Socio-Economic and Governance Conditions Corresponding to Change in Animal Agriculture: South Dakota Case Study

Abstract

Understanding sustainable livestock production requires consideration of both qualitative and quantitative factors in a temporal and/or spatial frame. This study adapted Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to relate conditions of social, economic, and governance factors to changes in livestock inventory across several counties and over time. This paper presents an approach that (1) identified factors with the potential to relate to a change in livestock inventory and (2) analyzed commonalities within these factors related to changes spatially and temporally. This paper illustrates the approach and results when applied to five counties in eastern South Dakota. The specific response variables were periods of increasing, no change, or decreasing beef cattle, dairy cattle, and swine inventories in the specific counties for five-year census periods between 1992 and 2017. In the spatial analysis of counties, stable beef inventories and decreasing dairy inventories related to counties with increasing gross domestic products. The presence of specific social communities related to increases in county swine inventories. In the temporal analysis of census periods, local governance and economic factors, particularly market price influences, were more prevalent. Swine inventory showed a stronger link to cash crop markets than to livestock markets, whereas cattle market price increases associated with stable inventories for all animal types. Local governance tools had mixed effects for the different animal types across space and time. The factors and analysis results are context-specific. However, the process considers the various socio-economic processes in livestock production and community development applicable to agricultural sustainability questions in the Midwest and beyond.

Developing Cohort Challenges: An Innovative Program for Training Graduate Students to Work in Transdisciplinary Teams

“…Students in the Cohort Challenges are often interested in having final projects that are helpful in pursuing academic careers. Thus, many of the Cohort Challenges have produced manuscripts for publications [15]- [17] and presentations at professional conferences, including annual meetings of the Community Informatics Research Network and ASA-CSSA-SSSA…”

“…Using both qualitative and quantitative data, they adapted qualitative comparative analysis [20] [19] to find common contextual conditions that influenced the viability of the livestock industry in the locations they studied. Published in the interdisciplinary journal, Sustainability [15] their analysis demonstrated the complexity of the systems influencing siting decisions and the risks of trying to generalize in the absence of a sophisticated understanding of the surrounding context.…”