Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T12:29:15.880Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Technoscience, anaerobic digester technology and the dairy industry: Factors influencing North Country New York dairy farmer views on alternative energy technology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 March 2010

Rick Welsh ,
Stefan Grimberg ,
Gilbert W. Gillespie  and
Megan Swindal
Rick Welsh*
Affiliation:
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Clarkson University, Box 5750, Potsdam, NY13699, USA.
Stefan Grimberg
Affiliation:
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY13699, USA.
Gilbert W. Gillespie
Affiliation:
133 Warren Hall, Department of Development Sociology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
Megan Swindal
Affiliation:
Department of Development Sociology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
*
*Corresponding author: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Structural change in the US dairy industry toward fewer and very large farms has fueled interest and government funding of research into the feasibility of constructing anaerobic digesters (ADs) on large operations as a waste management strategy. Some groups opposed to increasing scale and concentration in the livestock sectors, including dairy, also oppose ADs because of the connection with larger scale operations and the potential for facilitating increased concentration in agricultural production. But the connection between AD technology and large scale is a social construction promoted by its incorporation into the debates over agricultural industrialization. The technology per se is essentially scale neutral and its scale-implications are artifacts of design choices, as is seen by its successful application to both very small farms around the world and large-scale agricultural enterprises in the USA. Using a survey of dairy farmers in New York, we find that interest in AD technology occurs at all farm sizes; and that factors other than farm size are important in determining interest in the technology. We conclude that the technoscientific question raised by these findings is: will applications to, and interest by, smaller dairy farmer operators result in shifts in policy and funding priorities toward more diverse agricultural research agendas regarding AD technology?

Keywords

anaerobic digesterdairyfarm scaletechnoscience
Type
Research Papers
Information
Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems , Volume 25 , Special Issue 2: “Sustainable Agriculture Systems in a Resource Limited Future” , June 2010 , pp. 170 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1Dillman, D. 2007. Mail and Internet Surveys: The Tailored Design Method. John Wiley and Sons, New York.Google Scholar
2Sismonde, S. 2004. An Introduction to Science and Technology Studies. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK.Google Scholar
3Latour, B. and Woolgar, S. 1986. Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.Google Scholar
4Perrow, C. 1984. Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies. Basic Books, New York, NY.Google Scholar
5Hinrichs, C.C. and Welsh, R. 2003. The effects of the industrialization of U.S. livestock agriculture on promoting sustainable production practices. Agriculture and Human Values 20:125–141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency). 2007. Anaerobic Digesters Continue Growth in U.S. Livestock Market, November. Available at Web site http://www.epa.gov/agstar/pdf/2007_digester_update.pdf (verified 20 December 2007).Google Scholar
7Kramer, J. 2006. Practical information about anaerobic digesters. A Presentation to the Ohio Public Utilities Commission. Energy Center of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
8Resource Strategies Inc. 2006. Anaerobic Digester Implementation Issues: Phase 1-A Survey of U.S. Farmers (Farm Bill Section 9006). Final Project Report Submitted to the California Energy Commission's Public Interest Energy Research Program.Google Scholar
9Xu, R. 2007. Mathematical modeling of plug-flow anaerobic dairy manure digester in Northern New York. Thesis for Masters of Sciences in Civil Environmental Engineering, Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY.Google Scholar
10GRACE, Global Resource Action Center for the Environment. 2003. Factory Farm Project's Position Statement on Methane Digesters. Available at Web site http://www.energyjustice.net/digesters/ (verified 20 December 2007).Google Scholar
11Sierra Club. 2004. Sierra Club Guidance: Methane Digesters and Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) Waste. Available at Web site http://motherlode.sierraclub.org/MethaneDigestersSIERRACLUBGUIDANCE.htm (verified 20 December 2007).Google Scholar
12Wisconsin Chapter of the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers. 2004. Small Scale Bio-gas Resources. Available at Web site http://www.wcasfmra.org/biogas.htm (verified 20 December 2007).Google Scholar
13Wright, P. and Graf, K. 2003. Anaerobic digester at AA Dairy: Case study. Manure Management Program, Case Study AD-1, Cornell University. Available at Website http://www.manuremanagement.cornell.edu/Docs/AA%20Case%20Study%20draft%20(6-11-04).htmGoogle Scholar
14Gooch, C.A. and Pronto, J.L. 2009. Capitalizating on energy opportunities on New York dairy farms. In Dairy Power New York Summit: Creating a Greener, Cleaner Future, Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, Syracuse, NY, 29–30 October 2009.Google Scholar
15Brouwer, A.F., Grimberg, S.J., Powers, S.E., and Thacher, E.F. 2009. Assessing the economic viability of anaerobic digesters on dairy farm in NYS through the use of mathematical models. Presented at the Environmental Monitoring, Evaluation and Protection (EMEP) Conference, Albany, NY, 14–15 October 2009.Google Scholar
16New York State Net Metering Law. 2009. A.B. 2442, Available at Web site http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=A02442&sh=t (verified January 2010).Google Scholar
17New York State Renewable Portefolio Standards. 2010. Available at Web site http://documents.dps.state.ny.us/public/Common/ViewDoc.aspx?DocRefId={30CFE590-E7E1–473B-A648-450A39E80F48} (verified January 2010).Google Scholar
18Eder, B. and Schulz, H. 2007. Biogas-Praxis: Grundlagen, Planung, Anlagenbau, Beispiele, Wirtschaftlichkeit. Ökobuch Verlag, Staufen, Germany.Google Scholar
19Scott, N. and Ma, J. 2004. A Guideline for co-digestion of food wastes in farm-based anaerobic digesters. Fact Sheet FW-2, Cornell Manure Mangement Program, December. Available at Web site http://www.manuremanagement.cornell.edu/Docs/Food%20Waste%20fact%20sheet%202.htm (verified March 2008).Google Scholar
20Winner, Langdon. 1980. Do artifacts have politics? Daedalus 109:121–136.Google Scholar
21Rogers, E.M. and Burdge, R.J. 1972. Social Change in Rural Societies. Meredith Publishing, New York.Google Scholar
22Rogers, E.M. 2003. Diffusion of Innovations. 5th ed.Free Press, New York.Google Scholar
23Feldman, S. and Welsh, R. 1995. Feminist knowledge claims, local knowledge, and gender divisions of agricultural labor: Constructing a successor science. Rural Sociology 60:23–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
24Bell, M. 2004. Farming for Us All: Practical Agriculture and the Cultivation of Sustainability. The Pennsylvania State University Press, Pennsylvannia, PA.Google Scholar
25Hassanein, N. 1999. Changing the Way America Farms: Knowledge and Community in the Sustainable Agriculture Movement. University of Nebraska Press, Nebraska, NE.Google Scholar
26Kloppenburg, J. 1991. Social theory and the de/reconstruction of agricultural science: local knowledge for an alternative agriculture. Rural Sociology 56:519–548.Google Scholar
27Thorlindsson, T. 1994. Skipper science: a note on the epistemology of practice and the nature of expertise. The Sociological Quarterly 35:329–345.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
28Harper, D. 2001. Changing Works: Visions of a Lost Agriculture. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.Google Scholar
29Kellogg, R.L., Lander, C.H., Moffitt, D.C., and Gollehon, N. 2000. Manure Nutrients Relative to the Capacity of Cropland and Pastureland to Assimilate Nutrients: Spatial and Temporal Trends, for the US. Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Economic Research Service/US Department of Agriculture.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
30Kline, R.B. 1998. Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling. Guilford Press, New York.Google Scholar
31Bentler, P.M. and Bonnet, D.G. 1980. Significance tests and goodness of fit in the analysis of covariance structure. Psychological Bulletin 88:588–606.Google Scholar
32Wojcik, J. 1989. The Arguments of Agriculture: A Casebook of Contemporary Agricultural Controversy. Purdue University Press, West Lafayette, IN.Google Scholar
33Perry, J. 1998. Small farms in the U.S. Agricultural Outlook, May 1998: 22–26. Economic Research Service/US Department of Agriculture.Google Scholar