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.Research in sustainable agriculture, on the other hand, is multidiscipli-nary; that is to say, it employs a number of different disciplines broughttogether under a single project or agenda.In arguing that multidisciplinaryresearch is integral to sustainable agriculture, Lockeretz (1991) points outthat multidisciplinary research promotes attention to topics such as theenvironmental and social consequences of agricultural systems that are gen-erally overlooked in conventional agricultural research.Stevenson and oth-ers (1994) see multidisciplinary research as addressing three different needs: 92 Together at the Table(1) a need for systems-oriented research, (2) a need to include farmers andnonuniversity organizations in the research circle, and (3) a need to com-municate the results of research beyond the immediate agricultural com-munity to consumers and policymakers.Interdisciplinary approaches can be thought of as somewhere betweenthe relatively loose connection between the disciplines characteristic of mul-tidisciplinary approaches and the narrow focus of conventional agriculturalresearch.While not strictly research oriented, community food securityefforts are interdisciplinary in this way.Community food security is rooteddisciplinarily in urban planning and community development rather thanin agricultural or nutritional sciences.It is at its core an interdisciplinary,integrated approach and represents a significant departure from the pre-dominant highly scientized and statistical approaches to hunger, nutrition,and toxicology that are familiar from hunger-relief and related develop-ment projects.An approach that integrates food access into urban planning is starting toattract the interest of major research institutions (although not traditionalagricultural departments).For example, the Department of Urban andRegional Planning at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, teaches a raregraduate course on food-system planning.Food security is addressed as partof student projects.In 1997 the class produced a report that examined whyplanners had paid so little attention to the food system, why the food systemrequires the attention of planners, and how planners can play constructiveroles in food-system development (Pothukuchi and Kaufman 2000).Community food security is also based on a whole-systems approach toagrifood issues.This approach critiques traditional ways of looking at foodsecurity issues as fragmented and lacking in overarching vision and coher-ence.The whole-systems approach asserts that a lack of coherent visionposes a major obstacle to the development of long-term food security andsustainable food systems (Fisher and Gottlieb 1995).Community food secu-rity uses a food-systems approach to comprehensively identify problemsand articulated solutions, not a traditional antihunger orientation.Forexample, Canada s Toronto Food Policy Council frames food security as ahealth issue in which hunger and poverty are viewed as part of the largerissue of public health, a perspective that makes access to food not only equi-table but economical as well.This systems approach is also present in sustainable agriculture researchprograms, both in an emphasis on farming systems and on whole systems. By emphasizing systems research and environmental impacts, the usda Discourses and Practices of Sustainability 93sare program s strategies have moved substantially beyond those employedin traditional agricultural research.Sustainable agriculture researchers focusmore on integrated farming systems in their efforts to mitigate unintendedenvironmental consequences of agricultural practices.Much of the earlyresearch in sustainable (low-input) agriculture operated under a straight-forward input substitution paradigm.That is, it replaced artificial chem-ical inputs with natural environmentally benign alternatives, withoutchallenging either the monoculture structure or the dependence on off-farm inputs that characterize agricultural systems (Rosset and Altieri 1997:283 84).Many sustainable agriculture researchers now argue for anapproach based on the science of agroecology, which takes the whole sys-tem as its unit of analysis [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Research in sustainable agriculture, on the other hand, is multidiscipli-nary; that is to say, it employs a number of different disciplines broughttogether under a single project or agenda.In arguing that multidisciplinaryresearch is integral to sustainable agriculture, Lockeretz (1991) points outthat multidisciplinary research promotes attention to topics such as theenvironmental and social consequences of agricultural systems that are gen-erally overlooked in conventional agricultural research.Stevenson and oth-ers (1994) see multidisciplinary research as addressing three different needs: 92 Together at the Table(1) a need for systems-oriented research, (2) a need to include farmers andnonuniversity organizations in the research circle, and (3) a need to com-municate the results of research beyond the immediate agricultural com-munity to consumers and policymakers.Interdisciplinary approaches can be thought of as somewhere betweenthe relatively loose connection between the disciplines characteristic of mul-tidisciplinary approaches and the narrow focus of conventional agriculturalresearch.While not strictly research oriented, community food securityefforts are interdisciplinary in this way.Community food security is rooteddisciplinarily in urban planning and community development rather thanin agricultural or nutritional sciences.It is at its core an interdisciplinary,integrated approach and represents a significant departure from the pre-dominant highly scientized and statistical approaches to hunger, nutrition,and toxicology that are familiar from hunger-relief and related develop-ment projects.An approach that integrates food access into urban planning is starting toattract the interest of major research institutions (although not traditionalagricultural departments).For example, the Department of Urban andRegional Planning at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, teaches a raregraduate course on food-system planning.Food security is addressed as partof student projects.In 1997 the class produced a report that examined whyplanners had paid so little attention to the food system, why the food systemrequires the attention of planners, and how planners can play constructiveroles in food-system development (Pothukuchi and Kaufman 2000).Community food security is also based on a whole-systems approach toagrifood issues.This approach critiques traditional ways of looking at foodsecurity issues as fragmented and lacking in overarching vision and coher-ence.The whole-systems approach asserts that a lack of coherent visionposes a major obstacle to the development of long-term food security andsustainable food systems (Fisher and Gottlieb 1995).Community food secu-rity uses a food-systems approach to comprehensively identify problemsand articulated solutions, not a traditional antihunger orientation.Forexample, Canada s Toronto Food Policy Council frames food security as ahealth issue in which hunger and poverty are viewed as part of the largerissue of public health, a perspective that makes access to food not only equi-table but economical as well.This systems approach is also present in sustainable agriculture researchprograms, both in an emphasis on farming systems and on whole systems. By emphasizing systems research and environmental impacts, the usda Discourses and Practices of Sustainability 93sare program s strategies have moved substantially beyond those employedin traditional agricultural research.Sustainable agriculture researchers focusmore on integrated farming systems in their efforts to mitigate unintendedenvironmental consequences of agricultural practices.Much of the earlyresearch in sustainable (low-input) agriculture operated under a straight-forward input substitution paradigm.That is, it replaced artificial chem-ical inputs with natural environmentally benign alternatives, withoutchallenging either the monoculture structure or the dependence on off-farm inputs that characterize agricultural systems (Rosset and Altieri 1997:283 84).Many sustainable agriculture researchers now argue for anapproach based on the science of agroecology, which takes the whole sys-tem as its unit of analysis [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]