Social Identity as a Tool to Build Multi-Community Clusters

To be successful, programs which promote multi-community clustering as a development option for small rural communities must combine both behavioral and structural elements. This paper focuses on the behavioral dimension by taking a distinctly social psychological view and demonstrating how social identify theory can be applied to promote intercommunity cooperation. Examples from a leadership program designed to facilitate the development of multi-community clusters show that social identity, so often considered a barrier to intercommunity cooperation, can also be used to foster cooperation

Watershed Stories: Grassroots efforts in Iowa\u27s Raccoon River Watershed

Women farmland owners in Iowa’s Raccoon River watershed were engaged in a community-based project using Photovoice, a participatory research method, to take photos and tell the stories of how those photos show their connection to the watershed

Taking the Sustainable Agriculture Challenge: Recontextualizing Rural Sociology

Agroecosystems Analysis (SusAg 509), a required course for all majors in Iowa State University’s Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture, provides an immersion experience in the situated challenges of sustainable agriculture. The field portion of SusAg 509, which takes place every year during the first two weeks of August, brings students face-to-face with different understandings of sustainability and the diverse complexity of Midwestern agriculture. Dialogue and reflection turn the raw stuff of experience into learning, as students discover the power and validity of multiple perspectives. More than two dozen site visits help make abstract concepts, such as the economy and social relationships, real. The course succeeds (based on evidence such as capacity enrollments, course evaluations, and program exit interviews) because of its problem-focus and immediacy: it engages the real world, as it is now, not as it has become institutionalized in disciplinary departments

Directing rural cooperatives in uncertain environments

Data were gathered as a part of an applied research project addressing problems of board decision making and cooperative autonomy in an environment increasingly dominated by external forces. The research focused on perceptions of uncertainty by directors of rural cooperatives, sources of uncertainty, and organizational strategies for coping with uncertainty. Boards were viewed as informal boundary spanning units. The decision making and resource dependence perspectives were the source of most hypotheses. A third perspective, population ecology, was introduced as a means of interpreting cooperative literature and improving future theory and empirical research on cooperatives;Two measures of uncertainty were used. Data supported an initial assumption that the most salient sources of uncertainty--government regulations and legislation, national economic conditions, transportation and energy shortages--are largely beyond the control of the local organization. Relationships between the measures of uncertainty and measures of linkages, traditionalism, and cooperative competition and size were examined. Both uncertainty measures were positively associated with director organizational linkages, but negatively, and more weakly, associated with traditionalism;Relationships were also examined between three measures of organizational linkages (board linkages, cooperative external linkages, and cooperative organizational linkages) and six organizational variables: annual dollar volume of business, number of members, age of cooperative, size of cooperative, tenure of manager, and number of competitors. The strongest correlations were obtained between the number of cooperative organizational linkages and tenure of cooperative manager;Moderate support was found for both the decision making and resource dependence perspectives. Tentative strategies were suggested for coping with uncertainty. First, directors should engage in boundary spanning activities such as organizational memberships and director training programs. Second, cooperatives should establish organizational linkages. Finally, directors should be aware of the necessity of carefully considering manager selection and evaluation and of the implications of a traditional ideology for cooperative survival

Experiential educational engagement with working groups and communities of practice

An ISU graduate class in sustainable agriculture was used to foment student interest in community-based projects related to the heightened interest in Iowa food, fiber and energy enterprises

The Market for Goat Meat in Siouxland

A demand/supply mismatch characterizes the market for goat meat in the Siouxland region of western Iowa. Onfarm purchasing satisfies some but not all demand. The consumer market is small and growing, but also highly segmented by specific consumer preferences as to goat age, seasonal use, cut, and slaughter practices. The absence of fresh goat meat in retail outlets is a “catch 22” situation: more would eat goat meat if it were more readily available, but grocers who have stocked it report slow turnover and subsequent spoilage or expiration in the freezer. The ability of Iowa producers to capitalize on emerging demand is also limited by inexpensive imports from New Zealand and Australia

Assessing the market potential for goat meat among recent immigrants to Siouxland

The niche market for goat meat is expanding with Iowa\u27s immigrant population. Researchers consider how farmers can tap into that market

Improving veterinary care for organic livestock producers

Organic producers and Iowa veterinarians were questioned about the existing veterinary systems and care available to organic livestock producers