Tag: agriculture
Quantification of climate change mitigation benefits from expansion of silvopastoral systems: An analytical proof of concept for Colombia
Unshifting the baseline: a framework for documenting historical population changes and assessing long-term anthropogenic impacts
Trees on farms as a nature-based solution for biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes
For the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, it will no longer be sufficient to seek to limit biodiversity loss through agriculture. Instead, agriculture must become an integral element of sustainable landscapes a force for conserving biodiversity and providing vital ecosystem services to local populations and securing livelihoods.
Trees on Farms for Biodiversity
Increasing both the number of trees and species on farms helps conserve and restore biodiversity and improves agricultural productivity. We work with communities, governments and NGOs to promote this approach in Honduras, Indonesia, Peru, Rwanda and Uganda.
Learning pathway: Course flows & blueprint
This course is a pivotal contribution to FAO’s vision of fostering a Better Environment, particularly focusing on Biodiversity for food and agriculture. Aligned with FAO’s strategic initiatives, the course is fortified by the approval of the FAO Strategy on Mainstreaming Biodiversity Across Agricultural Sectors and the 2021-23 Action Plan, emphasizing the importance of targeted policies and practices for sustainable use, conservation, and restoration of ecosystems.
Learning pathway: Course flows & blueprint
This course is a pivotal contribution to FAO’s vision of fostering a Better Environment, particularly focusing on Biodiversity for food and agriculture. Aligned with FAO’s strategic initiatives, the course is fortified by the approval of the FAO Strategy on Mainstreaming Biodiversity Across Agricultural Sectors and the 2021-23 Action Plan, emphasizing the importance of targeted policies and practices for sustainable use, conservation, and restoration of ecosystems.
Climate risk management and rural poverty reduction
Climate variability is a major source of risk to smallholder farmers and pastoralists, particularly in dryland regions. A growing body of evidence links climate-related risk to the extent and the persistence of rural poverty in these environments. Stochastic shocks erode smallholder farmers’ long-term livelihood potential through loss of productive assets. The resulting uncertainty impedes progress out of poverty by acting as a disincentive to investment in agriculture – by farmers, rural financial services, value chain institutions and governments. We assess evidence published in the last ten years that a set of production technologies and institutional options for managing risk can stabilize production and incomes, protect assets in the face of shocks, enhance uptake of improved technologies and practices, improve farmer welfare, and contribute to poverty reduction in risk-prone smallholder agricultural systems. Production technologies and practices such as stress-adapted crop germplasm, conservation agriculture, and diversified production systems stabilize agricultural production and incomes and, hence, reduce the adverse impacts of climate-related risk under some circumstances. Institutional interventions such as index-based insurance and social protection through adaptive safety nets play a complementary role in enabling farmers to manage risk, overcome risk-related barriers to adoption of improved technologies and practices, and protect their assets against the impacts of extreme climatic events. While some research documents improvements in household welfare indicators, there is limited evidence that the risk-reduction benefits of the interventions reviewed have enabled significant numbers of very poor farmers to escape poverty. We discuss the roles that climate-risk management interventions can play in efforts to reduce rural poverty, and the need for further research on identifying and targeting environments and farming populations where improved climate risk management could accelerate efforts to reduce rural poverty.
What do we really know about the impacts of improved grain legumes and dryland cereals? A critical review of 18 impact studies
Improved grain legume and dryland cereal (GLDC) varieties hold potential to intensify smallholder agriculture and improve livelihoods in semi-arid regions of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. To assess the empirical evidence base for these potential benefits, we review 18 GLDC impact studies and identify gaps in current knowledge on GLDC impacts. Results from this synthesis reveal that all five reasonably well-identified adoption studies estimate significant, positive effects of improved GLDC adoption on yields, profits, or household welfare. Another well-identified study focuses on nutritional impacts of improved GLDC consumption and measures positive effects on iron-deficiency in school children. Macro-level welfare estimates based on economic surplus models (eight of the 18 studies) are largely invalidated because of their dependence on poorly-identified household-level impact estimates. Four additional studies rely on correlations and expert interviews. Overall, impact studies focus on chickpea and groundnut, as opposed to other GLDC crops. Studies are geographically concentrated in Ethiopia, India, and Tanzania, and are heavily focused on estimating economic impacts, with few studies assessing potential environmental, nutritional or social impacts. Recommendations are offered to improve methodological approaches in future impact assessments of GLDC crops.
Intensifying Inequality? Gendered Trends in Commercializing and Diversifying Smallholder Farming Systems in East Africa
While the commercialization and diversification of agricultural and livestock systems have been identified as key global strategies for climate change adaptation and mitigation, less is known as to the large-scale gendered impacts that are implicated in these transformations among smallholder crop and livestock farmers. This study explores these gender impacts across different farming systems and gender-respondent-household typologies using data from the Rural Household Multiple Indicator Survey (RHoMIS) in 2,859 households in three East African countries—Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania. Female control scores over incomes or foodstuffs produced through both on and off farm activities were highest in farming systems that had more land and more livestock. However, increasing commercialization—defined herein as the increasing importance of crop and livestock sales to farm households—resulted in an overall decline in female control across all farming systems and gender-respondent-household typologies. In contrast, crop and livestock diversification were positively associated with female control across gender-respondent-household typologies. Analysis of specific crops and livestock products across farming systems and respondent typologies revealed women have far greater control over decisions related to consumption than decisions related to sales, although the gap between the two were less pronounced in lesser-valued livestock products (chickens, eggs). However, the analyses suggest that as sale of crops and livestock increase, female control over these areas could likely diminish, regardless of specific activity. The authors conclude that approaches to adapt to or mitigate climate change that rely on increasing market orientation of smallholder production will likely intensify men’s control over benefits from production, whereas diversification will likely have a more positive impact on female control. Thus, climate adaptation strategies promoting increased diversification will likely have a more positive impact on women smallholders than commercialization alone. The authors recommend that when commercialization is the target intervention, it must be accompanied by a gender differentiated analysis of trade-offs and risks to mitigate the potential negative consequences shown in this study.