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Abstract Why do people engage in economically minor resource production activities? This field study of Vermont and Quebec maple syrup producers and their households and enterprises examines the diversion of motivations and concerns m contemporary maple syrup production. Farmers, former farmers, and non‐farmers all produce maple syrup. The concept of embeddedness provides a framework for understanding how producers understand their involvement with maple syrup, by highlighting the social and cultural context of economic action. An embeddedness perspective emphasizes how other work activities, household relations, the surrounding community, and the resource environment shape the possibilities for and understandings of minor resource production activities. Maple syrup generally only supplemented the household income of the 76 producers interviewed. Producers articulated a cultural economy of syrup production centered on its contribution to overall livelihood, cultural identity, and lifestyle. Reasons included managing risks, making seasonal use of land and labor resources, developing a retirement income, demonstrating a rural, agrarian identity, and strengthening family and community ties. Implications for policy include the place of minor resource production activities in securing rural livelihoods and providing cultural anchors in rural regions experiencing demographic and economic change.

Examines how state sector employment modifies earnings attainment in the industrial segments of transportation & utilities. Data from the 1992 Current Population Survey, analyzed using ordinary least squares regression procedures, show that industrial segment & employment class contribute independently & interactively to earnings attainment. A statistically significant interaction effect indicates that general statements about the level of socioeconomic rewards associated with either state or private sector employment should be viewed cautiously, & that industrial segment & the private vs state sector dimension need to be considered jointly for a better understanding of how multiple work structures affect earnings. Implications for reconceptualizing work & stratification processes are discussed. 4 Tables, 44 References. Adapted from the source document.

Abstract  The concept of the food desert, an area with limited access to retail food stores, has increasingly been used within social scientific and public health research to explore the dimensions of spatial inequality and community well‐being. While research has demonstrated that food deserts are frequently characterized by higher levels of poverty and food insecurity, there has been relatively little research examining the relationship between food deserts and obesity, particularly in rural areas. In this article we use Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques to identify food desert areas in rural Pennsylvania. We then analyze student body mass index (BMI) data along with census and school district‐level data to determine the extent to which the percentage of a school district's population residing within a food desert is positively associated with increased incidence of child overweight among students within the district. We find that school districts with higher percentages of populations located within food deserts are more likely to be structurally and economically disadvantaged. Net of these district‐level structural and economic characteristics, we additionally find a positive relationship between increased rates of child overweight and the percentage of the district population residing in a food desert.

Abstract  Retail farmers' markets are seen as key institutions in a more "civic agriculture," but little is known about how they promote small business entrepreneurship. Drawing on research in economic sociology and economic geography, this paper examines the role of social learning in vendor innovation. Data from a 1999 mail survey of farmers' market vendors in California, New York and Iowa show that business innovation, as represented by intensity of vendors' innovative marketing practices and vendors' successful enterprise expansion, was modest. Social learning through engagement with customers contributed to more innovative marketing by vendors, while social learning through engagement with customers and fellow vendors increased the likelihood of vendors diversifying to additional markets beyond the farmers' market. Certain individual and enterprise characteristics also influenced vendor innovation. This suggests that, although important, the beneficial effects of social learning for vendors at farmers' markets remain moderated by human capital and structural factors.

Many state‐of‐the‐art climate models do not simulate the Atlantic Water (AW) layer in the Arctic Ocean realistically enough to address the question of future Arctic Atlantification and its associated feedback. Biases concerning the AW layer are commonly related to insufficient resolution and excessive mixing in the ocean component as well as unrealistic Atlantic‐Arctic Ocean exchange. Based on sensitivity experiments with FESOM1.4, the ocean–sea‐ice component of the global climate model AWI‐CM1, we show that even if all impediments for simulating AW realistically are addressed in the ocean model, new biases in the AW layer develop after coupling to an atmosphere model. By replacing the wind forcing over the Arctic with winds from a coupled simulation we show that a common bias in the atmospheric sea level pressure (SLP) gradient and its associated wind bias lead to differences in surface stress and Ekman transport. Fresh surface water gets redistributed leading to changes in halosteric height distribution. Those changes lead to strengthening of the anticyclonic surface circulation in the Canadian Basin, so that the deep counterflow carrying warm AW gets reversed and a warm bias in the Canadian Basin develops. The SLP and anticyclonic wind bias in the Nordic Seas weaken the cyclonic circulation leading to reduced AW transport into the Arctic Ocean through Fram Strait but increased AW transport through the Barents Sea Opening. These effects together lead to a cold bias in the Eurasian Basin. An underestimation of sea ice concentration can significantly amplify the induced ocean biases. ; Plain Language Summary: Coupled global climate models are used to predict anthropogenic climate change along with its impacts. The Arctic has experienced amplified warming in the recent decades compared to global mean warming and therefore is one region of intense climate research. In this context Atlantification of the Arctic Ocean has become a high priority topic. Atlantification describes the increasing impact of oceanic heat from the Atlantic Water (AW) layer of the Arctic Ocean on the sea ice cover. In climate models, the direction and strength of simulated AW circulation around the Arctic Ocean is known to be sensitive to ocean grid resolution, parametrization, boundary and surface forcing or a combination thereof. Here we show that biases in the atmospheric component of climate models can interrupt and even reverse the simulated AW circulation at depth. Such biases can be further amplified by a negative bias in simulated sea ice cover. This study shows how these surface biases can negatively impact the deep ocean circulation. ; Key Points: Many state‐of‐the‐art climate models fail to simulate the properties of the Atlantic Water layer in the Arctic Ocean realistically. Biases in Arctic sea level pressure and surface winds in atmosphere models can reverse Atlantic Water circulation. The underestimation of sea‐ice cover amplifies this problem further. ; European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program ; Helmholtz Association http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100009318