Your search found 9 records
1 Papaioannou, K. J.; de Haas, M. 2017. Weather shocks and agricultural commercialization in colonial tropical Africa: did cash crops alleviate social distress? World Development, 94:346-365. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.01.019]
Weather hazards ; Climate change ; Rain ; Drought ; Agriculture ; Commercialization ; Crop production ; Cash crops ; Harvesting ; Exports ; Food shortages ; Economic aspects ; Social aspects ; Colonialism ; Models / Africa
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H048149)
(0.91 MB)
A rapidly growing body of research examines the ways in which climatic variability influences economic and societal outcomes. This study investigates how weather shocks triggered social distress in British colonial Africa. Further, it intervenes in a long-standing and unsettled debate concerning the effects of agricultural commercialization on the abilities of rural communities to cope with exogenous shocks. We collect qualitative evidence from annual administrative records to explore the mechanisms linking weather extremes to harvest failures and social distress. We also conduct econometric testing on a novel panel dataset of 143 administrative districts across west, south-central, and east Africa in the Interwar Era (1920–39). Our findings are twofold. First, we find robust evidence that rainfall anomalies (both drought and excessive precipitation) are associated with spikes in imprisonment (our proxy for social distress). We argue that the key causal pathway is the loss of agricultural income, which results in higher imprisonment for theft, unrest, debt, and tax default. Second, we find that the impact of weather shocks on distress is partially mitigated by the cultivation of export crops. Our findings suggest that, even in the British colonial context, smallholder export crop cultivation led to higher private incomes as well as greater public investment. Our findings speak to a topic of considerable urgency today as the process of global climate change accelerates, generating more severe and unpredictable climatic extremes. An increased understanding and identification of adaptive and mitigating factors would assist in targeting policy interventions and designing adaptive institutions to support vulnerable rural societies.
2 Ferrer, A. J.; Yen, B. T.; Kura, Y.; Minh, N. D.; Pavelic, Paul; Amjath-Babu, T. S.; Sebastian, L. 2018. Analyzing farm household strategies for food security and climate resilience: the case of climate-smart villages of Southeast Asia. Wageningen, Netherlands: CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). 31p. (CCAFS Working Paper 248)
Food security ; Climate change ; Resilience ; Farmers ; Household income ; Strategies ; Living standards ; Indicators ; Climate-smart agriculture ; Villages ; Agricultural production ; Intensification ; Extensification ; Diversification ; Commercialization ; Land use ; Irrigation canals ; Gender ; Migration ; Assets ; Case studies / South East Asia / Lao People's Democratic Republic / Cambodia / Vietnam / Ekxang / Rohal Suong / Tra Hat
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049238)
(1.15 MB) (1.15 MB)
This paper develops a conceptual framework with an indicator-based approach to assess Climate-Smart Villages (CSVs) and applies it to case study sites in Lao PDR (Ekxang CSV), Cambodia (Rohal Suong CSV), and Vietnam (Tra Hat CSV) in Southeast Asia. The intensification, extensification, diversification, commercialization, alteration of practices, use of common lands, migration strategies that can augment climate resilience, farm income, assets, and food security are assessed based on a composite index of the strategies and key outcome variables. The study demonstrates a method that can be applied widely for assessing climate-smart agriculture strategies and finding possible entry points for climate-smart interventions. The influence of gender in resource control and livelihood strategies is also discussed. It is also evident that the climate-smart interventions can augment different livelihood strategies of farmers and enhance the developmental and climate resilience outcomes. There is a need to prioritize the possible interventions in each case and implement them with the help of donor agencies, local institutions, and government offices.
3 Mariwah, S.; Evans, R.; Antwi, K. B. 2019. Gendered and generational tensions in increased land commercialisation: rural livelihood diversification, changing land use, and food security in Ghana's Brong-Ahafo region. Geo: Geography and Environment, 6(1):1-17. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/geo2.73]
Food security ; Gender ; Living standards ; Land use ; Commercialization ; Diversification ; Crop production ; Cashews ; Smallholders ; Farmers ; Households ; Income generation ; Rural communities ; Poverty ; Sustainability ; Rural youth ; Strategies / Ghana / Brong-Ahafo Region
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049251)
https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/geo2.73
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H049251.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H049251.pdf
(0.59 MB) (608 KB)
Many smallholder farmers in Jaman North District, Brong-Ahafo Region, Ghana are shifting from food crop production to increased cultivation of cashew, an export cash crop. This paper examines gendered and generational tensions in increased commercialisation of land, livelihood diversification, and household food security in the context of globalisation and environmental change. Using qualitative, participatory research with 60 middle-generation men and women, young people and key stakeholders, the research found that community members valued the additional income stream. Young people and women, however, were apprehensive about the long-term consequences for food security of allocating so much land to cashew plantations. Young, middle, and older generations were concerned about their weak bargaining position in negotiating fair prices with export companies and intermediaries. Greater integration into the global economy exposed rural actors to multiple risks and inequalities, such as the uneven effects of economic globalisation, rises in food prices, hunger and food insecurity, growing competition for land, youth outmigration and climate change. The shift towards cashew cultivation appears to be exacerbating gender and generational inequalities in access to land and food insecurity and leading to exploitation within the global agri-food supply chain among already vulnerable rural communities in the global South. With stronger farmer associations and cooperatives, however, cashew farmers stand the chance of benefitting from greater integration into the global economy, through strengthened bargaining positions. Greater understanding is needed about the complex interactions between sustainable food systems, changing land use and gender and generational inequalities in rural spaces.
4 Leakey, R. R. B.; Tientcheu Avana, M.-L.; Awazi, N. P.; Assogbadjo, A. E.; Mabhaudhi, Tafadzwanashe; Hendre, P. S.; Degrande, A.; Hlahla, S.; Manda, L. 2022. The future of food: domestication and commercialization of indigenous food crops in Africa over the third decade (2012–2021). Sustainability, 14(4):2355. (Special issue: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Mainstreaming Underutilized Crops) [doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/su14042355]
Food crops ; Indigenous organisms ; Domestication ; Commercialization ; Agroforestry ; Tree crops ; Genetic improvement ; Medicinal properties ; Ethnobotany ; Nutritional value ; Nonwood forest products ; Vegetative propagation ; Trade ; Marketing ; Cultivation ; Natural resources management ; Food security ; Livelihoods ; Policies ; Poverty alleviation ; Rural development ; Drylands ; Lowland ; Highlands / North Africa / West Africa / East Africa / Southern Africa / Central Africa / Sahel
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050971)
(1.62 MB) (1.62 MB)
This paper follows the transition from ethnobotany to a deeper scientific understanding of the food and medicinal properties of African agroforestry tree products as inputs into the start of domestication activities. It progresses on to the integration of these indigenous trees as new crops within diversified farming systems for multiple social, economic and environmental benefits. From its advent in the 1990s, the domestication of indigenous food and non-food tree species has become a global programme with a strong African focus. This review of progress in the third decade is restricted to progress in Africa, where multi-disciplinary research on over 59 species has been reported in 759 research papers in 318 science publications by scientists from over 833 research teams in 70 countries around the world (532 in Africa). The review spans 23 research topics presenting the recent research literature for tree species of high priority across the continent, as well as that in each of the four main ecological regions: the humid zone of West and Central Africa; the Sahel and North Africa; the East African highlands and drylands; and the woody savannas of Southern Africa. The main areas of growth have been the nutritional/medicinal value of non-timber forest products; the evaluation of the state of natural resources and their importance to local people; and the characterization of useful traits. However, the testing of putative cultivars; the implementation of participatory principles; the protection of traditional knowledge and intellectual property rights; and the selection of elite trees and ideotypes remain under-researched. To the probable detriment of the upscaling and impact in tropical agriculture, there has been, at the international level, a move away from decentralized, community-based tree domestication towards a laboratory-based, centralized approach. However, the rapid uptake of research by university departments and national agricultural research centres in Africa indicates a recognition of the importance of the indigenous crops for both the livelihoods of rural communities and the revitalization and enhanced outputs from agriculture in Africa, especially in West Africa. Thus, on a continental scale, there has been an uptake of research with policy relevance for the integration of indigenous trees in agroecosystems and their importance for the attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. To progress this in the fourth decade, there will need to be a dedicated Centre in Africa to test and develop cultivars of indigenous crops. Finally, this review underpins a holistic approach to mitigating climate change, as well as other big global issues such as hunger, poverty and loss of wildlife habitat by reaping the benefits, or ‘profits’, from investment in the five forms of Capital, described as ‘land maxing’. However, policy and decision makers are not yet recognizing the potential for holistic and transformational adoption of these new indigenous food crop opportunities for African agriculture. Is ‘political will’ the missing sixth capital for sustainable development?
5 International Water Management Institute (IWMI). 2022. Evidence-based strategies to accelerate innovation scaling in agricultural value chains. Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Management Institute (IWMI). 8p.
Agricultural value chains ; Innovation ; Scaling up ; Strategies ; Capacity development ; Agricultural research for development ; Private sector ; Smallholders ; Business models ; Commercialization ; Farmer-led irrigation ; Innovation scaling / Africa / Ethiopia / Ghana / Mali / Zambia
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H051386)
(4.91 MB)
6 Moreda, T. 2022. Beyond land rights registration: understanding the mundane elements of land conflict in Ethiopia. Journal of Peasant Studies, 30p. (Online first) [doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2022.2120813]
Land rights ; Land registration ; Land conflicts ; Commercialization ; Land administration ; Land governance ; Land tenure ; Land dispute ; Common lands ; Land use ; Land resources ; Households ; Political ecology ; Case studies / Ethiopia / Amhara / Gondar / Tach Gayint / Fogera
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H051418)
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03066150.2022.2120813
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H051418.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H051418.pdf
(2.50 MB) (2.50 MB)
While land registration may increase the sense of security amongst landholders and provide a mechanism for resolving boundary disputes, its interaction with social, political-economic and ecological dynamics can actually generate conflicts by creating new opportunities by which some actors can assert claims or expand their landholdings, often at the expense of others. Conflicts over land cannot be understood without understanding the local dynamics with which they are intertwined. Drawing from case studies in the Amhara region of Ethiopia, this paper shows that, despite land registration and certification, there are widespread conflicts within and between households and state authorities regarding the usufruct of individual and communal lands. The paper argues that conflicts over land are complex and political and are linked to and embedded in the processes of commercialization, as well as in local social processes and power relations. These, in turn, influence and are shaped by the political economy of local governance and land administration processes, particularly in relation to the implementation of land registration. The paper highlights that land conflicts are attributed to a range of issues, including not only the challenges of governance in land registration but also population growth, commercialization, urbanization, inheritance and gender inequality, all of which intersect with corrupt land administration systems .
7 Suhardiman, Diana; Phayouphorn, A.-M.; Gueguen, A.; Rigg, J. 2023. Silent transitions: commercialization and changing customary land tenure systems in upland Laos. Land Use Policy, 126:106541. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2023.106541]
Land tenure systems ; Customary tenure ; Commercialization ; Land access ; Land rights ; Tea industry ; Shifting cultivation ; Land use ; Equity ; Farmers ; Agrarian reform ; Institutions ; Households ; Strategies ; Villages ; Case studies / Lao People's Democratic Republic / Phongsaly / Khwaykham
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H051670)
(0.61 MB)
What happens to local institutional arrangements regarding access and use of communal land under the forces of agricultural commercialization? Taking Khwaykham village in Phongsaly province, Laos as a case study, this paper sheds light on this question as farm households in the settlement have progressively transitioned to commercial farming, specifically tea cultivation. Traditionally, farm households’ access and rights to use the land were embedded in their swidden agriculture practices. The adoption of tea has increasingly fixed land use rights, making land sticky at the household rather than communal level. How, why and with what effects this occurs are the focus of the paper. We argue that while this transition to tea cultivation has benefited – in income terms – most farm households in the village, it has also created an agrarian context for increased inequity between those households who rapidly took the opportunity from the tea boom and others who have missed out on it.
8 Sarkar, A. 2023. Women, technology, and water: creating new waterscapes and contesting cultural norms. Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development, 13(1):30-38. [doi: https://doi.org/10.2166/washdev.2022.306]
Women ; Men ; Technology ; Tankers ; Water scarcity ; Water supply ; Villages ; Drinking water ; Households ; Commercialization ; Domestic water / India / Rajasthan / Barmer / Jaisalmer / Jodhpur
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H051617)
https://iwaponline.com/washdev/article-pdf/13/1/30/1164339/washdev0130030.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H051617.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H051617.pdf
(0.29 MB) (300 KB)
With the analysis of primary data, the paper looks at how the adoption of new modes of water technologies and subsequent water commercialization has created new waterscapes. Water commercialization is changing cultural norms associated with water collection in the drought-prone villages of western Rajasthan. The newly introduced water tankers have selectively benefited the upper caste rich households who now buy water from the tankers at doorsteps. The majority of the poor and low caste households remain dependent on common water sources that are drying up due to neglect with the advent of water commercialization. Women from low caste poor households have to walk for long distances to fetch water in addition to doing physical labor to support family income. Though domestic water use remains a domain of woman's working space, men from high caste rich households have started fetching and storing water as it entails cash transactions.
9 Rajkhowa, P. 2024. From subsistence to market-oriented farming: the role of groundwater irrigation in smallholder agriculture in eastern India. Food Security, 17p. (Online first) [doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-024-01437-0]
Groundwater irrigation ; Smallholders ; Markets ; Farming systems ; Commercialization ; Diversification ; Irrigation systems ; Surface irrigation ; Household surveys ; Inorganic carbon ; Land degradation ; Crop production / India / Odisha
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H052732)
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12571-024-01437-0.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H052732.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H052732.pdf
(2.68 MB) (2.68 MB)
Empowering smallholder farmers in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) and improving their livelihood is a critical goal for poverty reduction. To achieve this, agricultural commercialization can play an important role. However, a prerequisite to achieving agricultural commercialization is access and control of stable irrigation. This study revisits empirically the relationship between groundwater irrigation and crop commercialization. It also analyses the underlying mechanisms of how groundwater affects crop commercialization through on-farm production diversity. Studying the effects of groundwater irrigation on crop commercialization is essential for comprehending the trade-off between agricultural benefits and the environmental costs of groundwater irrigation. Geospatial and remote sensing information, combined with primary household data from small-scale farmers in eastern India, are employed in conjunction with an instrumental variable technique and a 3SLS simultaneous equation model for the analysis. The results suggest that small-scale farmers in eastern India experience enhanced crop commercialization when they have access to groundwater irrigation. Furthermore, the study suggests that the utilization of groundwater irrigation indirectly promotes crop commercialization by incentivizing farmers to diversify their production system.
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