While questions about the environmental sustainability of contemporary farming practices and the
socioeconomic viability of rural communities are attracting increasing attention throughout the US, these two issues
are rarely considered together. This paper explores the current and potential connections between these two aspects of
sustainability, using data on community members’ and farmers’ views of agricultural issues in California’s Central
Valley. These views were collected from a series of individual and group interviews with biologically oriented and
conventional farmers as well as community stakeholders. Local marketing, farmland preservation, and perceptions of
sustainable agriculture comprised the primary topics of discussion. The mixed results indicate that, while many
farmers and community members have a strong interest in these topics, sustainable community development and the
use of sustainable farming practices are seldom explicitly linked. On the other hand, many separate efforts around the
Valley to increase local marketing and agritourism, improve public education about agriculture, and organize grassroots farmland preservation initiatives were documented. We conclude that linking these efforts more explicitly to
sustainable agriculture and promoting more engagement between ecologically oriented farmers and their communities
could engender more economic and political support for these farmers, helping them and their communities to achieve
greater sustainability in the long run
While questions about the environmental sustainability of contemporary farming practices and thesocioeconomic viability of rural communities are attracting increasing attention throughout the US, these two issuesare rarely considered together. This paper explores the current and potential connections between these two aspects ofsustainability, using data on community members’ and farmers’ views of agricultural issues in California’s CentralValley. These views were collected from a series of individual and group interviews with biologically oriented andconventional farmers as well as community stakeholders. Local marketing, farmland preservation, and perceptions ofsustainable agriculture comprised the primary topics of discussion. The mixed results indicate that, while manyfarmers and community members have a strong interest in these topics, sustainable community development and theuse of sustainable farming practices are seldom explicitly linked. On the other hand, many separate efforts around theValley to increase local marketing and agritourism, improve public education about agriculture, and organize grassroots farmland preservation initiatives were documented. We conclude that linking these efforts more explicitly tosustainable agriculture and promoting more engagement between ecologically oriented farmers and their communitiescould engender more economic and political support for these farmers, helping them and their communities to achievegreater sustainability in the long run
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