Introduction

McIsaac, Peter M.; Mueller, Gabriele; Spokiene, Diana

doi:10.1353/smr.2012.0001

Cited by 1 publication

(4 citation statements)

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“…These "appear to be rooted in fundamentally different worldviews and value systems" (McIsaac 1994). The results of this study, which indicate increasing uncertainty of farmers about sustainability, may reflect a gradual attitudinal shift in order to reconcile competing worldviews and external pressures to address soil and water quality concerns along with reaching for higher productivity goals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…Studies of sustainability and sustainable agriculture find competing and conflicting definitions and interpretations of the term sustainability (McIsaac 1994). These "appear to be rooted in fundamentally different worldviews and value systems" (McIsaac 1994).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…McIsaac (1994) calls for humility in the search for sustainability, a vigorous but openminded debate and deliberation, and reminds us that the biosphere is interconnected. Farmers and policy makers must find ways to reconcile the discontinuity between current management practices and public findings of the externalities to the environment that their practices create (Morton 2011).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One noninformative Dirichlet prior assigns a prior count of 1 to each category. This prior distribution is used for the analysis of the 1989, 1994, and 2002 When a Dirichlet prior is adopted with a multinomial data model, the resulting posterior distribution for the set of multinomial proportions is also a Dirichlet distribution. In addition, the posterior distribution for a single category's proportion is a beta distribution.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Shifts in farmer uncertainty over time about sustainable farming practices and modern farming's reliance on commercial fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides

Morton¹,

Hobbs²,

Arbuckle³

2013

Journal of Soil and Water Conservation

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Nitrogen (N) is critical for maintaining crop yields; however, current agricultural management practices are major contributors to high levels of N and other agricultural chemicals leaking into neighboring water bodies thereby limiting the achievement of sustainability goals for water resources. Changes in farmer beliefs over time about sustainability goals and production inputs reveal increasing uncertainty about the connection between sustainability and their practices. Inference from a multinomial model analysis of farmer beliefs from 1989 to 2002 shows increasing odds of being uncertain about whether use of sustainable farming practices help maintain the natural resource base. Almost 29% of the population of a 2002 random sample survey of Iowa farmers was uncertain about sustainable farming practices compared to 18.8% in 1989. Further, farmers were increasingly uncertain over time as to whether modern farming relies too heavily upon commercial fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides. In 2002, 14.5% of farmers, compared to 8.4% in 1994 and 5.7% in 1989, were uncertain about whether heavy reliance on commercial fertilizers was a sustainability problem. Multinomial logistic regression models examining responses to various farming practices reveal that the ratio of disagree/agree increases over time and is influenced by total corn and soybean acres farmed, net of farmer age, and weather conditions. Models of uncertainty controlling for age and weather conditions show increasing farmer uncertainty about sustainable farming practices; natural resource base maintenance; and whether modern farming relies too heavily on commercial fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%