Emerging Class Relations in the Mekong River Delta of Vietnam: A Network Analysis

Neoclassical theory has not succeeded in explaining the relationship between increasing landlessness and class differentiation in rural southern Vietnam. In this paper, we take a relational approach, using statistical techniques from social network theory, to examine the governance structure of markets in a commune of Tra Vinh province in the Mekong River Delta. We demonstrate that new opportunities provided by the process of market development are accessible only to those households controlling the right bundles of resources in the core agricultural production and trading system of the area. Further, industrial employment is available only to those who have, at some stage, controlled land, while those who have never participated in the land and rice markets are confined to casual agricultural labour. The governance structure, embedded informally in relatively stable market networks, therefore reproduces class divisions.     

Land-use change and socio-ecological drivers of wetland conversion in Ha Tien Plain,Mekong Delta,Vietnam

The loss and degradation of wetlands in the Mekong Delta has been caused by a combination of human activities (social systems) and natural events (ecological systems). However, the complexity and interaction of these socio-ecological factors are poorly understood. This study provides a better understanding of the complex social-ecological factors affecting land-cover change in the Phu My Lepironia grassland conservation area, part of Kien Giang Biosphere Reserve, Vietnam. A systems thinking approach was used to determine the interaction between the social system and land-use and land-cover changes. Results indicate that ensuring food supply and improving income are the key endogenous drivers of wetland degradation in the study area. Over-exploitation of wetland resources and inappropriate agricultural practices are accelerating wetland conversion and degradation. The conflict and unclear land tenure, coupled with a desire for higher income, has driven the community to convert and reclaim large parts of the wetland. This process is also driven exogenously by wetland access and the fluctuation of commodity prices, which in-turn results in transition from traditional to extensive cropping systems and expansion of cultivated land into the protected wetland. The relationship between people and wetlands must be central to the development of wetland policies and wetland management approaches. This will improve how land use policy supports sustainable sources of food and income for the local community and concurrently reduce pressures on wetland degradation. Any efforts made to protect the remnant wetland grassland and its diverse ecosystem by regulation should be supplemented by developing and sustaining the relationship between social systems and ecological systems.     

Adaptive capacity of legal and policy frameworks for biodiversity protection considering climate change

Protection of biodiversity under conditions of climate change is likely to place large requirements on existing frameworks for biodiversity protection at both EU and national level. While these systems are not perfectly adapted today, the inclusion of climate change concerns will require revision and addition of new issues, such as species migration corridors and buffers, as well as proactive strategies in areas that may not be protected today. Biodiversity in forest is particularly important as forest range over large areas that include also other land uses; this holds particularly true for the large forested areas in northern Europe. Illustrating complexities regarding biodiversity protection, this study reviews the applicable legal framework related to biodiversity in forests on EU and national level in Sweden, one of the countries with the largest forest areas in the EU. Mainly drawing on a policy and legal study, the paper concludes that adapting the legislative and policy system to a future with large uncertainties in terms of extent of change poses a problem for what are largely reactive systems in particular in terms of legislation.     

Landraces as an adaptation strategy to climate change for smallholders in Santa Catarina,Southern Brazil

Adapting to climate change has become a pressing and urgent issue given the alarming rapidity with which climate changes is taking place. Agriculture is strongly conditioned by climatic factors, but subsistence agriculture is particularly vulnerable because smallholders do not have adequate financial resources to adapt to climate change. Agrobiodiversity provides one option for smallholders to adapt to climate change. Landraces developed in the western region of Santa Catarina State, Brazil, are part of a deliberate strategy by smallholders to achieve a state of food sovereignty and independence from commercial sources of hybrid seed. The ability of smallholders to collectively conserve climate-adapted landraces indicates the depth of local knowledge and capability within local communities that can be drawn on to meet the future challenges of climate change.     

Incorporating the effect of urbanization in measuring climate adaptive capacity

Measuring the ability of a community to face climatic changes, or its adaptive capacity, is necessary in order to plan and guide development as the global climate continues to warm. One factor that has not been thoroughly addressed by previous attempts at measuring adaptive capacity is urbanization. This study looks to measure adaptive capacity in relation to urbanization, as many areas of the world are undergoing this rapid transition. An indicator system was created with land-use sensitive measures and applied to three different land use projection scenarios (A, BAU, and B − high, medium, and low growth, respectively) to 2030 and 2050 for two case study areas, Tamsui, Taiwan and West Palm Beach, USA. In Tamsui, the adaptive capacity decreased in all scenarios, but most dramatically for the high growth scenario. The low growth scenario decreased more slowly through each time slice. For West Palm Beach, the high growth scenario had the highest score in 2030, but declined in 2050. The medium growth Scenario BAU, also had a higher adaptive capacity score in 2030 than in 2050. The low growth Scenario B had a score that improved less dramatically but continued to rise through 2050. Scenario A would be ideal for short term gains, but its benefits would plateau in the long term. Scenario B, with conservation measures and more restricted growth would be the most ideal alternative. This study shows that urbanization has short term socioeconomic gains, but long term environmental consequences. The results also successfully incorporates the effect of land use change into an adaptive capacity indicator system, and can be applied in other localities expecting significant increases in urbanization.     

Declining inflows and more frequent droughts in the Murray–Darling Basin: climate change,impacts and adaptation*

It is likely that climate change will be associated with reductions in inflows of water to the Murray–Darling Basin. In this study, we analyse the effects of climate change in the Murray–Darling Basin using a simulation model that incorporates a state‐contingent representation of uncertainty. The severity of the impact depends, in large measure, on the extent to which climate change is manifested as an increase in the frequency of drought conditions. Adaptation will partially offset the adverse impact of climate change.     

Price integration in the Australian rock lobster industry: implications for management and climate change adaptation

Rock lobster fisheries are Australia's most valuable wild fisheries in terms of both value of production and value of exports. Different states harvest and export different lobster species, with most of the landings being sent to the Hong Kong market. A perception in the Australian lobster industry is that the different species are independent on the export market, such that a change in landings of one species has no impact on the price of the others. This study investigates the market integration of Australian exports to Hong Kong for the four species and different exporting states. Our results indicate all four species and producers/export states are perceived to be substitutes for one another, so that, in the long run, prices paid to operators in the industry will move together. The integrated nature of the Hong Kong export market for Australian lobster suggests that the potential impacts of alternative fisheries management and development strategies at state and species levels cannot be considered in isolation, at least from an economic perspective. In addition, impacts of external shocks affecting production in one state (e.g. climate change) can be expected to affect all Australian lobster fisheries.     

Demand for maize hybrids and hybrid change on smallholder farms in Kenya

Kenya is a globally recognized maize “success story.” As the overall percentage of maize farmers growing hybrids tops 80% and the seed industry matures, the slow pace of hybrid replacement on farms, and the continued dominance of the seed industry by Kenya Seed Company, may dampen productivity. Our econometric analysis identifies the factors that explain farmer demand for hybrid seed, and the age of hybrids they grow, considering hybrid seed ownership. Male‐headed households with more education, more assets, and more land plant more hybrid seed. Scale of seed demand per farm is differentiated by agroecology. We find a strong farmer response to the seed‐to‐grain price ratio, which we interpret as evidence of a commercial orientation even on household farms. However, despite the dramatic increase in the number of hybrids sold and the breadth of seed suppliers as seed markets liberalize, an older hybrid still dominates national demand.     

Adaptation strategies to climatic variability: A case study of small-scale farmers in rural Mexico

Climate change is predicted to have major consequences for small-scale farmers in the developing rural areas of the world. Rural areas, nonetheless, harbor opportunities to mitigate global climate changes. Identification of innovative adaptation strategies used by small-scale farmers, therefore, is crucial in order to understand the extent of their implications. This paper identifies the relationships between livelihood units and landscapes that they depend upon, in a small-scale farm community. It examines their experiences of increasing climatic variability, and how the different groups in the community are adapting to it. The study was conducted in a typical rural ejido community on the Pacific coast of Mexico (Ejido Ticuiz), where a detailed socio-cultural profile was obtained by means of semi-structured interviews. In the study area we encountered a range of individual and community-based adaptation strategies, built on farmers’ recognition of the different types of landscapes which supply goods and benefits. Small-scale farmers have used their landscape diversity to build adaptation strategies to guarantee the supply of goods and benefits to cope with uncertain of climate events. Households rather than individuals or the community as an institution were depicted as the core socio-cultural group for better understanding of patterns, behavior and aspirations related to climate change adaptation at local level. The adaptation capacities of rural communities could be significantly strengthened if political, financial and institutional support is targeted at households rather than at individuals or the community level only.     

Perceptions and outlook on intercropping coffee with banana as an opportunity for smallholder coffee farmers in Uganda

Coffee and banana are important cash and food crops in Uganda and the surrounding East African highland region. Production is dominated by smallholders that have limited arable land and often coffee and banana are intercropped. No significant research and development efforts have been undertaken over the last few decades on this coffee/banana intercropping system. Because recent studies suggest that this system could be a practice with high benefits to the farmers, we decided to study the perceptions of stakeholders along the coffee value chain starting with farmers. Perception analysis based on open-ended interviews following interview guides revealed that a major limitation for the sustainability of this system was poor soil fertility conditions. Perceptions on the benefits of intercropping differed little among coffee actors; that is, banana intercropping provides additional food and income from smallholders’ limited land and helps farmers reduce risks related to drought, pest/disease attacks and coffee price volatility. However, farmers’ desire to minimize risks does not match the objective of stakeholders higher up the coffee value chain to maximize coffee production. Furthermore, research by public institutes, both national and international, is primarily organized for single crops and not systems. We conclude that the institutional setting of the coffee sector hampers the promotion of intercropping, despite the benefits for the farmer.     

Farm-level adaptation to climate change in Western Bangladesh: An analysis of adaptation dynamics,profitability and risks

Using long-term district-level climate data and a case study from a drought-prone village in western Bangladesh, this research explored trends in climate change, and analysed farmers’ adaptation dynamics, profitability and risks. This is the first study of its kind for drought-prone areas in Bangladesh.Farmers perceived climate changes included increases in temperature and decreases in rainfall which were as consistent with the trends of Chuadanga climate records. Farmers’ adaptation measures included changes in cropping systems, cropping calendars, crop varieties, agronomic practices, crop diversification and improved animal husbandry. Reducing environmental stress, ensuring self-sufficiency in staple crops (mainly rice) and other crop production practices, and enhancing economic viability of farm enterprises have underpinned these adaptations. Off-farm and non-farm wage employment, temporary migration, self-employment and educating children, constituted the core non-farm adaptation strategies.Emerging cropping systems like maize/cucumber and maize/stem amaranth/rice were economically more viable than the traditional rice/rice and rice/maize systems. Despite some uncertainties, farming was preferred to off-farm work, generating higher returns to labour for all cropping systems. Limited access to stress-tolerant varieties, extension services and affordable agricultural credit, combined with high production costs, variability in crop yields and output prices, are the main barriers to adaptation. Stronger agricultural research and support services, affordable credit, community-focussed farming education and training are critically important for effective adaptation to climate change.     

Adoption of agricultural land management technologies by smallholder farmers in the Jos Plateau,Nigeria

Against a background of growing concern about the adverse effects of agricultural land degradation due to accelerated soil erosion, nutrient depletion and high population pressure, farmers in the Jos Plateau, Nigeria have adopted biological and structural land management practices, though the degree of adoption of such practices varies from one farm household to another. This study, based on a survey of 150 farm households, employed a stepwise multiple linear regression model to analyse the factors significantly influencing the adoption of land management technologies. The results of the analysis revealed four variables, namely, extension service, agricultural labour force, accelerated soil erosion and out-migration, explaining nearly 90% of the variation in the range of land management technologies adopted. The first three of these variables have positive influences on adoption. Extension service appeared to be the strongest, impacting on skills in the agricultural labour force. Policy recommendations are made in line with the findings of the analysis.     

Land fragmentation,climate change adaptation,and food security in the Gamo Highlands of Ethiopia

Household food security among smallholder farmers is sensitive to a variable and changing climate, requiring farmers in the Gamo Highlands of Ethiopia to adopt new land management practices to improve food security. Agricultural land in the Gamo Highlands is highly fragmented. The extent to which land fragmentation (LF) moderates the food security effects of sustainable land management (SLM) practices is unknown. This study used probit and Poisson models to explain this relationship. The study found that food insecurity was severe during the food shortfall season. LF provides more potential opportunities for improving food security than challenges. Furthermore, SLM practices had both positive and negative effects on food security and their effects were conditioned by the magnitude of LF. Reducing severe LF through the assembly of small parcels into larger heterogeneous plot clusters could enhance food security by exploiting synergies between adaptation practices and LF.     

Projections of maize yield vulnerability to droughts and adaptation options in Uganda

Sub-Saharan Africa is likely going to experience more intense and frequent droughts with high parallel possibilities of ramifications on maize yields. While there is a lot of scholarship dwelling on the ramifications of droughts on maize yields at the level of Africa, little has been researched at lower scales. This study presents past (1960–2014) vulnerability of maize yields to droughts based on a previous study (Epule et al., 2017) and projects the future vulnerability of maize yields to droughts by calculating the sensitivity, exposure and adaptive capacity of maize yields to droughts for the period 2015–2050. The results show that maize yields are more vulnerable in the north of Uganda for the period 1960–2014. However, adaptive capacity is higher in the south. Maize yields also record higher levels of sensitivity and exposure in the north with the latter patterns explained by variations in precipitation, temperature, rich volcanic soils, access to rivers and lakes. In terms of future vulnerability for the period 2015–2050, this study shows that the level of vulnerability of maize yields to droughts in Uganda will increase to levels higher than what currently obtains. For example, the vulnerability index will increase from 0.54 under the 1.5 °C to 0.70 under the 2.0 °C and to 1.54 under the 2.5 °C scenario. Sensitivity is also likely to increase while exposure and adaptive capacity are most likely to remain the same. Overall, it can be said that the future of maize production in Uganda under present and future circumstances remains very bleak without concrete actions. As a way forward, land use policy designers will have to integrate water management, agroforestry, climatic information diffusion, training and indigenous knowledge into land use planning decisions in the context of agriculture.     

Improving rural livelihoods through the conservation and use of underutilized species: evidence from a community research project in Yemen

The aim of this paper is to analyse the impact of a set of interventions related to conservation and use of neglected and underutilized species (NUS) on people's livelihoods. Specifically, a simultaneous three-equation model of households' participation on underutilized crops conservation and income generation activities is applied to evaluate the outcome of a pilot research project implemented by Bioversity International in Yemen between 2002 and 2005. Results generated show a relation between project participation and the perceived yield increase demonstrating the importance for farmers to actively participate in the project's activities and subsequently apply agronomic practices learnt to improve their livelihood. The generated benefits incentivized farmers to continue to apply the interventions beyond the lifetime of the project ensuring thus a sustainable process in which exogenous interventions, once adopted by farmers become integrant part of farmer's agronomic practices.     

The influence of management characteristics on the technical efficiency of wheat farmers in eastern England

Technical efficiency of wheat farms in eastern England is measured through the estimation of a stochastic frontier production function using panel data for the 1993–1997 crop years. Variations in the technical efficiency index across production units are explained through a number of managerial and farm characteristic variables following Battese and Coelli (1995) [Empirical Econ. 20, 325–332] and incorporating the spirit of Rougoor et al. (1998) [Agric. Econ. 18, 261–272]. The technical efficiency index across production units ranges from 62 to 98%. The objectives of maximising annual profits and maintaining the environment are positively correlated with, and have the largest influence on, technical efficiency. Moreover, those farmers who seek information, have more years of managerial experience, and have a large farm are also associated with higher levels of technical efficiency. Future studies that seek to explain variation in technical efficiency should include further aspects of the managerial decision‐making process.     

Moral Economy and the Upper Peasant: The Dynamics of Land Privatization in the Mekong Delta

This paper examines how people mobilize around notions of distributive justice, or ‘moral economies’, to make claims to resources, using the process of post‐socialist land privatization in the Mekong Delta region of southern Vietnam as a case study. First, I argue that the region's history of settlement, production and political struggle helped to entrench certain normative beliefs around landownership, most notably in its population of semi‐commercial upper peasants. I then detail the ways in which these upper peasants mobilized around notions of distributive justice to successfully press demands for land restitution in the late 1980s, drawing on Vietnamese newspapers and other sources to construct case studies of local land conflicts. Finally, I argue that the successful mobilization of the upper peasants around such a moral economy has helped, over the past two decades, to facilitate the re‐emergence of agrarian capitalism in the Mekong Delta, in contrast to other regions in Vietnam.     

Farmers,institutions and technology in agricultural change processes: outcomes from Adaptive Research on rice production in Sulawesi,Indonesia

International agricultural research centres use approaches which aim to create effective linkages between the practices of farmers, introduced technologies and the wider environment that affects farming. This paper argues that such new approaches require a different type of monitoring as a complement to conventional approaches that tend to favour a quantitative assessment of adoption and impact at the farm level. In this context, we examined monitoring data from an Adaptive Research (AR) project highlighting complementary qualitative analysis. Our emphasis is to capture the improvisational capacities of farmers and to reveal social and institutional constraints and opportunities in a broader innovation system. Our approach provided clear insights into how rice farmers adjusted their practices and how actors involved linked (or not) with others in the innovation system. We also demonstrated how institutions such as policies, religious rituals or service provider arrangements pose conditions that establish or constrain practices aligned with introduced technologies. A broader perspective in monitoring AR therefore provides important additional insights into the factors which shape outcomes in farming communities. To expand outcomes, AR projects should also pay attention to designing and testing new institutional arrangements that create enabling conditions for agricultural innovation.     

The impact of conservation tillage on maize yield and input demand: the case of smallholder farmers in north‐west Ethiopia

This study analyses the economics of conservation tillage (CT) with respect to its effect on maize yield and chemical fertiliser, herbicide, and female and male labour demand. We estimate production and input demand functions using seemingly unrelated regressions on plot‐level cross‐sectional farm household data collected in the north‐west of Ethiopia. A two‐step control function is applied to address potential endogeneity bias due to the inclusion of the CT adoption decision as an explanatory variable. Our results show that CT increases maize yield and chemical fertiliser demand. Additionally, the results show that the adoption of CT reduces female and male labour required for crop production. However, this is achieved through the increased use of herbicides, which might have an undesirable health and environmental effects.