H Wittman
Biographic Data
| ID | 7798 |
|---|---|
| NAME | H Wittman |
| GIVEN NAMES | H |
| FAMILY NAME | Wittman |
| SIGNATURE | WITTMAN H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of British Columbia |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8247-6517 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 49 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 532 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 49 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
The politics of protection: Agricultural planning, legitimacy, and dissent in Richmond, Canada
Farmland conflicts in Richmond, BC reveal how municipal planning shapes dissent through consensus governance and technical planning tools. • Using radical-agonistic planning theory, the study shows how competing visions of agriculture are selectively integrated to shape legitimacy. • Agricultural planning institutionalizes, translating political contestation into consultation and manageable outcomes
The political economy of agricultural data governance: Farmer perspectives on trust in data sharing
Digital agriculture is generating massive amounts of data; however, there are fragmented and inconsistent approaches to how these data are managed, stored, stewarded, and shared in the agri-food sector. Improved agricultural data governance will need to account for farmer perspectives on data sharing, privacy, and trust. In this paper, we explore the emerging political economy of agricultural data governance through farmer perceptions on trust in…
Sociotechnical imaginaries for Canadian agri-food futures: A Farmer Survey
The distinct drivers of diversification and job quality on BC organic vegetable farms
Agricultural data governance from the ground up: Exploring data justice with agri-food movements
Farmers and agri-food movements are responding to rapidly changing trends related to digitalization and datafication in agriculture. However, there is a lack of consensus on the potential of common 'best practices' to resolve agricultural data governance challenges and achieve data justice. To explore these complex dynamics, we present analysis from 40 workshops, conferences, and community dialogue events related to digital agricultural technolog…
Building sustainability research competencies through scaffolded pathways for undergraduate research experience
Addressing complex socio-ecological challenges, from climate change to biodiversity loss, requires collaborative co-creation and application of knowledge that bridges disciplines and diverse research communities. New models of research training are needed that emphasize these competencies and are inclusive of students from underrepresented groups in academia. This article presents learnings from a 2-year pilot project at the University of British…
The state of agroecology in Brazil: An indicator-based approach to identifying municipal “bright spots”
Agroecology is increasingly recognized as a pathway for agricultural transformation that can mitigate environmental harms and improve social equity. Yet, the lack of broad-scale assessments that track agroecological indicators in distinct contexts has been identified as a challenge to scaling agroecology out and up. Here, we identify and assess indicators of agroecology based on the Food and Agriculture Organization’s 10 Elements of Agroecology a…
Against the odds: Network and institutional pathways enabling agricultural diversification
Food sovereignty: An inclusive model for feeding the world and cooling the planet
Sites, stakes, and scales: Radical relationalism and the shifting nature of food sovereignty mobilization
Food sovereignty movements emerged in the 1990s as a global constellation of struggles against the corporate food regime. Here, we propose a radically relational ‘sites, stakes, and scales' framework for analyzing food sovereignty mobilization, adopting a flat ontology that considers both actual and potential relations. ‘Sites' refer to the actually existing relations between actors engaged in a social struggle; ‘stakes' are dynamic interests tha…
Agroecology as a Philosophy of Life
Sharing the struggle for fairness: Exploring possibilities for solidarity & just labour in organic agriculture
Despite the organic movement’s early connections to labour advocacy and commitment to the principle of “Fairness”, the evolution of the organic sector has generated questions about the strength of its links to food justice in certified organic farming. Scholar-activists have, in particular, highlighted the problematic nature of labour relations on many organic farms. This article reports on a growing relationship between an organic farming associ…
A polycentric food sovereignty approach to climate resilience in the Philippines
Enhancing climate resilience in agrarian communities requires improving the underlying socioecological conditions for farmers to engage in adaptation and mitigation strategies, alongside collaborative and redistributive community development to reduce vulnerabilities. To overcome barriers to climate resilience in the Philippines, a grassroots farmer-led organization comprised of resource-poor smallholders, scientists, and nongovernmental organiza…
Land governance for agroecology
Agroecological transitions aim to redesign the structure of contemporary global food systems to improve food security, ecosystem health, community development, worker livelihoods, and social and ecological justice. A fundamental principle of agroecology is the responsible governance of land. Yet land—as a concept, resource, and territory—is heavily contested through processes of colonization, enclosure, commodification, and financialization. The …
Research priorities for global food security under extreme events
Extreme events, such as those caused by climate change, economic or geopolitical shocks, and pest or disease epidemics, threaten global food security. The complexity of causation, as well as the myriad ways that an event, or a sequence of events, creates cascading and systemic impacts, poses significant challenges to food systems research and policy alike. To identify priority food security risks and research opportunities, we asked experts from …
Political Energy and Political Evaporation: Evaluating the Practice of Shopping for Food System Change
Can public universities play a role in fostering seed sovereignty
Across Canada and the United States, public universities were founded with a mission to contribute to broad societal well-being. Yet, the capacity of public research institutions to develop and disseminate flexible and accessible tools for resilient agriculture has been challenged in recent decades. The role of universities in advancing extractive, rather than regenerative, economies has been amplified by the privatization of public agricultural …
Predictors of household food insecurity and relationship with obesity in First Nations communities in British Columbia, Manitoba, Alberta and Ontario
Objective: To further understandings of household food insecurity in First Nations communities in Canada and its relationship with obesity. Design: Analysis of a cross-sectional dataset from the First Nations Food, Nutrition and Environment Study representative of First Nations communities south of the 60th parallel. Multivariate logistic regression was used to assess associations between food insecurity and sociodemographic factors, as well as t…
Higher yields and more biodiversity on smaller farms
Bringing the city to the country? Responsibility, privilege and urban agrarianism in Metro Vancouver
This paper furthers the development of the theory of agrarian citizenship-the bundle of rights and responsibilities underpinning the food sovereignty movement. Through interviews with 34 participants engaged with urban agriculture in Metro Vancouver, Canada, we introduce the concept of urban agrarianism, defined as an urban ethic of care for foodlands and, by extension, a relational responsibility to exercise solidarity with those who cultivate a…
The global divide in data-driven farming
Risk and responsibility in the corporate food regime: Research pathways beyond the Covid-19 crisis
The COVID-19 pandemic has focused renewed public attention on the risks and harms generated by a globalized, industrialized, and corporatized food system. This crisis reinvigorates the need for a research agenda that identifies compelling ways of holding key actors in the corporate food regime accountable for creating and profiting from systemic risk in the food system. We draw upon theoretical conceptions of "risk," "rights," and "(ir)responsibi…
Beyond feeding the city: The multifunctionality of urban farming in Vancouver, BC
District-level implementation of British Columbia’s school food and beverage sales policy: A realist evaluation exploring intervention mechanisms in urban and rural contexts
The outcomes of these three policy mechanisms are influenced by complex dimensions of context. Identifying context-mechanism interactions can help inform public health policymakers interested in interventions for improving school food environments
Nothing is going to change three months from now: A mixed methods characterization of food bank use in Greater Vancouver
Reworking the metabolic rift: La Vía Campesina, agrarian citizenship, and food sovereignty
Amidst increasing concerns about climate change, food shortages, and widespread environmental degradation, a demand is emerging for ways to resolve longstanding social and ecological contradictions present in contemporary capitalist models of production and social organisation. This paper first discusses how agriculture, as the most intensive historical nexus between society and nature, has played a pivotal role in social and ecological change. I…
Farmers, foodies and First Nations: Getting to food sovereignty in Canada
This paper examines how the concept and framework of food sovereignty has been incorporated in food policy agendas across diverse sectors of Canadian society, particularly in the work and discourse of the National Farmers Union, Québec's Union Paysanne, Food Secure Canada and movements for Indigenous food sovereignty. This analysis highlights both the challenges to conceptualizing food sovereignty and the tensions in defining inclusive policies t…
Neoliberal natures on the farm: Farmer autonomy and cooperation in comparative perspective
The State of Family Farms in the World
Reframing agrarian citizenship: Land, life and power in Brazil
Linking Local Food Systems and the Social Economy? Future Roles for Farmers' Markets in Alberta and British Columbia
Often organized as grassroots, nonprofit organizations, many farmers' markets serve as strategic venues linking producers and consumers of local food while fulfilling multiple social, economic, and environmental objectives. This article examines the potential of farmers' markets to play a catalyst role in linking local food systems to the social economy in western Canada. We used the Delphi method of inquiry to solicit and synthesize perspectives…
Scaling up alternative food networks: Farmers’ markets and the role of clustering in western Canada
Higher yields and more biodiversity on smaller farms
Beyond the market? New agrarianism and cooperative farmland access in North America
Carbon Offsets and Inequality: Social Costs and Co-Benefits in Guatemala and Sri Lanka
The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol is designed to reduce global CO2 emissions while transferring technology and investment to developing countries. Little evaluation has been conducted, however, regarding the efficiency of outcomes and co-benefits or the social costs generated by carbon-mitigation projects. This article presents a comparative case study of two carbon-offset projects funded by fossil-fuel based power gener…
Bringing the city to the country? Responsibility, privilege and urban agrarianism in Metro Vancouver
This paper furthers the development of the theory of agrarian citizenship-the bundle of rights and responsibilities underpinning the food sovereignty movement. Through interviews with 34 participants engaged with urban agriculture in Metro Vancouver, Canada, we introduce the concept of urban agrarianism, defined as an urban ethic of care for foodlands and, by extension, a relational responsibility to exercise solidarity with those who cultivate a…
Rock Stars and Bad Apples: Moral Economies of Alternative Food Networks and Precarious Farm Work Regimes
Alternative food networks face both challenges and opportunities in rethinking the role of precarious employment in food system transformation. We explore how alternative food networks in British Columbia, Canada have engaged with flexible and precarious work regimes for farmworkers, including both temporary migrant workers and un(der)paid agricultural interns. Based on in-depth interviews, participant observation and document analysis, we find t…
Nothing is going to change three months from now: A mixed methods characterization of food bank use in Greater Vancouver
Landscapes of food production in agriburbia: Farmland protection and local food movements in British Columbia
Food Sovereignty and Fome Zero: Connecting Public Food Procurement Programmes to Sustainable Rural Development in Brazil
The global discourse on food sovereignty suggests several mechanisms for improving food security and agricultural livelihoods, including redistributive land reform and restructuring of markets to improve food distribution and access. In Brazil, the Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) social welfare programme has created innovative links between public nutrition and food security programmes and rural development initiatives through mediated market support for…
Environment and Citizenship in Latin America: A New Paradigm for Theory and Practice
As a reflection of the ecological pressures associated with rapid modernization and globalization, the environment has become an enduring theme of public debate and protest in Latin America. Over the past decade, scholars have made increasing connections between such debate and a range of questions related to citizenship. Meanwhile, a discourse of ‘environmental citizenship’ has a growing prevalence in policy across the region. While these develo…
The global divide in data-driven farming
Farm to school in British Columbia: Mobilizing food literacy for food sovereignty
Agrarian Reform and the Environment: Fostering Ecological Citizenship in Mato Grosso, Brazil
The role of ecological land reform in fostering ecological citizenship and community environmental-resource-management in Brazil is examined through a case study of settlement practices of Brazil's Landless Workers' Movement between 2000 and 2005. The case study explores the opportunities that ecologically oriented land reform may provide for the exercise of ecological citizenship and the production of more sustainable socio-environmental outcome…
Sociotechnical imaginaries for Canadian agri-food futures: A Farmer Survey
Financing the agrarian transition? The Clean Development Mechanism and agricultural change in Latin America
The food crisis of 2007-08 generated widespread global concerns about land consolidation and agricultural transition, with renewed attention on foreign land investments and growing global markets for meat and biofuels. As part of and alongside this process, agriculture and land-use projects registered in the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) continued to rise, representing almost a third of global projects and almost 50% of proje…
Agricultural data governance from the ground up: Exploring data justice with agri-food movements
Farmers and agri-food movements are responding to rapidly changing trends related to digitalization and datafication in agriculture. However, there is a lack of consensus on the potential of common 'best practices' to resolve agricultural data governance challenges and achieve data justice. To explore these complex dynamics, we present analysis from 40 workshops, conferences, and community dialogue events related to digital agricultural technolog…
Risk and responsibility in the corporate food regime: Research pathways beyond the Covid-19 crisis
The COVID-19 pandemic has focused renewed public attention on the risks and harms generated by a globalized, industrialized, and corporatized food system. This crisis reinvigorates the need for a research agenda that identifies compelling ways of holding key actors in the corporate food regime accountable for creating and profiting from systemic risk in the food system. We draw upon theoretical conceptions of "risk," "rights," and "(ir)responsibi…
Brasilience: Assessing Resilience in Land Reform Settlements in the Brazilian Cerrado
Agroecology as a Philosophy of Life
Latin American peasants
Negotiating Locality: Decentralization and Communal Forest Management in the Guatemalan Highlands
Decentralization is a political process, concerned with the distribution of power, resources, and administrative capacities across national territories. This research analyzes nominal decentralization of the forest sector in Guatemala, where recent legislation situates administrative power and territorial control of communal forests at the municipal level. We explore the local implications of this legislation, especially for communal forest manag…
In Brief News from Latin America
For frequently updated news from Latin America, check our Web site www.nacla.org. Register on the site to receive our email newsletter
Reframing agrarian citizenship: Land, life and power in Brazil
A Review of: “Hochstetler, Kathryn, and Margaret E. Keck. Greening Brazil: Environmental Activism in State and Society.”
Carbon Offsets and Inequality: Social Costs and Co-Benefits in Guatemala and Sri Lanka
The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol is designed to reduce global CO2 emissions while transferring technology and investment to developing countries. Little evaluation has been conducted, however, regarding the efficiency of outcomes and co-benefits or the social costs generated by carbon-mitigation projects. This article presents a comparative case study of two carbon-offset projects funded by fossil-fuel based power gener…
Reworking the metabolic rift: La Vía Campesina, agrarian citizenship, and food sovereignty
Amidst increasing concerns about climate change, food shortages, and widespread environmental degradation, a demand is emerging for ways to resolve longstanding social and ecological contradictions present in contemporary capitalist models of production and social organisation. This paper first discusses how agriculture, as the most intensive historical nexus between society and nature, has played a pivotal role in social and ecological change. I…
Environment and Citizenship in Latin America: A New Paradigm for Theory and Practice
As a reflection of the ecological pressures associated with rapid modernization and globalization, the environment has become an enduring theme of public debate and protest in Latin America. Over the past decade, scholars have made increasing connections between such debate and a range of questions related to citizenship. Meanwhile, a discourse of ‘environmental citizenship’ has a growing prevalence in policy across the region. While these develo…
Agrarian Reform and the Environment: Fostering Ecological Citizenship in Mato Grosso, Brazil
The role of ecological land reform in fostering ecological citizenship and community environmental-resource-management in Brazil is examined through a case study of settlement practices of Brazil's Landless Workers' Movement between 2000 and 2005. The case study explores the opportunities that ecologically oriented land reform may provide for the exercise of ecological citizenship and the production of more sustainable socio-environmental outcome…
Weaving Chains of Grain: Alternative Grain Networks and Social Value in British Columbia
The development and diversification of short food supply chains is a primary characteristic of burgeoning alternative food networks and systems in North America. This paper examines several grain production initiatives in southwest British Columbia that respond to the commodification and concentration of conventional, globalized grain production by developing alternative and socially embedded networks that transform the way grain travels from fie…
Scaling up alternative food networks: Farmers’ markets and the role of clustering in western Canada
Agrarian Reform and the Production of Locality: Resettlement and Community Building in Mato Grosso, Brazil
This paper investigates processes of place-making and community formation following agrarian reform resettlement in Brazil. Based on case studies conducted between 2002 and 2004 in several settlements organized by the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, I argue that resettlement through agrarian reform in Brazil is a process of intentional community-building through resettlement and emplacemen…
Linking Local Food Systems and the Social Economy? Future Roles for Farmers' Markets in Alberta and British Columbia
Often organized as grassroots, nonprofit organizations, many farmers' markets serve as strategic venues linking producers and consumers of local food while fulfilling multiple social, economic, and environmental objectives. This article examines the potential of farmers' markets to play a catalyst role in linking local food systems to the social economy in western Canada. We used the Delphi method of inquiry to solicit and synthesize perspectives…
Neoliberal natures on the farm: Farmer autonomy and cooperation in comparative perspective
Farmers, foodies and First Nations: Getting to food sovereignty in Canada
This paper examines how the concept and framework of food sovereignty has been incorporated in food policy agendas across diverse sectors of Canadian society, particularly in the work and discourse of the National Farmers Union, Québec's Union Paysanne, Food Secure Canada and movements for Indigenous food sovereignty. This analysis highlights both the challenges to conceptualizing food sovereignty and the tensions in defining inclusive policies t…
Landscapes of food production in agriburbia: Farmland protection and local food movements in British Columbia
The State of Family Farms in the World
Financing the agrarian transition? The Clean Development Mechanism and agricultural change in Latin America
The food crisis of 2007-08 generated widespread global concerns about land consolidation and agricultural transition, with renewed attention on foreign land investments and growing global markets for meat and biofuels. As part of and alongside this process, agriculture and land-use projects registered in the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) continued to rise, representing almost a third of global projects and almost 50% of proje…
Brasilience: Assessing Resilience in Land Reform Settlements in the Brazilian Cerrado
Rock Stars and Bad Apples: Moral Economies of Alternative Food Networks and Precarious Farm Work Regimes
Alternative food networks face both challenges and opportunities in rethinking the role of precarious employment in food system transformation. We explore how alternative food networks in British Columbia, Canada have engaged with flexible and precarious work regimes for farmworkers, including both temporary migrant workers and un(der)paid agricultural interns. Based on in-depth interviews, participant observation and document analysis, we find t…
Pathways to agroecological management through mediated markets in Santa Catarina, Brazil
Agroecology, as a social movement and scientific discipline, applies ecological principles to the design and management of agricultural systems to improve environmental outcomes and livelihoods for farmers and rural communities. However, little research to date has assessed the policy mechanisms that could facilitate increased adoption of agroecological management practices. We investigated if and how public food procurement programs that provide…
Farm to school in British Columbia: Mobilizing food literacy for food sovereignty
Beyond the market? New agrarianism and cooperative farmland access in North America
Food Sovereignty and Fome Zero: Connecting Public Food Procurement Programmes to Sustainable Rural Development in Brazil
The global discourse on food sovereignty suggests several mechanisms for improving food security and agricultural livelihoods, including redistributive land reform and restructuring of markets to improve food distribution and access. In Brazil, the Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) social welfare programme has created innovative links between public nutrition and food security programmes and rural development initiatives through mediated market support for…
District-level implementation of British Columbia’s school food and beverage sales policy: A realist evaluation exploring intervention mechanisms in urban and rural contexts
The outcomes of these three policy mechanisms are influenced by complex dimensions of context. Identifying context-mechanism interactions can help inform public health policymakers interested in interventions for improving school food environments
Agriculture (31 works) · Geography (31 works) · Political science (31 works) · Economics (30 works) · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development (29 works) · Organic Food and Agriculture (25 works) · Business (24 works) · Food security (24 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Politics (16 works)