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Farm Household Motivations and Diversification Strategies of Organic Farmers at the Rural Urban Interface

Porter, Matthew R, Porter
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1469172871

Abstract Details

2016, Master of Science, Ohio State University, Environment and Natural Resources.
After the development of the National Organic Standards, scholars began to observe increasing consolidation and reliance on less sustainable production practices in organic agriculture. Scholars argued that these industrial forces – consolidation and conventionalization – could push small and midscale farmers out of production by altering the economic incentives of organic production. Previous scholarly work indicates that a farm household’s decisions are often motivated by multiple and complex goals, and a household may prioritize remaining in agricultural production because of its social and personal benefits despite economic pressures to exit. To remain economically viable farm households sacrifice short-term economic gains or diversify their operation so it remains financially sustainable. However, there is limited work on the non-economic motivations and diversification strategies of organic farm households. To fill this gap in the literature, I expand on previous work on substantive rationality, agriculture at the rural urban interface (RUI) and Meert et al.’s (2005) model of farm diversification. I found that organic farmers expressed higher non-economic motivations, engaged in less local sales, off-farm employment, and greater commodity diversification than their conventional counterparts. These results provide mixed support for previous assumptions about the differences between organic and conventional farmers, and raise several questions about the structure of organic farming at the RUI.
Linda Lobao (Advisor)
Sharp Jeff (Committee Member)
Clark Jill (Committee Member)
159 p.
Sociology
Organic, Rural Urban Interface, Local sales, Off-farm employment, Production diversification, Farm household motivations, Substantive rationality, conventionalization

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Porter, Porter, M. R. (2016). Farm Household Motivations and Diversification Strategies of Organic Farmers at the Rural Urban Interface [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1469172871

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Porter, Porter, Matthew. Farm Household Motivations and Diversification Strategies of Organic Farmers at the Rural Urban Interface . 2016. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1469172871.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Porter, Porter, Matthew. "Farm Household Motivations and Diversification Strategies of Organic Farmers at the Rural Urban Interface ." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1469172871

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1469172871
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© 2016, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Farm Household Motivations and Diversification Strategies of Organic Farmers at the Rural Urban Interface by Matthew R Porter Porter is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.