Relational Agriculture: Gender,Sexuality, and Sustainability in U.S. Farming

Although 97% of U.S. farms are “family-owned,” little research examines how gender and sexual relationships – inherent in familial dynamics – influence farmers’ practices and livelihoods. Gender and sexual dynamics – shaped by race and class – affect who is considered a farmer, land management decisions, and access to resources like land, subsidies, and knowledge. We use feminist and queer lenses to illuminate how today’s agricultural gender and sexual relations are not “natural,” but when left uninterrogated are constructed in ways that harm women and queer farmers while limiting potential to develop sustainable practices. Women and queer farmers also resist, “re-orienting” gender and sexual relations in ways that expand possibilities for achieving food justice and ecological sustainability. We offer “relational agriculture” as a tool for making visible and re-orienting gender and sexual relations on farms. Relational agriculture brings sexuality into food justice and demonstrates the centrality of gender and sexuality to agricultural sustainability.     

Bank recession processes,rates, and prediction,Lake Sakakawea,North Dakota,U.S.A.

Bank recession at twenty stations along the eastern end of 286 km long Lake Sakakawea, North Dakota, measured regularly between 1983 and 1986, showed a recession range from essentially zero to almost 9 m yr⁻¹ with an average of 1.6 m yr⁻¹. Between 1969 and 1979, rates were greater, the declining rate a normal consequence of the factors affecting bank recession. Rates of recession vary with seasons, with 78% of the annual recession occurring during the warmer season (May–October) as a result of wave erosion. The remaining 22% occurs during thaw failure in spring.Prediction of ultimate (500 yr) bank recessions attempted using historical recession data, the three years of detailed field measurements, and regression analysis of the erosion factors. An equation, presented here, requires field measurement of bank orientation and height, batch width and composition, and slope of the offshore area. Effective fetch must be measured, as well. The resulting equation for the monthly warm season recession rate is: Rs=154.9 −, (18.8 √ A+ 25.1 √ B +10.1 √ c +6.9 √ 0+5.0 √ E + 1.1 √ F) where: A = sine of angle between bank orientation and dominant wind; B = offshore slope angle; C = beach width; D = bank height; E = effective fetch; and F = percentage of coarse beach clasts. The colder season recession percentage is: Rw = Rs [(2.05D = 0.043G) − 2/100] where D is bank height and G the bank orientation with respect to sun. The total yearly predicted recession (cm yr⁻¹) is: Rt = 6 (Rw) + 6 (Rs) 6 being the number of months of “cold” and “warm” weather at Lake Sakakawea.For this rate to be projected into the future, it is necessary to assume a declining rate of recession, employing a parabolic trend. From this, the ultimate bank recession for Lake Sakakawea is predicted to range up to 542 m.     

Urban Community Garden Agrodiversity and Cultural Identity in Philadelphia,Pennsylvania, U.S.

Considerable research has examined the social, cultural, economic, and community benefits of urban gardening. Few studies, however, have empirically assessed factors that influence urban community garden agrodiversity or its relationship to these dimensions of gardening. We conducted an interdisciplinary study of agrodiversity and cultural identity, based certain markers of identity, including how people see themselves with respect to race, ethnicity, or place of origin, in community gardens in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We conducted fifty‐six semistructured interviews with gardeners with different cultural identities in eight community gardens on their motivations for urban community gardening during 2014. We conducted plant inventories of the corresponding garden plots and found 104 cultivated edible and ornamental species and 28 varieties representing 34 families. We find that although gardens with culturally diverse gardeners did not have higher species richness, the cultural identity of the gardeners influenced species selection and reason for gardening. Further, the structure, design and species composition of garden plots reflected the identities of garden members. These finding have implications for the recent institutionalization of urban agriculture into city land policies in Philadelphia and other cities in North America.     

Software Review: Atlas of Coal Geology,AAPG Studies in Geology 45, 1998. A.R. Hower,AAPG and TSOP members, $U.S. 39; $U.S. 52 outside U.S.

Natural Resources Research -     

Isaksen,Ketil. 2001. Past and Present Ground Thermal Regime,Distribution and Creep of Permafrost Case Studies in Svalbard,Sweden and Norway. Series of dissertations submitted to the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences,University of Oslo,No. 144. UniPub Forlag,Oslo. ISSN 1501-7710.

The biggest problem of our world today is the disproportion between the rapidly growing population of the world and the inadequate food resources available.     

V.K.Ting,Scientist and Patriot.

In the lamented death of Dr. V. K. Ting on January 5th, 1936, at the age of49, China suffered an irredeemable loss. He may be called the founder of thescience of geology in China, and it was in geological field work that his con-