As calls for bolstering environmental services on croplands have grown more insistent during the past two decades, the search for ways to foster sustainable, reduced input agriculture has become more urgent. In this context authors re-examine by means of a meta-analysis the argument, first proposed by Robert McC. Netting, that small scale, mixed crop – livestock farming, a common livelihood among poor rural peoples, encourages environmentally sustainable agricultural practices.
In developing regions with high levels of poverty and a dependence on climate sensitive agriculture, studies focusing on climate change adaptation, planning, and policy processes, have gained relative importance over the years. This study assesses the impact of farmer perceptions regarding climate change on the use of sustainable agricultural practices as an adaptation strategy in the Chinyanja Triangle, Southern Africa.
Small-scale farmers in the Brazilian Amazon collectively hold tenure over more than 12 million ha of permanent forest reserves, as required by the Forest Code. The trade-off between forest conservation and other land uses entails opportunity costs for them and for the country, which have not been sufficiently studied. We assessed the potential income generated by multiple use forest management for farmers and compared it to the income potentially derived from six other agricultural land uses.
Coffee production is the main economic activity for smallholder farmers in Rwanda; it is also a major export crop. However, Rwandan coffee production has been facing structural changes with a significant decline in production. Considering the importance of the coffee sector to rural livelihoods and its potential role in export earnings, there is a need to ensure that small-scale coffee farmers efficiently use scarce resources in their production activities.
Agricultural mechanization in developing countries has taken at least two contested innovation pathways—the “incumbent trajectory” that promotes industrial agriculture, and an “alternative pathway” that supports small-scale mechanization for sustainable development of hillside farming systems.
The Fiji Islands, like many small Pacific island nations, are thought to incur high rates of postharvest loss. Little work has been undertaken to quantify the amount of loss within Pacific horticultural value chains, or identify the key determinants. This study sought to quantify postharvest loss within Fijian smallholder tomato value chains and to examine the relative importance of current on-farm practices as possible contributors to this loss.
The Global Value Chain (GVC) approach has emerged as a novel methodological device for analysing economic globalization and international trade. The suitability of the chain metaphor and strategies for moving up the ladder of GVCs (“upgrade”) is widely echoed in international development agencies and public agencies in the Global South. Most of the existing GVC studies focus on new forms of firm-to-firm relationships and the role of lead firms and chain governance in defining upgrading opportunities.
This paper uniquely focuses on rapidly-developing domestic value chains in Africa’s emerging bioeconomy. It uses a comparative case study approach of a public and private cassava outgrower scheme in Ghana to investigate which contract farming arrangements are sustainable for both farmers and agribusiness firms. A complementary combination of qualitative and quantitative methods is employed to assess the sustainability of these institutional arrangements.
The worldwide importance of crop production is undisputed due to its function for basic nutrition of billions of people. Yet, the emergence of global forces implies severe consequences for the organization of crop value chains. These forces particularly include processes of liberalization and deregulation, the dominance of large retail groups as well as ever-changing consumer demands, leading to continuous reconfigurations of crop value chains.
Within agricultural innovation systems (AIS), various stakeholder groups inevitably interpret ‘innovation’ from their own vantage point of privilege and power. In rural developing areas where small-scale and subsistence farming systems support livelihoods, dominant policy actors often focus heavily on participatory modernization and commercialization initiatives to enhance productivity, access, and quality. However, existing social hierarchies may undermine the potential of such initiatives to promote inclusive and sustainable farmer-driven innovation.