Commercialisation of smallholder agriculture in Cambodia: impact of the cassava boom on rural livelihoods and agrarian change

Kem, Sothorn

doi:10.14264/uql.2017.924

Cited by 9 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 94 publications

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“…Proximate (or direct) causes of land-use change constitute human activities or immediate actions that originate from intended land use and directly affect land cover, while underlying (or indirect, or root) driving forces are fundamental forces that underpin the more proximate causes of land-cover change (Lambin et al, 2003). Based on the literature review relevant to the agricultural expansion in the Northwest of Cambodia (Diepart & Dupuis, 2014;Diepart & Sem, 2015, 2018Montgomery et al, 2017;Touch, Martin, Scott, Cowie, & Liu, 2016, 2017, we identified three main categories of proximate causes: agricultural expansion and intensification, infrastructure development, and resources exploitation, and five main categories of underlying factors: political and institutional factors, economic factors, demographic factors, technological factors, and environmental factors (Fig. 1).…”

Section: Framing the Lucc Analysis: A Multi-scale Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A second body of knowledge examined the economics of boom crop production and the commercialization of smallholder agriculture. This literature argues that despite a quick increase in farm income and household assets in the early stages of the boom (Kem, 2017), agricultural expansion quickly made the farmers highly dependent on market fluctuations and generated negative impacts, including soil degradation and reductions in yield and crop profitability (Belfield, Martin, & Scott, 2013;Kong et al, 2016;Montgomery, Martin, Guppy, Wright, & Tighe, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Understanding the drivers of deforestation and agricultural transformations in the Northwestern uplands of Cambodia

et al. 2019

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At the end of the 1990s, the Northwestern uplands of Cambodia were one of the last forest frontiers of the country. In a region that was the last Khmer Rouge stronghold, the opening of former conflict zones after a peace agreement initiated a vast movement of agricultural colonization. This movement was economically triggered by high market demand for agricultural commodities such as maize and cassava and fueled by a massive flow of spontaneous in-migration of land-poor farmers from lowland regions around the entire country. Focused on four upland districts along a pioneer front of Northwestern Cambodia, we analyzed historical trajectories of land use/ cover changes using a chronological series of Landsat data from 1976 to 2016. We identified key drivers of deforestation using demographic data and qualitative information from local actors and other relevant stakeholders. We found a 65 percent forest cover loss due to conversion by smallholders into agricultural land for maize and cassava cultivation over a period of 15 years. The underlying mechanisms of land use change were further investigated to understand the diversity of individual farm trajectories and decision-making processes in relation to land conversion. These elements of diagnosis are essential to engage farming communities in innovative land use systems and to develop sustainable alternatives to boom crops that have led to the current situation of land degradation and economic instability.

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Section: Framing the Lucc Analysis: A Multi-scale Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the drivers of deforestation and agricultural transformations in the Northwestern uplands of Cambodia

et al. 2019

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“…Some of the most frequently reported impacts include narrowing of livelihood options, vulnerability to indebtedness, increased labor demand, declining supplies of staple food crops, a reduction in customary practices and sociocultural wellbeing and marginalization of certain groups [95]. Meanwhile, the increase in overall household income may offset the decline in food crop production, the loss of diverse economic activities poses a potential risk to livelihood security and leave the farmers vulnerable to fluctuating yields and prices [15,96].…”

Section: Socio-economic Impacts Of Annual and Perennial Cropsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many smallholders relying on loans had to sell land because of limited capacity to cope with farm and household shocks. Hence the transition to intensive production of cassava resulted in growing inequality and contrasting livelihood trajectories [95].…”

Section: Socio-economic Impacts Of Annual and Perennial Cropsmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Awaits Myanmar’s Uplands Farmers? Lessons Learned from Mainland Southeast Asia

Jepsen

Palm

Bruun

2019

Land

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Mainland Southeast Asia (MSA) has seen sweeping upland land use changes in the past decades, with transition from primarily subsistence shifting cultivation to annual commodity cropping. This transition holds implications for local upland communities and ecosystems. Due to its particular political regime, Myanmar is at the tail of this development. However, with Myanmar’s official strategy of agricultural commercialization and intensification, recent liberalization of the national economy, and influx of multinational agricultural companies, the effects on upland land transitions could come fast. We analyze the current state of upland land use in Myanmar in a socio-economic and political context, identify the dynamics in three indicator commodity crops (maize, cassava, and rubber), and discuss the state driven economic, tenurial and policy reforms that have occurred in upland areas of mainland Southeast Asian countries in past decades. We draw on these insights to contextualize our study and hypothesize about possible transition pathways for Myanmar. The transition to annual commodity cropping is generally driven by a range of socio-economic and technical factors. We find that land use dynamics for the three indicator crops are associated with market demand and thus the opening of national Southeast-Asian economies, research and development of locally suitable high yielding varieties (HYVs), and subsidies for the promotion of seeds and inputs. In contrast, promotion of HYVs in marginal areas and without adequate agricultural extension services may results in agricultural contraction and yield dis-intensification. The environmental impacts of the transition depend on the transition pathway, e.g., through large-scale plantation projects or smallholder initiatives. The agricultural development in upland MSA follows a clear diffusion pattern with transition occurring first in Thailand, spreading to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. While these countries point to prospects for Myanmar, we hypothesize that changes will come slow due to Myanmar’s sparse rural infrastructure, with uncertainty about tenure, in particular in areas still troubled by armed conflicts, and unwillingness of international investors to approach Myanmar given the recent setbacks to the democratization process.

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“…This approach is based on the assumption that low agricultural productivity can primarily be solved through adoption of technical and market-based solutions (Scrinis and Lyons, 2010). Current agricultural policies across developing countries such as Ghana, position the processes of modernisation and commercialisation as crucial to stimulate the structural transformation of economies (IFPRI, 2009;Kem, 2017;Moseley, 2017;Sun, 2011). However, this view ignores the socio-cultural transformations such policy shifts engender, including erosion of indigenous knowledge, commercialisation of social and production relations, and marginalisation of poor farmers that is so often associated with the modernisation of agriculture (Bernstein, 1990;Francine, 1972;GRAIN, 2018;Shiva, 1993).…”

Section: List Of Figuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agrarian transformation in Ghana’s Brong Ahafo region: Drivers and outcomes

Boafo¹

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Food and agricultural systems in the global South have undergone recent and significant transformation. Such changes are driven by an array of actors, and alongside social, political and economic forces, including a renewed investment by global development actors following the global agri-food crisis in the mid-2000s. The global agri-food crisis, in particular, is associated with speculations in food and agriculture, alongside the introduction of new modernisation policies and programmesincluding the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. Such interventions are often couched as a response to the challenge of feeding the world's growing population, estimated to reach nine billion by 2050. In Africa, an agricultural transformation is also closely tied to initiatives to modernise agriculture, including expanding export-led agricultural development. Turning to Ghana in particular, market-based and export-led agricultural development policies and narratives have expanded since at least the mid-2000s, incorporating new actors, and extending their local level impacts. During this period, dominant agricultural development narratives framed Ghana's agrarian problems as largely technical and supply-side problems, which could be solved by increasing productivity as well as diversifying into production of export crops, thereby addressing poverty, food insecurity and global market access issues. In particular, the promotion of cashew nut production as export diversification has integrated farmers in the Brong Ahafo Region into the global commodity market. These market-based approaches are shaping agricultural practiceswith outcomes that are transforming agriculture in Ghana, particularly the Brong Ahafo Region. With this as context, this thesis adopts a critical political ecology approach to analyse contemporary processes and outcomes of agricultural transformation in Ghana's Brong Ahafo Region. Political ecology was adopted to render transparent the complex political, economic and sociocultural processes across different global and local scales shaping agricultural transformation in the region, often referred to as the 'breadbasket' of Ghana. The research adopts qualitative methods, including interviews, focus group discussions, observation and policy document analysis, to gather in-depth data on farming systems in the Brong Ahafo Region.

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Commercialisation of smallholder agriculture in Cambodia: impact of the cassava boom on rural livelihoods and agrarian change

Cited by 9 publications

References 94 publications

Understanding the drivers of deforestation and agricultural transformations in the Northwestern uplands of Cambodia

Understanding the drivers of deforestation and agricultural transformations in the Northwestern uplands of Cambodia

What Awaits Myanmar’s Uplands Farmers? Lessons Learned from Mainland Southeast Asia

Agrarian transformation in Ghana’s Brong Ahafo region: Drivers and outcomes

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