Suchergebnisse

Few studies assess the relationship between food and water access, despite global concerns about people's inability to maintain access to both food and water. We conducted a mixed-methods comparative case study in northern Nicaragua, with smallholders from two neighboring communities that differed in water availability and institutional strength, using a feminist political ecology framework and food and water security definitions that focus on access, availability, use, and stability. We adopted a participatory approach that included: a sex-disaggregated survey in 2016; interviews, participant observation, and community-based water quality testing from 2014 to 2019; and analysis of a severe drought that occurred from 2014 to 2017. Our results suggest that uneven power relations, biophysical conditions, gender, and institutions shape food and water access, and indicate that households across both communities average 2 months of drinking water insecurity during the dry season followed by an average of 2.5 months of food insecurity early in the growing season. The average duration of lean food months was similar across communities and sex, but water insecurity lasted longer in the community that had weaker local institutions and less surface water availability. Ethnographic research helped to document uneven and gendered experiences of water access and to illustrate how they were also shaped by conflicts over water for irrigation vs. domestic uses and cross-scalar limitations in water and land governance. Although we found that gender and institutions were not strong predictors of several food and water insecurity indicators on their own, both factors influenced the terms of access, conflict, and cooperative governance needed to secure resources and well-being. Our study highlights the need for theory, methods, and field research that integrate the analysis of food and water security, and it contributes to developing a feminist political ecology approach that unifies this analysis with a focus on gender.

Climate variability and change affect both food and water security, as do other hazards, such as shifting food prices, plant pathogens, and political economic changes. Although household food and water insecurity affect billions, most studies analyze them separately. This article develops a relational approach to explaining household access to food and water in a multi-hazard context. We identify pathways linking hazards to livelihood vulnerability and assess the relative importance of climate-related hazards. Analyzing longitudinal data collected from two surveys of the same 311 smallholder households in northern Nicaragua, conducted in 2014 and again in 2017, we find that peak seasons of food and water stress are asynchronous across the agricultural calendar, resulting in a total of five to six months of food and/or water stress. Across households, we find a significant positive relationship between water and food insecurity, even after adjusting for household fixed effects. Households experienced less food and water insecurity in 2017 than in 2014, due in part to the end of a severe drought in 2016, but remained concerned about damage from a severe coffee leaf rust outbreak and unfavorable agrifood prices that reduce income and threaten food security. Higher incomes and larger farm areas correlated with improved food and water security. We propose a generalizable approach for the joint assessment of household food and water security, which foregrounds the influence of seasonality and climate variability in the context of multiple hazards. This approach and our findings can contribute to developing integrated risk reduction strategies, building resilient livelihoods, and informing policy changes and partnerships with organized smallholders to improve resource access and sovereignty.