Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Growing food, growing a movement: climate adaptation and civic agriculture in the southeastern United States

  • Published:
Agriculture and Human Values Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article examines the role that civic agriculture in Georgia (US) plays in shaping attitudes, strategies, and relationships that foster both sustainability and adaptation to a changing climate. Civic agriculture is a social movement that attracts a specific type of “activist” farmer, who is linked to a strong social network that includes other farmers and consumers. Positioning farmers’ practices within a social movement broadens the understanding of adaptive capacity beyond how farmers adapt to understand why they do so. By drawing upon qualitative and quantitative data and by focusing on the cosmological, organizational, and technical dimensions of the social movement, the study illuminates how social values and networks shape production and marketing strategies that enable farmers to share resources and risks. We propose a conceptual framework for understanding how technical and social strategies aimed to address the sustainability goals of the movement also increase adaptive capacity at multiple timescales. In conclusion, we outline directions for future research, including the need for longitudinal studies that focus on consumer motivation and willingness to pay, the effects of scale on consumer loyalty and producer cooperation, and the role of a social movement in climate change adaptation. Finally, we stress that farmers’ ability to thrive in uncertain climate futures calls for transformative approaches to sustainable agriculture that support the development of strong social networks.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Farmers’ names are pseudonyms and any identifying information has been removed to ensure anonymity.

  2. While a CSA could be considered a price guarantee for a season and does help them offset risk during that timeframe, CSA membership is not guaranteed from season to season as membership may fill up in the spring but fall off the following summer. A CSA farmer can never rely 100 % on membership.

References

  • Adger, N.W. 2003. Social capital, collective action, and adaptation to climate change. Economic Geography 79: 387–404.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Adger, N.W., T.P. Hughes, C. Folke, S.R. Carpenter, and J. Rockstrom. 2005. Social-ecological resilience to coastal disasters. Science 309: 1036–1039.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Agrawal, A. 2008. The role of local institutions in adaptation to climate change. In The role of local institutions in adaptation to climate change, IFRI Working Paper, W08I–3. Ann Arbor, MI: International Forestry Resources and Institutions Program.

  • Alkon, A.H. 2008. From value to values: Sustainable consumption at farmers markets. Agriculture and Human Values 25: 487–498.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allen, P. 2004. Together at the table: Sustainability and sustenance in the American agrifood system. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Badgley, C., J. Moghtader, E. Quintero, E. Zaken, M.J. Chappell, K. Aviles-Vazquez, A. Samulon, and I. Perfecto. 2007. Organic agriculture and the global food supply. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems 22: 86–108.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Battisti, D., and R. Naylor. 2009. Historical warnings of future food insecurity with unprecedented seasonal heat. Science 323: 240–243.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Borron, S. 2006. Building resilience for an unpredictable future: How organic agriculture can help farmers adapt to climate change. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/009/ah617e/ah617e.pdf. Accessed 10 June 2011.

  • Chappell, M.J., and L. LaValle. 2011. Food security and biodiversity: Can we have both? An agroecological analysis. Agriculture and Human Values 28: 3–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coley, D., M. Howard, and M. Winter. 2009. Local food, food miles, and carbon emissions: A comparison of farm shop and mass distribution approaches. Food Policy 34: 150–155.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Connor, D.J. 2008. Organic agriculture cannot feed the world. Field Crops Research 106: 187–190.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crane, T., C. Roncoli, J. Paz, N. Breuer, K. Ingram, and G. Hoogenboom. 2010. Forecast skill and farmers’ skills: Seasonal climate forecasts and agricultural risk management in the southeastern United States. Weather, Climate, and Society 2: 44–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cutter, S.L., L. Barnes, M. Berry, C. Burton, E. Evans, E. Tate, and J. Webb. 2008. A place-based model for understanding community resilience to natural disasters. Global Environmental Change 18: 598–606.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DeLind, L.B. 2002. Place, work, and civic agriculture: Common fields for cultivation. Agriculture and Human Values 19: 217–224.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DeLind, L.B. 1999. Close encounters with a CSA: The reflections of a bruised and somewhat wiser anthropologist. Agriculture and Human Values 16: 3–9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Devitt, C. 2006. Transition to organic farming in Ireland: How do organic farmers arrive at the decision to adopt and commit to organic farming methods? Irish Journal of Sociology 15: 101–113.

    Google Scholar 

  • Donck, N. 2010. Winter farming. Crystal Organic Farm. http://crystalorganicfarm.wordpress.com/2010/01/29/winter-farming/. Accessed 25 May 2011.

  • Duram, L.A. 2000. Agents’ perceptions of structure: How Illinois organic farmers view political, economic, social, and ecological factors. Agriculture and Human Values 17: 35–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Durrenberger, E.P. 2002. Community supported agriculture in central Pennsylvania. Culture and Agriculture 24: 42–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eakin, H., and M.C. Lemos. 2006. Adaptation and the state: Latin America and the challenge of capacity-building under globalization. Global Environmental Change 16: 7–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Engle, N.L. 2011. Adaptive capacity and its assessment. Global Environmental Change 21: 647–656.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Feenstra, G. 2002. Creating space for sustainable food systems: Lessons from the field. Agriculture and Human Values 19: 99–106.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Few, R., K. Brown, and E.L. Tompkins. 2007. Climate change and coastal management decisions: Insights from Christchurch Bay, UK. Coastal Management 35: 255–270.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Folke, C. 2006. Resilience: The emergence of a perspective for social-ecological systems analyses. Global Environmental Change 16: 253–267.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Follett, J.R. 2009. Choosing a food future: Differentiating among alternative food options. Journal of Agriculture Environmental Ethics 22: 31–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Furman, C., C. Roncoli, T. Crane, and G. Hoogenboom. 2011. Beyond the “fit”: Introducing climate forecasts among organic farmers in Georgia (United States). Climatic Change 109: 791–799.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gaskin, J. 2011. Sustainable food systems for Georgia’s agrarian future. Georgia Sustainable Agriculture Consortium. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia. http://www.caes.uga.edu/topics/sustainag/gsac/documents/SustFoodSysFinal.pdf. Accessed 2 Nov 2011.

  • Georgia Organics. 2010. Local food guide: Your essential guide to sustainable and organic food in Georgia. Atlanta, GA: Georgia Organics.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hanson, J., R. Dismukes, W. Chambers, C. Greene, and A. Kremen. 2004. Risk and risk management in organic agriculture: Views of organic farmers. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems 19: 218–227.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hassanein, N. 1999. Changing the way America farms: Knowledge and community in the sustainable agriculture movement. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hinrichs, C.C., and T.A. Lyson. 2008. Remaking the North American food system: Strategies for sustainability. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ingram, J. 2008. Are farmers in England equipped to meet the knowledge challenge of sustainable soil management? An analysis of farmer and advisor views. Journal of Environmental Management 86: 214–228.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ingram, K.T., K. Dow, and L. Carter. 2012. Southeast region technical report to the national climate assessment. Gainesville, FL: Southeast Climate Consortium. http://downloads.usgcrp.gov/NCA/Activities/NCA_SE_Technical_Report_FINAL_7-23-12.pdf. Accessed 20 Aug 2012.

  • Jamison, A., and R. Eyerman. 1991. Social movements: A cognitive approach. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jordan, J.L., and D.H. Constance. 2008. Sustainable agriculture and the social sciences: Getting beyond best management practices and into food systems. Southern Rural Sociology 23: 1–22.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kornegay, J.L., R.R. Hardwood, S.S. Batie, D. Bucks, C. Butler Flora, J. Hanson, D. Jackson-Smith, W. Jury, D. Meyer, J.P. Reganold, A. Schumacher Jr, H. Sehmsdorf, C. Shennan, L.A. Thrupp, and P. Willis. 2010. Toward sustainable agricultural systems in the 21st century. Washington, DC: National Research Council.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lang, K.B. 2010. The changing face of community-supported agriculture. Culture and Agriculture 32: 17–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lea, E., J. Phillips, M. Ward, and A. Worsley. 2006. Farmers’ and consumers’ beliefs about community supported agriculture in Australia: A qualitative study. Ecology of Food and Nutrition 45: 61–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Low, S.A., and S. Vogel. 2011. Direct and intermediated marketing of local foods in the United States. Economic research report no. 128. Washington, DC: USDA Economic Research Service.

  • Lyson, T.A., and A. Guptill. 2004. Commodity agriculture, civic agriculture, and the future of US Farming. Rural Society 69: 370–385.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McLeman, R. 2010. Impacts of population change on vulnerability and the capacity to adapt to climate change and variability: A typology based on lessons from “a hard country”. Population and Environment 31: 286–316.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nelson, D.R. 2011. Adaptation and resilience: Responding to a changing climate. WIREs Climate Change 2: 113–120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nelson, D.R., W.N. Adger, and K. Brown. 2007. Adaptation to environmental change: Contributions of a resilience framework. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 32: 395–419.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Niggli, U., H. Schmid, and A. Fliessbach. 2007. Organic farming and climate change, Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL). Geneva: International Trade Centre UNCTAD/WTO.

  • O’Brien, K. 2009. Do values subjectively define the limits to climate change adaptation? In Adapting to climate change: thresholds, values, and governance, eds. W. Neil Adger, Irene Lorenzoni and Karen L. O’Brien, 164–180. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.

  • Ostrom, E. 2009. A general framework for analyzing sustainability of social-ecological systems. Science 325: 419.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oxfam America. 2009. Exposed: Social vulnerability and climate change in the US Southeast. Boston, MA: Oxfam America.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parry, M.L., O.F. Canziani, J.P. Palutikof, P.J. van der Linden, and C.E. Hanson. 2007. Climate change 2007: Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 982. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

  • Pelletier, N., N. Arsenault, and P. Tyedmers. 2008. Scenario modeling potential eco-efficiency gains from a transition to organic agriculture: Life cycle perspectives on Canadian canola, corn, soy, and wheat production. Environmental Management 42: 989–1001.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pelling, M., and C. High. 2005. Understanding adaptation: What can social capital offer assessments of adaptive capacity? Global Environmental Change 15: 308–319.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pretty, J.N., A.S. Ball, T. Lang, and J.I.L. Morison. 2005. Farm costs and food miles: An assessment of the full cost of the UK weekly food basket. Food Policy 30: 1–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reganold, J.P., D. Jackson-Smith, S.S. Batie, R.R. Harwood, J.L. Kornegay, D. Bucks, C.B. Flora, J.C. Hanson, W.A. Jury, D. Meyer, A. Schumacher Jr, H. Sehmsdorf, C. Shennan, L.A. Thrupp, and P. Willis. 2011. Transforming US agriculture. Science 332: 670–671.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roncoli, C., T. Crane, and B. Orlove. 2009. Fielding climate change in cultural anthropology. In Anthropology and climate change: From encounters to actions, ed. Susan A. Crate, and M. Nutall, 87–115. San Francisco, CA: Left Coast Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sbicca, J. 2012. Growing food justice by planting an anti-oppression foundation: Opportunities and obstacles for a budding social movement. Agriculture and Human Values 29: 455–466.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • SECC. 2008. Climate change basics for the southeast USA, ed. COAPS. Tallahassee, FL: Southeast Climate Consortium.

  • Sharman, R.L. 2007. Style matters: Ethnography as method and genre. Anthropology and Humanism 32: 117–129.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smit, B., and J. Wandel. 2006. Adaptation, adaptive capacity, and vulnerability. Global Environmental Change 16: 282–292.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smithers, J., E.J. Alun, and M. Armstrong. 2005. Across the divide (?): Reconciling farm and town views of agriculture-community linkages. Journal of Rural Studies 21: 281–295.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stephenson, G., and L. Lev. 2004. Common support for local agriculture in two contrasting Oregon cities. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems 19: 210–217.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tovey, H. 1997. Food, environmentalism, and rural sociology: On the organic farming movement in Ireland. Sociologia Ruralis 37: 21–37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Trauger, A. 2009. Social agency and networked spatial relations in sustainable agriculture. Area 41: 117–128.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Trauger, A., C.E. Sachs, M. Barbercheck, K. Brasier, and N.E. Kiernan. 2010. “Our market is our community”: Women farmers and civic agriculture in Pennsylvania, USA. Agriculture and Human Values 27: 43–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • USDA AMS 2010. Regional food hubs: Linking producers to new markets, ed. Regional Food Hub Subcommittee, Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food.

  • Vásquez-León, M. 2009. Hispanic farmers and farmworkers: Social networks, institutional exclusion, and climate vulnerability in southeastern arizona. American Anthropologist 111: 289–310.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wall, E., and B. Smit. 2005. Climate change adaptation in light of sustainable agriculture. Journal of Sustainable Agriculture 27: 113–123.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weiss, B. 2012. Configuring the authentic value of real food: Farm-to-fork, snout-to-tail, and local food movements. American Ethnologist 39: 614–626.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Winfrey, J. 2009. The force of floods: Love is love farm needs your help. In The force of floods: Love is love farm needs your help. Atlanta Intown Paper (1 November 2009).

  • Woteki, C. 2012. Sustainable agricultural systems science white paper. In Sustainable agricultural systems science white paper, USDA Science White Papers: USDA. http://www.usda.gov/documents/sustainable-agriculture-science-white-paper.pdf. Accessed 10 August 2012.

  • Yohe, G., and R.S.J. Tol. 2002. Indicators for social and economic coping capacity-moving toward a working definition of adaptive capacity. Global Environmental Change 12: 25–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yousef, O. 2009. Local farmers look to community aid for recovery. WABE National Public Radio (8 October 2009). http://www.wabe.org/post/local-farmers-look-community-aid-recovery. Accessed 5 January 2010.

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work was conducted under the auspices of the Southeast Climate Consortium (www.SEClimate.org) and supported by a partnership with the United States Department of Agriculture-Risk Management Agency (USDA-RMA) and by Grants from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Climate Program Office (NOAA-CPO) and the USDA Cooperative State Research and Education and Extension Services (USDA-CSREES). We are grateful for comments and contributions by Wendy-Lin Bartels, Jessica Bolson, Mark Boudreau, Todd Crane, Julia Gaskin, Jeffrey Glover, Keith Ingram, Leslie Walton, and Whitney White. We also thank Georgia Organics for providing organizational support and the farmers who participated in the study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 30602, USA

    Carrie Furman

  2. Department of Anthropology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Carla Roncoli

  3. Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

    Donald R. Nelson

  4. AgWeatherNet, Washington State University, Prosser, WA, USA

    Gerrit Hoogenboom

Authors
  1. Carrie Furman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Carla Roncoli
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Donald R. Nelson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Gerrit Hoogenboom
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Carrie Furman.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Furman, C., Roncoli, C., Nelson, D.R. et al. Growing food, growing a movement: climate adaptation and civic agriculture in the southeastern United States. Agric Hum Values 31, 69–82 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-013-9458-2

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-013-9458-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation