Pastoral households are increasingly practising fodder production in response to forage scarcity ... more Pastoral households are increasingly practising fodder production in response to forage scarcity associated with land degradation, climate variability and change. Understanding the grass seed value chain is a prerequisite for developing sustainable fodder production and guiding appropriate out-scaling in the drylands. This study investigated the producers' perspectives on grass seed production, marketing and challenges faced along the grass seed value chain in Marigat Sub-County of Baringo County, Kenya. The results show that the dominant actors were the bulking and processing agents who provided inputs and were a source of grass seed market to the producers. The producers preferred contractual agreements that allowed them to sell their grass seed to markets of their choice. As independent grass seed traders allowed for seed price negotiation, they were popular amongst the producers and thus handled the most volume of seeds marketed. Drought occurrence, inability of existing outlets to purchase grass seed at times, together with low prices offered for producers' grass seed were found to be among the challenges facing the producers. There is need to strengthen the fodder groups with a possibility of registering them as cooperatives for the purpose of collective bargaining for better grass seed prices.
Purpose: Within the context of the European-funded JOLISAA project (JOint Learning in and about I... more Purpose: Within the context of the European-funded JOLISAA project (JOint Learning in and about Innovation Systems in African Agriculture), an inventory of agricultural innovation experiences was made in Benin, Kenya and South Africa. The objective was to assess multi-stakeholder agricultural innovation processes involving smallholders. Approach: Country-based teams used bibliographic searches, interviews with resource persons and field visits to identify cases. The inventory was developed iteratively according to a common analytical framework and guidelines inspired by the innovation system perspective. Findings and practical implications: The completed inventory includes 57 documented cases, covering a wide diversity of experiences, in terms of types, domains, scales and timelines of innovation. The inventory confirms the diversity of stakeholders involved in innovation, the diversity of innovation triggers and drivers, and the frequent occurrence of market-driven innovation. It also illustrates more original features: the typically long timeframes of innovation processes; the common occurrence of ‘innovation bundles’; and an often tight yet ambivalent relationship between innovation initiatives and externally funded projects. National teams faced several challenges during the inventory process, for example, in gaining a common understanding and making consistent use of key innovation-related concepts, and in accessing relevant information, as some case holders were reluctant to share their experience freely. Originality/value: The JOLISAA inventory contributes to illustrating that African agriculture is responding actively to the many challenges it faces. Documenting and sharing such a palpable dynamism may help to counter some of the pessimism and negative publicity that African agriculture usually attracts and to increase the motivation of many for making innovation happen across Africa.
Pastoral households are increasingly practising fodder production in response to forage scarcity ... more Pastoral households are increasingly practising fodder production in response to forage scarcity associated with land degradation, climate variability and change. Understanding the grass seed value chain is a prerequisite for developing sustainable fodder production and guiding appropriate out-scaling in the drylands. This study investigated the producers’ perspectives on grass seed production, marketing and challenges faced along the grass seed value chain in Marigat Sub-County of Baringo County, Kenya. The results show that the dominant actors were the bulking and processing agents who provided inputs and were a source of grass seed market to the producers. The producers preferred contractual agreements that allowed them to sell their grass seed to markets of their choice. As independent grass seed traders allowed for seed price negotiation, they were popular amongst the producers and thus handled the most volume of seeds marketed. Drought occurrence, inability of existing outlets to purchase grass seed at times, together with low prices offered for producers’ grass seed were found to be among the challenges facing the producers. There is need to strengthen the fodder groups with a possibility of registering them as cooperatives for the purpose of collective bargaining for better grass seed prices
International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, 2014
ABSTRACT In the oil palm-based cropping system on the Adja Plateau, land titling plays an importa... more ABSTRACT In the oil palm-based cropping system on the Adja Plateau, land titling plays an important role. Landowners argue that oil palm fallow (dekan) restores soil fertility, but in the long-term it is also an instrument in the struggle for control over land. A land-titling programme in the study area allowed an analysis of the relationship between titling and soil fertility management that showed two different institutional effects with socio-technical consequences. Titling increased land security for landowners and, although this security initially reduced access to land for tenants, a subsequent introduction of witnessed paper-based contracts enhanced tenants' access to land and improved their security of tenure. Improved titling and more secure tenure reduced conflicts over land and opened possibilities for agricultural intensification. This change was associated with a shift from long-term oil palm fallow to shorter-term land-management practices where tenants and landowners increasingly invested in land through rotations between maize and cowpea (rather than maize mono-cropping) and the use of mineral fertilizers, without increased use of household waste. The paper suggests that sustainable agricultural intensification requires institutional changes, based on a mixture of customary and formal rules, in both landownership and rental agreements to access land.
Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Nsisha, a rural village located close to the shores... more Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Nsisha, a rural village located close to the shores of Lake Victoria in northwestern Tanzania, this article analyzes how climate change and variability intersect with other stressors that affect rural livelihoods, particularly HIV/AIDS. The analysis integrates theories of vulnerability from both climate and HIV/AIDS literatures to show how these intersecting stressors compound livelihood vulnerability in complex ways. Climate change and variability are linked to declining agricultural yields and an increase in food and nutrition insecurity and poor health in this region. This situation heightens poverty and susceptibility to HIV/AIDS, compromising people’s abilities to cope and adapt. Because of social dynamics, single mothers and their children are particularly affected by these compound vulnerabilities. Climate change and variability are significant contributing vulnerability factors that sustain and exacerbate asymmetrical poverty, food and nutrition insecurity, and HIV/AIDS. By describing the links between vulnerability to HIV/AIDS and climate variability, findings highlight the importance of holistic and localized approaches to adaptation, instead of trying to isolate single issues. Prioritization of multidisciplinary research focusing on the socially differentiated and gendered distribution of vulnerability specifically in regard to poverty, food and nutrition insecurity, and HIV/AIDS is recommended as a means to enrich the understanding of climate change vulnerability. Adaptation strategies should address how climatic shifts interact with generalized poverty, food and nutrition insecurity, health, and gendered vulnerability in areas most affected.
The “farmer-back-to-farmer” model of agricultural
development, pioneered by Robert Rhoades and Ro... more The “farmer-back-to-farmer” model of agricultural development, pioneered by Robert Rhoades and Robert Booth, urged technologists to use farmers’ knowledge and practices as both the starting point for technological innovations as well as the ultimate measure of the value of innovation. This approach was premised upon close ethnographic study of farmers’ livelihoods, especially how technical agricultural practices interacted with household dynamics, community structures, and cultural values. However, the original “farmer-back-to-farmer” approach left the “expert” practice of science and technology as an implicitly practical and apolitical space rather than as a subject of ethnographic study. The increasing and diverse articulation of farmers’ livelihood practices with the professional practices of agricultural scientists demands theoretical tools that bring them all into the same frame of analysis. This article proposes that the integration of agricultural anthropology and science and technology studies provides a well-balanced toolkit for analyzing participatory technology development as a space of cultural encounter.
Pastoral households are increasingly practising fodder production in response to forage scarcity ... more Pastoral households are increasingly practising fodder production in response to forage scarcity associated with land degradation, climate variability and change. Understanding the grass seed value chain is a prerequisite for developing sustainable fodder production and guiding appropriate out-scaling in the drylands. This study investigated the producers' perspectives on grass seed production, marketing and challenges faced along the grass seed value chain in Marigat Sub-County of Baringo County, Kenya. The results show that the dominant actors were the bulking and processing agents who provided inputs and were a source of grass seed market to the producers. The producers preferred contractual agreements that allowed them to sell their grass seed to markets of their choice. As independent grass seed traders allowed for seed price negotiation, they were popular amongst the producers and thus handled the most volume of seeds marketed. Drought occurrence, inability of existing outlets to purchase grass seed at times, together with low prices offered for producers' grass seed were found to be among the challenges facing the producers. There is need to strengthen the fodder groups with a possibility of registering them as cooperatives for the purpose of collective bargaining for better grass seed prices.
Purpose: Within the context of the European-funded JOLISAA project (JOint Learning in and about I... more Purpose: Within the context of the European-funded JOLISAA project (JOint Learning in and about Innovation Systems in African Agriculture), an inventory of agricultural innovation experiences was made in Benin, Kenya and South Africa. The objective was to assess multi-stakeholder agricultural innovation processes involving smallholders. Approach: Country-based teams used bibliographic searches, interviews with resource persons and field visits to identify cases. The inventory was developed iteratively according to a common analytical framework and guidelines inspired by the innovation system perspective. Findings and practical implications: The completed inventory includes 57 documented cases, covering a wide diversity of experiences, in terms of types, domains, scales and timelines of innovation. The inventory confirms the diversity of stakeholders involved in innovation, the diversity of innovation triggers and drivers, and the frequent occurrence of market-driven innovation. It also illustrates more original features: the typically long timeframes of innovation processes; the common occurrence of ‘innovation bundles’; and an often tight yet ambivalent relationship between innovation initiatives and externally funded projects. National teams faced several challenges during the inventory process, for example, in gaining a common understanding and making consistent use of key innovation-related concepts, and in accessing relevant information, as some case holders were reluctant to share their experience freely. Originality/value: The JOLISAA inventory contributes to illustrating that African agriculture is responding actively to the many challenges it faces. Documenting and sharing such a palpable dynamism may help to counter some of the pessimism and negative publicity that African agriculture usually attracts and to increase the motivation of many for making innovation happen across Africa.
Pastoral households are increasingly practising fodder production in response to forage scarcity ... more Pastoral households are increasingly practising fodder production in response to forage scarcity associated with land degradation, climate variability and change. Understanding the grass seed value chain is a prerequisite for developing sustainable fodder production and guiding appropriate out-scaling in the drylands. This study investigated the producers’ perspectives on grass seed production, marketing and challenges faced along the grass seed value chain in Marigat Sub-County of Baringo County, Kenya. The results show that the dominant actors were the bulking and processing agents who provided inputs and were a source of grass seed market to the producers. The producers preferred contractual agreements that allowed them to sell their grass seed to markets of their choice. As independent grass seed traders allowed for seed price negotiation, they were popular amongst the producers and thus handled the most volume of seeds marketed. Drought occurrence, inability of existing outlets to purchase grass seed at times, together with low prices offered for producers’ grass seed were found to be among the challenges facing the producers. There is need to strengthen the fodder groups with a possibility of registering them as cooperatives for the purpose of collective bargaining for better grass seed prices
International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, 2014
ABSTRACT In the oil palm-based cropping system on the Adja Plateau, land titling plays an importa... more ABSTRACT In the oil palm-based cropping system on the Adja Plateau, land titling plays an important role. Landowners argue that oil palm fallow (dekan) restores soil fertility, but in the long-term it is also an instrument in the struggle for control over land. A land-titling programme in the study area allowed an analysis of the relationship between titling and soil fertility management that showed two different institutional effects with socio-technical consequences. Titling increased land security for landowners and, although this security initially reduced access to land for tenants, a subsequent introduction of witnessed paper-based contracts enhanced tenants' access to land and improved their security of tenure. Improved titling and more secure tenure reduced conflicts over land and opened possibilities for agricultural intensification. This change was associated with a shift from long-term oil palm fallow to shorter-term land-management practices where tenants and landowners increasingly invested in land through rotations between maize and cowpea (rather than maize mono-cropping) and the use of mineral fertilizers, without increased use of household waste. The paper suggests that sustainable agricultural intensification requires institutional changes, based on a mixture of customary and formal rules, in both landownership and rental agreements to access land.
Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Nsisha, a rural village located close to the shores... more Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Nsisha, a rural village located close to the shores of Lake Victoria in northwestern Tanzania, this article analyzes how climate change and variability intersect with other stressors that affect rural livelihoods, particularly HIV/AIDS. The analysis integrates theories of vulnerability from both climate and HIV/AIDS literatures to show how these intersecting stressors compound livelihood vulnerability in complex ways. Climate change and variability are linked to declining agricultural yields and an increase in food and nutrition insecurity and poor health in this region. This situation heightens poverty and susceptibility to HIV/AIDS, compromising people’s abilities to cope and adapt. Because of social dynamics, single mothers and their children are particularly affected by these compound vulnerabilities. Climate change and variability are significant contributing vulnerability factors that sustain and exacerbate asymmetrical poverty, food and nutrition insecurity, and HIV/AIDS. By describing the links between vulnerability to HIV/AIDS and climate variability, findings highlight the importance of holistic and localized approaches to adaptation, instead of trying to isolate single issues. Prioritization of multidisciplinary research focusing on the socially differentiated and gendered distribution of vulnerability specifically in regard to poverty, food and nutrition insecurity, and HIV/AIDS is recommended as a means to enrich the understanding of climate change vulnerability. Adaptation strategies should address how climatic shifts interact with generalized poverty, food and nutrition insecurity, health, and gendered vulnerability in areas most affected.
The “farmer-back-to-farmer” model of agricultural
development, pioneered by Robert Rhoades and Ro... more The “farmer-back-to-farmer” model of agricultural development, pioneered by Robert Rhoades and Robert Booth, urged technologists to use farmers’ knowledge and practices as both the starting point for technological innovations as well as the ultimate measure of the value of innovation. This approach was premised upon close ethnographic study of farmers’ livelihoods, especially how technical agricultural practices interacted with household dynamics, community structures, and cultural values. However, the original “farmer-back-to-farmer” approach left the “expert” practice of science and technology as an implicitly practical and apolitical space rather than as a subject of ethnographic study. The increasing and diverse articulation of farmers’ livelihood practices with the professional practices of agricultural scientists demands theoretical tools that bring them all into the same frame of analysis. This article proposes that the integration of agricultural anthropology and science and technology studies provides a well-balanced toolkit for analyzing participatory technology development as a space of cultural encounter.
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Papers by Todd A Crane
Approach: Country-based teams used bibliographic searches, interviews with resource persons and field visits to identify cases. The inventory was developed iteratively according to a common analytical framework and guidelines inspired by the innovation system perspective.
Findings and practical implications: The completed inventory includes 57 documented cases, covering a wide diversity of experiences, in terms of types, domains, scales and timelines of
innovation. The inventory confirms the diversity of stakeholders involved in innovation, the diversity of innovation triggers and drivers, and the frequent occurrence of market-driven innovation. It also illustrates more original features: the typically long timeframes of innovation processes; the common occurrence of ‘innovation bundles’; and an often tight yet ambivalent relationship between innovation initiatives and externally funded projects. National teams faced several challenges during the inventory process, for example, in gaining a common understanding and making consistent use of key innovation-related concepts, and in accessing relevant
information, as some case holders were reluctant to share their experience freely.
Originality/value: The JOLISAA inventory contributes to illustrating that African agriculture is responding actively to the many challenges it faces. Documenting and sharing such a palpable dynamism may help to counter some of the pessimism and negative publicity that African agriculture usually attracts and to increase the motivation of many for making innovation happen across Africa.
livelihood vulnerability in complex ways. Climate change and variability are linked to declining agricultural yields and an increase in food and nutrition insecurity and poor health in this region. This situation heightens poverty and susceptibility to HIV/AIDS, compromising people’s abilities to cope and adapt. Because of social dynamics, single mothers and their children are particularly affected by these compound vulnerabilities.
Climate change and variability are significant contributing vulnerability factors that sustain and exacerbate asymmetrical poverty, food and nutrition insecurity, and HIV/AIDS. By describing the links between vulnerability to HIV/AIDS and climate variability, findings highlight the importance of holistic and localized approaches to adaptation, instead of trying to isolate single issues. Prioritization of multidisciplinary research
focusing on the socially differentiated and gendered distribution of vulnerability specifically in regard to poverty, food and nutrition insecurity, and HIV/AIDS is recommended as a means to enrich the understanding of climate change vulnerability. Adaptation strategies should address how climatic shifts interact with generalized poverty, food and nutrition insecurity, health, and gendered vulnerability in areas most affected.
development, pioneered by Robert Rhoades and Robert
Booth, urged technologists to use farmers’ knowledge and
practices as both the starting point for technological innovations
as well as the ultimate measure of the value of
innovation. This approach was premised upon close ethnographic
study of farmers’ livelihoods, especially how technical
agricultural practices interacted with household
dynamics, community structures, and cultural values.
However, the original “farmer-back-to-farmer” approach
left the “expert” practice of science and technology as an
implicitly practical and apolitical space rather than as a
subject of ethnographic study. The increasing and diverse
articulation of farmers’ livelihood practices with the professional
practices of agricultural scientists demands theoretical
tools that bring them all into the same frame of
analysis. This article proposes that the integration of agricultural
anthropology and science and technology studies
provides a well-balanced toolkit for analyzing participatory
technology development as a space of cultural
encounter.
Approach: Country-based teams used bibliographic searches, interviews with resource persons and field visits to identify cases. The inventory was developed iteratively according to a common analytical framework and guidelines inspired by the innovation system perspective.
Findings and practical implications: The completed inventory includes 57 documented cases, covering a wide diversity of experiences, in terms of types, domains, scales and timelines of
innovation. The inventory confirms the diversity of stakeholders involved in innovation, the diversity of innovation triggers and drivers, and the frequent occurrence of market-driven innovation. It also illustrates more original features: the typically long timeframes of innovation processes; the common occurrence of ‘innovation bundles’; and an often tight yet ambivalent relationship between innovation initiatives and externally funded projects. National teams faced several challenges during the inventory process, for example, in gaining a common understanding and making consistent use of key innovation-related concepts, and in accessing relevant
information, as some case holders were reluctant to share their experience freely.
Originality/value: The JOLISAA inventory contributes to illustrating that African agriculture is responding actively to the many challenges it faces. Documenting and sharing such a palpable dynamism may help to counter some of the pessimism and negative publicity that African agriculture usually attracts and to increase the motivation of many for making innovation happen across Africa.
livelihood vulnerability in complex ways. Climate change and variability are linked to declining agricultural yields and an increase in food and nutrition insecurity and poor health in this region. This situation heightens poverty and susceptibility to HIV/AIDS, compromising people’s abilities to cope and adapt. Because of social dynamics, single mothers and their children are particularly affected by these compound vulnerabilities.
Climate change and variability are significant contributing vulnerability factors that sustain and exacerbate asymmetrical poverty, food and nutrition insecurity, and HIV/AIDS. By describing the links between vulnerability to HIV/AIDS and climate variability, findings highlight the importance of holistic and localized approaches to adaptation, instead of trying to isolate single issues. Prioritization of multidisciplinary research
focusing on the socially differentiated and gendered distribution of vulnerability specifically in regard to poverty, food and nutrition insecurity, and HIV/AIDS is recommended as a means to enrich the understanding of climate change vulnerability. Adaptation strategies should address how climatic shifts interact with generalized poverty, food and nutrition insecurity, health, and gendered vulnerability in areas most affected.
development, pioneered by Robert Rhoades and Robert
Booth, urged technologists to use farmers’ knowledge and
practices as both the starting point for technological innovations
as well as the ultimate measure of the value of
innovation. This approach was premised upon close ethnographic
study of farmers’ livelihoods, especially how technical
agricultural practices interacted with household
dynamics, community structures, and cultural values.
However, the original “farmer-back-to-farmer” approach
left the “expert” practice of science and technology as an
implicitly practical and apolitical space rather than as a
subject of ethnographic study. The increasing and diverse
articulation of farmers’ livelihood practices with the professional
practices of agricultural scientists demands theoretical
tools that bring them all into the same frame of
analysis. This article proposes that the integration of agricultural
anthropology and science and technology studies
provides a well-balanced toolkit for analyzing participatory
technology development as a space of cultural
encounter.