Graduation Year
2024
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
American Studies
Second Department
Environmental Analysis
Reader 1
Lily Geismer
Reader 2
Susan Phillips
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2024 Michaela C Jones
Abstract
The agriculture sector is responsible for feeding the planet but faces many growing threats as climate change worsens. Conventional agriculture practices, which are widespread, are both contributing to climate change and likely to become less feasible in future years. Regenerative agriculture provides a possible path forward but is not widely studied at public and land grant universities where much agricultural research takes place, in part because of significant corporate influence at these schools. Corporate influence can take many forms, and can include research funding by individual companies or industry groups, philanthropic giving in the form of buildings, research centers, and programs, and corporate representation in university or department administrations. This thesis examines corporate influence at Iowa State University and the University of California Davis—both public land-grant universities in major agriculture producing states—by analyzing research paper funding and corporate and individual donations to both schools, and by comparing these findings with the ways these schools present themselves. Ultimately, this paper concludes that corporate influence at these schools and others like them is starving regenerative agriculture research, thereby preventing this research from being done at scale and perpetuating the conventional agriculture paradigm.
Recommended Citation
Jones, Michaela, "Corporate Influence at Public Universities: Upholding the Conventional Agricultural Paradigm" (2024). Pitzer Senior Theses. 195.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/pitzer_theses/195
