Ernesto Mendez
Biographic Data
| ID | 187157 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ernesto Mendez |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ernesto |
| FAMILY NAME | Mendez |
| SIGNATURE | MÉNDEZ E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Vermont |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7394-5679 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 68 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 8 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Assessing Farmer Attitudes and Capacity to Adopt Bobolink-Friendly Haying Timelines in the Eastern Adirondacks
Grasslands are an important and imperiled habitat for a suite of wildlife species, and in the Northeastern US, most are on private land. Understanding the attitudes of farmers toward management of this habitat is critical for species like the Bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus), which have declined due to habitat loss and hay cropping during nesting. We developed a typology of farmers to identify opportunities, limitations, and barriers to following…
Food sovereignty and the role of agroecological diversification in farmer communities in southern Mexico
This article deepens and expands the notion of food sovereignty by presenting and contrasting testimonies and quantitative records of agroecological diversification, agrobiodiversity, and diets in rural communities. Our study emphasizes the critical role of strategic agrobiodiversity in fostering food sovereignty. We present the perspectives and experiences of coffee farmers, members of the organic cooperative Campesinos Ecológicos de la Sierra M…
Acción colectiva para la transición agroecológica en el altiplano Boliviano
Para facilitar una transición de la agricultura convencional, es imperativo fortalecer los vínculos entre la política y la agroecología. La agroecología no debe entenderse sólo como el resultado de una serie de propiedades físicas y biológicas porque también refleja relaciones socioculturales de poder. Por lo que para promover una transición agroecológica se requiere de la acción individual y colectiva, que se da cuando los actores articulación u…
Acción colectiva para la transición agroecológica en el Altiplano boliviano
Para facilitar una transición de la agricultura industrial es imperativo fortalecer los vínculos entre la política y la agroecología. Esta última no debe entenderse solo como el resultado de una serie de propiedades físicas y biológicas, ya que también refleja relaciones socioculturales de poder. Por lo tanto, para promover una transición agroecológica se requiere de la acción individual y colectiva, la cual se da cuando los actores se articulan …
The role of farmer networks in supporting adaptive capacity: Opening the door for innovation and transformation in the Northeastern United States
This article explores the role of farmer networks in building the adaptive capacity of small and diversified farmers in the Northeastern United States. Previous research suggests that farmers’ networks are the backbone of practical agricultural knowledge systems in the United States, serving as a critical venue where growers exchange and negotiate new ideas. Drawing upon empirical evidence from a regional survey on climate resilience and a series…
Co-creation of knowledge in agroecology
The co-creation of knowledge is gaining recognition and use within the science, practice, and movement of agroecology. Knowledge co-creation fosters participatory learning and development, which differs from passive knowledge sharing. This approach can bridge the real and perceived gaps across diverse forms of knowledge, including what is often distinguished as farmers’ traditional, Indigenous, tacit, or local knowledge and experts’ scientific, w…
Peasant Resilience: Decolonization and Re-conceptualization
The objective of this article is to re-read and take initial steps toward decolonizing the concept of resilience from a peasant perspective. Resilience has origins in the Western, Cartesian, and capitalist paradigms, and we examine the concept from a peasant world partially situated outside of capitalist social relations. In conventional usage, resilience signifies “returning to the previous state after disturbance,” yet for those not favored by …
Building agroecology with people. Challenges of participatory methods to deepen on the agroecological transition in different contexts
Effects of on-farm diversification strategies on smallholder coffee farmer food security and income sufficiency in Chiapas, Mexico
Securing the future of US agriculture: The case for investing in new entry sustainable farmers
Sustainable agriculture is among the most urgently needed work in the United States, for at least three reasons: we face an environmental crisis, a health crisis, and a rural economic crisis. Addressing these pressing crises through sustainability transition will require growing our agricultural workforce: both because the current farm population is aging, and because sustainable agriculture is knowledge-intensive work that substitutes experienti…
Building student capacity to lead sustainability transitions in the food system through farm-based authentic research modules in sustainability sciences (FARMS)
Undergraduate courses provide valuable opportunities to train and empower students with the knowledge, skills, and motivation to advance society in more sustainable directions. This article emphasizes the value of bridging primary scientific research with undergraduate education through the presentation of an integrated experiential learning and primary research model called Farm-based Authentic Research Modules in Sustainability Sciences (FARMS)…
Sustainable commercialization of new crops for the agricultural bioeconomy
Diversification of agroecological systems to enhance agrobiodiversity is likely to be critical to advancing environmental, economic, and social sustainability of agriculture. Temperate-zone agroecological systems that are currently organized for production of summer-annual crops can be diversified by integration of fallow-season and perennial crops. Integration of such crops can improve sustainability of these agroecological systems, with minimal…
Toward thick legitimacy: Creating a web of legitimacy for agroecology
Legitimacy is at the heart of knowledge politics surrounding agriculture and food. When people accept industrial food practices as credible and authoritative, they are consenting to their use and existence. With their thick legitimacy, industrial food systems paralyze the growth of alternative agricultures, including agroecology. Questions of how alternative agricultures can attain their own thick legitimacy in order to compete with, and displace…
Farmer perceptions of climate change risk and associated on-farm management strategies in Vermont, northeastern United States
Little research has been conducted on how agricultural producers in the northeastern United States conceptualize climate-related risk and how these farmers address risk through on-farm management strategies. Two years following Tropical Storm Irene, our team interviewed 15 farmers in order to investigate their perceptions of climate-related risk and how their decision-making was influenced by these perceptions. Our results show that Vermont farme…
California’s drought as opportunity: Redesigning U.S. agriculture for a changing climate
The impacts of climate change are already affecting the production and profitability of agricultural systems, and these trends are expected to continue in the future. Without support from ecosystem functions, an agricultural system designed exclusively to maximize short-term production is vulnerable to extreme weather events such as droughts and floods. This results in high costs for farmers and ultimately for society at large, in economic and ec…
Carrying capacity of U.S. agricultural land: Ten diet scenarios
Strategies for environmental sustainability and global food security must account for dietary change. Using a biophysical simulation model we calculated human carrying capacity under ten diet scenarios. The scenarios included two reference diets based on actual consumption and eight “Healthy Diet” scenarios that complied with nutritional recommendations but varied in the level of meat content. We considered the U.S. agricultural land base and acc…
Beyond yields: Climate change effects on specialty crop quality and agroecological management
Climate change is impacting the sustainability of food systems through shifts in natural and human dimensions of agroecosystems that influence farmer livelihoods, consumer choices, and food security. This paper highlights the need for climate studies on specialty crops to focus not only on yields, but also on quality, as well as the ability of agroecological management to buffer climate effects on quality parameters. Crop quality refers to phyton…
Audits and agrarianism: The moral economy of an alternative food network
With consumers and producers seeking alternatives to corporate, industrial food, systems of provision that promise greater ecological and social sustainability have gained in popularity. As these Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) scale up and go mainstream, both scholars and the general public want to know who is holding them accountable to their purported goals. In response to such questions, previously informal designations - such as organic - h…
Explaining the ‘hungry farmer paradox’: Smallholders and fair trade cooperatives navigate seasonality and change in Nicaragua's corn and coffee markets
Performing a New England landscape: Viewing, engaging, and belonging
Agroecology as a Transdisciplinary, Participatory, and Action-Oriented Approach
This article traces multiple directions in the evolution of agroecology, from its early emphasis on ecological processes in agricultural systems, to its emergence as a multidimensional approach focusing on broader agro-food systems. This review is timely, as agroecology is being increasingly applied within a diversity of scientific-, policy-, and farmer-based initiatives. We contrast different agroecological perspectives or “agroecologies” and di…
Los meses flacos: Seasonal food insecurity in a Salvadoran organic coffee cooperative
Central American coffee farmers commonly refer to annual periods of food insecurity as 'los meses flacos' - the thin months - indicating a recurring season in which they are unable to meet household food needs. Although this is a common phenomenon, little empirical research has documented the seasonal food insecurity that many small-scale coffee farmers face. Household surveys and focus groups were conducted with 29 members of an organic coffee c…
Are Sustainable Coffee Certifications Enough to Secure Farmer Livelihoods? The Millenium Development Goals and Nicaragua's Fair Trade Cooperatives
In December 2001, green coffee commodity prices hit a 30-year low. This deepened the livelihood crisis for millions of coffee farmers and rural communities. The specialty coffee industry responded by scaling up several sustainable coffee certification programs, including Fair Trade. This study uses household- and community-level research conducted in Nicaragua from 2000 to 2006 to assess the response to the post-1999 coffee crisis. A participator…
Explaining the ‘hungry farmer paradox’: Smallholders and fair trade cooperatives navigate seasonality and change in Nicaragua's corn and coffee markets
Performing a New England landscape: Viewing, engaging, and belonging
Effects of on-farm diversification strategies on smallholder coffee farmer food security and income sufficiency in Chiapas, Mexico
Building agroecology with people. Challenges of participatory methods to deepen on the agroecological transition in different contexts
Los meses flacos: Seasonal food insecurity in a Salvadoran organic coffee cooperative
Central American coffee farmers commonly refer to annual periods of food insecurity as 'los meses flacos' - the thin months - indicating a recurring season in which they are unable to meet household food needs. Although this is a common phenomenon, little empirical research has documented the seasonal food insecurity that many small-scale coffee farmers face. Household surveys and focus groups were conducted with 29 members of an organic coffee c…
Are Sustainable Coffee Certifications Enough to Secure Farmer Livelihoods? The Millenium Development Goals and Nicaragua's Fair Trade Cooperatives
In December 2001, green coffee commodity prices hit a 30-year low. This deepened the livelihood crisis for millions of coffee farmers and rural communities. The specialty coffee industry responded by scaling up several sustainable coffee certification programs, including Fair Trade. This study uses household- and community-level research conducted in Nicaragua from 2000 to 2006 to assess the response to the post-1999 coffee crisis. A participator…
Are Sustainable Coffee Certifications Enough to Secure Farmer Livelihoods? The Millenium Development Goals and Nicaragua's Fair Trade Cooperatives
In December 2001, green coffee commodity prices hit a 30-year low. This deepened the livelihood crisis for millions of coffee farmers and rural communities. The specialty coffee industry responded by scaling up several sustainable coffee certification programs, including Fair Trade. This study uses household- and community-level research conducted in Nicaragua from 2000 to 2006 to assess the response to the post-1999 coffee crisis. A participator…
Agroecology as a Transdisciplinary, Participatory, and Action-Oriented Approach
This article traces multiple directions in the evolution of agroecology, from its early emphasis on ecological processes in agricultural systems, to its emergence as a multidimensional approach focusing on broader agro-food systems. This review is timely, as agroecology is being increasingly applied within a diversity of scientific-, policy-, and farmer-based initiatives. We contrast different agroecological perspectives or “agroecologies” and di…
Los meses flacos: Seasonal food insecurity in a Salvadoran organic coffee cooperative
Central American coffee farmers commonly refer to annual periods of food insecurity as 'los meses flacos' - the thin months - indicating a recurring season in which they are unable to meet household food needs. Although this is a common phenomenon, little empirical research has documented the seasonal food insecurity that many small-scale coffee farmers face. Household surveys and focus groups were conducted with 29 members of an organic coffee c…
Explaining the ‘hungry farmer paradox’: Smallholders and fair trade cooperatives navigate seasonality and change in Nicaragua's corn and coffee markets
Performing a New England landscape: Viewing, engaging, and belonging
Audits and agrarianism: The moral economy of an alternative food network
With consumers and producers seeking alternatives to corporate, industrial food, systems of provision that promise greater ecological and social sustainability have gained in popularity. As these Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) scale up and go mainstream, both scholars and the general public want to know who is holding them accountable to their purported goals. In response to such questions, previously informal designations - such as organic - h…
Sustainable commercialization of new crops for the agricultural bioeconomy
Diversification of agroecological systems to enhance agrobiodiversity is likely to be critical to advancing environmental, economic, and social sustainability of agriculture. Temperate-zone agroecological systems that are currently organized for production of summer-annual crops can be diversified by integration of fallow-season and perennial crops. Integration of such crops can improve sustainability of these agroecological systems, with minimal…
Toward thick legitimacy: Creating a web of legitimacy for agroecology
Legitimacy is at the heart of knowledge politics surrounding agriculture and food. When people accept industrial food practices as credible and authoritative, they are consenting to their use and existence. With their thick legitimacy, industrial food systems paralyze the growth of alternative agricultures, including agroecology. Questions of how alternative agricultures can attain their own thick legitimacy in order to compete with, and displace…
Farmer perceptions of climate change risk and associated on-farm management strategies in Vermont, northeastern United States
Little research has been conducted on how agricultural producers in the northeastern United States conceptualize climate-related risk and how these farmers address risk through on-farm management strategies. Two years following Tropical Storm Irene, our team interviewed 15 farmers in order to investigate their perceptions of climate-related risk and how their decision-making was influenced by these perceptions. Our results show that Vermont farme…
California’s drought as opportunity: Redesigning U.S. agriculture for a changing climate
The impacts of climate change are already affecting the production and profitability of agricultural systems, and these trends are expected to continue in the future. Without support from ecosystem functions, an agricultural system designed exclusively to maximize short-term production is vulnerable to extreme weather events such as droughts and floods. This results in high costs for farmers and ultimately for society at large, in economic and ec…
Carrying capacity of U.S. agricultural land: Ten diet scenarios
Strategies for environmental sustainability and global food security must account for dietary change. Using a biophysical simulation model we calculated human carrying capacity under ten diet scenarios. The scenarios included two reference diets based on actual consumption and eight “Healthy Diet” scenarios that complied with nutritional recommendations but varied in the level of meat content. We considered the U.S. agricultural land base and acc…
Beyond yields: Climate change effects on specialty crop quality and agroecological management
Climate change is impacting the sustainability of food systems through shifts in natural and human dimensions of agroecosystems that influence farmer livelihoods, consumer choices, and food security. This paper highlights the need for climate studies on specialty crops to focus not only on yields, but also on quality, as well as the ability of agroecological management to buffer climate effects on quality parameters. Crop quality refers to phyton…
Building student capacity to lead sustainability transitions in the food system through farm-based authentic research modules in sustainability sciences (FARMS)
Undergraduate courses provide valuable opportunities to train and empower students with the knowledge, skills, and motivation to advance society in more sustainable directions. This article emphasizes the value of bridging primary scientific research with undergraduate education through the presentation of an integrated experiential learning and primary research model called Farm-based Authentic Research Modules in Sustainability Sciences (FARMS)…
Securing the future of US agriculture: The case for investing in new entry sustainable farmers
Sustainable agriculture is among the most urgently needed work in the United States, for at least three reasons: we face an environmental crisis, a health crisis, and a rural economic crisis. Addressing these pressing crises through sustainability transition will require growing our agricultural workforce: both because the current farm population is aging, and because sustainable agriculture is knowledge-intensive work that substitutes experienti…
Effects of on-farm diversification strategies on smallholder coffee farmer food security and income sufficiency in Chiapas, Mexico
Co-creation of knowledge in agroecology
The co-creation of knowledge is gaining recognition and use within the science, practice, and movement of agroecology. Knowledge co-creation fosters participatory learning and development, which differs from passive knowledge sharing. This approach can bridge the real and perceived gaps across diverse forms of knowledge, including what is often distinguished as farmers’ traditional, Indigenous, tacit, or local knowledge and experts’ scientific, w…
Peasant Resilience: Decolonization and Re-conceptualization
The objective of this article is to re-read and take initial steps toward decolonizing the concept of resilience from a peasant perspective. Resilience has origins in the Western, Cartesian, and capitalist paradigms, and we examine the concept from a peasant world partially situated outside of capitalist social relations. In conventional usage, resilience signifies “returning to the previous state after disturbance,” yet for those not favored by …
Building agroecology with people. Challenges of participatory methods to deepen on the agroecological transition in different contexts
The role of farmer networks in supporting adaptive capacity: Opening the door for innovation and transformation in the Northeastern United States
This article explores the role of farmer networks in building the adaptive capacity of small and diversified farmers in the Northeastern United States. Previous research suggests that farmers’ networks are the backbone of practical agricultural knowledge systems in the United States, serving as a critical venue where growers exchange and negotiate new ideas. Drawing upon empirical evidence from a regional survey on climate resilience and a series…
Acción colectiva para la transición agroecológica en el altiplano Boliviano
Para facilitar una transición de la agricultura convencional, es imperativo fortalecer los vínculos entre la política y la agroecología. La agroecología no debe entenderse sólo como el resultado de una serie de propiedades físicas y biológicas porque también refleja relaciones socioculturales de poder. Por lo que para promover una transición agroecológica se requiere de la acción individual y colectiva, que se da cuando los actores articulación u…
Acción colectiva para la transición agroecológica en el Altiplano boliviano
Para facilitar una transición de la agricultura industrial es imperativo fortalecer los vínculos entre la política y la agroecología. Esta última no debe entenderse solo como el resultado de una serie de propiedades físicas y biológicas, ya que también refleja relaciones socioculturales de poder. Por lo tanto, para promover una transición agroecológica se requiere de la acción individual y colectiva, la cual se da cuando los actores se articulan …
Food sovereignty and the role of agroecological diversification in farmer communities in southern Mexico
This article deepens and expands the notion of food sovereignty by presenting and contrasting testimonies and quantitative records of agroecological diversification, agrobiodiversity, and diets in rural communities. Our study emphasizes the critical role of strategic agrobiodiversity in fostering food sovereignty. We present the perspectives and experiences of coffee farmers, members of the organic cooperative Campesinos Ecológicos de la Sierra M…
Assessing Farmer Attitudes and Capacity to Adopt Bobolink-Friendly Haying Timelines in the Eastern Adirondacks
Grasslands are an important and imperiled habitat for a suite of wildlife species, and in the Northeastern US, most are on private land. Understanding the attitudes of farmers toward management of this habitat is critical for species like the Bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus), which have declined due to habitat loss and hay cropping during nesting. We developed a typology of farmers to identify opportunities, limitations, and barriers to following…
Agriculture (19 works) · Business (16 works) · Geography (15 works) · Economics (13 works) · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development (12 works) · Organic Food and Agriculture (11 works) · Agroecology (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Sustainability (7 works)