Agricultural Sustainability from a Societal View: An Analysis of Southern Spanish Citizens

Sustainable agriculture refers to farming systems with economic, social, and environmental viability that must respond to citizens’ interests and concerns. However, European citizens are not satisfied with the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) due to misinterpretation of their preferences. Because of this, the European agricultural model’s long-term viability is being questioned, especially after the European Commission’s CAP proposals in 2011. This paper examines European agriculture’s potential sustainability with regard to citizens’ preferences. First, focus groups and the Analytic Hierarchy Process are used to identify and quantify southern Spanish citizens’ preferences for farming. Second, socio-demographic features and opinions that determine preferences towards agriculture are studied by a multinomial logit model and a cluster analysis. A comparison is made between citizens’ preferences and the CAP aims because the CAP aims address all European farming. The main results indicate that agricultural economic, environmental, and social functions are equally important to the respondents in our study, even though the CAP prioritizes the economic ones. However, some citizen groups agree with the agricultural model designed by the CAP.     

Selecting agri-environmental indicators to facilitate monitoring and assessment of EU agri-environmental measures effectiveness

Since its introduction in the early 1960s, the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has demonstrated a capacity to adapt and change in the face of new challenges. The reformed CAP, under AGENDA 2000, encourages more environmentally friendly farming practices. In the context of their rural development plans, Member States are required to link policies on agriculture with protection of the environment and to ensure that farmers meet environmental standards. Additionally, Member States should maintain and restore the quality of both their aquatic and adjacent terrestrial ecosystems according to the Directive 2000/60/EU, 'Establishing a framework for Community Action in the field of Water Policy'. Within this framework, agri-environmental indicators play an important role in planning and implementing CAP guidelines. However, selection and use of the proper indicators remains unresolved, considering that ecosystem processes are complex and interactions in most cases not obvious. This paper proposes a methodology for assessing the environmental state and impacts of current land use and management when implementing agri-environmental measures of CAP. The proposed methodology includes a modified Driving forces-Pressures-Impacts-Responses (DPSIR) framework, identification of Zones of Specific Functional Interest (ZSFI), and criteria for selecting agri-environmental indicators, which assess the functional performance of each zone and meet existing legislation. The Mygdonia Watershed (Greece) is an example where through use of both the appropriate Minimum Data Set of agri-environmental indicators at the identified zones and the proposed modified DPSIR, the functioning performance of each ZSFI can be assessed to evaluate the applied agri-environmental measures.     

农村环境污染防治的对策措施

就农村中存在的农业生产资料的过量使用导致的污染、生活垃圾污染、农村水污染及农村生态环境破坏等环境问题的实际情况,分析了当前农村环境污染现状,针对其存在的主要问题提出了加大农村环保宣传、规范政府行为、调整农业产业结构及推广新能源等具有较强可行性的对策措施,以促进农村社会、经济和环境的可持续发展。     

Environmental Duty of Care: From Ethical Principle Towards a Code of Practice for the Grazing Industry in Queensland (Australia)

Among the options of government for reducing negative environmental externalities from agriculture is the institution of a polluter statutory liability. An environmental duty of care imposes a statutory liability on agents who interact with the environment to avoid causing environmental harm. This paper documents environmental duty of care provisions governing landholders in Queensland, Australia, with specific reference to the 2007 Queensland State Rural Leasehold Land Strategy. The paper reports on a positive response by a group of leaseholders within the Northern Gulf Region in Queensland who developed a prototype environmental code of practice for grazing—a land use not previously covered by such an institution in Australia. The paper concludes that (1) a statutory environmental duty of care and specific forms of leasehold tenure are elements of an effective strategy for implementing an agricultural environmental ethics in north Australia’s rangelands and (2) a grazing industry code of practice is a practical and important tool for the grazing industry to safeguard its social licence to operate.     

Are we counting what counts? A closer look at environmental concern,pro-environmental behaviour,and carbon footprint

Three parallel lines of inquiry regarding individuals' support for the environment have developed within the environmental social sciences. These include individuals' concern for the environment, research on private sphere pro-environmental behaviour (PEB), i.e. household actions seeking to improve the environment (e.g. buying better light bulbs), and more recently, ecological and carbon footprints. Researchers have noted that the correlates of this third form of support for the environment are not necessarily the same as the predictors of the first two forms. Using Canadian survey data, this study examines the relationships among, and predictors of, all three forms. Evidence that there is not a link between private sphere PEB and household carbon footprints, and that measures of socio-economic status (education and income) have different effects on different types of support for the environment, invites a discussion of whether environmental social scientists are really counting what counts.     

Public policy and the value of the environment: an alternative approach

There is a growing concern regarding the ‘true’ GNP. The claim is that the cost of environmental degradation should be taken into account when calculating welfare measures for society which can be derived from the system of national accounts (SNA). However, the reason that it has not been done is the difficulty of calculating the true ‘price of the environment’. The literature recognizes two types of measurements. One is based on indirect measures (e.g. hedonic methods) while the second is based on direct methods (e.g. contingent valuation methods). There is an alternative approach which is suggested in this paper. The new method relies on the assumption that what we see in reality is the outcome of a maximization process of some social welfare function which includes not only GNP but other elements of which environmental quality is one. By observing the reality, we can get some information on the implicit governmental weights and hence on the trade‐off between the GNP and the environment. This is a positive approach rather than a normative one, so future decisions can rely on this measurement as a guide for controversial decisions regarding development versus preservation. The theoretical model is then applied to the Israeli economy as an example in order to have some estimate on the price derived by this method.     

环境资源价值分析

现代社会经济的发展离不开环境资源,但是人们在发展经济的过程中往往又忽视了人与环境的协调发展。在可持续发展战略普遍被各国人们所接爱今天,我们应该从最基本的问题入手来分析与环境的协调发展问题。本文从环境资源有无价值出发,进而分析、比较了商品与环境资源的价值问题。在此基础上通过分析社会经济发展与环境资源的关系提出了环境资源的正价值和负价值,然后又进一步分析了环境资源正价值和负价值社会经济的关系。最后文章提出了环境资源价值与持续发展战略及相关研究的关系。     

基于系统动力学模型的区域可持续发展分析

结合系统动力学建模的原则和方法,构建了区域可持续发展系统动力学模型。根据区域社会经济发展和环境变化的动态性,子系统之间能量和物质流通的转化与信息的交互,形成人口、科技、环境、资源、经济5个子系统。某农业县三种方案对比的模拟实验表明,控制人口,大力发展生态农业和第三产业,优化产业发展结构,不但实现了GDP增长,而且环境质量指数稳步提升,促进了区域经济社会与环境的可持续发展。     

Ethics,Narrative, and Agriculture: Transforming Agricultural Practice through Ecological Imagination

The environmental degradation caused by industrial agriculture, as well as the resulting social and health consequences, creates an urgency to rethink food production by expanding the moral imagination to include agricultural practices. Agricultural practices presume human use of the earth and acknowledge human dependence on the biotic community, and these relations mean that agriculture presents a separate set of considerations in the broader field of environmental ethics. Many scholars and activists have argued persuasively that we need new stories to rethink agricultural practice, however, the link—the story that does and can shape agricultural practice—has not yet been fully articulated in environmental discourse. My analysis explores how language has shaped existing agricultural models and, more important, the potential of story to influence agricultural practice. To do this, I draw upon cognitive theory to illustrate how metaphoric and narrative language structures thought and influences practice, beginning with my contention that industrial agriculture relies on a discourse of mechanistic relations between humans and a passive earth, language that has naturalized the chemically intensive monocultures prevalent in much of the American Midwest. However, alternative agricultures, including organic agriculture, agro-ecology, and ecological agriculture, emphasize qualities such as interdependence and reciprocity and do so as a deliberate response to the perceived inadequacies of industrial agriculture and its governing narrative. Exploring the different discourses of agricultural systems can help us think through different modalities for human relations with the biotic community and demonstrate story’s potential role in altering practice.     

The effects of social desirability on self-reported environmental attitudes and ecological behaviour

There are several claims in the literature that social desirability concerns affect people’s response to self-reported measures of environmental attitudes and ecological behaviour. However, only a few empirical studies have indirectly evaluated the impact of social desirability on environmental issues measures, and those who did have found only a low impact. This article describes two studies that explicitly address whether socially desirable responding has direct and moderating effects on self-reported environmental attitudes and ecological behaviour. Results from correlational and moderated multiple regression analyses from both studies showed that social desirability had only a weak direct effect on environmental attitudes (but not ecological behaviour), and had no moderating effect on the environmental attitudes–ecological behaviour relationship. Implications of these findings for research on environmental issues are discussed.

Organic Agriculture’s Approach towards Sustainability; Its Relationship with the Agro-Industrial Complex, A Case Study in Central Macedonia, Greece

Up to now, several scientific works have noted that the organic sector resembles more and more conventional farming’s structures, what is widely known as the “conventionalization” thesis. This phenomenon constitutes an area of conflict between organic farming’s original vision and its current reality and raises ethical and social questions concerning the structure of agricultural systems of production and their interactions with the socio-economic and natural environment. The main issue of this dialogue is the concept of sustainable agriculture, which for scientists and policymakers is a means to express their vision of a better agriculture. In this article we focus on agricultural sustainability in the context of capitalist production as conducted by the two subsystems of agro-industrial system. As we have proposed in this article, the relationship between organic agriculture, defined by two essential components (prevention and direct marketing), and the agro-industrial complex, defined by two subsystems, indicates the degree of agricultural sustainability. The investigation of this relationship can be extremely useful as it may lead those involved in the discussion of sustainability to identify the key aspects of sustainable agriculture. In order to investigate the interaction of organic farming with the agro-industrial complex, a survey was conducted in Central Macedonia, Northern Greece, involving local organic farms. The results of our study indicate that a large proportion of organic producers did not differ substantially from their counterparts in conventional agriculture in so far as their relationship with the agro-industrial complex is concerned. Finally, this research highlights two scenarios for the evolution of organic farming. The first is the full absorption of organic farming to the existing economic system and the second one is the development of organic farming in a radically opposite direction to conventional farming.     

Environmental policy in the Baltic States of Estonia and Latvia

Three major kinds of strategies are envisaged in Latvia and Estonia as ways of improving the environment; these are based on economical, legislative and technological measures. In this paper, environmental problems and policies in the Baltic States are examined, together with the results of a survey of the public's attitude to environmental management. The results indicate dissatisfaction with the state of the environment, and discontent with the way in which environmental issues are managed. The public felt that they were not well‐informed about policy questions and, of the available sources of information, the mass‐media was most important. The public also felt that very little reliable information on environmental issues was obtained from politicians and local authorities.     

2022冬奥背景下京北地区绿色发展战略研究初探

随着经济的快速发展,人们逐步意识到依靠不断增加生产要素投入的粗放型经济发展模式已难以为继,绿色发展遂成为全球共识。作为北京生态涵养区的京北地区,在冬奥会和京津冀协同发展的机遇下,制定绿色发展战略,保护生态涵养功能,加快产业转型升级,促进经济、社会、环境协调发展,具有十分重要的意义。本文归纳总结了国际上绿色发展的借鉴经验,通过对京北地区经济发展现状和绿色发展SWOT的分析,设计出京北地区绿色发展基本框架,包括一个目标、三大战略、五项重点任务和五项保障措施。通过落实经济系统、社会系统和环境系统的三大战略措施,突破资源环境约束和共享绿色经济,最终实现京北地区的绿色跨越式发展。     

Shifting Lands: Exploring Kansas Farmer Decision-Making in an Era of Climate Change and Biofuels Production

While farming has been the subject of frequent critical analysis with respect to its environmental impacts, including its greenhouse gas emissions, there has been relatively little consideration of the potentially positive role of agriculture in responding to a future greatly influenced by climate change. One possible realm for agriculture to contribute successfully to this future is through biofuels cultivation. This paper uses the state of Kansas as an example to examine factors that are influencing farmer decision-making during a time of heightened debates about climate and energy. Drawing on interviews with key informants and Kansas farmers, we apply and refine a conceptual model for understanding farmer decisions. We find that farmers have largely positive perceptions of the natural environment. Climate change, especially, is not a salient concern at this time. Factors that appear most likely to influence farmer decisions to adopt a new practice include the relative advantage of that practice and the ability to learn about and discuss it through existing social networks. Successful policy incentives must provide farmers with a continued sense of both independence and contribution to greater societal good.     

A note on attitudes and knowledge concerning environmental issues in Sweden

As part of a larger research effort, the empirical basis for this note is responses to four out of many questions in a mailed survey, which primarily focused on national environmental objectives in Sweden. The results show that out of eight broad areas for use of tax money, five-including environment-are rated as important by over 90% of the respondents. Respondents appear to be less willing to discriminate between different issues covered by national environmental objectives, as all of these are rated as important by more than 80% of the respondents. The function of the ozone layer is an example of an environmental issue where the knowledge among people is relatively high, while this is not the case when it comes to the amount of pesticides used in agriculture. The results also show less support for actions at the individual level to improve the environment, as compared to support for actions taken by society at large through, e.g., technological improvement or policy intervention.     

Are national biodiversity strategies and action plans appropriate for building responsibilities for mainstreaming biodiversity across policy sectors? The case of Finland

The Convention on Biological Diversity's national biodiversity strategies and action plans (NBSAPs) are major mechanisms for mainstreaming biodiversity into national policies. This article examines whether and how the NBSAPs contribute to mainstreaming biodiversity across policy sectors in Finland in order to halt biodiversity loss. We have developed an innovative analytical framework where the concept of responsibility addresses how motivations for mainstreaming can be built, and the concept of social learning outcomes addresses the extent of institutional changes for biodiversity. The Finnish NBSAP processes have been able to build diverse forms of responsibility (liability, accountability, responsiveness and care) in different policy sectors by providing new knowledge, careful process design and developing institutional linkages. Despite pro-biodiversity outcomes in the targeted policy sectors, the responsibilities do not diffuse from the environmental administration to other policy sectors to a sufficient extent. Closing this ‘responsibility gap’ is a key challenge for building effective environmental policies.     

The role of place identity and place attachment in breaking environmental protection laws

Place identity and place attachment have been related to several environmental variables such as appropriation, residential satisfaction, physical care taken of the neighbourhood, restorativeness, environmental attitudes and, especially, pro-environmental behaviour. However, the role of place identity and place attachment has not been analyzed in relation to anti-ecological behaviours such as transgressions of environmental protection laws. The aim of this study is to analyze the relationship of place identity, place attachment and environmental attitudes to the personal and social norms that explain the likelihood of illegal behaviours against the environment. The sample was composed of men and women, aged from 19 to 70 years, who were resident in rural, urban or tourist areas of a territory under high environmental protection. The strongest predictor of environmental transgression is personal norms, whereas place identity and place attachment have no direct relation with future transgression or personal norms. Place identity influences environmental attitudes and social norms, which are both antecedents of personal norms. The results led us to reconsider the efficacy of interventions aimed at encouraging compliance with environmental laws by only emphasizing individuals' bonds with the environment, and the need to extend the study of the role of personal and social norms in environmental protection.     

Scarcity of natural resources and the implications for sustainable development

The idea of sustainable development has much popular appeal, but conflicts with centuries of economic theory about how limited land and natural resources constrain the growth of economies and populations. Much of that doctrine, especially that in the Malthusian tradition, is contradicted by historical experience, but the modern threat of environmental degradation raises new questions about whether growth can be sustained. Many of those new problems result from biases in economic organization and institutions against so-called environmental resources. Marketed resource commodities like minerals and timber are protected by the incentives of owners and suppliers to conserve them, enhance them and find new sources, and by the incentives of users to economize on their demands and find cheaper substitutes. Together, these forces have been sufficient to offset depletion and render resources less scarce over time. The same forces are not at work on environmental resources like water and air, so they are over-used and degraded as demands grow. However, promising opportunities exist to develop property rights and economic incentives to encourage users of environmental resources to protect and husband them, and these are likely to be more effective in harmonizing economic activity with the environment than purely regulatory policies.     

Local environmental monitoring in Sweden: The need for a new strategy?

This paper discusses the present character of environmental monitoring in Swedish municipalities. We have found that local environmental monitoring in Sweden is insufficient. There is very little connection between monitoring activities and local environmental goals, and environmental goals have been established without considering information from the environmental monitoring. In practice, this means that local environmental monitoring has only a limited influence on political decisions and priorities in the municipalities. Our study also showed that local environmental monitoring was almost entirely focused on monitoring the state of the environment and showed a lack of flow-oriented information. There is a strong need to develop a unified strategy for local environmental monitoring to avoid sub-optimisations in local environmental management. A new strategy would, to a much higher degree, have to focus on monitoring diffuse sources of pollution and personal lifestyles. In this case, monitoring only the state of the environment would not be sufficient. It would have to include also the flows of materials through society, i.e. the whole metabolism of society, including biogeochemical as well as anthropogenic material flows.     

Building a Sustainable Future for Animal Agriculture: An Environmental Virtue Ethic of Care Approach within the Philosophy of Technology

Agricultural technologies are non-neutral and ethical challenges are posed by these technologies themselves. The technologies we use or endorse are embedded with values and norms and reflect the shape of our moral character. They can literally make us better or worse consumers and/or people. Looking back, when the world’s developed nations welcomed and steadily embraced industrialization as the dominant paradigm for agriculture a half century or so ago, they inadvertently championed a philosophy of technology that promotes an insular human-centricism, despite its laudable intent to ensure food security and advance human flourishing. The dominant philosophy of technology has also seeded particular ethical consequences that plague the well-being of human beings, the planet, and farmed animals. After revisiting some fundamental questions regarding the complex ways in which technology as agent shapes our lives and choices and relegates food and farmed constituents into technological artifacts or commodities, I argue that we should accord an environmental virtue ethic of care—understood as caretaking—a central place in developing a more conscientious philosophy of technology that aims at sustainability, fairness, and humaneness in animal agriculture. While technology shapes society, it also is socially shaped and an environmental virtue ethic of care (EVEC) as an alternative design philosophy has the tools to help us take a much overdue inventory of ourselves and our relationships with the nonhuman world. It can help us to expose the ways in which technology hinders critical reflection of its capacity to alter communities and values, to come to terms with why we may be, in general, disengaged from critical ethical analysis of contemporary agriculture and to consider the moral shape and trajectory and the sustainability of our food production systems going into the future. I end by outlining particular virtues associated with the ethic of care discussed here and consider some likely implications for consumers and industry technocrats as they relate to farming animals.