Doctoral Dissertation Research: Calculated, Constrained, and Co-Opted Decisions: Explaining Agricultural Behavior of Malawian Farmers in Times of Uncertainty

佐治亚大学的博士生约瑟夫·W·兰宁将在布拉姆·塔克博士的指导下进行研究，以解决关于个人如何做出决定的经典但重要的辩论。他们是理性的经济决策者，在受到一定限制的情况下，仔细计算成本和收益，还是作为嵌入网络和结构的社会参与者做出决定，这些网络和结构共享低成本但可能存在缺陷的战略？这项研究将在马拉维的农民中进行，他们面临着持续的饥饿、农业投入价格不确定以及土壤肥力下降的挑战。农民面临的决定是投资于杂交种子和化肥，还是使用替代作物，如种植豆类，以提高土壤肥力并保持产量。研究人员询问，马拉维农民的农业行为差异是如何通过(1)经济和环境限制，(2)对因果的民族农业知识，(3)对风险的态度，或(4)农民使用决策捷径，如仅仅模仿他们社会网络中的其他农民所做的事情来解释的。该项目将首先进行一次普查，记录农民主要玉米地的基本人口统计数据和坡度(平坦、平缓、陡峭)。人口普查中的农民样本将参与田野测绘和半结构化访谈，重点是经济和环境限制因素。历史矩阵练习将探索人们对农业因果关系的看法，而小风险选择实验将衡量人们对风险的态度。社会网络分析将被用来检查在每个网络中与有声望和成功的农民的互动和影响。该项目有助于开发决策模型，以揭示生态/经济变量与社会变量对行为的影响程度。揭示农业投资的决定因素可能有助于设计战略，促进维持产量的行为，同时防止环境退化或加剧社会和经济不平等。

University of Georgia doctoral student Joseph W. Lanning, under the guidance of Dr. Bram Tucker, will conduct research that addresses a classic but important debate about how individuals make decisions. Are they rational, economic decision makers who, given certain constraints, carefully calculate costs and benefits or do they make decisions as social actors who are embedded in networks and structures that share low-cost, but potentially flawed, strategies? The research will be conducted among farmers in Malawi who are challenged by persistent hunger, uncertain prices for agricultural inputs, and decreasing soil fertility. Farmers are faced with decisions to invest in hybrid seeds and chemical fertilizer or to use alternatives, like planting legumes, to increase soil fertility and maintain yields. The researcher asks how variation in agricultural behavior among Malawian farmers is explained by (1) economic and environmental constraints, (2) ethno-agricultural knowledge of cause and effect, (3) attitude towards risk, or by (4) a farmer's use of decision-making short cuts such as just imitating what other farmers in their social networks do. The project will begin with a census recording basic demographics and the slope (flat, gentle, steep) of a farmer's primary maize field. A sample of farmers from the census, capturing variation in field slope, will participate in field mapping and semi-structured interviews, focused on economic and environmental constraints. An historical matrix exercise will explore perceptions of agricultural cause and effect relationships, while a small-stakes choice experiment will measure attitudes towards risk. Social network analysis will be used to examine the interactions with and influence of prestigious and successful farmers in each network. This project contributes to the development of decision-making models that unravel the degree to which ecological/economic variables versus social variables influence behavior. Revealing the determinants to investment in agriculture may be instrumental in the design of strategies that promote behaviors that maintain yields while preventing environmental decay or exacerbation of social and economic inequality.