Layered Community Support for Sustainable Dairy Farming

Environmental, community, and economic sustainability of dairy production has important support layers based on production system characteristics, farm size, locational variables, age, and grazing system amenities. Advanced pollution control technology is key to the sustainability of especially large confinement dairies. Grazing dairies are positively viewed, and nearly 70% of respondents are willing to pay a $0.50 premium for milk from grazed cows. Study findings, based on analysis of 600 telephone survey responses from 28 Pennsylvania counties, indicate strong support for dairy farm sustainability, especially when compared with industrial development, which points to critical opportunities for future Extension education programming

Capturing Community Context of Human Response to Forest Disturbance by Insects: A Multi-Method Assessment

The socioeconomic and environmental features of local places (community context) influence the relationship between humans and their physical environment. In times of environmental disturbance, this community context is expected to influence human perceptual and behavioral responses. Residents from nine Colorado communities experiencing a large outbreak of mountain pine beetles (Dendroctonus ponderosae) were surveyed in 2007. Multiple analytic methods including ordinary least squares regression and multilevel modeling techniques were used to evaluate a community-context conceptual model of factors influencing individual actions in response to forest disturbance by beetles. Results indicated that community biophysical and socioeconomic characteristics had important impacts on participation in beetle-related actions and influenced the relationships of individual-level variables in the conceptual model with beetle-related activities. Our findings have implications for natural resource management and policy related to forest disturbances, and for developing a methodology appropriate to measure the general community context of human-environment interactions

Rural-to-Urban Labor Migration, Household Livelihoods, and the Rural Environment in Chongqing Municipality, Southwest China

Rural migration and its relationship to the rural environment have attracted increasing research interest in recent decades. Rural migration constitutes a key component of human population movement, while rural areas contain most of the world’s natural resources such as land and forests. This study empirically evaluates a conceptual framework incorporating rural household livelihoods as an integrative mediating factor between rural migration and the rural environment in the context of rural-to-urban labor migration in Chongqing Municipality, Southwest China. The analysis draws on data collected through household surveys and key informant interviews from four villages. Results confirm the hypothesis that labor-migrant and non-labor-migrant households differ significantly in livelihood activities including agricultural production, agricultural technology use, income and consumption, and resource use and management. Implications for the subsequent environmental outcomes of rural labor out-migration and corresponding natural resource management and policy in rural origin areas are discussed

On the ‘Urbanness’ of Metropolitan Areas: Testing the Homogeneity Assumption, 1970–2000

Metropolitan classification, Urban, GIS, LULC, Remote sensing, Population trends 1970–2000,