Sociology of Environment and Agriculture
Ultimately, urban populations and rural residents depend upon the land to produce food and to sustain life. Agricultural practices transform natural landscapes to produce food and fiber in ways that can have serious environmental consequences.
At the same time, urban uses of the rural landscape for recreation, development and preservation can have major effects on rural communities and farming populations. Changes in the ways food and agricultural commodities are produced and marketed also have major consequences for producers and consumers alike. As farming practices have improved with technology, the effects on natural resources (water, air and soils) and biological populations (plants, insects and animals) have been of considerable concern to farmers, rural communities, policy makers and the urban population. Producing food and fiber in the cheapest fashion possible no longer is a sustainable objective. Other considerations affect production decisions.
Rural sociology's specialization in that area addresses those important issues in ways that contribute to the development of policy and theoretical knowledge. The department is recognized throughout the world for its contributions in that area. It has been concerned with farm families and natural-resource conservation since its inception and helped pioneer work that created an understanding of the ways farmers adopted new technology.
Current research ranges from studies of the effects of globalized food systems to the adoption of environmentally sound farming techniques and to collaborative programs on watershed management and arid-lands management. The effects of globalization on production, marketing and distribution systems also have received considerable attention in the department. Those interests are reflected in research projects within the United States and work done in places as diverse as the Czech Republic, Thailand, Russia, Bolivia and Kenya.