‘I owe it to the animals’: The bidirectionality of Swiss alpine farmers' relational values

Self Cite

Community supported agriculture (CSA) is an alternative food network that aims to enable sustainable and just food production by bringing consumers and producers together. One version of CSA (Solidarische Landwirtschaft in German or Solidarity Agriculture) requires active labour participation of members as part of the subscription price. This paper uses a relational values approach to explore what motivates members to join and participate in solidarity agriculture cooperatives and how the experience of participation changes their values and behaviour. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 21 members of three co‐operatives and analysed using a grounded theory approach. Specifically, we applied the Syntax of Environmental Values Framework, developed by Deplazes‐Zemp and Chapman. Results show that members typically hold strong intrinsic values regarding fair compensation for farmer's work and local environmental sustainability and instrumental values regarding food quality and healthy eating. We found that participation and work practices at the cooperative added to and changed values and behaviour through new relational connections to food, farmers and to nature via the agricultural landscape. These findings provide new insight into the ways that relational values can be adopted and more broadly on the relationship between values and behaviour. This paper concludes that values, especially relational values, can form and change through lived experiences. Our results can help guide programs aiming to foster pro‐environmental values in a local population by highlighting one possible mechanism to do so. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Work that Work does: How intrinsic and instrumental values are transformed into relational values through active work participation in Swiss community supported agriculture

Geissberger,

Chapman

2023

Self Cite

“…Cultural influences and memories linked to particular people and places were also prominent. Furthermore, how people perceive benefits from nature also change over time, regardless the fact that nature's value is often considered independent of human uses (Chan et al, 2018;Chapman & Deplazes-Zemp, 2022;Klain et al, 2017).…”

Section: Pom Pokomentioning

confidence: 99%

A path to human‐raccoon dog harmony: Identifying factors influencing the tolerance of urban residents in Shanghai towards a neglected species

Zhao,

Wang,

et al. 2024

Human‐wildlife interactions become increasingly common in urban areas across all continents and ecosystem types. Depending on the context, human‐wildlife interactions can be categorized as harmonious, neutrality, or in conflict and raises cultural, economic and ecological challenges in maintaining urban biodiversity. Understanding the mechanism behind the tolerance of residents to the presence of wildlife is vital to promoting a harmonious coexistence between humans and wildlife in urban environments. To advance our knowledge of this mechanism, we developed a questionnaire to survey residents in Shanghai, China about their knowledge of and attitude towards raccoon dogs (Nyctereutes procyonoides), a species whose population is increasing in urban areas. Using 281 questionnaires, we conducted structural equation modelling to examine how relational values, including familiarity with raccoon dogs, perceived benefits and risks, together with residents' trust in wildlife management authorities, interactively influence the tolerance for this species. We found that the residents' familiarity with raccoon dogs positively influenced their tolerance, both directly and indirectly through increased perceived benefits and reduced perceived risks. Furthermore, trust in wildlife management authorities contributed to higher tolerance through perceived benefits. Our results suggested that education about the relational values of raccoon dogs to the public can reduce the traditional negative connotation for this species and promote the coexistence of people and raccoon dogs in Shanghai urban environment. Based on our understanding about how raccoon dogs were culturally constructed and the willingness of residents to share landscapes with the species, we advocate that relational values play an important role in future urban biodiversity conservation planning. We also advocate for education programs that familiarize the public with raccoon dogs as well as other species, which can turn urban human‐wildlife conflicts into harmonious relationships in Shanghai and other urban areas. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

“…Recent empirical studies illustrate the relevance of relational values in the agricultural context by identifying their content and relationship to other types of values (Allen et al, 2018;Chapman et al, 2019;Kreitzman et al, 2022;Tobin, 2022). Findings also specified features of relational values and how entities are valued in the relational sense, describing them as bidirectional and expressed by sentiments including care and respect on the one hand, and contributing to well-being on the other (Chapman & Deplazes-Zemp, 2022). While working with the land and producing food are costly activities in terms of time, effort and money, the way in which they allow experiential and experimental interactions with nature can stimulate the formation of relational values to influence priorities and decisions, as well as sustaining such work (Geissberger & Chapman, 2023;Jones & Tobin, 2018).…”

Section: Expanding On Relational Values In Farming Landscapesmentioning

confidence: 99%

From values to actions in agriculture: A web of actors shape Norwegian farmers' enactment of relational values

Byfuglien,

Hirons,

Milford

2024

A sustainable transition in the agri‐food system holds society‐wide implications. Farmers play central roles in responding to climate change, environmental degradation and sustainable food production. Still, factors underlying how farmers make decisions and manage their farms are often marginalised in efforts to develop policies to tackle these issues. The concept of relational values, defined as preferences, principles and virtues based on human–nature relationships, recently emerged to expand understandings of environmental decision‐making in general and that of farmers specifically. As agricultural landscapes are dynamic and characterised by the interaction of various actors with diverse values and interests, how these interactions influence farmers' decisions remains underexplored. This paper engages with these issues by using qualitative data on Norwegian horticultural farmers' motivations, opportunities and challenges in farming. We find that their relational values (a) are influential in shaping farmers' decisions about farm management and (b) are continually unfolding and embedded within a web of other actors, including grocers, retailers, consumers, farm advisors and policymakers, which shapes farmers' enactment of their relational values. In the context of agriculture, this research underlines the utility of an in‐depth understanding of relational values as embedded in wider social systems to enrich analyses of farmer decision‐making. How farmers' relational values are shaped and realised through interactions with other actors holds important implications for policy and programming to navigate tensions between different interests and actors for sustainable and long‐term change. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.