Identifying social science engagement within agroecology: Classifying transdisciplinary literature with a semi-automated textual classification method.

Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary fields of inquiry and action have been important academic frontiers in recent years. The field of agroecology is a prime example of transdisciplinarity. With roots in the biophysical sciences, social sciences, and peasant movements, publications in agroecology have been growing rapidly in recent decades. Here we explain a method-the script-expert adaptive classification (SEAC) method-that allows us to examine the engagements between agroecology and the social sciences by identifying publications within the agroecological literature that engage with social science at various levels. Using the term "agroecology" and its iterations, we gathered a corpus of agroecology literature up to and including 2019 with 12,398 unique publications from five publication databases-Scopus, Web of Science, Agricola, CAB Direct, and EconLit. Using the SEAC method we then classified each publication as engaged, partially engaged, and not engaged with social sciences and separated this Agroecology Corpus 2019 into three corpora: agroecology engaged with social sciences (with 3,125 publications), agroecology not engaged with social sciences (with 7,039 publications), and agroecology with uncertain engagement with social science (with 2,234 publications) or unclassifiable. This article explains the SEAC method in detail so other transdisciplinary scholars can replicate and/or adapt it for similar purposes. We also assess the SEAC method's value in identifying social science publications relative to the classification systems of the major multidisciplinary bibliographic databases, Scopus, and Web of Science. We conclude by discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the SEAC method and by pointing to further questions about agroecology and the social sciences to be asked of the corpora.

Farm resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic: The case of California direct market farmers.

CONTEXT: The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant shocks to U.S. food systems at multiple scales. While disturbances to long-distance supply chains received substantial attention in national media, local supply chains experienced mixed impacts. As broad closures of schools, restaurants, and other businesses sourcing from local farmers removed key marketing channels for many direct market farmers, consumer interest in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), farmers markets, and on-farm and online direct farm sales increased. OBJECTIVE: In this paper, we examine the resilience and vulnerability of farmers during the March 2020 through December 2020 period of the COVID-19 pandemic. We focus on California farmers and ranchers engaged in direct market sales. METHODS: Through a widely disseminated survey, we collected responses from 364 farmers and used these data to answer the following questions about direct market farmers in California: 1) What were direct market farmers' experiences of the pandemic from March 2020 through December 2020? 2) Which factors (e.g., relationships, institutions, market channels) did farmers report enhanced their resilience during the pandemic? 3) Which individual and operational factors were significantly associated with resilience during the pandemic? And finally, 4) how do the farmer-reported factors compare to the statistically significant factors associated with resilience? We created three dependent variables-ability to respond to the pandemic, concern about pandemic impacts, and change in profitability-to operationalize several aspects of resilience and examine their association with individual and operational characteristics through a series of ordered logistic regression models. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Across both the quantitative models and the farmer reported factors, we found that farmers who increased their use of online sales and marketing during the first year of the pandemic, had larger-scale farms, and had more on-farm crop and livestock diversity were more resilient to the shocks of the pandemic. We also found that greater use of non-direct-to-consumer market channels was associated with less resilience. The characteristics of the farming operations played a relatively larger role in predicting resilience compared to the individual characteristics of the farmers surveyed. SIGNIFICANCE: This study gives a detailed picture of how California direct market farmers fared during the pandemic and the characteristics associated with greater resilience. As short and long-term disruptions become increasingly common in agriculture, policies and programs can leverage support to direct market farmers, particularly direct-to-consumer farmers, as a strategy to strengthen farmer resilience.

Exploring member data for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in California: Comparisons of former and current CSA members.

This article is a description of data related to the research article entitled "The (un)making of 'CSA people': member retention and the customization paradox in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in California" (Galt et al., in press). The data presented were collected through two statewide surveys, conducted via internet-based questionnaire, related to Community Supported Agriculture in California: a former CSA member survey, and a current CSA member survey. We gathered responses for these surveys from April 2014 to January 2015. The data include responses from 409 former CSA members (those who had left) from 27 CSAs and 1149 current CSA members from 41 CSAs. The data tables included here contain information relevant to the retention of CSA members and other concerns, and come from two analyses: 1) comparisons of characteristics of former and current CSA members, and 2) importance-satisfaction analysis (ISA) of former and current CSA members' experiences with CSA. We make the detailed results of these analyses available in this article so they can inform other researchers' analyses of the increasingly important phenomenon of CSA member retention, and, more generally, customers' participation in and satisfaction with a variety of alternative food networks (AFNs).

Globalization and multi-spatial trends in the coverage of protected-area conservation (1980-2000).

This study is focused on the global expansion of protected-area coverage that occurred during the 1980--2000 period. We examine the multi-scale patterning of four of the basic facets of this expansion: i) estimated increases at the world-regional and country-level scales of total protected-area coverage; ii) transboundary protected areas; iii) conservation corridor projects; and iv) type of conservation management. Geospatial patterning of protected-area designations is a reflection of the priorities of global conservation organizations and the globalization of post-Cold War political and economic arrangements. Local and national-level factors (political leadership and infrastructure) as well as international relations such as multilateral and bilateral aid combine with these globalization processes to impact the extent, type, and location of protected-area designations. We conclude that the interaction of these factors led to the creation and reinforcement of marked spatial differences (rather than tendencies toward worldwide evenness or homogenization) in the course of protected-area expansion during the 1980--2000 period.