An accelerating treadmill and an overlooked contradiction in industrial agriculture

Climate change and nitrogen fertilizer

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2285738
AutoresMatthew Houser (0000-0001-5236-8278, Environmental Resilience Institute, Department of Sociology Indiana University 717 E 8th Street Bloomington IN 47408 USA, autor correspondente), Diana Stuart (0000-0003-1479-2208, Sustainable Communities Program in the School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability Northern Arizona University Flagstaff AZ USA)
Ano2020
Volume20
Fascículo2
Páginas215-237
Data de publicação2020-04-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Agrarian Change (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1471-0358 • E-ISSN: 1471-0366
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/joac.12341
OpenAlexW2984877663
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas23
Referências citadas51

In this article, we explore if and why farmers are responding to the impacts of climate change with practices that increase greenhouse gas emissions. Our examination focuses on heavy rainfall events and Midwestern corn farmers' nitrogen fertilizer management. Due to climate change, the frequency and intensity of heavy rain events is increasing across the Midwest. These events increase nitrogen loss to the environment and introduces economic risks to farmers. Drawing from a theoretical framework that merges O'Connor's second contradiction of capitalism and Schnaiberg's treadmill of production, we argue farmers' responses to these events reflect the second contradiction, increasing contributions to climate change, and are shaped by treadmill-like political-economic pressures. We examine this using a qualitative sample of 154 farmers across Indiana, Iowa, and Michigan. Given profit imperatives, adapting farmers in our sample primarily used increased nitrogen application rates to reduce their vulnerability to heavy rains. As nitrogen rate is directly associated with nitrous oxide emissions, this adaptive strategy is effective but increases agricultural contributions to climate change. This preliminarily suggests that the political-economic structure encourages farmers to respond to climate change in ways that accelerate the environmental contradictions of industrial agriculture

Agricultural economics · Agriculture · Climate change · Contradiction · Economics · Geography · Greenhouse gas · Natural resource economics · Vulnerability (computing · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Environmental Science · Organic Food and Agriculture · Urban Agriculture and Sustainability · Ecology