Researching the Culture in Agriculture

This book analyzes the functions, content, methods, findings, and impacts of social and cultural research carried out by the worldwide network of 16 International Agricultural Research Centers of the CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research). Its two main parts - "insiders" and "outsiders"- bring together the perspectives of over 50 eminent scholars and social researchers from 30 countries, working within the Centers or within outside academic and development institutions. The authors examine critically the priorities, strengths, and weaknesses of research on the socio-structural, behavioural, cultural, and institutional variables of developing agriculture, forestry, livestock, and fisheries. The studies focus on farmers' values, needs and knowledge, their patterns of social organization, issues of food security, natural resource management and poverty reduction. Alternative models of multidisciplinary research, reuniting biological, natural, economic and social sciences are scrutinized in the light of experience and results, with emphasis on the nature of social science research as a source of international public goods and a key contributor to induced development. This book will be of significant interest to researchers of agricultural and rural development, economics, sociology and anthropology.