Suchergebnisse

This book presents contemporary case studies of land use, management practices, and innovation in Africa with a view to exploring how multifunctional land uses can alleviate food insecurity and poverty. Food security and livelihoods in Africa face multiple challenges in the form of feeding a growing population on declining land areas under the impacts of climate change. The overall question is what kind of farming systems can provide resilient livelihoods? This volume presents a selection of existing farming systems that demonstrate how more efficient use of land and natural resources, labour and other inputs can have positive effects on household food security and livelihoods. It examines how aquaculture, integrated water management, peri-urban farming systems, climate-smart agriculture practices and parkland agroforestry contribute multiple benefits. Drawing on case studies from Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Burkina Faso, contributed by young African scientists, this book provides a unique perspective on multifunctional land use in Africa and illustrates how non-conventional uses can be profitable while promoting social and environmental sustainability. Tapping into the global discussion on land scarcity and linking food security to existing land use change processes, this volume will stimulate readers looking for diversified land uses that are compatible with both household and national food security ambitions. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of African development, agriculture, food security, land use and environmental management, as well as sustainable development more generally, in addition to policymakers and practitioners working in these areas.

Drawing on the narratives of women and men who have domestic or international migration experiences, this study explores the gendered impacts of migration on small-scale farming in rural Ha Tinh province in Vietnam. The paper investigates men's and women's migration experiences, their influence on agricultural production, and impact on their livelihoods after migration. The findings show that households use various strategies to sustain agricultural production in the absence of some members. Women's increased economic independence through labor migration has not necessarily lead to their increased management roles in agriculture, but they are increasingly challenging stereotypical images of rural women. While migration can be a catalyst for men to transform their livelihoods, it can also widen gaps in social and economic statuses among men. (Crit Asian Stud/GIGA)

The impact of climate change on agriculture depends on the environmental and socio-economic contexts in which the changes occur. However, current tools to anticipate climate change impacts focus almost entirely on biological and environmental processes. For example, most large-scale crop models can identify where yields are sensitive to new temperatures and CO2 concentrations but do not include any socio-economic factors that may enable (or inhibit) farmers' abilities to adapt. To address this gap, this paper uses national scale socio-economic, meteorological and agricultural data to identify socio-economic factors that have made rice, maize and wheat production resilient and sensitive to past droughts. Results suggest that cereal harvests in countries undergoing economic and political transition are most vulnerable to droughts and that factors related to investments in the agriculture sector (such as the amount of fertilizer used by farmers or the amount of Gross Domestic Product produced by a nation's agricultural sector) help reduce vulnerability. While results are limited by data quality and availability, this study provides preliminary quantitative insights that highlight important areas for further research on the socio-economic factors that create vulnerability to climate change.

Several CS projects have been implemented recently to meet the increasing demand from farmers and other decision makers in the Global South for climate information and agro-advisories. This has led to two main concerns: (1) how CS products and services can be improved for the benefit of small-scale farmers at different scales; and (2) how to sustain (successful) CS projects beyond the end their lifetime. Addressing these two questions will require pathways for scaling CS projects. Hence, 20 CS projects across Asia, Africa and Latin America were reviewed through a mix of desk research and interviews (both virtual and face-to-face) with project practitioners to solicit their views of and experiences with CS projects, the provided services and products, and scaling. Results showed that the CS sector has clearly matured in recent decades. CS providers focus mainly on translation and transfer of climate date, and rely on observational data and climate and hydrological models, from national, international and private sources. There is great diversity of products in terms of format, content, way of communication, frequency, and target groups, which shows the potential to tailor CS products and their messages to the specific needs of end-users and diverse contexts. The design and implementation of CS depends on a myriad of actors working together along the CS value chain. For historical reasons many of the selected projects in the South were coordinated and/or funded by NGOs, but increasingly government agencies and/or private sector have become active partners as well. Despite these positive developments, one of the main challenges of scaling CS comes from the collaboration between different institutions. Whereas different organizations may agree on the common goals, they often do not on the way of working. Overall through the future for CS looks positive, but there are some additional concerns related to access to information, the reliability of data and the confidence people have in the services, the human resources and additional funding required for scaling CS, and the risk that small-scale farmers, and in particular the poor, women and ethnic minorities, are left out. Several recommendations are made to ensure the benefit of CS for small-scale farmers through scaling.