Lessons from the old Green Revolution for the new: Social, environmental and nutritional issues for agricultural change in Africa

Kerr, Rachel Bezner

doi:10.1177/146499341101200308

Cited by 76 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Promoting hybrid seed may also come with increased dependency on other agricultural inputs such as chemicals, fertilizers and water [79,80]. This may create new challenges under low input agriculture systems that typify the semiand arid tropics as farmers may not be able to afford the use of external inputs.…”

Section: Seed Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expounding the Value of Grain Legumes in the Semi- and Arid Tropics

2017

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Approximately 70% of the population in the semi-and arid tropics reside in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihood. Crop production is primarily focused on a few starchy staple crops. While this can ensure adequate calories, it inadvertently neglects the need for dietary diversity. Consequently, food and nutritional insecurity remains prevalent in the semi-and arid tropics. We reviewed the legume value chain with the aim to identify opportunities and challenges to unlocking their value and promoting them in the tropics. Several grain legumes are rich in proteins and micronutrients. They also possess adaptability to marginal environmental conditions such as drought and low input systems which typify rural landscapes. Adaptability to abiotic stresses such as drought makes them key to agriculture in areas that will receive less rainfall in the future. However, this potential was currently not being realized due to a range of challenges. Aspects related to their seed systems, production, post-harvest handling and marketing remain relatively under-researched. This was especially true for minor legumes. There is a need for transdisciplinary research which will address the entire value chain, as has been done for major starchy crops. This could also unlock significant economic opportunities for marginalized groups such as women. This will unlock their value and allow them to contribute meaningfully to food and nutrition security as well as sustainable and resilient cropping systems.

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Section: Seed Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expounding the Value of Grain Legumes in the Semi- and Arid Tropics

2017

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“…The drivers, effects and quality of this transformation are the subject of a number of recent publications, including this special edition of GH, fuelling an increasingly intense debate on agriculture and sustainable rural livelihoods which has gained traction since the 2007 financial and subsequent economic crises (Babigumira et al, 2014;Collier and Dercon, 2014;Diao et al, 2010;Hazell et al, 2010;Henley, 2012;Jayne et al, 2010;Kerr, 2012;Riggs and Vandergeest, 2012). Questions on gendered effects and genderspecific realities in the rural contexts form a prominent part of these debates, driven by the assumption that women's roles in agriculture are substantial but inadequately documented and poorly understood.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New ruralities – old gender dynamics? A reflection on high-value crop agriculture in the light of the feminisation debates

Bieri

2014

Geogr. Helv.

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Abstract. While a remarkable continuity in smallholder agricultural production has been identified, the shift from subsistence orientation towards more wage dependence appears in a different light when analysed under a gender perspective. "Feminisation" has been a catchphrase to characterise some of these processes; however, the debate has been subject to overgeneralisation, and can only inadequately grasp the gender dynamics in what has been referred to as "new ruralities". Illustrated for high-value crop production as an expression of agricultural transition in the Global South, this contribution offers a critical account of the feminisation thesis. Instead of discarding the notion of feminisation, it advocates a reassessment of its potential as a comprehensive framework against which empirical findings can be reflected. While conventional uses of the feminisation thesis have, in their great majority, come up with the conclusion that for women it can always only get worse, I propose a perspective which reveals gains and risks and how they are shared between men and women as they engage in new agricultural labour markets. This perspective rests on a methodology for case-based, comparative studies developed in this paper as a contribution for assessing the nature of agricultural transition and to investigate the qualitative change associated with new ruralities. A distinctive appreciation of the substance of agricultural change for different members of the rural society -namely men and women, but also different men, and different women -is the premise for overcoming barriers to shared development, and for framing effective governance in the context of global development.

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“…Kerr (2012) notes that although the intention of globalizing the benefits of technologies, science and the industrial model was used to maintain stable power relations between the North and South, it instead resulted in increasing concentration of commercial power of large agribusinesses in the North. This is of particular relevance to agro-ecologists who note that smallholder farmers therefore became more dependent on fertilizer, pesticides and other inputs (Holt-Giménez and Altieri 2013).…”

Section: The Residual Effects Of the First Green Revolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate-smart agriculture in practice: insights from smallholder farmers, Timor-Leste and the Philippines, Southeast Asia

Chandra¹

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The climate challenges confronting agriculture are multiple, interconnected and multi-scaled.Agriculture is a source of increasing greenhouse gas emissions, but it is also vulnerable to climate change impacts. Adopting resilient approaches in the agricultural industry can help to contribute to both climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation. Climate-smart agriculture has emerged as a solution to address the multiple challenges of climate change and food security by sustainably increasing productivity, enhancing resilience and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. To date, there is limited scholarly evidence on what constitutes climate-smart agriculture, and how it is framed globally and practiced by smallholder farming communities. This research helps to bridge this gap by analysing the international discourse around climate-smart agriculture, and providing local empirical evidence derived from smallholder farming communities in the Philippines and TimorLeste.At the broad level, this research aims to identify how climate-smart agriculture within communitybased adaptation programs is contributing to the integration of mitigation and adaptation responses to climate change. Drawing from political ecology and climate change (adaptation and mitigation sciences) theories, the research explains how socio-institutional factors -inequality, unequal power relations and social injustice -influence climate-smart agriculture. The theoretical arguments are illustrated with empirical case studies of smallholder farmers and civil society organisations in the two case studies. Using mixed qualitative methods and descriptive analysis of over 150 semistructured interviews, focus group discussions and participant observation, the research examines climate-smart agriculture practices across three broad categories: vulnerability of smallholder farmers (socioeconomic factors), synergistic relationships (adaptation, mitigation and food security) and governance (socio-institutional determinants).This research argues that mitigation and adaptation interventions are climate-smart for smallholder farmers when they directly address local climate risks, support a combination of adaptation, food security and livelihood strategies, and empower at-risk and marginalised populations. Results indicate that climate-smart agriculture in the Philippines and Timor-Leste are characterised and influenced by multiple socio-institutional factors. The increasing burden of loss and damage as a result of extreme climate events subject women to migration, increased discrimination, loss of customary rights to land, resource poverty and food insecurity. In terms of farming practices implemented by smallholder farmers, most adaptation actions were found to have corresponding positive mitigation, food security and livelihood co-benefits. At the community level, climate-smart interventions are highly locationspecific, technically rigorous, involve knowledge-intensive processes, and are influenced by the finance and capacities of local farming com...

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Lessons from the old Green Revolution for the new: Social, environmental and nutritional issues for agricultural change in Africa

Cited by 76 publications

References 49 publications

Expounding the Value of Grain Legumes in the Semi- and Arid Tropics

Expounding the Value of Grain Legumes in the Semi- and Arid Tropics

New ruralities – old gender dynamics? A reflection on high-value crop agriculture in the light of the feminisation debates

Climate-smart agriculture in practice: insights from smallholder farmers, Timor-Leste and the Philippines, Southeast Asia

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