About the Course
The agricultural landscape serves a variety of social, economic, and ecological purposes for society. Yet these purposes often conflict in varying degrees and ways—thus the image above of a storm. Each may be associated with a different network of stakeholders, leading to political and organizational challenges in the cultivation of a more beneficent agriculture. This course explores methods of evaluating these diverse purposes and perspectives, with a special focus on social learning through participatory methods for the wise renegotiation of agriculture’s conditions.
This course is also the Spring semester component of the two-course core sequence of the Agroecology Graduate Program. The Fall semester course, Agroecology 701: The Farm as Socio-Environmental Endeavor, takes the “inside-out” perspective of the farm contending with the challenges and opportunities of its diverse social and environmental contexts. This Spring course follows on from that by taking the “outside-in” perspective of the diverse demands placed by different stakeholders on the agricultural landscape.
For the spring of 2007, the course meets Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1 to 2:15pm, in Mechanical Engineering 2106.
The Students
This course is open to all interested graduate students, and is required for all students in the Agroecology Graduate Program. Although it is part of a two-course sequence, it can be taken independently.
The Instructors
Michael Bell (lead instructor), Department of Rural Sociology - michaelbell@wisc.edu
David Bart, Department of Landscape Architecture - dbart@wisc.edu
Bill Bland, Department of Soil Science - wlbland@wisc.edu
Dick Cates, Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems - rlcates@mhtc.net
Gerry Campbell, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics - grcampbe@wisc.edu
Ken Genskow, Department of Urban and Regional Planning - kgenskow@wisc.edu
Jess Gilbert, Department of Rural Sociology - gilbert@ssc.wisc.edu
Gary Green, Department of Rural Sociology - gpgreen@wisc.edu
Laurie Greenberg, Cultural Landscapes LLC - lszgreen@tds.net
Margaret Krome, Michael Fields Agricultural Institute - mkrome@inxpress.net
Ken Shapiro, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics - kshapiro@cals.wisc.edu
Alberto Vargas, Latin American, Carribean, and Iberian Studies - avargasp@wisc.edu