Three Materialisms: Climate Change Perception among U.S. Specialty Crop Producers

The agricultural sector offers a unique opportunity to examine the topic of climate change because agriculture is more susceptible to climate disruptions than many other industrial sectors, and research indicates that weather... [ view full abstract ]

The agricultural sector offers a unique opportunity to examine the topic of climate change because agriculture is more susceptible to climate disruptions than many other industrial sectors, and research indicates that weather disruptions linked to climate change have steadily increased over the past four decades. This leads us to question whether agricultural producers in the US experience something like water scarcity as a directly experienced objective problem because it directly affects their operations while they experience climate change as subjective values because it is a highly politicized and abstract topic that only affects them indirectly through such things as water scarcity. This study examines the validity of three types of materialism in explaining how specialty crop producers in the United States (US) evaluate and respond to climate change and water availability. Those theoretical perspectives are post-materialism, new materialism, and dialectical materialism. Based on the analysis of the survey data from specialty crop producers in California, New York, Pennsylvania, and New York, we examine whether economic actors who consume water as part of the commodity production process recognize the importance of the availability of this natural resource. We will also explore whether those actors recognize climate change as a threat to their firm’s economic viability. Finally, we explain the role of the local and international markets as socio-economic structures in the perception of climate change. Our findings refute the postmaterialist perspective’s main argument on the relationship between level of economic development and environmental awareness, and we argue that the insights from new materialist and dialectical materialist perspectives on the human and non-human interaction in socio-ecological phenomena need to be taken in tandem to explain our results.