Nature’s Contributions to People Shape Sense of Place in the Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia

Abstract

Understanding the roots of a sense of place in farmlands is crucial for stopping rural exodus to urban areas. Farmers’ experiences related to their way of life, peace and quiet, rootedness, pleasure, and inspiration are fundamental components of a sense of place in farmlands. Here, we used the city of Pereira located in the Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia (CCLC) to examine the role of nature’s contributions to people (NCP) in forming meanings and attachments that shape their sense of place to this region. This region has experienced intense agricultural lands abandonment due to rapid urbanization over the last decades. To do so, a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods was used, including semi-structured interviews, observation, and dialogue, to capture farmers’ perceptions and emotions associated with farmlands, reasons for remaining, and the diversity of NCPs. Results indicated that farmers recognized farmlands as a quiet and safe space that support family cohesion. Results also showed that the characteristics of the farms (e.g., agricultural practices, distance to cities, and gender) play an important role in articulating a farmer’s attachment to farmlands. Finally, farmers identified nonmaterial NCP (e.g., physical and psychological experiences and supportive identities) to be the most important contributions for shaping their sense of place. We call for the need to include robust and transparent deliberative and negotiation mechanisms that are inclusive of all relevant stakeholders, to aim to address unequal power, and to recognize and strengthen communities’ mechanisms of action on the CCLC.

Place Attachment, Self-Efficacy, and Farmers’ Farmland Quality Protection Behavior: Evidence from China

“…The strength of farmers' place attachment and self-efficacy is usually associated with their demographic and socioeconomic characteristics [12,59], which may lead to endogeneity in model estimation due to self-selection bias (e.g., farmers with larger planting scale tend to have stronger place dependency, and, therefore, they may be reluctant to adopt FQPB) and reduce the accuracy of regression results. This study utilizes the propensity score matching method to control for demographic and socioeconomic characteristics associated with place attachment and self-efficacy; thus, sample self-selection bias is eliminated.…”

A Transformative (r)Evolution of the Research on Agriculture through Fostering Human-Nature Connectedness—A Special Issue Editorial

“…This has to be accompanied by the combination of a set of social research methods and approaches that lead to transformative change in the agricultural systems for sustainability. Thus, in this SI, alternative approaches have been employed, such as conservation biology [34], nature's contribution to people [35], ecosystem services [36,37] and multi-actor authorship approaches [29], which go beyond the biophysical analysis by considering socio-cultural aspects under a more systemic perspective. Most of these approaches imply a broadening in the scale of the study while incorporating knowledge, perceptions, preferences and values from local stakeholders.…”

“…Most of these approaches imply a broadening in the scale of the study while incorporating knowledge, perceptions, preferences and values from local stakeholders. While typically, agricultural studies are focused at the plot level, embracing these new approaches leads to a broadening of the scale, especially to farm or landscape scales [29,31,35,[37][38][39], and to a lesser extent to regional or foodshed [40] or to country scales [34].…”

“…Thus, many of the studies used questionnaires as their main data source, although acquisition was different depending on the purposes and specificities of the study. For instance, Schwartz et al [36] used GIS software to develop a participatory mapping exercise, Murillo-López et al [35] used semi-structured interviews to collect qualitative data, whereas Chen et al [39] and Gugerell et al [38] developed questionnaires and interviews for quantitative analysis to evaluate farmers' ecological cognition and different proximities, respectively. However, other studies required mixed complex methods incorporating agroecology and involving multi-actor, agricultural knowledge, and innovation systems [29,37].…”