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AbstractContrary to a scholarly debate that anticipated a trend towards the marginalisation of agriculture in many rural areas of Europe, farmers have continued to utilise agro‐economically marginal land, especially in a variety of areas in Europe's northwest. We explore why and how farmers secure the development of their farms while cultivating crops on the margins, based on qualitative empirical research in Brandenburg, Germany. By bringing together farmers' motivations and convictions with their agricultural and agronomical practices, the study identifies three farming strategies for managing farms on marginal land, focused on independence, balancing multiple aims, or optimising land productivity. We develop a concept of farming strategy as an expression of personal motivations and convictions in a coherent, targeted, long‐term plan for farming. We discuss the implications of such an understanding for system‐oriented, micro‐sociological research and for the perpetuation of agriculture in marginalised rural areas.

Current research concerning conservation agriculture in Africa has indicated that numerous socio-economic, biological, and cultural factors may hinder its adoption and scalability. However, a severe knowledge gap about these conditions that serve as obstacles or catalysts for adoption exists in the developing world context. This paper describes the Qualitative Expert Assessment Tool for CA Adoption, a means by which to understand and predict CA adoption in Africa according to scale: field, farm and village, and region. This tool has been tested in Tunisia, Madagascar, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Burkina Faso and is currently ready for use in all of Africa.

Dairy productivity in sub-Saharan Africa remains below its potential, while there is an increasing demand for milk from its growing population. This study focuses on the adoption potential of improved, more nutritive and productive forages by smallholder farmers in the Tanga region of Tanzania. By applying a qualitative mixed-method approach, including farm visits, interviews and a multi-stakeholder workshop guided by the Qualitative Assessment Tool for Forage Technologies (QATo-FT), we systematically identify and analyse the roles of the (i) institutional and political, (ii) socio-economic and (iii) cultural factors influencing the adoption and diffusion of improved forage technologies. The findings reveal the unsuitable cool climate and unfavourable socioeconomic conditions, including low labour opportunity costs in the dry season as critical reasons for the low current adoption rate. However, a positive community attitude, the recognised ecological benefits and the supporting role of promoting institutions are the main influencing factors of a high adoption potential. Yet, the political and institutional framework at the regional level, as well as the market conditions, negatively influence the adoption potential. We suggest an integrated approach for rural development that goes beyond the improvement of yields, but provides more efficient use of land and labour in the region. View Full-Text

In a continent facing a fast increasing population, smallholder farming in Africa is exposed to double challenge: 1) to increase food production and, 2) to preserve natural resources. While conventional tillage-based agriculture has been held accountable for soil degradation, Conservation Agriculture (CA) based on minimal or no-tillage is increasingly seen as a promising alternative for highly productive and sustainable farming. Despite its potential, CA adoption rates in Africa, compared with other continents, have remained extremely low. While literature on adoption contraints is abundant, comprehensive, holistic frameworks and tools for explaining or predicting adoption are still lacking. In particular, such frameworks and tools could help in assessing systematically under which ecological, socio-economic and institutional conditions CA is best suited for smallholder farming in Africa and for its scaling up. The objective of this contribution therefore is to demonstrate how a newly developed Qualitative expert-based Assessment Tool (QAToCA) was applied in case studies across Malawi, Burkina Faso, and Zimbabwe; 1) to determine the Relative Adoption Potential (RAP) of CA, 2) to assess the institutional, agro-ecological, socio-economic and cultural influences on the RAP of CA, and 3) to determine the site-specific hindering and supporting factors to the RAP of CA for the different case studies. Results show that for the two south African case studies, Malawi has a high RAP for CA while Zimbabwe has a much lower potential. On the other hand the two case studies in south western and northern Burkina Faso both showed a relatively high adoption potential of CA. Major differences in adoption potential are explained by economic market incentives, prevailing institutional arrangements as well as some biophysical incentives.

Dairy productivity in sub-Saharan Africa remains below its potential, while there is an increasing demand for milk from its growing population. This study focuses on the adoption potential of improved, more nutritive and productive forages by smallholder farmers in the Tanga region of Tanzania. By applying a qualitative mixed-method approach, including farm visits, interviews and a multi-stakeholder workshop guided by the Qualitative Assessment Tool for Forage Technologies (QATo-FT), we systematically identify and analyse the roles of the (i) institutional and political, (ii) socio-economic and (iii) cultural factors influencing the adoption and diffusion of improved forage technologies. The findings reveal the unsuitable cool climate and unfavourable socioeconomic conditions, including low labour opportunity costs in the dry season as critical reasons for the low current adoption rate. However, a positive community attitude, the recognised ecological benefits and the supporting role of promoting institutions are the main influencing factors of a high adoption potential. Yet, the political and institutional framework at the regional level, as well as the market conditions, negatively influence the adoption potential. We suggest an integrated approach for rural development that goes beyond the improvement of yields, but provides more efficient use of land and labour in the region.

International audience ; AbstractSustainable development of agriculture is at the core of agricultural policy debates in Europe. There is a consensus that diversification of cropping would support sustainable development. However, a reduction in legume cultivation has been observed in the EU during the last decades. This decline has induced, in turn, a deficit of proteins and a reduction of ecosystem services provided by legumes. Therefore, we analysed the mechanisms that shape agricultural systems to identify leverage points for reviving European legume production. Specifically, we reviewed the factors that affect the market and non-market value of legumes and the relevant agricultural policies. We characterized the decline in legume cropping as an outcome of the dominance of economic forces that favour specialization of production systems over diversification. We found that the value of market outputs of legumes per unit area is relatively low and volatile, with a 25–78 % variation in pea gross margins, which reduces market competitiveness. We observed that the value of system-internal outputs of legumes such as the nitrogen fixed, of 130 to 153 kg N ha−1; crop protection services that reduce agrochemical costs, by 20–25 % in cereals; and yield enhancements of subsequent crops, of 0.2 to 1.6 t ha−1 in cereals, are often underestimated. In addition, markets fail to translate external effects of legumes such as biodiversity enhancement, reduction in emissions, of up to 50 % in N2O, and soil improvements into economic benefits. Current policies support legumes through selected mechanisms such as ecological focus areas, agri-environmental programmes and sparse coupled support measures. Domestic cultivation of legumes could be supported through trade policies such as import restrictions on genetically modified soybean or new mechanisms to appreciate non-market outputs including payments for ecosystem services and carbon markets. In addition, development of new value chains, niche markets, scaling-up of plant ...

International audience ; Bio-economic farm models are tools to evaluate ex-post or to assess ex-ante the impact of policy and technology change on agriculture, economics and environment. Recently, various BEFMs have been developed, often for one purpose or location, but hardly any of these models are re-used later for other purposes or locations. The Farm System Simulator (FSSIM) provides a generic framework enabling the application of BEFMs under various situations and for different purposes (generating supply response functions and detailed regional or farm type assessments). FSSIM is set up as a component-based framework with components representing farmer objectives, risk, calibration, policies, current activities, alternative activities and different types of activities (e.g., annual and perennial cropping and livestock). The generic nature of FSSIM is evaluated using five criteria by examining its applications. FSSIM has been applied for different climate zones and soil types (criterion 1) and to a range of different farm types (criterion 2) with different specializations, intensities and sizes. In most applications FSSIM has been used to assess the effects of policy changes and in two applications to assess the impact of technological innovations (criterion 3). In the various applications, different data sources, level of detail (e.g., criterion 4) and model configurations have been used. FSSIM has been linked to an economic and several biophysical models (criterion 5). The model is available for applications to other conditions and research issues, and it is open to be further tested and to be extended with new components, indicators or linkages to other models. ; Les modèles bioéconomiques de ferme sont des outils pour évaluer ex-post ou anticiper ex-ante l'impact des changements des politiques et des technologies sur l'agriculture, l'économie et l'environnement. Récemment, différents BEFMs ont été développés, souvent dans un seul but ou localisation, mais aucun de ces modèles n'a été réutilisé plus tard à d'autres fins ou lieux. Le Farm System Simulator (FSSIM) fournit un cadre générique permettant l'application de BEFMs dans différentes situations et à diverses fins (estimation des fonctions d'offre, évaluations détaillées régionale ou par type de ferme…). FSSIM est conçu comme un cadre de modélisation intégré avec des composants qui représentent les objectifs des agriculteurs, le risque, le calibrage, les politiques publiques, les activités courantes, les activités alternatives, les différentes activités de production (par exemple, les cultures annuelles et pluriannuelles et l'élevage). Le caractère générique du modèle FSSIM est évalué selon cinq critères en examinant ses applications. FSSIM a été appliqué à diverses zones pédoclimatiques (critère 1) et à plusieurs types d'exploitations (critère 2) avec différentes spécialisations, intensités et tailles. Dans la plupart des applications FSSIM a été utilisé pour évaluer les effets des changements des politiques et dans deux applications pour évaluer l'impact des innovations technologiques (critère 3). Dans les différentes applications, plusieurs sources de données, niveau de détail (par exemple, le critère 4) et configurations du modèle ont été utilisés. FSSIM a été couplé à un modèle économique et à plusieurs modèles biophysiques (critère 5). Le modèle est disponible pour des applications à d'autres conditions et enjeux de la recherche, et il est ouvert à de nouveaux essais et à être étendue avec de nouveaux composants, indicateurs ou liens vers d'autres modèles.