Farmers’ Willingness to Adopt Conservation Agriculture: New Evidence from Lebanon

Chalak, Ali; Irani, Alexandra; Chaaban, Jad; Bashour, Issam; Seyfert, Karin; Smoot, Kaitlyn; Abebe, Gumataw Kifle

doi:10.1007/s00267-017-0904-6

Cited by 30 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Only 18 cooperative members of the almost 700 in total were less than 30 years of age whereas almost 60% of all members were over 40. Similar concerns of an aging farming population and decreasing participation of youth in the agro-food sector were also recently voiced by others as Chalak (et al 2017) and ILO (2018). Comparable figures to those of ILO (2018) are also recorded by this study showing only 27% of members aged between 30 and 40.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 53%

An Introduction to Food Cooperatives in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon: Territorial Actors and Potential Levers to Local Development Through Culinary Heritage

2020

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Economic development approaches are increasingly entailing local geographic scales and encouraging the mobilization and organization of territorial actors given local conditions and resources. Lebanon is a country facing frequent uncertainty with recent economic and social difficulties. Its popular cuisine may play a key role in its development and that of its rural space. In fact, that cuisine incorporates a traditional cultural practice called “Mouneh” which consists of preserved pantry foods, historically used to ensure household nutrition. Today, rural food cooperatives are engaging in that practice using agricultural produce from local farmers and are employing women. Despite strong internal and external challenges, they remain attractive actors as their principles of collective benefit, participation and democracy form a strong link with sustainable development goals. This study transversally analyzes the status of food cooperatives in a major agricultural region in Lebanon, the Bekaa valley. Findings mainly quantified size and production and provided a mapped representation of the spatial dependencies on local farmers versus urban markets for trade. With 75% women members and firm reputation in authenticity, food cooperatives in the Bekaa specifically and Lebanon generally are also extensively supported by donors but are being labeled as donor-dependent. Yet, cooperatives are localized in a largely agricultural territory with sufficient evidence of differentiation that could potentially be valorized. Hence, with optimal framing, regulation and networking of cooperatives, one can assume a protection of culinary heritage is possible with scalable contribution to food security and needed local development given major recent setbacks.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 53%

An Introduction to Food Cooperatives in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon: Territorial Actors and Potential Levers to Local Development Through Culinary Heritage

2020

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“…In general, although the worldwide adoption of NT is increasing, Chalak et al . () showed that the willingness of wheat farming households to adopt conservation agriculture (including NT) in arid and semiarid regions of Middle East is still limited and restricted by several factors. They listed the key determinants of conservation agriculture adoption as farming experience, information sources, frequency of irrigation, severity of weed infestation in the past, participation in specific training, and farmer perception about the long‐term impact of the conservation agriculture.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying soil displacement and tillage erosion rate by different tillage systems in dryland northwestern Iran

Kouselou

Hashemi

Eskandari

et al. 2018

Soil Use and Management

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Redistribution of soil particles by the force applied by tillage is a major factor in soil degradation of agricultural land. Decreasing tillage intensity can reduce the amount of soil displaced and the distance moved and hence may reduce rates of erosion. To understand the relative importance of erosion, we tabulated machine, soil and landform properties likely to be involved. We compared soil displacement and tillage erosion rates under different systems, including mouldboard ploughing (conventional tillage), chisel ploughing (reduced tillage), stubble cultivator (minimum tillage) and no-tillage under dryland agriculture in northwestern Iran. The area was undulating and so all tillage took place along contours. Metallic tracers were buried in the soil at known locations and depths and their recovery after tillage provided a measure of soil displacement and tillage erosion. Conventional tillage along a contour line caused significantly greater soil displacement (≃57 cm) in the direction of tillage than reduced and minimum tillage systems (~20 and~15 cm, respectively). Conventional tillage also caused more lateral soil displacement (downwards in the main direction of slope, the tillage erosion rate) than reduced or minimum tillage systems (48 cm or 152 kg/m vs. 5 and 4 cm or 16 and 7 kg/m, respectively). Although a range of factors contribute to the tillage systems used by farmers, our results suggest that under dryland conditions, similar to those found in our study area, adoption of noninversion, reduced tillage along the contour, for example by chisel ploughing can substantially limit tillage erosion relative to conventional tillage.

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“…Second, Bekaa Valley has been a focus of research by many local and regional institutions such as the Lebanese Agricultural Research Institute (LARI), the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), and the American University of Beirut (AUB). For example, AUB has been testing the ecological and yield impacts of conservation agriculture in the Bekaa valley (Chalak et al, 2017 ). Such interventions should have raised awareness of the importance of environmentally sustainable agriculture practices.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring climate change adaptation practices and household food security in the Middle Eastern context: a case of small family farms in Central Bekaa, Lebanon

et al. 2021

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Agriculture is the most natural resource-intensive and climate-sensitive sector. This study examines the perceptions and attitudes of small family farmers toward climate change and identifies adaptation strategies supporting household food security in the Middle Eastern context, Lebanon. The study uses cross-sectional, primary data of households that own small family farms in the Central Bekaa region. The results show that the majority of the households believe that climate change is occurring, has adverse impacts on livelihoods, and is attributable to human factors. They perceived an increase in temperature and a decrease in rainfall patterns over the last 20 years. In response, the households used multiple agricultural practices to adapt to climate change. Based on the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) scores, only 7.5% of the households were food secure, while 89% were mild to moderately food insecure. Generally, the households had modest access to nutritious diets. All the households used two or more environmentally sustainable agricultural practices. However, the use of multiple environmentally sustainable practices did not correlate with improved food security. This latter result may be due to the limited knowledge of the farmers about trade-offs between various climate change adaptation measures. The findings suggest the need to refocus research from the question of whether small family farmers are willing to adopt (or not) climate change adaptation practices to identifying those practices that are capable of balancing economic, social, and environmental goals in a specific context.

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Farmers’ Willingness to Adopt Conservation Agriculture: New Evidence from Lebanon

Cited by 30 publications

References 49 publications

An Introduction to Food Cooperatives in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon: Territorial Actors and Potential Levers to Local Development Through Culinary Heritage

An Introduction to Food Cooperatives in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon: Territorial Actors and Potential Levers to Local Development Through Culinary Heritage

Quantifying soil displacement and tillage erosion rate by different tillage systems in dryland northwestern Iran

Exploring climate change adaptation practices and household food security in the Middle Eastern context: a case of small family farms in Central Bekaa, Lebanon

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