For the public good: weaving a multifunctional landscape in the Corn Belt
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For the public good: weaving a multifunctional landscape in the Corn Belt Noelle M. Harden • Loka L. Ashwood William L. Bland • Michael M. Bell
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Accepted: 18 October 2012 / Published online: 8 February 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Abstract Critics of modern agriculture decry the dominance of monocultural landscapes and look to multifunctionality as a desirable alternative that facilitates the production of public goods. In this study, we explored opportunities for multifunctional Midwestern agriculture through participatory research led by farmers, landowners, and other local actors. We suggest that agriculture typically fosters some degree of multifunctionality that arises from the divergent intentions of actors. The result is a scattered arrangement of what we term patchwork multifunctionality, a ubiquitous status quo in which individuals provide public goods without coordination. In contrast, interwoven multifunctionality describes deliberate collaboration to provide public goods, especially those cases where landowners work across fence lines to weave a synergistic landscape. Using examples from two case studies, we demonstrate the spectrum of patchwork and interwoven multifunctionality that currently exists in the Corn Belt, and present underutilized opportunities for public good creation. Keywords Multifunctionality Agriculture Phosphorus pollution Participatory research Landscape
N. M. Harden Center for Family Development, University of Minnesota Extension, 715 11th St N. #701C, Moorhead, MN 56560, USA L. L. Ashwood (&) M. M. Bell Department of Community and Environmental Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1450 Linden Dr., Madison, WI 53706, USA e-mail: [email protected] W. L. Bland Department of Soil Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1525 Observatory Dr., Madison, WI 53706, USA
Abbreviations CRP Conservation Reserve Program EU European Union
Introduction Contemporary modes of agricultural production in the Corn Belt of the United States are decried by critics for producing row crop wastelands and ‘‘ecological sacrifice zones’’ (Jackson and Jackson 2002). Activists and scholars also point to the discursive monoculture of modern industrialized agriculture, signified by the dominance of productivist institutions and agribusiness. However, even the most fertile Midwestern grain farms can, and frequently do, provide public goods beyond the production of agroindustrial commodities (Boody et al. 2005; Evans et al. 2002). The strategic placement of grass on a grain farm, for example, can provide ecological benefits like habitat for grassland birds and the filtration of agricultural runoff (Jackson 2002; Schulte et al. 2006; Glover et al. 2007), and also could foster ‘‘bioeconomies’’ in rural communities based on local energy production (Jordan et al. 2007). This is the concept of agricultural multifunctionality, which in its simplest form is about farms providing public goods in addition to food, fiber, fuel, and feed (OECD 2001). Agricultural multifunctionali
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