Date post: | 18-Dec-2015 |
Category: |
Documents |
Upload: | morgan-nash |
View: | 217 times |
Download: | 4 times |
Looking Forward:
Challenges and Opportunities for Cooperative Extension
Evan Vlachos
Sociology & Civil and Environmental Engineering
Colorado State University
1. The context of change and transformation
2. The changing world of agriculture and of rural
communities
3. Uncertainty, complexity and interdependence: volatility and vulnerability
4. Implementing action: challenges and
opportunities
Premises of Foresight
1. Trend is not destiny
2. Those who live by the crystal ball are bound to eat groundglass
Premises of Foresight
1. Trend is not destiny
2. Those who live by the crystal ball are bound to eat groundglass
3. It is better to be approximately right rather than precisely wrong
The Variety of “Shocks” in Current Society
• Cultural Shock
= technophobes and technophiles
• Future Shock
= “raplexity”
• Information Shock
= data and knowledge
• Geopolitical Shocks
= fragmentation and globalization
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A POST-INDUSTRIAL
SOCIETY
1. From goods to services
tertiary economy
2. Emphasis on knowledge
education, expertise
3. More social planning
new planning techniques
4. Growing Technocracy
skills and education
The Grand Transformation
• Globalization
• Interdependence
• Vulnerability
• Complexity
• Uncertainty
• Turbulence
Complexification
A. Conceptual = shifting paradigms/complexity/
chaos/heterarchization
B. Methodological = multi-/GIS, ES, AI, DSS/ systems/computational prowess
C. Organizational = participatory/anticipatory/
contingency emphasis
D. Substantive = new focus/areas of concern
Complexification
Partial Vocabulary for the 21st Century
• Landscape Ecology• Agroecosystems• Commodification• Industrial agriculture• Genetically engineered crops• Closed system Agriculture• “Rurban”• Boutique farm• Paradigm• Holistic Approaches• Volatility and Vulnerability• “Raplexity”
APROACHING AGRICULTURAL CHANGES
• As crises (. . . and discontinuities)
• As challenges
• As trends and developments
• As strategies and tactics
As “Crises”
• Crises 1: Farm and Ranch Survivability
• Crises 2: Modernization
• Crises 3: Feeding a Growing World
• Crises 4: Safe Food and Drinking Water
• Crises 5: Stewardship and the Environment
• Crises 6: Urbanization and Land Use
• Crises7: Country and Urban Conflicts
Source: D. Hoag, Agricultural Crisis in America
(1999)
. . . and “discontinuities”
a. Long-distance food supply changes [commodity chains]
b. Global neo-liberalization of agriculture
c. The significant transformation in “structural differentiation” of
American farms
d. Extraordinary industrialization and concentration of livestock
production
e. The role of the new class of agricultural technologies (notably GUC)
f. The relocation of agrarian protest outside of mainstream
production agriculture
g. Incipient “environmentalization” and related environmental
criteria and regulators
Source: Frerick H. Buttel; “Continuities and Disjunctures in the Transformation of the U.S. Agro-Food System (in
press, 2003)
As “challenges”Challenges for Public Agricultural Research
• Globalization of the food economy
• Emerging pathogens and other hazards in the food supply chain
• Enhancing human health through nutrition
• Improving environmental stewardship
• Improving quality of life in rural communities
Source: NRC, Frontiers in Agricultural Research
(2003)
As “trends and developments”
= Structural transformations
rurality and urbanization
operation size
= Technological changes
automation, “closed system agriculture”
genetics
= trade and global competition
interdependence and global forces
= Social changes
economic base
“rurban” and botique farms
= Environmental impacts
monoculture and biodiversity
pollution, pesticides, erosion
As “strategies and tactics”
= An agricultural system highly competitive in the global economy
= A safe and secure food and fiber system
= A healthy, well nourished population
= Greater harmony between agriculture and the environment
= Enhanced economic opportunity and quality of life for all
Americans
USDA Stakeholder Symposium
(1997)
The 3 Revolutions
• The Green Revolution = tradition vs. modernization
complex organization
• The “Geek” Revolution = Guttenberg vs. Gates
data and information
• The Gene Revolution = Malthus vs. Mendel
bioengineering
The farmer and his farm in effect have vanished. He is no longer working as an independent and loyal agent of his pace, his family, and his community, but instead as the agent of an economy that is fundamentally adverse to him and to all that he ought to stand for.
Source: Wendell Berry “Renewing Husbandry” Orion 24, 5, September/October 2005, p.43
Shifting Paradigms and the New Context
Require
: the physical and biological production environments
: the genetic potential for increased productivity
: the appropriate socio-economic circumstances in
which the farmer operates
: the maintenance of productive capacity of resources,
while minimizing adverse effects on the environment
UNDERLYING TRANSFORMATIONS
VOLATILITY
TURBULENCE AND UNCERTAINTY
VULNERABILITY
INTERDEPENDENCIES AND RISK
VIGILANCE
ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING AND PREPAREDNESS
VULNERABILITY
[a] Fragile Physical Environment= environmental degradation= lack of ecosystem resilience= history of extreme hydrological events
[b] Fragile Economy= economic inequalities/disparities= inadequate funding
[c] Lack of Local Institutions= lack of social resilience= poor social protection= marginalization= capacity for recuperability
[d] Lack of Preparedness= inadequate warning systems= lack of training= lack of community mobilization
Archetypal Worldviews
Worldview Antecedents Philosophy MottoConventional Worlds Market
Policy Reform
BarbarizationBreakdown
Fortress World
Great TransitionsEco-communalism
New SustainabilityParadigm
Muddling Through
Smith
KeynesBundtland
Malthus
Hobbes
Morris & socialutopiansGhandhi
Your brother-in-law (probably
Market optimism;hidden & enlightenedhand
Policy stewardship
Existential gloom;population/resourcecatastrophe
Social Chaos;nasty nature of manPastoral romance;human goodness;evil of industrialism
Sustainability as progressive globalsocial evolution
No grand philosophies
Don’t worry, be happy
Growth, environment,equity through bettertechnology & management
The end is coming
Order through strongleaders
Small is beautiful
Human solidarity, newvalues, the art of living
Que sera, sera
Mill
Source: Great Transition [SEI, 2002]
ALTERNATIVE WORLD FOOD SITUATION ENVIRONMNENTS
[supply - demand emphasis]
I. TECHNOLOGY INDUCED ABUNDANCE
= technology driven plentiful, low cost food
II. SUPPLY - DEMAND REASONABLE BALANCE
= problem of both abundance and scarcity,
periodic crises, some reasonable management
III. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
= conservation, ZPG, demand-managed future
IV. MALTHUSIAN NIGHTMARES
= starvation, famines, ecocatastrophes, geopolitical,
upheavals, disequilibrium
Requisites for the Transition
• The Need for New Paradigms– Sustainability, heterarchy, co-evolution
• The Understanding of New Contexts– “Raplexity,” interdependence, globalization
• The Emergence of New Methodologies– Cumulative, synergistic, diachronic impacts
– Indicators, DSS, data-information, judgement
– Computational prowess
The Politics of Transformation
Building Data / DSS
Expanding Knowledge / Judgement
Creating Institutions / Capacity Building
Mobilize Resources
Articulate Values
Towards a “Vigilance” Strategy
Environmental Scanning
[Monitor trends and developments]
Organizational Mobilization
[Improve management]
Decision Support Systems
[Intelligence, interpretation, implementation]
Contingency Planning
[Wider range of alternatives and options]
Integrity, dedication, magnanimity, humility, openness,and creativity - or, more succinctly, vision and virtue -are in all of us, however rusty or dormant they may be.Anyone who intends to lead us out of the current sloughwill have to exercise both.
THE ON-GOING CHALLENCE OF RELATING:
Public Desires
Legal Mandates Professional Standards
0
00
0
Prudent
DM
Balanced
The 3 R’s
Rethinking new paradigms
Reorganizing organizational mobilization
Retooling new skills and resources
Economic Principles for Saving the Cooperative Extension Service
Principle 1: CES Provides Public Goods
Principle 2: Focus on Competitive Advantages
Principle 3: Privatize When Appropriate
Principle 4: Manage For the Long Run
Principle 5: Follow Good Business Practices
Principle 6: Beware the Political Economy
Source: Dana Hoag: Presidential Address, 2005. Western Agricultural Economics Association
Emerging Operational Principles
Envisioning
= Share the dream, share the goals
Empowerment
= Joint decision making, power sharing
Enactment
= Implementation, civic engagement
WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO “MAKE IT HAPPEN?”
THE FORCES OF HISTORY FUNDAMENTAL CONFLICTS & EXPERIENCE
1. THE INERTIA OF HABIT A. COGNITIVE CONFLICTS
2. THE INERTIA OF HISTORY B. STAKEHOLDER CONFLICTS
3. THE INERITA OF EQUILIBRIUM C. IDEOLOGICAL CONFLICTS
PAST
Nostalgiavs
History
Reconsidering the Past
THE TRICKS OF MEMORY
PRESENT
Ideologyvs
Modeling
Rediscovering the Present
FUTURE
Utopian Visionvs
Reasonable Approximation
Reinventing the Future
“The future is not result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created --- created first in mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths to it are not found but made, and this activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination.”
John Schaar