Doctoral Dissertation Research: Experiments in Sustainable Farming in North Americas Non food Agricultural Sector

这项博士研究调查了非粮食农业部门的增长如何以及在多大程度上影响了环境可持续和社会公平农业实践的努力。通过对新兴农业部门的比较案例研究，将在专门从事植物保健产品的三个农业区域进行人种学研究。目标是了解新兴农业市场的不同政策和规模如何影响劳动力组织、消费者人口统计和可持续实践。这个项目有助于培养研究生。调查结果将与政府和非政府组织、农民、行业协会和其他方面分享，目的是为农业政策和监督提供信息。利用粮食和农业人类学以及科学和医学人类学，该项目询问农业实践和文化如何发展以应对不同的监管制度。这些问题将通过开放式访谈和对种植保健产品的农场及其伙伴组织进行的参与者观察来解决。这将提供丰富的数据，以评估农民和利益相关者对种植方法和植物生态的了解，以及这些知识如何受到不同地点不同政策的影响。研究人员还将进行档案和在线研究，以建立影响政策制定及其后果的历史和当代背景。这项研究将对监管变化如何影响农业生产、交换和可持续性以及参与这些过程的个人和企业网络提供重要见解。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This doctoral research investigates how and to what extent growth in the non-food agricultural sector is impacting efforts towards environmentally sustainable and socially equitable farming practices. Through a comparative case study of an emerging agricultural sector, ethnographic research will be undertaken in three farming regions specializing in botanical health products. The goal is to understand how different policies and scales of emerging agricultural markets affect labor organization, consumer demographics, and sustainable practices. The project contributes to training a graduate student. Findings will be shared with governmental and non-governmental organizations, farmers, industry associations, and others with the aim of informing agricultural policy and oversight.Drawing on the anthropology of food and agriculture and the anthropology of science and medicine, the project asks how farming practices and cultures are developing in response to different regulatory regimes. These questions will be addressed through open-ended interviewing and participant-observation undertaken on farms cultivating health products and their partner organizations. This will provide rich data to assess farmers' and stakeholders' knowledge of cultivation practices and plant ecology, as well as how these are affected by different policies across sites. The researchers will additionally conduct archival and online research to establish historical and contemporary contexts affecting policy-making and its consequences. The research will provide important insights on how changes in regulation impact agricultural production, exchange, and sustainability, as well as the networks of individuals and corporations involved in these processes.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.