Smallholder land use in the southern Yucatan: how culture and history matter

A longitudinal survey was applied to 499 smallholder agriculturalist households in Mexico’s southern Yucatán region to determine whether different cultural expectations had led to the formation and coexistence of different types of human–environment interactions. A three center cluster analysis was used, and two agricultural adaptive strategies were found to coexist: a diversified subsistence strategy built largely by individuals who were smallholder agriculturalists in their place of origin, and one generated mostly by non-agriculturalists who migrated to the southern Yucatán to make agriculture their business during the last agrarian reform. Each strategy followed unique family trajectories and established distinct human–environment interactions. The findings suggest that those who emphasize commercial agriculture have a better standard of living. Nevertheless, their improved on-farm livelihoods—judged by material, physiological, and educational indicators—comes at the cost of higher risks to their adaptive system and adverse environmental consequences.     

Contour Farming Based on Natural Vegetative Strips: Expanding the Scope for Increased Food Crop Production on Sloping Lands in Asia

In the agriculture of the future, there is a compelling place for agroecologically-based practices alongside practices based on the best available chemical, genetic, and engineering components. This paper explores this issue in the context of the development and spread of a conservation farming system based on natural vegetative contour buffer strips in smallholder production systems in southeast Asia. Farmers adapted contour hedgerow farming practices into a simpler, buffer-strip system as a labor-saving measure to conserve soil and sustain yields on steeply sloping cropland in Claveria, Mindanao, Philippines. Permanent-ridge tillage systems were also adapted to smallholder farming systems by researchers. Natural vegetative buffer strips resulted in gradually increasing yields, with an estimated benefit of 0.5t/ha/crop. They were seen to increase land values, facilitate investment in more intensive and profitable cropping systems, and expand the land base for food crop agriculture. They induced an institutional innovation of farmer-led Landcare organizations, which have spread this and other agroforestry practices to thousands of households in the southern Philippines.     

Climatic changes and their impact on socio-economic sectors in the Bhutan Himalayas: an implementation strategy

This paper contributes to an enhanced understanding of present climatic conditions, observed climate trends and regional climate vulnerability of the Bhutan Himalayas. Bhutan’s complex, often high-altitude terrain and the severe impact of the Indian summer monsoon leads to a strong exposure of the countries’ key economic sectors (agriculture, forestry, hydropower generation and tourism) to climatic changes. Climate change also threatens Bhutan’s vast biodiversity and increases the likelihood of natural hazards (e.g. glacier lake outburst floods, flash floods, droughts and forest fires). A better understanding of Bhutan’s climate and its variability, as well as observed and possible climate impacts, will help in improving the handling of regional social, economic and ecologic challenges not limited to the Himalayas. Only a few climatological studies exist for the eastern Himalayas. They mainly focus on adaptation to immediate threats by glacier lake outbursts. In contrast, this paper (1) investigates the average spatial and inner-annual diversity of the air temperature regime of Bhutan, based on local meteorological observations, (2) discusses past temperature variability, based on global datasets, and (3) relates effects of observed warming to water availability, hydropower development, natural hazards, forests, biodiversity, agriculture, human health and tourism in the Bhutan Himalayas. Results indicate a large spatial and temporal temperature variability within Bhutan and considerably increasing temperatures especially over recent decades. Implications of regional climatic changes on various socio-economic sectors and possible adaptation efforts are discussed.     

Technical efficiency of Kenya’s smallholder food crop farmers: do environmental factors matter?

Smallholder agriculture dominates Kenya’s agricultural landscape, accounting for 75 % of total agricultural output and 70 % of the marketed agricultural produce. As a result, the Government of Kenya, with the support of development partners, has invested in production and dissemination of productivity-enhancing technologies such as high-yielding varieties and inorganic fertilizers targeting the smallholders. Adoption of these technologies has remarkably improved, especially in the maize sub-sector. However, productivity has been declining or, at best, stagnating. Productivity is attributable to not only technological improvements but also technical efficiency. Consequently, this study sought to determine the technical efficiency of the country’s smallholder food crop farmers and establish how it correlates with environmental factors. The study used a two-stage nonparametric approach on household panel data to estimate the efficiency levels of the smallholders and establish the sources of its variation across households. Controlling for endogeneity and incorporating geographic information system-derived measures of environmental factors in the analysis, the study finds that technical efficiency differentials are influenced by environmental factors, production risks and farmer characteristics. The policy implication is that the country has room to improve agricultural productivity by addressing environmental and farm-level constraints. Viable options include switching from rain-fed to irrigated agriculture, entrenching land tenure security, improving transport network among farm communities and setting up smallholder credit schemes.     

Climate change adaptation and mitigation in smallholder crop–livestock systems in sub-Saharan Africa: a call for integrated impact assessments

African mixed crop–livestock systems are vulnerable to climate change and need to adapt in order to improve productivity and sustain people’s livelihoods. These smallholder systems are characterized by high greenhouse gas emission rates, but could play a role in their mitigation. Although the impact of climate change is projected to be large, many uncertainties persist, in particular with respect to impacts on livestock and grazing components, whole-farm dynamics and heterogeneous farm populations. We summarize the current understanding on impacts and vulnerability and highlight key knowledge gaps for the separate system components and the mixed farming systems as a whole. Numerous adaptation and mitigation options exist for crop–livestock systems. We provide an overview by distinguishing risk management, diversification and sustainable intensification strategies, and by focusing on the contribution to the three pillars of climate-smart agriculture. Despite the potential solutions, smallholders face major constraints at various scales, including small farm sizes, the lack of response to the proposed measures and the multi-functionality of the livestock herd. Major institutional barriers include poor access to markets and relevant knowledge, land tenure insecurity and the common property status of most grazing resources. These limit the adoption potential and hence the potential impact on resilience and mitigation. In order to effectively inform decision-making, we therefore call for integrated, system-oriented impact assessments and a realistic consideration of the adoption constraints in smallholder systems. Building on agricultural system model development, integrated impact assessments and scenario analyses can inform the co-design and implementation of adaptation and mitigation strategies.F     

Perceptions regarding the challenges and constraints faced by smallholder farmers of vanilla in Mexico

Mexico was the main vanilla producer worldwide many years ago. However, it currently provides just around 5 % of the global production. The issues that have led to the current stagnation of the vanilla production in Mexico have been addressed from various perspectives, but few studies have included the opinion of smallholder farmers. For this reason, the aim of this study was to conduct a participatory diagnostic to identify the challenges and constraints that affect the vanilla productive sector in Mexico from the smallholder farmers perspective. This study was conducted under the of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) approach; consequently, we used PRA techniques for data collection. The qualitative data obtained were transcribed and analyzed using the Content Analysis Method (CAM) and Constant Comparative Method (CCM). The results showed that most of the challenges and limitations referred to by smallholder farmers result from the lack of training to improve production, processing, and marketing. Likewise, various restrictive aspects were identified in the production process that affect crop productivity, such as cultivation in small parcels, high incidence of diseases, premature abortion of fruits, and low tolerance of plants to stress. An aspect common to all processes is the need to promote organization and training schemes, since under the conditions described for the vanilla production chain in Mexico, relationships have been built in highly competitive communities and, in general, the targets seek have been mutually exclusive. For the above, we consider that achieving more profitable and sustainable production schemes require placing smallholder farmers at the base of an inclusive production system supported by fair trade, with organization, institutions, technology transfer, level of trust, and cooperation as core elements.     

清代1644~1911年期间珠江流域旱涝灾害时空特征分析

通过收集和整理1644~1911年珠江流域旱涝灾害历史文献资料，利用受灾县次划分旱涝等级法重建268a来的旱涝等级序列。并运用滑动平均、累积距平、EEMD、IDW等方法分析旱涝序列的时空特征。结果表明：清代1644～1911年珠江流域旱涝灾害频发，且涝灾的频次略多于旱灾，可以将1644～1911年珠江流域旱涝灾害划分为3个偏旱期和2个偏涝期，旱涝变化存在年际（准2 a、准5 a）、年代际（准10 a、准24 a和准54 a）和准世纪际（准134 a）上的3类变化周期。清代珠江流域旱涝灾害的受灾县次比在空间上存在明显的差异性，总体上洪涝灾害多于干旱灾害。珠江流域各府（州）的干旱灾害空间分布不均匀，整体上由东向西递减，洪涝灾害的频次空间分布上具有区域相连性，主要集中广东、江西两省以及云南省中部地区。     

A new method for analysing socio-ecological patterns of vulnerability

This paper presents a method for the analysis of socio-ecological patterns of vulnerability of people being at risk of losing their livelihoods as a consequence of global environmental change. This method fills a gap in methodologies for vulnerability analysis by providing generalizations of the factors that shape vulnerability in specific socio-ecological systems and showing their spatial occurrence. The proposed method consists of four steps that include both quantitative and qualitative analyses. To start, the socio-ecological system exposed to global environmental changes that will be studied needs to be determined. This could, for example, be farmers in drylands, urban populations in coastal areas and forest-dependent people in the tropics. Next, the core dimensions that shape vulnerability in the socio-ecological system of interest need to be defined. Subsequently, a set of spatially explicit indicators that reflect these core dimensions is selected. Cluster analysis is used for grouping the indicator data. The clusters found, referred to as vulnerability profiles, describe different typical groupings of conditions and processes that create vulnerability in the socio-ecological system under study, and their spatial distribution is provided. Interpretation and verification of these profiles is the last step in the analysis. We illustrate the application of this method by analysing the patterns of vulnerability of (smallholder) farmers in drylands. We identify eight distinct vulnerability profiles in drylands that together provide a global overview of different processes taking place and sub-national detail of their distribution. By overlaying the spatial distribution of these profiles with specific outcome indicators such as conflict occurrence or migration, the method can also be used to understand these phenomena better. Analysis of vulnerability profiles will in a next step be used as a basis for identifying responses to reduce vulnerability, for example, to facilitate the transfer of best practices to reduce vulnerability between different places.     

小农发展气候智慧型农业的效率与成本改进:倡导农地流转还是发展社会服务?

气候智慧型农业是联合国粮农组织所提出的积极响应气候变化、有效保障作物生产安全的新型农业发展模式。碳减排是发展气候智慧型农业的核心要义,而中国大量且长期存在的小农是发展气候智慧型农业不可背离的重要主体。基于湖北省水稻主产区气候智慧型农业发展的调研,继而利用方向性距离函数对小农发展气候智慧型农业,即低碳生产效率与碳边际减排成本进行测算,并进一步考察小农通过土地流转或农业社会化服务衔接现代农业,对低碳生产效率和碳边际减排成本的影响。结果表明:(1)基于小农发展气候智慧型农业仍处于"低效率—高成本"阶段,水稻低碳生产效率仍存在平均56%的提升空间;碳边际减排成本均值为34.13元/kgCE;(2)土地转入虽未能提升水稻低碳生产效率,但却具有碳边际减排成本优势;(3)生产雇工和农机服务对水稻低碳生产效率和碳边际减排成本均具有显著的正向影响,可见通过农业社会化服务实现低碳生产效率的提升仍面临分工与交易费用的两难之困。基于上述结论,提出促进小农发展气候智慧型农业,实现低碳生产相关政策启示。     

都市农业发展的功能定位体系研究

中国城市化进程加速迫切需要人们重新认识农业发展的特点与作用。20世纪80年兴起的都市农业变传统农业单一生产模式向多功能化发展。它有助于在城市社会来临之际,重新对农业进行定位,为城乡协调发展提供途径。鉴于我国都市农业发展急需理论指导,本文从都市农业相关的学科背景出发,详细评述和总结了各学科对都市农业价值功能的认识,提出了要从社会、经济、环境和空间的综合系统对都市农业发展进行定位。并建议应遵循整体功能的阶段性和适宜的发展形式,推动我国都市农业的发展。要注意发挥和协调各功能间的相互作用与演进,将都市农业纳入到城乡统筹规划之中。     

我国农业与农村可持续发展的制度创新

我国农业与农村可持续发展的核心问题是农民收入问题。只有切实提高农民的收入水平。才能有效地增加农民购买力，从而增加农业生产资料的投入。进而保证粮食增产。我国农业与农村可持续发展存在的两个矛盾是小农经济与市场经济社会化的矛盾以及小农经济与科技化之间的矛盾。面临的两个分离是家庭经济与集体经济的分离以及传统供销合作社与农民利益的分离。增加农民收入的规模经济论与乡镇企业论的确有成功的典范．但是。对我国更多的农村地区来讲．不具有普遍意义。我国农业和农村可持续发展的关键有两个．一是符合区域特色的区域农业专业化．二是通过专业合作社的制度创新．将分散的家庭组织起来．以解决家庭小生产与大市场之间的巨大矛盾。     

Australian agriculture: coping with dangerous climate change

Australian agriculture has operated successfully in one of the world’s most hostile environments for two centuries. However, climate change is posing serious challenges to its ongoing success. Determining what might constitute dangerous climate change for Australian agriculture is not an easy task, as most climate-related risks are associated with changes in the highly uncertain hydrological cycle rather than directly to more predictable changes in temperature. In addition, the adaptive capacity of Australian producers is generally high, as they have had to cope with a highly variable climate in which periodic, severe droughts are the norm. As the underlying global trends in climate interact with the continent’s patterns of natural variability, producers can generally deal with gradual changes in climate but are most concerned about high rates of change in regional and local climates and with abrupt, unexpected shifts in climate patterns. Perhaps the best indicator of dangerous climate change for Australian agriculture is the persistence, or not, of the drying trends in many of the Country’s most productive regions and the strength of the linkage between these trends and global climate change.     

Economic potential for conversion to organic farming: a net present value analysis in the East Mau Catchment,Nakuru, Kenya

This paper discusses the economic potential in terms of income changes that may result from conversion to low-external-input agriculture (LEIA) organic farming in a Kenya’s catchment area. A spreadsheet model applying the gross margin and net present value analysis was developed to estimate economic returns to labour and land of alternative smallholder cropping systems in the East Mau Catchment. The income and costs over a 10-year horizon associated with current cropping practices of a typical farm household cultivating 1.12 hectares of maize–bean intercrop, Irish potato, carrots, tomatoes, cabbages and kales mix were characterized based on field work conducted in 2008–2010. An “average” smallholder LEIA organic farm was simulated based on the conventional one, and its income discounted. A comparison was then made of the two farm types. Results indicate annual net present value returns to cropped land average Ksh 21,878/ha ($ 267/ha) and Kshs 22,561/ha (€ 275/ha) in 2010 values for conventional and prototype LEIA organic farming systems, respectively. Net returns are particularly sensitive to crop yields and price and cost of fertilizers and seeds. Further efforts should be made to provide an economic analysis of other LEIA organic farming practices such as composting, double digging and agroforestry in terms of additional labour costs resultant. The model can be extended to build more scenarios on the role of price premiums. Additionally, further research should be done to exploit the socio-demographic factors affecting the adoption of low-external-input systems.     

基于SPEI的云南中部区域干旱时空变化特征分析

利用云南中部地区1961~2010年逐月降水和气温资料,采用降水距平百分率和历史旱情资料验证了标准化降水蒸散指数(Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index,SPEI)在该地区的适用性,并采用Mann-kendall突变检验、Morlet小波和经验正交函数(Empirical Orthogonal Function,EOF)等方法,分析了该地区干旱的时空演变特征,结果表明:(1)SPEI与降水距平百分率在时空上具有很好的相关性,验证了SPEI对降水变化的敏感性;(2)SPEI指数与历史旱情资料比较吻合,能够有效地反映云南中部区域的干旱特征;(3)年均SPEI呈波动下降趋势,干季SPEI降低趋势明显。年均SPEI存在着24a的主周期和9a的次周期,并于1977年发生了突变,此后开始降低,在整体上呈现出干旱化的趋势;(4)从SPEI的空间分布特征来看,其在整体上受大尺度气候系统的影响表现出一致的下降趋势,而在区域内部则表现出东南-西北(干热河谷)的反向结构差异。     

Climate change adaptation and cross-sectoral policy coherence in southern Africa

To be effective, climate change adaptation needs to be mainstreamed across multiple sectors and greater policy coherence is essential. Using the cases of Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia, this paper investigates the extent of coherence in national policies across the water and agriculture sectors and to climate change adaptation goals outlined in national development plans. A two-pronged qualitative approach is applied using Qualitative Document Analysis of relevant policies and plans, combined with expert interviews from non-government actors in each country. Findings show that sector policies have differing degrees of coherence on climate change adaptation, currently being strongest in Zambia and weakest in Tanzania. We also identify that sectoral policies remain more coherent in addressing immediate-term disaster management issues of floods and droughts rather than longer-term strategies for climate adaptation. Coherence between sector and climate policies and strategies is strongest when the latter has been more recently developed. However to date, this has largely been achieved by repackaging of existing sectoral policy statements into climate policies drafted by external consultants to meet international reporting needs and not by the establishment of new connections between national sectoral planning processes. For more effective mainstreaming of climate change adaptation, governments need to actively embrace longer-term cross-sectoral planning through cross-Ministerial structures, such as initiated through Zambia’s Interim Climate Change Secretariat, to foster greater policy coherence and integrated adaptation planning.     

Fine-grain spatial patterning and dynamics of land use and agrobiodiversity amid global changes in the Bolivian Andes

Our research addresses the gap in scientific research on the fine-grain spatial patterns and social–ecological interactions of land use and agrobiodiversity. The spatial dimension of agrobiodiversity dynamics potentially strengthens the social–ecological resilience and food security of smallholders by buffering risk and vulnerability. Our research integrates the scientific theories, concepts, and methods of spatial externalities, social–ecological interactions, geospatial land and global change sciences, and political ecology. We designed a case study of the Arbieto-Tarata landscape in the Bolivian Andes that comprises a globally significant agrobiodiversity hot spot of Andean maize. The Arbieto-Tarata landscape, which contains nearly 8000 fields at 2500–2800 masl, is representative of mixed-use smallholder agri-food systems amid global changes. Our research predicts spatial spillover and edge effects of combined social and environmental factors leading to the clustering of same-crop fields. Findings reveal significant levels of the predicted clustering between 2006 and 2012. The degree of this clustering is found to differ among geographic and environmental sub-areas reflecting fine-grain variation of local causal linkages. Extra-local causal linkages include high levels of migration, water resource shortages, and urbanization. Results show the influences of informal and formal coordination in the spatial clustering of same-crop fields. This field-level coordination improves the efficiency of resource allocations and lowers costs of production. It enables the viability of high-agrobiodiversity Andean maize in smallholder land use and agri-food systems amid global changes. The article discusses the broader policy and scientific implications of these findings including scaling up and support of the social–ecological resilience of agrobiodiversity globally.     

Adoption and adaptation of natural resource management innovations in smallholder agriculture: reflections on key lessons and best practices

Many smallholder farmers in vulnerable areas continue to face complex challenges in adoption and adaptation of resource management and conservation strategies. Although much has been learned from diverse experiences in sustainable resource management, there is still inadequate understanding of the market, policy and institutional failures that shape and structure farmer incentives and investment decisions. The policy and institutional failures exacerbate market failures, locking smallholder resource users into a low level equilibrium that perpetuates poverty and land degradation. Improved market access that raises the returns to land and labor is often the driving force for adoption of new practices in agriculture. Market linkages, access to credit and availability of pro-poor options for beneficial conservation are critical factors in stimulating livelihood and sustainability-enhancing investments. Future interventions need to promote joint innovations that ensure farmer experimentation and adaptation of new technologies and careful consideration of market, policy and institutional factors that stimulate widespread smallholder investments. Future projects should act as ‘toolboxes’, giving essential support to farmers to devise complementary solutions based on available options. Addressing the externalities and institutional failures that prevent private and joint investments for management of agricultural landscapes will require new kinds of institutional mechanisms for empowering communities through local collective action that would ensure broad participation and equitable distributions of the gains from joint conservation investments. Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

Land change in the southern Yucatán: case studies in land change science

The southern Yucatán Peninsular Region project was designed from the outset as an integrative, multidisciplinary program of study examining tropical deforestation in the largest track of seasonal tropical forest remaining in Mexico and in which smallholder agriculture and a major biosphere reserve are juxtaposed in regard to land uses and covers. Treating land as a coupled human–environment system, the project joins the remote sensing, environmental, social, and modeling sciences in a way that is now recognized as land change science. This paper introduces the project, the study region, and six papers that explore some of the coupled system dynamics in the region. These include the sub-regional variation in deforestation, the pan-regional adoption or anticipation of cattle ranching, the emergence of divergent household agricultural and overall livelihood strategies, the roles of cultural and household histories in agricultural livelihood choices, the temporal intensification of swidden cultivation and its implications for forest species, and carbon stocks across cultivation units, including a new econometric modeling application to forecast changes in these stocks.