2019/09/30 by S. Rosenzweig, Steven T. Rosenzweig, Michael Carolan +2 · 1 citation
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Agricultural Innovations and Practices #Organic Food and Agriculture #Urban Agriculture and Sustainability
paper · doi:10.1111/ruso.12304
openalex publication_date 2019/09/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/21
Abstract Once reliant on year‐long periods of unvegetated fallow, dryland farmers are reaping environmental and economic benefits by replacing fallow with a crop, a practice called cropping system intensification. However, in the U.S. High Plains, transitions to intensified cropping systems have been slow relative to other regions, and cropping systems have stratified into varying degrees of intensity. Prior attempts to explain the wave of cropping system intensification have largely focused on simple economic rationales, and thus we lack a critical understanding of the social dynamics underlying the revolution in semi‐arid cropping systems. We examined the motivations, perceptions, and social interactions of dryland farmers that practice different levels of cropping system intensity in Colorado and Nebraska. Building on Carolan's application of Bourdieusian social fields to agriculture, we identify overlapping fields expressed among interviewees. While these fields are reflected in farms' different degrees of intensification, they can be used to help identify and locate farmers associated with the emerging soil health (or regenerative agriculture) movement. The paper concludes by identifying strategies for change, some which would serve to reshape social fields, and others which leverage existing social positions and relationships to enable farmers to overcome the barriers constraining cropping system intensification.