IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/lauspo/v103y2021ics0264837721000491.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Citizen science for sustainable agriculture – A systematic literature review

Author

Listed:
  • Ebitu, Larmbert
  • Avery, Helen
  • Mourad, Khaldoon A.
  • Enyetu, Joshua

Abstract

Farmers as volunteers in research could potentially provide a rich resource for exploring sustainable agricultural research questions. To discern emerging patterns in citizen science-based studies on topics with relevance for sustainable agriculture and reveal salient challenges and opportunities for conducting such studies, we conducted a literature review of 27 articles from the period 2004–2019 of 250 publications screened from Google Scholar. These articles were thematically grouped under the topics: Soil health, climate adaptation, pest/pathogen monitoring, invasive species, inputs and outputs and pollination. Participants’ characteristics, motivations, study design and project outcomes in the reviewed articles were summarized and discussed. Both observational and experimental studies were represented in the articles, while emerging trends point towards field experimentation and ‘Large-N′ trials by lay farmers. Crowdsourcing lends itself to projects where the main role of the public is local visual observations and reporting, such as in pest/pathogen monitoring. Challenges included methodological issues such as validation procedures, but above all motivation, recruitment, and retention of volunteers. Despite the importance of participatory approaches for deeper citizen involvement for sustainability transitions and for the quality of knowledge outcomes, the role of citizens was overall restricted to data collection. Several of the methodologies proposed would be difficult to implement in low-income countries, and relatively few studies pertained to agricultural concerns of the global South. To lend value to farmers' time, we recommend projects relevant to livelihoods, health issues or local farming problems, accompanied by well-structured data feedback protocols, routing study results back to farmers.

Suggested Citation

  • Ebitu, Larmbert & Avery, Helen & Mourad, Khaldoon A. & Enyetu, Joshua, 2021. "Citizen science for sustainable agriculture – A systematic literature review," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:103:y:2021:i:c:s0264837721000491
    DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105326
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837721000491
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105326?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lokman I. Meho & Kiduk Yang, 2007. "Impact of data sources on citation counts and rankings of LIS faculty: Web of science versus scopus and google scholar," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 58(13), pages 2105-2125, November.
    2. V. Ernesto Méndez & Martha Caswell & Stephen R. Gliessman & Roseann Cohen, 2017. "Integrating Agroecology and Participatory Action Research (PAR): Lessons from Central America," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-19, April.
    3. Hansen, J. W., 1996. "Is agricultural sustainability a useful concept?," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 117-143.
    4. Wallerstein, N. & Duran, B., 2010. "Community-based participatory research contributions to intervention research: The intersection of science and practice to improve health equity," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 100(S1), pages 40-46.
    5. Bert Van Wee & David Banister, 2016. "How to Write a Literature Review Paper?," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(2), pages 278-288, March.
    6. Jacob van Etten, 2011. "Crowdsourcing Crop Improvement in Sub‐Saharan Africa: A Proposal for a Scalable and Inclusive Approach to Food Security," IDS Bulletin, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(4), pages 102-110, July.
    7. Cornwall, Andrea & Jewkes, Rachel, 1995. "What is participatory research?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 41(12), pages 1667-1676, December.
    8. Eric Hand, 2010. "Citizen science: People power," Nature, Nature, vol. 466(7307), pages 685-687, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kok, Kristiaan P.W. & Klerkx, Laurens, 2023. "Addressing the politics of mission-oriented agricultural innovation systems," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    2. José Luis Vicente-Vicente & Cristina Quintas-Soriano & María D. López-Rodríguez, 2022. "A Transformative (r)Evolution of the Research on Agriculture through Fostering Human-Nature Connectedness—A Special Issue Editorial," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-7, April.
    3. Atsushi Watabe & Alice Marie Yamabe-Ledoux, 2023. "Low-Carbon Lifestyles beyond Decarbonisation: Toward a More Creative Use of the Carbon Footprinting Method," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-28, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Laura Jessee Livingston, 2023. "Partnerships in pandemics: tracing power relations in community engaged scholarship in food systems during COVID-19," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 40(1), pages 217-229, March.
    2. Vaughn, Lisa M. & Jones, Jennifer R. & Booth, Emily & Burke, Jessica G., 2017. "Concept mapping methodology and community-engaged research: A perfect pairing," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 229-237.
    3. Nancy L. Winterbauer & Betty Bekemeier & Lisa VanRaemdonck & Anna G. Hoover, 2016. "Applying Community-Based Participatory Research Partnership Principles to Public Health Practice-Based Research Networks," SAGE Open, , vol. 6(4), pages 21582440166, November.
    4. Lakshmi Balachandran Nair & Michael Gibbert, 2016. "What makes a ‘good’ title and (how) does it matter for citations? A review and general model of article title attributes in management science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 107(3), pages 1331-1359, June.
    5. Lotte Prevo & Stef Kremers & Maria Jansen, 2020. "Small Successes Make Big Wins: A Retrospective Case Study towards Community Engagement of Low-SES Families," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(2), pages 1-13, January.
    6. Ricardo Serra Borsatto & Vanilde Ferreira Souza-Esquerdo & Henrique Carmona Duval & Fernando Silveira Franco & Fabio Grigoletto, 2022. "Winning hearts and minds through a policy promoting the agroecological paradigm in universities," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 39(1), pages 5-18, March.
    7. Caroline Patsias & Anne Latendresse & Laurence Bherer, 2013. "Participatory Democracy, Decentralization and Local Governance: the Montreal Participatory Budget in the light of ‘Empowered Participatory Governance’," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(6), pages 2214-2230, November.
    8. van Calker, Klaas Jan & Antink, Rudi H.J. Hooch & Beldman, Alfons C.G. & Mauser, Anniek, 2005. "Caring Dairy: A Sustainable Dairy Farming Initiative in Europe," 15th Congress, Campinas SP, Brazil, August 14-19, 2005 24234, International Farm Management Association.
    9. F. Füsun Tatlıdil & İsmet Boz & Hasan Tatlidil, 2009. "Farmers’ perception of sustainable agriculture and its determinants: a case study in Kahramanmaras province of Turkey," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 11(6), pages 1091-1106, December.
    10. Held, Suzanne & Hallett, John & Schure, Mark & Knows His Gun McCormick, Alma & Allen, Sarah & Milne-Price, Shauna & Trottier, Coleen & Bull Shows, Brianna & Other Medicine, Lucille & Inouye, Jillian, 2019. "Improving chronic illness self-management with the Apsáalooke Nation: Development of the Báa nnilah program," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 242(C).
    11. Takanori Ida & Naomi Fukuzawa, 2013. "Effects of large-scale research funding programs: a Japanese case study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(3), pages 1253-1273, March.
    12. Lauren Arundell & Kate Parker & Jo Salmon & Jenny Veitch & Anna Timperio, 2019. "Informing Behaviour Change: What Sedentary Behaviours Do Families Perform at Home and How Can They Be Targeted?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(22), pages 1-12, November.
    13. Masaru Kuno & Mary Prorok & Shubin Zhang & Huy Huynh & Thurston Miller, 2022. "Deciphering the US News and World Report Ranking of US Chemistry Graduate Programs," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(5), pages 2131-2150, May.
    14. Hrabrin Ianouchev BACHEV, 2016. "A Holistic Approach for Assessing the System of Governance of Agrarian Sustainability," Journal of Economic and Social Thought, KSP Journals, vol. 3(3), pages 434-457, September.
    15. Mayer, Yael & Ilan, Rotem & Slone, Michelle & Lurie, Ido, 2020. "Relations between traumatic life events and mental health of Eritrean asylum-seeking mothers and their children's mental health," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    16. Melinda Jászberényi & Márk Miskolczi, 2020. "Danube Cruise Tourism as a Niche Product—An Overview of the Current Supply and Potential," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-22, June.
    17. Mike Kesby, 2007. "Spatialising Participatory Approaches: The Contribution of Geography to a Mature Debate," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 39(12), pages 2813-2831, December.
    18. Giovanni Brambilla & Francesca Pedrielli, 2020. "Smartphone-Based Participatory Soundscape Mapping for a More Sustainable Acoustic Environment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(19), pages 1-20, September.
    19. Agnieszka Wojewódzka-Wiewiórska & Anna Kłoczko-Gajewska & Piotr Sulewski, 2019. "Between the Social and Economic Dimensions of Sustainability in Rural Areas—In Search of Farmers’ Quality of Life," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-26, December.
    20. Anna Gaviglio & Mattia Bertocchi & Maria Elena Marescotti & Eugenio Demartini & Alberto Pirani, 2016. "The social pillar of sustainability: a quantitative approach at the farm level," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-19, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:103:y:2021:i:c:s0264837721000491. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joice Jiang (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/land-use-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.