Ethnographically, “fecal free” is a lexical marker that invokes a form of industrialized swine husbandry used in large-scale confinement hog production. Using participant observation and interview research with Illinois contract hog producers, I explore the basis of this husbandry in the...

Differences in perceptions and knowledge of crop diseases constitute a major obstacle in farmer–researcher cooperation, which is necessary for sustainable disease management. Farmers’ perceptions and management of crop diseases in the northern Ethiopian Regional State of Tigrai were...

Participatory research (PR) has been analyzed and documented from different points of view, with emphasis on the benefits generated for farmers. The effect of PR on organizational learning has, however, received little attention. This paper analyzes the interaction between a research and a...

This paper explores how knowledge is exchanged between agricultural advisors and farmers in the context of sustainable farming practices in England. Specifically the paper examines the nature of the knowledge exchange at the encounters between one group of advisors, agronomists, and farmers. The...

I examine the risks and opportunities associated with social movement coalition building in attempts to block or curtail the rise of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) in the United States. As producers have scaled up animal production facilities, environmentalists and animal rights...

This paper describes a role for rural sociology in linking agrifood system vulnerabilities to opportunities for encouraging sustainability and social justice. I argue that the California rice industry is particularly vulnerable for two reasons. First, a quarter of rice growers’ revenues derive...

Social scientists have a long history of concern with the effects of industrialized farming on communities. Recently, the topic has taken on new importance as corporate farming laws in a number of states are challenged by agribusiness interests. Defense of these laws often requires evidence from...

The 2006 outbreak of E. coli O157:H7, traced to bagged spinach from California, illustrates a number of contradictions. The solutions sought by many politicians and popular food analysts have been to create a centralized federal agency and a uniform set of production standards modeled after...

The broad objective of this paper is to examine the evolution of gendered aspects of livelihood strategies and their interaction with various development interventions. Central to this is an empirical analysis of gendered divisions of labor in the context of rapidly changing pastoralist...