Search Results - (Author, Cooperation:L. E. Buck)

2011-06-04

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

0036-8075

1095-9203

Biology

Chemistry and Pharmacology

Computer Science

Medicine

Natural Sciences in General

Physics

*Agriculture/economics/standards ; Conservation of Natural Resources ; *Developing Countries/economics ; Food Handling ; *Food Industry/economics/standards ; Food Safety ; *Food Supply/economics/standards ; Marketing ; Policy Making ; Private Sector

1572-9680

participatory research ; policy research ; strategic research

Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000

Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition

Abstract Efforts to improve the performance of agroforestry systems, and to expand the land area and number of people able to benefit from this integrative approach to agriculture and natural resource management, are constrained throughout the world by non-supportive land use policies. A growing sense of urgency that policy change is needed to enable agroforestry to flourish has contributed during the past two years to an unprecedented level of agroforestry policy assessment and planning activity. In the US, agroforestry has emerged from academia, where it has incubated since the mid-1980s, into the professional resource management arena. A multi-organizational agroforestry evaluation process has driven national policy and program formation to the forefront of the agenda of the agroforestry community, as it seeks to influence the 1995 Farm Bill. Internationally, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research and collaborators fostered a sequence of policy issue identification activities as a basis for setting strategic research priorities for forestry and agroforestry. Following a brief review of forces driving agroforestry development in industrialized and less developed countries, the paper highlights recent policy assessment initiatives in each sphere. Observations on the issues driving and the priorities emerging from these processes are offered, to lend perspective to the critical challenges facing the agroforestry policy research community. An explanation for pervasive constraints and inconsistencies in policy effectiveness is then explored, from which a promising approach to research intervention is forwarded. It is argued that social scientists might influence agroforestry policy most favorably at this critical juncture, as perceptions of inter-dependence increase among different stakeholders in the policy system, by employing interventionist, actor-oriented perspectives and participatory methods to facilitate policy innovation and evaluation. The approach is consistent with participatory technology design processes that earlier helped to establish agroforestry as a prototype for sustainable development.

Electronic Resource

1572-9680

Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000

Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition

Abstract Most of the existing agroforestry courses have arisen opportunistically and tend to be based on the form that agroforestry takes, rather than on the way agroforestry practices function. Yet agroforestry research is beginning to supply ideas and information about the core issues (e.g., how woody and non-woody intercrops behave in terms of environmental resource capture, and how this can be influenced by the biology of the plant components and management). Similarly, recent socioeconomic research on agroforestry issues reveals dynamic systems of resource access, use, and control at various levels of human organization over time. It is true also that, because they were undertaken with different objectives in mind, the concepts derived from many decades of research in ecology, agriculture, and forestry still need to be reshaped for agroforestry situations. Likewise, socioeconomic content needs to move towards teaching the dynamics of decision-making, innovation, and change rather than describing static situations. This reshaping process itself offers exciting possibilities for educators who, thereby, could influence the course of research. These issues are briefly discussed in relation to the integration and development of research and teaching, and the needs of students and agroforestry professionals for educational and training courses. A draft proposal for the future of agroforestry at Cornell University is also outlined as a model for implementing such an approach.

Electronic Resource