Rethinking Adaptive Capacity: a Study of Midwestern U.S. Corn Farmers Syed Maaz Gardezi Iowa State University
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Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Graduate Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2017 Rethinking adaptive capacity: A study of Midwestern U.S. corn farmers Syed Maaz Gardezi Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd Part of the Agriculture Commons, and the Statistics and Probability Commons Recommended Citation Gardezi, Syed Maaz, "Rethinking adaptive capacity: A study of Midwestern U.S. corn farmers" (2017). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 15519. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/15519 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Rethinking adaptive capacity: A study of Midwestern U.S. corn farmers by Syed Maaz Gardezi A dissertation submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Co-majors: Sociology; Sustainable Agriculture Program of Study Committee: J. Gordon Arbuckle, Major Professor Lois Wright Morton David Peters Petruta Caragea Lisa Schulte Moore The student author, whose presentation of the scholarship herein was approved by the program of study committee, is solely responsible for the content of this dissertation. The Graduate College will ensure this dissertation is globally accessible and will not permit alterations after a degree is conferred. Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2017 Copyright © Syed Maaz Gardezi, 2017. All rights reserved. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................. iii ABSTRACT………………………………. ...................................................... vi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION: .................................................................. 1 Organization of Dissertation Chapters .................................................... 4 References ............................................................................................. 7 CHAPTER 2. TECHNO-OPTIMISM AND FARMERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD CLIMATE CHANGE .................................................................... 10 Introduction ............................................................................................. 11 Literature Review .................................................................................... 15 Conceptual Framework and Hypothesis ................................................. 21 Method ............................................................................................. 23 Results ............................................................................................. 27 Discussion and Conclusion..................................................................... 32 References ............................................................................................. 37 CHAPTER 3. CAN FARMERS’ ADAPTIVE CAPACITIES—CONTEXTUAL -IZED WITHIN INSTITUTIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTALCONDITIONS— INFLUENCE THEIR DECISION TO USE ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES? ............................................................................................. 44 Introduction ............................................................................................. 45 Literature Review .................................................................................... 49 Method ............................................................................................ 59 Results ............................................................................................. 74 Discussion ............................................................................................. 80 Conclusion ............................................................................................. 83 References ............................................................................................. 85 Appendix A ............................................................................................. 92 Appendix B ............................................................................................. 93 Appendix C ............................................................................................. 94 CHAPTER 4. SPATIALLY REPRESENTING VULNERABILITY TO EXTREME RAIN EVENTS USING MIDWESTERN FARMERS’ OBJECTIVE AND PERCEIVED ATTRIBUTES OF ADAPTIVE CAPACITY 95 Introduction ............................................................................................. 96 Literature Review .................................................................................... 100 Method ............................................................................................ 110 Results ............................................................................................. 121 Discussion and Conclusion..................................................................... 126 References ............................................................................................. 129 iii CHAPTER 5. GENERAL DISCUSSION ...................................................... 135 General Discussion ................................................................................ 135 APPENDIX GLOSSARY OF TERMS ........................................................... 138 References ............................................................................................. 145 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my dissertation advisor, Dr. J Arbuckle. His continuous supervision, leadership, and encouragement have made this work possible. I am thankful to him for giving me the intellectual autonomy to choose my research project based on my curiosity. His constructive comments always helped me to think more deeply about the problem. I have been privileged to have him as my dissertation chair. This work would have never been possible without his insightful critique and tireless editing. I am also very thankful to the other members of my committee. Dr. Lois Wright Morton was an excellent mentor and her guidance and support have been unparalleled. Despite her busy schedule, she has been generous with her time, very insightful in her feedback, and a great role model for me and my peers at ISU. Her energy is contagious and has motivated me to read more and think harder. Dr. David Peters has been very generous with his open-office-door-policy. I have been allowed to interrupt him and inquire many times about questions pertaining to statistics. He has always been there for me. Other members of my committee: Drs. Petrutza Caragea and Lisa Schulte Moore also offered thoughtful and critical comments and suggestions during critical stages of my dissertation. Their feedback significantly contributed to the development and refinement of my ideas. The expertise and advice of all my committee members have contributed enormously to advancing my intellectual thinking during my time at ISU. I am extremely fortunate for receiving research funding from the USDA-NIFA project: Climate and Corn-based Cropping Systems Coordinated Agricultural v Project. This CSCAP project funding was instrumental in allowing me to experiment with new theories and methods and bring them into my research on climate change and agriculture. I would also like to thank the Department of Sociology and Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture (GPSA) for providing me with the administrative and financial support to attend and present my research at conferences. Specifically, I would like to recognize the hard work of Dr. Susan Stewart, Director of Graduate Education (DOGE) in Sociology for helping clearly communicating the requirements for course completion and graduation. Last, but not least, I was very lucky to find an excellent administrative team managed by Rachel Burlingame and Debra McKay. I would like to dedicate this dissertation to my wife, Hina Illahe, without whom this would have been an extremely difficult undertaking. Her intellectual and emotional backing ensured me that I could exclusively focus on attending classes and writing papers. She is one of the strongest pillars in my life. vi ABSTRACT Global climate change is one of the most significant challenges facing agriculture and society in the 21st century. In the Midwest, the projected trend toward more extreme rainfall has meant that farm-level responses are needed to maintain or increase crop yield and reduce soil erosion. On a local level, farmers are at the forefront of responding to environmental change. Thus, it is critical to understand their ability to take suitable actions for reducing risks and transforming agriculture to a more resilient system. Adaptive capacity is a term that is often used to describe farmers’ ability to access financial and technical resources. Although these are important attributes of farmers’ capacity, scholarship on human behavior has identified socio-cultural factors, such as perceived risk and capacity as strong predictors of farmers’ decision making. Therefore, our understanding of farmers’ true capacities is limited by our inability to comprehensively understand social and behavioral factors that influence their decisions to ignore, cope or adapt to climate change-related risks. In this dissertation, I attempt to address this gap by integrating social and behavioral theoretical frameworks and statistical modeling