Reconstructing the good farmer identity: shifts in farmer identities and farm management practices to improve water quality

Abstract

All farmers have their own version of what it means to be a good farmer. For many US farmers a large portion of their identity is defined by the high input, high output production systems they manage to produce food, fiber or fuel. However, the unintended consequences of highly productivist systems are often increased soil erosion and the pollution of ground and surface water. A large number of farmers have conservationist identities within their good farmer identity, however their conservation goals often need to be activated to rebalance the production-conservation meanings they give to their roles in society. In this paper we analyze US Cornbelt farmer interviews and surveys to trace how the performance-based environmental management process can be used to influence the farmer social identity and shift the overall good farmer identity towards a stronger conservationist standard. We find the continuous feedback loop in performancebased environmental management mimics the hierarchically organized feedback control processes of identity verification and can be used to help farmers activate their conservationist farmer identities at the person, role, and social levels to establish new norms for the practice of more sustainable agriculture. completed her Master of Rural Sociology at Iowa State University and is currently working on her PhD in the Department of Sociology at Iowa State University. Her research focuses on human dimensions of natural resource management and farmer decision making from the social psychological view of self and identity. Lois Wright Morton is a professor of Rural Sociology in the Department of Sociology at Iowa State University. Her research work focuses on civic structure, human dimensions of natural resource management, community based watershed management, farmer decision making, and rural quality of life. Alicia D. Cast is an associate professor of Sociology in the

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