Fall 2024 Grantees
Assessing Socio-Environmental Dynamics of Renewed Land Rush for Biofuel in Brazil
This project investigates the socio-economic and environmental effects of recent large-scale land acquisitions for biofuel production in Brazil fueled by new investments by the UAE's sovereign fund. With plans to establish extensive oil palm plantations across ~200,000 ha in Bahia and Minas Gerais, it is essential to understand how these developments impact local communities and ecosystems. Our approach combines various research methods such as geospatial mapping, household surveys, and community workshops, to derive a baseline condition and track changes over time. The results will guide policies that seek to balance economic growth with environmental conservation and social equity. By providing objective, timely research independent of investor interests, this project supports sustainable development and aligns with the Polson Institute’s mission to address global challenges through interdisciplinary studies.
Assessing the Socio-Economic and Biodiversity Impacts of Integrating Carbon Offset in Agroforestry
Agriculture contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions and carbon-offset programs such as agroforestry have emerged as a way to compensate for these emissions. Agroforestry offers farmers the opportunity to diversify their livelihoods and other co-benefits such as carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation and soil health improvement. There is a lack of empirical studies on the outcomes associated with integrating carbon-offset initiatives into agroforestry systems. An 18-month study will be conducted in Embu and Tharaka Nithi counties of Kenya assessing the socio-economic impact of integrating carbon sequestration into agroforestry systems, the environmental co-benefits and its trade-offs. The study’s mixed-methods data collection approach includes qualitative insights obtained via interviews; quantitative data from field surveys and sample collection for environmental variables such as biodiversity, soil health, and water quality. The main goal of the study is to provide new evidence and contribute to improved knowledge on the impacts of integrating carbon offsetting into agroforestry systems.
Information, Communication, and Education (IEC) for Dragon Fruit Farmers in Eastern Kenya: A Focus on Rural Women and Youth
As Kenya seeks to diversify its agricultural systems to enhance sustainability and profitability, dragon fruit or pitaya, has gained interest from farmers. Promising patterns are emerging: socio-cultural and economic empowerment for farmers, increased agricultural resilience, and access to new export markets. However, dragon fruit is a new specialty crop and limited information, communication, and education (IEC) is accessible. This pilot project will facilitate the development of an IEC campaign that systematically empowers female and youth farmers to participate in the dragon fruit supply chain. Building on a recent Capstone research project, the partners will develop educational materials and hold a training and dissemination workshop in Eastern Kenya. The outcomes will ensure growth in the Kenyan economy—impacting livelihoods.
Making the SRI Global Research Network Relevant: Mapping the institutions, Convening the Researchers, and Making Use of the Research by Multiple Audiences
This project is intended to encourage more effective use of research on the System of Rice Intensification (SRI). SRI is a methodology that reduces methane emissions, production costs, and water use, while improving food security. The SRI Global Research Network, serving researchers in 50+ countries, was developed by SRI-Rice (GDEV), researchers at Padjadjaran University, and others. The project will use SRI-Rice’s bibliographic research database of 2,500+ items to geographically map the location of institutions, scientists, and research topics being studied in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. The map will be used to create regional research hubs to convene researchers (by geographic areas and research focus) in order to facilitate sharing and interinstitutional collaborations, and to encourage better scholarship. To promote wider use of the curated research, scientific findings will be summarized into user-friendly formats and made available to diverse audiences including farmers, NGOs, government programs and other relevant groups.
Surveying Perceptions of Degrowth: Are We Asking the Right Questions?
Degrowth posits a planned equitable downscaling of excess production and consumption among high-income countries and over-consuming individuals to increase wellbeing and reduce ecological impact and inequality. Degrowth has tentatively entered more mainstream discourse, for example, in the IPCC AR6 report and a recent NYT article titled “These Are Boom Times for 'Degrowth'”. There is an identified need for empirical assessment of degrowth, including surveys of public perceptions and attitudes. However, degrowth survey literature to date is limited to its economic component rather than inequality or reimagining wellbeing. This research narrows an important gap by advancing degrowth survey design. It does this by reviewing degrowth survey literature and constructing an updated and more representative survey measurement scale (i.e. across ecological economics, reimagined wellbeing and inequality). Expert elicitation (from Cornell’s Global Development and researchers identified in the literature review) will help craft questions for an updated survey scale.
Regional Critical Ecologies Workshop: Bridging Unruly Complexities
The Regional Critical Ecologies Workshop is a collaborative event aimed at bridging natural and social sciences at Cornell University and beyond. Hosted at Cornell in April 2025, the workshop will promote interdisciplinary dialogue among graduate students and faculty, fostering research partnerships focused on environmental sustainability, economic equity, and social well-being. By engaging diverse perspectives on ecology through discussions of theoretical frameworks, methods, and data, the event will activate Global Development strengths. Building on the success of last year’s inaugural workshop, this event will include natural science perspectives and encourage future collaborations across academic disciplines.
Reparation Ecologies Working Group
This working group seeks to spark cross-disciplinary conversations about ecological reparation. By "reparation," we refer to a range of strategies for managing environmental pollution, including remediation, rehabilitation, restoration, and practices from the circular economy. Our focus on reparations also underscores the need to mend the relationships between nature and society, with a strong emphasis on equity and sustainability. Working group participants will engage in discussions drawing from diverse perspectives such as discard studies, traditional ecological knowledge, restoration ecology, bioremediation, and the circular economy. Key outcomes include: 1) seminar series to explore research and experiences related to reparation ecologies, 2) a website that compiles key activities and references from campus partners, and 3) a syllabus for future learning and reference.
Human-Environment Geospatial Research Working Group
Geospatial data and technologies offer innovative and exciting new methods to research human-environmental interactions and outcomes, and their applicability to a variety of disciplines and fields of study is considerable. However, on Cornell’s campus we lack a centralized hub for learning about geospatial research. The Human-Environment Geospatial Forum is a research working group that meets bi-weekly is working to fill this void. We focus on human-environmental research because understanding the spatial dimensions of social and ecological interactions is crucial for addressing complex challenges such as climate change, resource management, environmental justice, and development at local, regional, national, and global levels. The forum serves two purposes. First, it will provide a central hub for faculty and students to share and receive feedback regarding human-environmental research from across a range of disciplines, fields of study, and topical interests in a welcoming and collegial environment. Second, the forum serves as a collaborative space to percolate research ideas around geospatial technologies and applications in studies related to global development. The working group seeks to strengthen Global Development’s commitment to engaging with cutting-edge technologies to understand complex development challenges by engaging with like-minded scholars from across departments and disciplines at Cornell.
