New actors and scales of agriculture:A land system science perspective
In: Debonne , N 2021 , ' New actors and scales of agriculture : A land system science perspective ' , PhD , Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam , Amsterdam .
The study of land systems aims to disentangle and understand the range of interactions between humans and the land they use. It takes, among others, environmental, biophysical, economic, political, technological, and social perspectives to comprehend how coupled human-environmental systems work, who decides over them, and how they could or should be transformed. Land systems take a central position in human livelihoods and environmental issues, and are a crucial parameter in many Sustainable Development Goals. This thesis starts from the premise that land systems are increasingly changing in ways that are poorly understood from a conventional land system science perspective. Conventional land system science rests on assumptions of mostly gradual processes, driven by a somewhat narrow range of actors, such as family farmers or local land administrations. However, large-scale land acquisitions, arguably the most dramatic land system changes of the 21st century, are definitively non-gradual, operate at scales that are orders of magnitude larger than typical smallholder dynamics, and are instigated by an international group of actors with a very different set of priorities than traditional actors. Pejoratively known as land grabs, large-scale land acquisitions globally cover an area over double the size of Germany, yet as a process, they have not been introduced in land system change models. This lacuna is significant, not only because large-scale land acquisitions cover large areas, but also because they profoundly change the relation that humans have with land as a resource. For example, the conversion of swidden landscapes to rubber monocultures in Southeast Asia causes a significant loss of agro-environmental diversity, but also a complete overhaul of livelihoods, culture, tradition, diets, and more. Furthermore, the constellation of decision-making concerning land is changed, and therefore, the possibilities for sustainable transitions are different. Upon closer inspection, large-scale land acquisitions are merely the most visible manifestation of a more general trend of new actors, changing land systems at new scales. In Sub-Saharan Africa, a trend is being signaled of an emergence of medium-scale farms replacing smallholders, and, as a consequence, commercial agriculture replacing semi-subsistence agriculture. With limited empirical data, it is unclear whether this is an organically appearing structural transformation or an elite capture of land with similar characteristics as large-scale land acquisitions, nor is it clear what the potential consequences are for livelihoods or the environment. Even when farm scales are not perceivably shifting, decision-making concerning land is: value chain actors usurp some of the agency concerning land management from smallholders or state actors, for example by using contract farming. Land system science wishes to understand why land systems have the characteristics they have and change the way they change. To do so, new actors and new scales of changes can no longer be disregarded as mere aberrations. This leads to the overall objective of this thesis, which is to develop concepts and methods to integrate new actors and scales of agriculture into land system science. In pursuing this objective, four research questions are posed. RQ1: What are the land system characteristics related to new agricultural actors? RQ2: How can new agricultural actors, and associated scales of land system change, be integrated in land system models? RQ3: What are the objectives of new actors in agriculture and how do these objectives align or misalign with environmental or rural development objectives? RQ4: How do new actors and arrangements in agriculture provide opportunities for environmental management and rural development? I address these questions in six chapters. A summary of these chapters is given in the thesis.