Farming Fuels: Searching for Rural Revitalization in an Agricultural Bioeconomy
Open Access
- Author:
- Meyer, Alissa Lynn
- Graduate Program:
- Rural Sociology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- August 20, 2008
- Committee Members:
- C Clare Hinrichs, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
C Clare Hinrichs, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Leland Luther Glenna, Committee Member
Richard Stedman, Committee Member
Thomas Lehman Richard, Committee Member - Keywords:
- public good
switchgrass
rural sociology
social impacts - Abstract:
- Energy supply issues have become increasingly salient in the current political, economic, and environmental climate. At the same time, the decline of rural America, evidenced by aging farmers, rural outmigration, and weakened local economies, remains a concern. Production of perennial agricultural feedstocks (such as switchgrass) for bioenergy has been framed as a way to achieve needed energy supplies, with possible contributions to rural revitalization and environmental protection. However, most national policy and programmatic discourse focuses more on where biomass crops might be grown than on who will produce them or their concerns about such development. Guided by ethical framings of agriculture and its relationship to the public good, this dissertation draws on documentary evidence and qualitative field research to examine social understandings of the potential impacts of agricultural bioenergy development in rural America. Research questions address 1) the concerns and interests of actual local agricultural bioenergy project participants; 2) the links between local legacy and project participants’ expectations and experiences of bioeconomy development; 3) the correspondences and divergences between project participants’ views about bioeconomy development and more macro-scale visions and recommendations of policymakers and other less local bioeconomy actors. An analysis of recent international, national, and state-specific policies and trends provides context for the field-based interviews with participants (local farmers and facilitators) of two current switchgrass-for-bioenergy projects – one in southern Iowa and the other in northeastern Kentucky. Situating the field research within this contextual narrative highlights how agrarian and industrial models of bioeconomy development are seen to create different tradeoffs across discrete scales. It also illuminates how more macro-scale plans and policies largely neglect the concerns and interests of rural stakeholders. Project participants’ understandings of the process and implications of agricultural bioeconomy development are shaped by local legacies derived from the biophysical characteristics of their regions, the socio-economic circumstances facing their communities, and the inherited social history associated with being a rural resident in that region. While legacy effects help to interpret some differences in participants’ perceptions across the Iowa and Kentucky cases, project participants in both regions generally express desire for a model of bioenergy production that supports rural revitalization and is locally-initiated, -integrated, and -controlled. Contributions of this research include its detailed accounting of how actors socially construct the trade-offs associated with agricultural resource development. Given the premise that democratic deliberation is an essential component of the public good, the actor-centered approach in this research suggests that rural stakeholders should have a greater voice in bioeconomy planning and development. Based on the findings of this research, macro-scale policy discourses on the bioeconomy should prioritize rural revitalization as much as energy security. Policy discourses should also recognize and incorporate micro-scale concerns of farmers and other rural stakeholders, which offer valuable insights for sustainable bioeconomy development in specific places.