Doctoral Dissertation Research: Investigating Transitions in Agricultural Livelihoods: Global Change, Response Diversity, and Local Food Production

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Over the past thirty years, scholars and policymakers have become increasingly concerned with the negative effects of global change on the sustainability of rural livelihoods, both in the United States and around the world. We know from research that economic globalization and the integration of farmers into global commodity chains often has resulted in rising economic dependence and exclusion, food insecurity, and environmental degradation. These dynamics have been particularly damaging to the viability of smallholding family farmers, who nonetheless continue to produce 80 percent of the global food supply. In light of these global challenges, recent scholarship has identified farmer-led transitions toward local food production as a new and sustainable path for rural development. Understanding the factors that promote sustainable transitions to local food production is therefore critical for advancing effective programs and policies that support future rural development efforts. This research will contribute essential support to the PhD training of a female anthropologist. It will also build local research capacities by offering assistantships for three rural youth and will enhance international scientific collaboration. Collaborative engagement strategies will enable findings to inform planning efforts that will facilitate the delivery of more effective support to farming communities. Results will also be disseminated via academic conferences and publications in journals that focus on agriculture, environment, and rural development issues.Research will be conducted in Dominica, a rural island in the Eastern Caribbean. Dominica is a particularly apt research setting because since the 1990s, agricultural livelihoods there have transitioned from export commodity production to diverse forms of local food production. Although these transitions are associated with positive outcomes including high levels of food security and economic growth, there is currently little known about how farmers have been able to rework local relations and practices of production and exchange. The research will focus on smallholder farming households in three sites that allow for comparison of agricultural livelihoods in distinct social and environmental conditions. Investigators will assess how and why smallholders have responded to changing global conditions by shifting away from export production. Investigators will also assess the impacts of these responses by determining how variable access to resources, markets, and development support reflect diversity in agricultural practices and which of these factors promote sustainable livelihood outcomes for farming families and communities. Investigators will engage in long-term site visits to conduct surveys and interviews, and to participate in and observe agricultural activities. Findings from this research will provide a model for sustainable agricultural transitions; one that can be generalized to other contexts facing similar global dynamics.