This book documents the proceedings of the International Symposium on Property Rights, Risk, and Livestock Development. The symposium was held to appraise progress, review achievements, and identify remaining research gaps atthe conclusion of a three-year research project led by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), and the University of Goettingen. The goal of the project was to support appropriate reforms of property institutions and land policies in the semiaridareas of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Tag: Policies
Property rights, risk and livestock development in Africa
This book documents the proceedings of the International Symposium on Property Rights, Risk, and Livestock Development. The symposium was held to appraise progress, review achievements, and identify remaining research gaps at the conclusion of a three-year research project led by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), and the University of Goettingen. The goal of the project was to support appropriate reforms of property institutions and land policies in the semiarid areas of Sub-Saharan Africa. The objectives werea) to better understand how environmental risk affects the use and management of resources under various property-rights regimes,b) to identify circumstances under which different pathways of change in land use and property rights are followed, andc) to identify how policy and other external interventions can help communities achieve desirable pathways and mitigate negative impacts of undesirable pathways.The introductory chapter provides a description of the research, development, and policy context that shaped the formulation of the project’s goal and objectives; a summary of the research approach taken in the project; and a discussion of how the papers presented in this book relate to the project’s objectives.
Preface to workshop management of carbon in tropical soils under global change, science, practice and policy
It was first decided to organize a workshop on ‘Modelling of Soil Dynamic Practices’ in 1990 at the XIV International Soil Science Society (ISSS) Congress in Kyoto after the Committee on International Programs ~ (CIP) of ISSS-sponsored Symposium ‘V 8–Global Soil Changes and their Dynamics in a Changing environment’. This topic seemed redundant when we learned that our Canadian colleagues intended to focuson similar matters during their ‘Leth- bridge Symposium’ planned for 1992 (Wood and Dumanski, 1994). By letter exchange and intense discussion with those CIP members meeting in conjunction with the symposium on soil resilience and sustainable landuse September 1992 in Budapest, we opted for a meeting on carbon in tropical soils. We thought that a focus on the African savanna might be even more urgently required than emphasis on rice soils and wetlands, with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) there a potential host, and where high caliber expertise was available. Thus, we accepted Dr. Pedro Sanchez’s invitation to have our workshop at the International Center of Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) in Nairobi, Kenya. Meanwhile the financial problem was settled by a donor group of German GTZ, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), United States Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA), and the United States Department of Agriculture-Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA-NRCS). As the then chairman of the Standing Committee CIP of ISSS I should thank, besides the donors, in particular Dr. Pedro Sanchez, the Director General of ICRAF, our host and Dr. Mike Swift, Director of the Nairobi-based Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Program (TSBF), who accepted the strenuous task of being the workshop conveners. Hereby I tacitly include their able cooperators. Our scientific co-sponsors, in addition to ISSS, ICRAF and the UNEP were TSBF and the International Geosphere Biosphere Program-Global Change in Terrestrial Ecosystems (IGBP-GCTE) through liaison of Mike Swift and Bernard Tinker.
Recognising local knowledge and giving farmers a voice in the policy development debate
One of the aspects of poverty as currently defined is the lack of voice or the lack of empowerment and the feeling of not being able to take events into one’s own hands. This aspect of poverty is difficult to quantify as yet, but it is an important element in the debate on the rural poor, deforestation and natural resource management. In this lecture note we will introduce: •methods to collect and appraise farmers’ ecological knowledge in a formal manner and analyse the way this knowledge and value system complements the more formalised science we have discussed in other Lecture Notes; •methods to get the views of local communities on the options they have and the constraints they face more explicitly represented, and •ways to get the farmer’s ‘voice’ heard in dialogues with local and national policymakers.
Agroforestry Can Enhance Food Security While Meeting Other Sustainable Development Goals
To achieve global food security, we need to approximately double food production over the coming decades. Conventional agriculture is the mainstream approach to achieving this target but has also caused extensive environmental and social harms. The consensus is that we now need an agriculture that can “multi-functionally” increase food production while simultaneously enhancing social and environmental goals, as committed to in the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Farming also needs to become more resilient to multiple insecurities including climate change, soil degradation, and market unpredictability, all of which reduce sustainability and are likely to exacerbate hunger. Here, we illustrate how agroforestry systems can increase yield while also advancing multiple SDGs, especially for the small developing-world agriculturalists central to the SDG framework. Agroforestry also increases resilience of crops and farm livelihoods, especially among the most vulnerable food producers. However, conventional yield-enhancement strategies have naturally dominated the debate on food production, hindering implementation of more multifunctional alternatives. Governments and institutions now have the opportunity to rebalance agricultural policy and investment toward such multigoal approaches. In doing so, they could achieve important improvements on multiple international commitments around the interlinked themes of food security, climate change, biodiversity conservation, and social well-being.
Land-use analysis of highland agricultural systems using Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM): a case study from Ban Pha Phueng and Ban Mong Luang in the Mae Chaem Catchment, Northern Thailand
The study of agricultural land use system in the highland areas of the Mae Chaem catchment was conducted by using the Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM). It aims to investigate the private and social profitability from dominant crops grown in the Karen communities (Ban Pha Phueng and Ban Mong Luang), as well as to evaluate the impact of economic and social policies on different land use systems. Extensive economic field survey was conducted in order to derive the necessary data required for creating a number of tables (i.e., Input-Output, private price and social price tables). Four crops chosen for this study are: (1) Paddy rice; (2) Upland rice; (3) Rainfed soy beans and (4) Upland corn. The results of PAM analysis revealed that paddy rice was privately and socially profitable, which should be extensively promoted. Upland rice was privately and socially non-profitable and it should be discouraged to grow on the highlands, except the improvement of yield has been made. Rainfed soy beans and upland corn were not privately profitable, but socially profitable. These two crops were taxed by the government or the society as indicated by a net negative transfer. Sensitivity analysis has been conducted by applying a number of situations on price and productivity on individual crops, so that effects from market imperfections or government policy can be determined. It has been recommended that PAM would be valid if externalities have been taken into account in the analytical process.
World Agroforestry (ICRAF) Southeast Asia Brochure
Agroforestry innovations for imperata grassland rehabilitation: workshop recommendations
Implications of local policies and institutions on the adoption of improved fallows in eastern Zambia
Planted-tree fallows (syn. improved fallows) have demonstrated great biophysical potential for improving soil fertility on smallholders’ farms but efforts to scale up their adoption to more farming households are constrained by lack of permanent ownership rights over land, incidence of bush fires and browsing of tree biomass by livestock. To resolve these institutional bottlenecks, some traditional authorities in Zambia enacted bylaws to prohibit these incursions. Using a combination of village workshops, expert opinion surveys and structured questionnaires, this study assessed the effectiveness of the bylaws across the major cultural communities in eastern Zambia, identified factors that influence the effectiveness of the bylaws and the lessons emanating from the bylaws in the scaling up of improved fallows. The results indicate that fire poses greater risks to the scaling up of agroforestry than does grazing in terms of the risk of occurrence and the extent of damage. Respondents identified mice hunters and `jealous’ neighbors as main causes of fire outbreaks. The effectiveness of the bylaws is influenced by many factors such as ambiguous interpretation of the bylaws, relying exclusively on moral persuasion to enforce the bylaws and lack of well defined responsibilities for enforcing the bylaws, conflict of economic interests among different stakeholders within the communities. Formal documentation of the bylaws will be helpful, but that would not be an exclusive panacea to solve all the constraints. The pattern of distribution of benefits (or costs) of an agricultural technology among various sectors of a community may be important factors that affect widespread adoption of a technology. Technological characteristics are important but not exclusive condition for sustained widespread adoption of soil fertility management options. Privatizing seasonal commons is an important issue in the development of institutional regulations within communities. Policy dialogue among community members, increased awareness and diversification of options appear to be the way forward to improve the effectiveness of the bylaws.
Agroforestry and biodiversity: are they compatible?
Agroforestry can provide agricultural products while partially maintaining the ecological services provided by forests. Because agroforestry systems contain many natural species, its proponents often stress that agroforestry can make vital contributions to the preservation of biodiversity. This is generally not the case, however, at least not for the parts of global biodiversity most under threat. Four reasons are discussed why agroforestry and other ‘conserve through use’ strategies cannot be a full substitute for the setting aside of substantial areas with an uncompromised conservation status. First, species sensitive to human activity, because they are exploited commercially or merely sensitive to human disturbance, cannot be maintained this way. Second, several wild animals are pests in agroforestry, and will tend to be eliminated, even though they could in principle live in agroforests. These two effects together imply that a predictable portion of the species of old-growth forests will not survive in agroforestry landscapes. The presence of a trade-off between exploitation and biodiversity implies that only unexploited old-growth forests guarantee the full preservation of biodiversity. Given the constraint of sufficient agricultural production, we should therefore favor a segregation of functions at the landscape level from the perspective of biodiversity preservation.A third problem is that biodiversity is best maintained in large wildlands rather than in isolated fragments, as a result of immediate and subsequent gradual species loss in these fragments (‘relaxation’). In order to maintain sufficient overall agricultural production, the remaining areas will have to be used intensively, leaving a role for agroforestry in biodiversity preservation only in ecologically sensitive sites. Moreover, agroforests are an exponent of fragmented landscapes and do not contribute to reducing fragmentation. Encouraging agroforestry in practice will often result in increased fragmentation. Fragmentation also implies that agroforests, where they are stable, will tend to lose many of the species they currently harbor. Finally, because agroforests are often a transient phase in the developmental sequence and tend to be replaced by more intensive land uses, their ability to contribute to biodiversity perpetuation is limited. Overall, then, agroforestry will make only a limited contribution to biodiversity preservation, and may in fact adversely affect it if it competes with wildlands for space in the landscape.