Like farmers, managers will need to pay their dues to the state.
Conservation stakeholders need to foster good relations with their farmer-manager partners and not further depress their limited motivations to participate, as well as consider carefully whether farmer stakeholders are being adequately compensated for their efforts.
Enhancement of ecosystem services needs to be addressed at different scales and should include the interaction between farmland biodiversity and stakeholders (farmers, managers, policy makers, etc).
(According to Paul Willis, Niman Ranch's founding pork farmer and manager of its pork business, the company's farmers are audited by Global Animal Partnership, a third-party certifier, to make sure they meet strict animal-welfare standards).
Looking forward, we believe more attention should go to the farmer as manager and social actor.
In 1997, several different grazing regimes were established on the meadows as part of a large multi-disciplinary study (Land use – The farmer as manager of the landscape).
Over the last 16 years, Rodgers, like every good farmers market manager, has had to use multiple skills and perspectives -- event organizer, farmer, therapist and detective -- to foster two markets: first Santa Monica Main Street, and now, under very different circumstances, Mar Vista.
Veteran Long Beach farmers market manager Dale Whitney announced recently that he will be retiring at the end of this year, after a quarter century of service.
And though Rodgers is certainly not the only good farmers market manager in Southern California -- there are many who share the same joys and frustrations -- she is one of the leaders.
