). Effects of landscape simplicity on crop yield: A reanalysis of a global database. (Under Review at PlosOne.)
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Francois, J.R. & Nelson, K.S. (2023). Community Well-being at the Intersection of Rurality and Agricultural Engagement. (Under review at International Journal of Community Well-Being.)
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Burchfield, E. Pathways towards sustainable agricultural futures in the southeastern US, presented at the American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting in Denver CO, March 2023.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
ecology of crop diversification. Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society & Association for the Study of Food and Society Annual Conference. Athens, GA. May 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Rissing, A., and Burchfield, E. Transitioning farmland futures: pathways towards diversification. 2022 Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Conference. Salt Lake City, UT. March 2022
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Rissing, A., and Burchfield, E., Transforming Crop Geographies in North Carolina: A Mixed Methods Study on How Agriculture Changes (And How It Doesn't). Association of American Geographers Annual Conference. Denver, CO. 2023
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Nelson, K., Burchfield, E., & Brennan, B. (2023, May). Using imprecise measures of landscape diversity to quantify the marginal effect of diversity on crop yields. Conference on Applied Statistics in Agriculture and Natural Resources, West Lafayette, IN.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Nelson, K., Burchfield, E. (2023, March). Defining features of diverse and productive agricultural systems. American Association of Geographers (AAG) Annual Conference, Denver, CO.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Francois, J. & Nelson, K. (2023, March). Examining the State of Community Well-being at the Intersection of Rurality and Agricultural Engagement int he Contiguous United States. American Association of Geographers (AAG) Annual Conference, Denver, CO.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Nelson, K.S., Burchfield, E., Rissing, A., Cowan, J., Francois, J.R. (2022, December). Features of Diverse and Productive Agricultural Systems: Biophysical and Human Dimensions of Crop Production in US Counties. A Community on Ecosystem Services (ACES) Annual Conference, Arlington, VA.
|
Progress 05/01/21 to 04/30/22
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience reached during this reporting period include the agricultural research community, public readers of science and conservation news, and undergraduate and graduate students. Efforts to reach out to these audiences included presentations at academic research conferences, publication of peer-reviewed papers, public sharing of project code via GitHub, university press releases, and guest lectures. Changes/Problems:Due to COVID-related administrative challenges and the loss of a research technician, Dr. Cowan has had significant time conflicts reducing his ability to complete interviews in KS, NE, SD, and MT and lead survey instrument development. Delays in the fieldwork in these four counties has limited our team's capacity to engage in comparative analysis across the six counties and has required some shifting of responsiblities from Dr. Cowan to Drs. Nelsonand Burchfield that has delayed completion of Objectives 1 and 2.We currently believe no major changes are needed, but acknowledge that work will be delayed. To address these delays Dr. Cowanhas recently hired an undergraduate student to assist with recruitment and scheduling in addition to transcription and first-pass coding; and Dr. Nelson has recruited a graduate student to help carry out face-to-face interviews in the four (4) remaining counties in which interviews have not been completed. To ensure that we meet deadlines for survey development and deployment Dr. Nelson has taken the lead on the survey with significant cross-team support, particularly from Dr. Burchfield. We anticipate completion ofObjectives 1 and 2 in late 2022 or early 2023 and completion of data collection in spring 2023 with completion of analysis of this data in fall 2023. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?During the reporting period, at Emory University, the project has provided data science training for a Masters student and research experience for an undergraduate learning about qualitative data management (focusing on ethics of human subjects research and creating documents suitable for rigorous, systematic analyses). In addition, Dr. Andrea Rissing completed a year as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Emory University. She accepted a tenure-track position at Arizona State University in the Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems, which she will start in August 2022. Andrea will continue to collaborate with our team through the completion of this grant. At Kansas State University, the project has provided research experience, data science training, and qualitative data collection training for a PhD student supervised by Dr. Nelson. In addition, one undergraduate student is receiving training on study recruitment, transcription, and qualitative data analysis emphasizing ethics in human subjects research and data integrity. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The results of this project have been disseminated via peer-reviewed publications and presentations at national conferences (e.g. Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Conference, 2022; Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society & Association for the Study of Food and Society Annual Conference, 2022). News articles, blogs, and social media posts on project research have appeared in Anthropocene magazine, phys.org, Mirage magazine, Emory University's eScience Commons blog, Kansas State University's K-State Today newsletter, and academic Twitter. In addition, the results have been disseminated via a invited seminar talks in the Kansas State University, Department of Geography & Geospatial Sciences and Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Vanderbilt University and via guest lectures in undergraduate environmental data science and architecture design classes. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Due to COVID-related administrative challenges and the loss of a research technician, Dr. Cowan has had significant time conflicts reducing his ability to complete interviews in KS, NE, SD, and MT and lead survey instrument development. He has recently hired an undergraduate student to assist with recruitment and scheduling in addition to transcription and first-pass coding; and Dr. Nelson has recruited a graduate student to help carry out face-to-face interviews in the four (4) remaining counties in which interviews have not been completed. Delays in the fieldwork in these four counties have limited our team's capacity to engage in comparative analysis across the six counties. To address this, Dr. Rissing has, to-date, focused on comparative work in NC only. To ensure that we meet deadlines for survey development and deployment Dr. Nelson has taken the lead on the survey with significant cross-team support, particularly from Dr. Burchfield. Given these added responsibilities, and COVID-related challenges for both Dr. Burchfield and Dr. Nelson, completion of Objectives 1 and 2 has been slightly delayed, with completion of these Objectives now anticipated in late 2022 or early 2023. To continue to meet the goals of Objective 1 Dr. Nelson and Dr. Burchfield will continue to work, with new collaborator Dr. Brennan Bean, towards completion of the sensitivity analysis of the relationship between crop yields and landscape diversity. To continue to meet the goals of Objective 2 Dr. Nelson and Dr. Burchfield will finalize and submit their study of agricultural counties that are both diverse and productive and Dr. Burchfield will lead a modeling study, with Dr. Nelson and new collaborators Dr. Mike Crossley and Dr. David Weisberger, that examines how the unique characteristics of diverse and productive counties may moderate the relationship between landscape diversity and crop yields. To meet the goals of Objective 3 Dr. Nelson will lead deployment of the pilot survey instrument in Summer 2022 and the full survey in Fall 2022 and will supervise graduate student Jean Ribert Francois in conducting analyses with survey results. Survey analyses will be conducted in collaboration with the full project team and we expect multiple publications to emerge from this survey. Dr. Rissing and graduate student Jean Ribert Francois will lead interview qualitative data analysis with the guidance of Dr. Burchfield and Dr. Nelson. Dr. Cowan will lead recruitment of interview participants in the four counties with incomplete case study interviews in summer and early fall 2022, conduct remote (Zoom) interviews with participants when possible, coordinate in-person interviews to be conducted by a new graduate student recruited by Dr. Nelson, identify focus group locations and recruit participants, lead focus group sessions and analysis of session recordings in spring 2023, and engage with county extension agents and other agricultural professionals to publicize the survey and disseminate project findings.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The expansion and intensification of agriculture has provided immediate gains for agricultural production, but also simplified landscapes, resulting in degradation of ecosystem processes that support agricultural systems. However, it is not well understood how land use interacts with biophysical phenomena and human activities to effect total agricultural production across large areas. This project aims to provide solutions for sustainable agriculture that support long-term national food security by characterizing how and why landscape simplification affects agricultural productivity, and by identifying barriers to landscape diversification. Project Impact During the reporting period Drs. Nelson and Burchfield conducted a data-driven typology analysis investigating the defining characteristics of agricultural landscapes that are both diverse and productive. We find that some unactionable factors (climate and soil type) are strongly associated with diverse and productive places suggesting possible limits to diversification that also provides high production based on prerequisite biophysical conditions. In addition, we find that diverse and productive places also tend to be associated with intensive agricultural practices, such as use of chemical inputs, but that places that use more crop rotations tend to be both diverse and more productive. Models conducted by one of Dr. Burchfield's graduate students also suggest that regional factors are strongly associated with diversification of agricultural landscapes in the US, pointing to the influence of market trends and commercial-scale agriculture and the difficulties for individual farmers in trying to defy regional trends through diversification. In addition, preliminary analyses from Dr. Rissing (project post-doctoral scholar) point to the strong influence of even local differences in soil type in determining differing levels of diversification in agricultural counties, and reinforce the importance of changes in national policy and local commercial enterprises in changing the trajectory of crop diversification. These project findings suggest that while diversification of landscapes is likely to improve overall crop production in the US there may be strong limiting biophysical factors to where this is possible for top commodity crops. Similarly, this works makes it clear that diversification strategies will need to be tailored to local conditions and that national level policy or guidance will need to be crafted carefully to avoid possible negative unintended effects in some areas. Lastly, this work highlights market forces, national policy, and commercial trends as key influencers of agricultural diversity with the potential to both reduce or increase diversity. • Objective 1 employs Bayesian regression to quantify how landscape diversity relates to crop production across the U.S., using a sensitivity analysis to quantify the bounds of this relationship. During the reporting period the landscape reclassification scheme developed by Dr. Nelson's graduate student in 2020 was used by one of Dr. Burchfield's graduate students and a new collaborator (Dr. Brennan Bean) to recalculate landscape diversity metrics. These new diversity metrics were used in one publication (Spangler, K., Schumacher, B., Bean, B., & Burchfield, E., 2022) and will be used in additional models as part of the sensitivity analysis. Dr. Bean, a specialist in applied spatial statistics, has been added as a new collaborator on a manuscript on the sensitivity analysis. • Objective 2 integrates big geospatial datasets of social, agricultural, biophysical and landscape characteristics and employs hierarchical, random forests and Bayesian modeling to identify potential reasons why the relationship between landscape diversity and crop production varies across regions. During the reporting period, Dr. Burchfield supervised a graduate student who added additional variables to a dataset of integrated social, agricultural, biophysical and landscape characteristics for all counties in the U.S. This data has been used to conduct a typology analysis of diverse and productive counties and examine associations between farm management, infrastructure, farmer characteristics, biophysical conditions, and farmer outcomes and county diversity-productivity character. These analyses (submission pending) suggest that biophysical conditions may limit opportunities for diversification but that crop rotations are a key farm management technique that is associated with both better yields and higher diversity. In addition, a graduate student supervised by Dr. Burchfield published work examining factors related to landscape diversity in which they found that regional-scale factors play a large role in defining diversity patterns in the US. A key outcome of this work is a change in knowledge on the factors that limit or enable diversification while maintaining or improving crop productivity. In addition, new collaborations were developed with Dr. Mike Crossley at University of Delaware and Dr. David Weisberger at the University of Georgia to construct a metric of temporal diversity (rotational complexity). This work will support additional modeling examining moderators of the relationship between landscape diversity and crop yields. • Objective 3 addresses the need to understand how human decision-making impacts landscape diversification processes by collecting data via stakeholder interviews and an electronic survey. This objective will also assess the viability of landscape diversification strategies using focus groups. During the reporting period, Dr. Cowan, a graduate student supervised by Dr. Nelson (Jean Ribert Francois), and a Dr. Rissing (post-doctoral researcher supervised by Dr. Burchfield) finalized an interview guide to be used in interviews in six (6) counties selected by Dr. Cowan, Dr. Burchfield, and Dr. Nelson for their diversification/simplification trajectories, high yields, and farm resource region. Dr. Cowan secured finalized IRB approval for the interview protocol at KSU. Dr. Burchfield and Dr. Rissing secured final IRB approval for the interview protocol at Emory. Dr. Rissing conducted 32 recorded semi-structured interviews with 14 producers and 18 local agricultural experts in two (2) counties in North Carolina during four (4) visits to the counties between October 2021 and January 2022. A graduate student under Dr. Nelson's supervision assisted Dr. Cowan with recruitment of interview participants for virtual interviews in four (4) counties. Dr. Cowan conducted three (3) semi-structured recorded interviews via Zoom with Extension and Farm Service Agency staff in these four counties. The recordings from these interviews are being transcribed and Dr. Rissing and a graduate student under Dr. Nelson's supervision are developing code books for qualitative data analysis of the interviews. During the reporting period, the entire project team (Dr. Nelson, Dr. Burchfield, Dr. Cowan, Dr. Rissing, and graduate student Jean Ribert Francois) worked together to develop a survey instrument for an online survey of farmers that will be piloted in July 2022 (with full deployment in the fall/winter 2022). Drs. Burchfield and Rissing traveled to an in-person meeting and survey development workshop at Kansas State University in January 2022. Dr. Nelson coordinated advising meetings with OEIE (Office of Educational Innovation and Evaluation consulting group), survey instrument editing by the entire team, testing of a preliminary Qualtrics survey instrument developed by OEIE, and finalized the survey instrument to be piloted. Dr. Nelson and Dr. Burchfield finalized the survey county sampling frame with input from OEIE, Dr. Cowan, and Dr. Rissing, and Dr. Nelson purchased email addresses of farmers in these counties from DTN (FarmMarketID). Dr. Cowan and OEIE obtained IRB approval for the survey instrument.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Spangler, K., Schumacher, B., Bean, B., Burchfield, E. (2022). Path dependencies in US agriculture: Regional factors of diversification. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, 333, 107957. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2022.107957
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Nottebrock, H., Burchfield, E., Fenster, C. (2022). Farmers delivery of floral resources: to bee or not to bee. American Journal of Botany. 109 (1), 4-8. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.1809
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Christman, M., Spears, L., Strange, J., Pearse, W., Burchfield, E., Ramirez, R. (2021). Land-use and climate drive shifts in Bombus assemblage composition. Revised and resubmitted at Agricultural, Ecosystems and Environment.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Spangler, K., Burchfield, E., Radel, C., Jackson-Smith, D. (2022). Crop diversification in Idahos Magic Valley: the present and the imaginary.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Nelson, K.S., Francois, J.R., Ohja, S. & Nguyen, T. Rural Sustainability Methods, Drivers, and Outcomes: A Systematic Review.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Nelson, K.S, Appuhamilage, B.M., & Yao, B. Landscape Diversity and Resilience of Crop Production in Kansas-USA.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Madin, M. & Nelson, K.S. (2022, February). Landscape diversity and sustainable agriculture production. Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers (AAG), virtual.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Francois, J. , Ohja, S., & Nelson, K.S. (2022, February). Rural Sustainability Methods, Drivers, and Outcomes: A Systematic Review. Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers (AAG), virtual.
|
Progress 05/01/20 to 04/30/21
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience reached during this reporting period include the agricultural research community and undergraduate and graduate students. Women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs (both undergraduate and graduate level) and community college students from underrepresented groups were specifically reached out to. Efforts to reach out to these audiences included presentations at academic research conferences, publication of peer-reviewed papers, public sharing of project code via GitHub, participation in experiential learning programs, educational lectures, and guest speaking at outreach activities. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?At Emory University, the project has provided data science training for a Masters student and research experience for an undergraduate via the Scholarly Inquiry and Research Experience (SIRE) Program. At Kansas State University, the project has provided summer research experience for a PhD student and one semester (as of summer 2021) of research experience and data science training for a PhD student supervised by Dr. Nelson. In addition, the project has provided interdisciplinary research collaboration experience for two agricultural economics post-doctoral researchers from Kansas State University working with Dr. Nelson. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The results of this project have been disseminated via three peer-reviewed publications and presentations at national conferences (Association for the Study of Food and Society Annual Conference, June 2021; Applied Statistics in Agriculture and Natural Resources Annual Conference, May 2021). In addition, the results have been disseminated via an invited seminar talk in the Kansas State University, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Seminar Series and via an outreach seminar ("Interdisciplinary environmental science for sustainable agriculture and beyond") for the Kansas State University, Office for the Advancement of Women in Science and Engineering Career Chat series and an outreach seminar ("What does a geographer do?") for the Kansas Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (KS-LAMP) Pathways to STEM summer research program. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?No specific issues or problems were encountered during the reporting period. To continue to meet the goals of Objective 1 Dr. Nelson and Dr. Burchfield will continue to work towards completion of the sensitivity analysis of the relationship between crop yields and landscape diversity. Dr. Burchfield will construct additional metrics that represent different aspects of landscape diversity while Dr. Nelson will conduct models using these newly calculated metrics. To continue to meet the goals of Objective 2 Dr. Nelson and Dr. Burchfield will continue to investigate the unique characteristics of diverse and productive counties in the U.S. Dr. Nelson will lead modeling efforts and Dr. Burchfield will lead construction of additional county characteristic variables that may indicate mechanisms at play in the relationship between landscape diversity and crop yields. In addition, Dr. Nelson will lead modeling that examines how the unique characteristics of diverse and productive counties may moderate the relationship between landscape diversity and crop yields. To continue to meet the goals of Objective 3 Dr. Cowan and the post-doctoral researcher supervised by Dr. Burchfield will conduct case study interviews in fall 2021 and spring 2022. Dr. Cowan will lead analysis of the collected qualitative data and will, with the support of the graduate student supervised by Dr. Nelson, use that information to finalize an online survey instrument to be deployed in 2022.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The expansion and intensification of agriculture has provided immediate gains for agricultural production, but also simplified landscapes, resulting in degradation of ecosystem processes that support agricultural systems. However, it is not well understood how land use interacts with biophysical phenomena and human activities to effect total agricultral production across large areas. This project aims to provide solutions for sustainable agriculture that support long-term national food security by characterizing how and why landscape simplification affects agricultural productivity, and by identifying barriers to landscape diversification. Project Impact During the reporting period Drs. Nelson and Burchfield conducted modeling that characterized the relationship beween landscape diversity and yields of corn, soy, and wheat in the United States, finding that highly diverse counties tended to have corn and wheat yields up to 10% higher than national averages even after accounting for differences in soil suitability and climate conditions. In counties with more complex spatial arrangements and high diversity corn and wheat yields were up to 20% higher than national averages. In addition, Drs. Burchfield and Nelson conducted exploratory data-driven analyses investigating the social, landscape, and farm characteristics of counties where yields of corn, wheat, soy, alfalfa, and hay are unexpectedly high given irrigation, soil and climate characteristics. While chemical and monetary inputs are most strongly predictive of unexpectedly high yields, landscape diversity and spatial structure also have a strong influence on prediction of these high yields. These project findings suggest that the agricultral maangement processes occuring in diverse landscapes and/or the ecosystem services provided by diverse landscapes positively influence county cropping systems in the U.S. This indicates that diversification of landscapes may promote sustainable agricultral systems and future national food security. Objective 1 employs Bayesian regression to quantify how landscape diversity relates to crop production across the U.S., using a sensitivity analysis to quantify the bounds of this relationship. During the reporting period Dr. Burchfield constructed a dataset integrating climate, soil, crop yield, and more than 10 different landscape metrics for all counties in the coterminous US from 2008 to 2018. The landscape metrics were built for each county-year using USDA CropScape ~30mx30m resolution raster data. This dataset was used by Dr. Nelson to conduct analyses using landscape and climate data for three major crops (corn, soy and wheat) and 10 different landscape metrics, including models examining the interactions of multiple landscape characteristics. These analyses resulted in the production of 42 sets of modeled functional relationships that suggest that high levels of landscape diversity are associated with corn and wheat yields that are 10% above national averages and that landscapes that are both diverse and have moderate spatial complexity are associated with yields that are 20% above national averages for corn and wheat. A key outcome of this work is a change in knowledge on the aggregate impact of landscape diversity on US crop yields made possible via publication of these findings in the journal NatureFood. In addition, Dr. Nelson supervised a graduate student who developed a reclassification scheme for the USDA CropScape data that emphasizes plant functionality using the US National Vegetation Classification System. This classification scheme is currently being used by Dr. Burchfield to recalculate landscape diversity metrics to be used in additional models as part of the sensitivity analysis. Objective 2 integrates big geospatial datasets of social, agricultural, biophysical and landscape characteristics and employs hierarchical, random forests and Bayesian modeling to identify potential reasons why the relationship between landscape diversity and crop production varies across regions. During the reporting period: Dr. Burchfield built a dataset of integrated social, agricultural, biophysical and landscape characteristics for all counties in the U.S. and all years from 2008 through 2018 that includes more than 73 variables and conducted hierarchical Bayesian, multinomial logistic, and random forests modeling to examine associations between farm, social, and economic characteristics of counties and overall crop yield. These analyses indicate that surprisingly high yields of corn and other major crops are most strongly associated with agricultural inputs (chemical applications and labor) and federal monetary support. However, counties with greater mixing of land use types and higher spatial complexity are also more likely to have surprisingly high yields. A key outcome of this work is a change in knowledge on the factors contributing to crop yields that are high given regional climate and biophysical characteristics as evidenced in two publications in peer-reviewed journals. Objective 3 addresses the need to understand how human decision-making impacts landscape diversification processes by collecting data via stakeholder interviews and an electronic survey. This objective will also assess the viability of landscape diversification strategies using focus groups. During the reporting period Drs. Burchfield, Cowan, and Nelson have employed data-driven metrics to identify pairs of counties with unusually high yields and strong diversificiation or simplification trajectories (over the past decade) in each USDA Farm Resource Region to serve as the basis for in-depth case studies investigating the drivers and decision-making processes that lead to highly successful and diverse cropping systems. Preliminary field-work conducted by a graudate student supervised by Dr. Burchfield has employed semi-structured interviews to explore regional diversification factors. In addition, to the rich data about agricultual diversification in a small sample of counties that this work will produce it also provides an opportunity to modify our interview guide based on the experiences of this field-work. Dr. Cowan, a graduate student supervised by Dr. Nelson, and a post-doctoral researcher supervised by Dr. Burchfield (starting August 2021) have used feedback from Dr. Burchfield's graduate student to prepare a preliminary interview guide.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Burchfield, E., Geographies of US food production, presented at the Association for the Study of Food and Society Annual Conference, held virtually, June 2021.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Burchfield, E. K., & Nelson, K. S. (2021). Agricultural yield geographies in the United States. Environmental Research Letters, 16(5), 054051.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Nelson, K. S., & Burchfield, E. K. (2021). Landscape complexity and US crop production. Nature Food, 2(5), 330-338.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Burchfield, E., Schumacher, B. (2020). Bright spots in US corn production. Environmental Research Letters. 15, 10. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aba5b4
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Burchfield, E., Geographies of agricultural production, presented at the Applied Statistics in Agriculture and Natural Resources Annual Conference, held virtually, May 2021.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Spangler, K., Schumacher, B., Bean, B., Burchfield, E. (2021). Path dependencies in US agriculture: Regional factors of diversification
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Submitted
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Appuhamilage, B.M., Yao, B., & Nelson, K.S. Landscape Diversity, and Resilience of Crop Production in Kansas-USA
|
|