Search

Service learning with ecological restoration projects can positively affect participants' attitudes, behaviors, and learning, but little is known about the longevity of these effects. Furthermore, urban green spaces are an understudied, yet increasingly important, context for eco-restoration service learning. This study examined the persistence of student outcomes of eco-restoration service-learning experiences in an urban woodland. Undergraduate courses from the Departments of Biology and Recreation, Park, and Tourism Studies at Indiana University partnered with the Bloomington Urban Woodlands Project (BUWP) to restore native woodland habitat and conduct public outreach. Phenomenological analysis of student interviews demonstrated that service-learning experiences improved learning outcomes and encouraged and reinforced pro-environmental attitudes up to 14 months later. Results also demonstrate the applicability of an environmental interpretation behavior change model to college-level instruction.

It is a difficult time to be a farmer, particularly in the midwestern US, where a slow-moving farm crisis has been brewing. In recent years farmers have faced multiple socioeconomic threats such as a trade war with China, industry consolidation, and decreasing farmgate prices, as well as multiple environmental threats, including flooding and drought. We analyze farmers' assessments of these concurrent risks and their relationship to stress and farm exit, through a mail survey of 210 soy and dairy farmers in Indiana. On average, environmental threats are perceived as less of a threat to farmers than to immediate socioeconomic threats such as the trade war and, more importantly, long-run economic issues such as price decline and consolidation. We find evidence that farm exit is largely determined by farmer identity, perspectives on the trade war, and stress. The ongoing trade war with China is a key source of stress for soybean farmers and federal payments from the Market Facilitation Program are unlikely to stem farm exit. Addressing the farm exit problem and mitigating the current farm crisis necessitates greater attention to how policies, indirectly lead to farm exit through stress. • We analyze farmers' decisions to exit farming. • Farm exit is largely driven by perceived stress. • Environmental shocks pose less of a threat to farmers than economic shocks. • Market Facilitation Program payments are unlikely to stem farm exit. • The US-China trade is a key source of stress for farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic certification provides an opportunity for crop farmers to improve their viability and reduce the environmental impacts of commodity grain production, yet farmers have only transitioned to organic certification on less than five percent of US farmland. We focus on land tenure as a barrier to wider adoption of organic certification in the Midwest state of Indiana, where 50 % of farmland is rented. Addressing the lack of research on the relationship between tenant farmers and their non-operating landowners, we show how these relationships affect the adoption of conservation practices. Presenting findings from a survey and 30 in-depth interviews with conventional, transitioning, and organic farmers in Indiana, we show significant differences in land tenure arrangements for farmers certified and transitioning to organic compared to farmers only using conventional practices. We contextualize tenant-landlord relationship dynamics across the spectrum of practice adoption, illustrating how land tenure arrangements shape conservation management decision making. Our findings illustrate the barriers and opportunities to adoption of organic certification, given the variability in landowners' interest in organic certification. While conventional tenant farmers described long-term rental relationships characterized by a sense of trust, the high level of competition for access to rented farmland exerted pressure on them to conform to perceived norms about farming practices and avoid consideration of more risky and less socially acceptable or familiar conservation practices, for fear of losing their landlord's confidence and trust. • Land tenure constrains adoption of organic certification on rented land in Midwest. • Relationship between tenant farmers and non-operating landowners affects conservation. • Dynamics of land tenure shape conservation management decision making. • Competition for rented land constrains conservation adoption. • Norms about the appearance of crops constrains conservation adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Climate-driven risks were an emerging but limited driver of cover crop adoption. • Farmers depicted adoption as creating tradeoffs rather than win-win outcomes. • Climate change may encourage or discourage adoption because of tradeoffs. • Outreach should prioritize involving farmers in shared problem-solving. • Policy changes should help farmers manage adoption tradeoffs to prevent abandonment. Cover crops represent a potential win-win opportunity to promote climate resilience by helping farmers adapt to climate risks while simultaneously mitigating multiple environmental impacts from agriculture. However, cover crop adoption rates are increasing slowly and cover less than 5% of U.S. croplands. In contrast, several Indiana counties in the southern Wabash River Basin have cover crops on more than 20 % of farmland. This qualitative study draws on 33 semi-structured interviews with farmers to understand whether climate risks are driving the above-average rates of adoption in this area. Our purposive sample of farmers was guided by whether they farmed flood-prone areas along the White and Wabash Rivers, thus making them especially sensitive to increasing flood risks from climate change. We found that while climate risks, particularly intensifying rainfall events, were a factor in some cases, most adoption was a longstanding effort to control wind-erosion on hilly areas with sandy soils. We also found that farmers experienced challenges with adoption following successful establishment of cover crops tied to climate-driven ecosystem responses. Greater spring precipitation delayed cash crop planting because of moisture retention and intensified pest pressures from increased habitat has caused replanting of cash crop seeds. Responses indicate that climate risks have mixed effects that may either discourage or encourage cover crop adoption depending on whether future outreach and policy interventions can help farmers overcome the adoption challenges they encounter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]