Interdisciplinary Study of Smallholder Farmers and Agrobiodiversity in Michigan

该奖项是作为NSF社会、行为和经济学博士后研究奖学金(SPRF)计划的一部分提供的。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界、工业界或私营部门和政府的科学职业生涯培养有前途的、早期职业博士水平的科学家。SPRF奖项包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行两年的培训，并鼓励博士后研究员进行独立研究。国家科学基金会致力于促进科学界所有阶层的科学家参与其研究方案和活动，包括那些来自代表性不足的群体的科学家；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的专业发展的一个重要水平。每个博士后研究员都必须解决推动各自学科领域向前发展的重要科学问题。在密歇根州立大学劳拉·施密特·奥拉比西博士的赞助下，这一博士后奖学金奖项支持一位研究密歇根州小农生计与农业生物多样性之间关系的早期职业科学家。密歇根州为调查这些动态关系提供了一个独特的机会。它既是该国最多元化的农业产业之一，也是高度多样化的社会和自然农业景观，也是该国一些领先的农业研究机构、推广服务和田间站的所在地。在跨学科的科学研究中，有三个重要的问题没有得到充分的探讨：第一，那些参与小规模耕作的人如何构思和参与生物多样性？其次，这些关系如何在社会差异的范围内和跨线变化，特别是性别、阶级和种族？第三，这些关系如何影响农业生物多样性保护和生计成果，以及它们作为结果的目的是什么。这项研究有望在从理论到实践的多个层面上做出重要贡献。它推进了关于农业发展的政治生态的文献，通过揭示不同的行为者如何谈判这些系统彼此之间的关系，往往将自给自足和商业农业系统的框架视为相互排斥的范例。跨学科的学术工作强调了案例研究和理论上严格的分析的必要性，这些分析直接将农业实践的特定地理位置与广泛的经济、政治和制度变化联系起来。以商业和自给自足为导向的小规模农民对美国最近的经济结构调整和动荡的反应仍然研究不足，密歇根州作为一个农业区也是如此。这项研究还研究了社区组织者、农业科学家和推广人员的观点、做法和决策过程，从而直接响应了地理范围内对发展和政治机构内行为者进行生计分析的呼吁。以民族志观察、访谈和参与式建模的三角测量为核心的创新方法将阐明小农、农业生物多样性和发展机构之间的关系是如何随着时间的推移而发展的，从而为哪些干预措施和政策可能更好地支持可持续和公正的农业未来提供关键的洞察力。拟议的研究使用两种不同但协同的方法方法调查小农生计和农业多样性之间的复杂关系：1)农民日常生活的民族志研究，包括他们的工作和休闲空间；2)耕作系统动态的参与式建模。这里建议的培训和专业发展将为奖学金候选人的终身职业生涯做好准备，促进对复杂社会和农业系统的科学理解，服务于未被充分代表的学生群体，增加跨学科科学的多样性，并为国际环境评估和政策制定做出贡献。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Laura Schmitt Olabisi at Michigan State University, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating the relationships between smallholder livelihoods and agricultural biodiversity in the state of Michigan. The state of Michigan provides a unique opening for inquiry into these dynamic relationships. It is at once one of the most diversified agricultural industries in the country, a highly heterogeneous social and physical farming landscape, and home to some of the country’s leading agricultural research institutions, extension services, and field stations. Three important questions have been insufficiently explored in interdisciplinary scientific research: First, how do those involved in small scale farming conceive of and engage biological diversity? Second, how do these relationships vary within and across lines of social difference, particularly gender, class, and race? Third, how do these relationships shape agrobiodiversity conservation and livelihood outcomes and whose purposes do they serve as a result.This research promises important contributions at multiple levels, from theory to practice. It advances the literature on the political ecology of agricultural development, which tends to take for granted the framing of subsistence and commercial agricultural systems as mutually exclusive paradigms, by unpacking how different actors negotiate these systems in relation to one another. Interdisciplinary scholarly work has highlighted a need for case studies and theoretically-rigorous analyses that directly relate particular geographies of agricultural practice to broad economic, political, and institutional change. The responses of small-scale commercially- and subsistence-oriented farmers to recent economic restructuring and volatility in the United States remain understudied, as does Michigan as an agricultural region. This research also studies the perspectives, practices, and decision-making processes of community organizers, agricultural scientists, and extension agents, thus responding directly to calls within geography for livelihood analyses of actors within development and political institutions. An innovative methodology centered on the triangulation of ethnographic observation with interviews and participatory modeling will illuminate how relationships between smallholders, agrobiodiversity, and development institutions have developed over time, providing critical insight into what interventions and policies might better support and sustainable and just agricultural future. The proposed research investigates the complex relationships between smallholder livelihoods and agricultural diversity using two distinct yet synergistic methodological approaches: 1) ethnographic study of farmers’ everyday lives, including their spaces of work and leisure; and 2) participatory modeling of farming system dynamics. The training and professional development proposed here will prepare the Fellowship Candidate for a lifelong career of advancing scientific understanding of complex social and agricultural systems, to serve underrepresented student groups and increase diversity in the interdisciplinary sciences, and to contribute to international environmental assessments and policy-making.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.