RUI: Household and institutional responses to security threats from environmental and economic disturbances

该奖项全部或部分根据2021年美国救援计划法案（公法117-2）资助。该项目研究小规模农民，社区和机构如何在面对复杂和不断变化的环境和经济挑战时表现出更大的适应力。这些挑战包括干旱、飓风和自然灾害、农作物病害、政治不稳定、粮食和农产品价格波动、流行病以及社会经济地位低下引起的问题。减轻这些极端事件的有害影响的一项战略是实行多种生计，同时减少对单一作物或商品的依赖。该项目研究多样化对农民经济成果的影响，同时评估多样化是否以提高作物收成、粮食安全和虫害控制的方式增强生物多样性。该研究提供了与不同地区农民人口相关的经济生计的见解，包括贡献全球市场消费的大部分种植粮食的地区。该项目还促进了对将参与研究的大学生的培训和教育，但关于多样化的有效性以及农民、社区和组织如何试验新方法和分享有希望的做法，仍有许多东西有待了解。为了解决这些悬而未决的问题，研究人员制定了一个参与性的方法来确定和评估多样化的做法对多种结果的影响，包括灾害风险，生计能力，粮食安全，饮食多样性，性别平等，水安全和粮食主权。调查人员还审查了创新、学习和农民采取新的多样化活动的动机的过程。在方法上，该项目将实地研究与多个学科的概念和分析技术相结合，包括农业生态学，政治生态学，发展研究和经济学。这项研究还确定了不同的多样化做法的农民如何应对最近的自然灾害，显示多样化的变化的后果。这项研究的见解可供负责指导自然灾害后的恢复工作的机构使用。该奖项反映了NSF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 award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). This project studies how small-scale farmers, communities, and institutions can exhibit more resilience in the face of a complex and changing set of environmental and economic challenges. These challenges include droughts, hurricanes, and natural disasters, crop diseases, political instability, fluctuations in food and agricultural prices, pandemics, and problems arising from low socioeconomic status. A strategy for mitigating the detrimental effects of these extreme events is to practice diverse livelihoods while decreasing dependence on a single crop or commodity. This project examines the effects of diversification on farmers’ economic outcomes while also assessing whether diversification enhances biodiversity in ways that improve crop harvests, food security, and pest control. The research provides insights about economic livelihoods that are relevant to populations of farmers in diverse regions, including areas that contribute much of the cultivated food that is consumed in global markets. The project also advances the training and education of university students who will participate in the research.Much remains to be learned about the effectiveness of diversification and about how farmers, communities, and organizations can experiment with new approaches and share promising practices. To address these outstanding questions, the investigators develop a participatory approach to identify and assess the effects of diversification practices on multiple outcomes, including disaster risk, livelihood capabilities, food security, dietary diversity, gender equity, water security, and food sovereignty. The investigators also examine the processes of innovation, learning, and farmers’ motivation for adopting new diversification activities. Methodologically, the project integrates field research with concepts and analytical techniques from multiple academic disciplines, including agroecology, political ecology, development studies, and economics. This study also identifies how farmers with different diversification practices responded to recent natural disasters, showing the consequences of variation in diversification. Insights from this research can be used by institutions who are responsible for guiding and recovery efforts following natural disasters. The findings will also be beneficial for multinational efforts to promote sustainable agriculture in diverse settings.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.