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Due to their dependence on a single crop, agricultural frontiers are often considered to be formed through phases of ‘boom and bust’. These phases are closely related to fluctuations in world market prices of the commodity that constitutes the frontier's economic basis. This paper demonstrates how although migration patterns and economic growth are conditioned by world market dynamics, local socioeconomic outcomes within frontier regions are diverse. Frontier formation is far from a homogenous process that slowly incorporates all localities and communities in the same way. Dak Lak Province, in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, produces more than 50% of Vietnam's coffee. As Vietnam is the world's largest exporter of Robusta coffee, Dak Lak is highly embedded in the dynamics of the world coffee market. Planned settlement in Dak Lak started in the 1950s and has continued in phases orchestrated by the state's changing economic, social and political motives. Spontaneous immigration has dominated since the early 1990s when the coffee sector took off and regulations on population mobility were relaxed. This paper shows how household livelihoods differ substantially between four communes in Dak Lak Province due to different combinations of migrant and indigenous groups, the ease of transport to the main urban centres, and the timing of coffee planting in the settlements. These temporal and spatial variations in livelihoods both condition and are conditioned by the organisational set-up of the local coffee marketing chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the notion of frontiers as ‘in-between’ spaces that define particular transitions. Three contexts of frontier and their rapidly changing nature form the basis of the analysis. Agricultural frontiers (typically between farmland and forest) are defined by new relations of production and interplays between conservation, shifting modes of agriculture and natural resource use and management. Peri-urban frontiers (between countryside and city) are taken beyond their desakota/chaan-meuang locations to a more generic interplay between urbanity and rurality in defining livelihood and identity. National frontiers (between nation states with sharply different political and economic conditions) are transcended from above in the form of new regionalisms, and, from below, in migrations and other transboundary influences and flows. The paper proposes the frontier as both a spatial and temporal heuristic for understanding development and associated societal transitions in Thailand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been particular interest in ‘alternative’ food over the last 10 years, with many policymakers and researchers throughout the Minority World following a growing number of consumers and producers in supporting organic farming and a host of ‘alternative’ food networks. To date, there has been a tendency for theory and policy to emerge somewhat divorced from the grounded practices and experiences of producer-suppliers themselves within these networks. Urging a shift from ‘alternativity’ to ‘sustainability’ as a more critical and valuable tool to analyse food networks, this paper draws upon in-depth ethnographic research with small-scale producer-supplier case studies in south Wales and southern Ontario. In so doing it explores often overlooked voices and stories within sustainable food discourses. Focusing on the value of farmer-led understandings and responses, the paper highlights important implications for policymakers and consumers and outlines future research on sustainable food networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whatever their eventual outcome, the current round of international trade negotiations taking place as part of the Doha Development Round offers a clear demonstration of the growing influence of a neoliberal agenda for international agricultural policy reform. Despite being powerfully supported by an alliance of agribusiness interests and country groupings, neoliberalism is far from universally accepted as the model for the future governance of an agriculture which is both commodifying and market led. This paper assesses the nature of the resulting debate and the range of alternative visions being proposed. It analyses the development of the European negotiating stance within the current round of trade talks and compares the merits of a decoupled policy approach to managing the rural environment with one much more closely linked to the practice of farming. The paper concludes by suggesting that an outcome of the continuing liberalization of agricultural policy will be a more demarcated countryside, in which productive and internationally competitive operators will increasingly be removed in space and in terms of policy treatment from the large number of economically marginal producers whose role will be to supply the public environmental goods under contract from the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local knowledge has played an active role in the lives of rural communities in virtually every part of the world. In Jamaica, traditional cropping systems based on local informal knowledge have been practiced since the days of slavery and play a vital role in meeting food security. Yet, some negative attitudes remain about the legitimacy and relevance of small-scale farmers’ local and traditional knowledge. This paper discusses some conceptual and empirical issues related to the application of local knowledge among small-scale food farmers in central Jamaica. The paper argues that contextually speaking, local and traditional knowledge is valuable, adaptable and necessary in coping with risk and uncertainty in a changing world, while cautioning against a misguided notion of traditional knowledge as a panacea to all the ills of local agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent assessments of Australia's land and water resources have revealed widespread patterns of serious decline, much of it directly associated with agricultural practices. The environmental degradation associated with agriculture has both biophysical and socio-economic underpinnings. While there have been calls to attend to the sustainability ‘crisis’ of Australian agriculture, policy settings remain firmly locked onto a productivist trajectory. We consider the implications of contemporary policy settings for farmland sustainability against the background of debates as to the meaning of ‘multifunctionality’. The discussion is then turned to the Land Stewardship project, a strategic policy initiative within the State of Victoria that was looked to as a means of redressing environmental degradation in agricultural landscapes while also being attentive to rural community and economic issues. Towards the end of the paper we reflect on the question of how the Land Stewardship project aligns with theorizations of multifunctionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Moshav, a family farm-based settlement, has been a prime example of the major changes in the rural space in Israel. The aim of this paper is to present and understand these changes by studying the economic characteristics of second-generation – that is relatively younger – households in the Moshav. This group has shown a higher tendency to either adopt a livelihood strategy of pluriactivity, or to disassociate itself from agriculture in favour of non-agricultural income-generating activities, both inside and outside the settlement. Both trends have emerged in response to the increasing difficulty of deriving income from agriculture. The paper identifies the major patterns of economic activity and income sources among this group and assesses future attitudes towards operating the farm, choosing pluriactivity as a livelihood strategy, and remaining on the farm in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various land management strategies are used to prevent land degradation and keep land productive. Often land management strategies applied in certain areas focus on the context of the physical environment but are incompatible with the social environment where they are applied. As a result, such strategies are ignored by land users and land degradation becomes difficult to control. This study observes the impacts of land management in the upland watersheds of the Uporoto Mountains in South West Tanzania. In spite of various land management practices used in the area, 38% of the studied area experienced soil fertility loss, 30% gully erosion, 23% soil loss, 6% biodiversity loss and drying up of river sources. Land management methods that were accepted and adopted were those contributing to immediate livelihood needs. These methods did not control land resource degradation, but increased crop output per unit of land and required little labour. Effective methods of controlling land degradation were abandoned or ignored because they did not satisfy immediate livelihood needs. This paper concludes that Integrating poor people's needs would transform non-livelihood-based land management methods to livelihood-based ones. Different ways of transforming these land management methods are presented and discussed.

The global food system is coming under increasing strain in the face of urban population growth. The recent spike in global food prices (2007–08) provoked consumer protests, and raised questions about food sovereignty and how and where food will be produced. Concurrently, for the first time in history the majority of the global population is urban, with the bulk of urban growth occurring in smaller-tiered cities and urban peripheries, or ‘peri-urban’ areas of the developing world. This paper discusses the new emerging spaces that incorporate a mosaic of urban and rural worlds, and reviews the implications of these spaces for livelihoods and food security. We propose a modified livelihoods framework to evaluate the contexts in which food production persists within broader processes of landscape and livelihood transformation in peri-urban locations. Where and how food production persists are central questions for the future of food security in an urbanising world. Our proposed framework provides directions for future research and highlights the role of policy and planning in reconciling food production with urban growth.

Over recent decades a structural transformation has affected agriculture in the frontier areas of Malaysian Borneo and Outer Island Indonesia with the rapid conversion of agricultural lands, fallows, and formerly forested areas into oil palm. These frontiers have similar positions in the international political economy of oil palm and have complementary resource endowments. In both cases, state planners face the common challenges of finding a disciplined labour force, delivering land for estate development, maintaining local legitimacy, and dealing with local contestation. Yet there are significant differences in systems of governance and policy frameworks regarding land, shifting capacity of state actors to facilitate the transformation of these agrarian frontiers, and changing degrees of local, national and international contestation. Considering the generic and the specific elements at play in each case, this paper argues that analogous policy narratives have shaped the ways in which landholders have been engaged in the process of oil palm expansion in Malaysia and Indonesia. In both cases, with the shift from state-led to neoliberal governance approaches to agricultural development, the ‘frontier’ has been created and transformed through policy narratives that facilitate the conversion of whole landscapes into oil palm. This has been achieved by obscuring indigenous forms of agriculture and land tenure, while creating reserves of available ‘state’ or ‘idle’ customary land, and counterpoising smallholder ‘marginality’ and ‘backwardness’ to the modernity of contemporary estate agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small-scale farmers all over the world face a number of common biophysical and socio-economic challenges. In this paper we draw on data from a workshop held in the UK in 2005, to assess whether experiences in addressing these challenges, as gained in the global South, may be used to inform solutions to similar challenges in the UK. In doing so, we contribute to a growing body of literature that seeks to challenge predominantly North–South flows of knowledge and resources. We first identify specific common challenges faced by small-scale farmers in the global North and South. We then compare the different solutions used to address these problems, drawing on the first-hand experiences of the academics, small-scale farmers, NGO staff and policymakers who participated in the workshop. Next, we examine the transferability of solutions between locations, elucidating the conditions that support and hinder such transfers. Finally, we evaluate the potential for a workshop approach to act as a ‘learning space’, in which the sharing of experiences can foster learning for participants and lead to new, creative ways of thinking about the process-based challenges faced by small-scale farmers [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the historical importance of fire as a savanna land management tool, much controversy still surrounds discussions on anthropogenic fire utilization and the sustainability of indigenous land management practices in African savannas. This controversy is arguably a result of a discord between official fire policies and actual indigenous fire practices – a discord based on a gap in existing knowledge of, and a lack of informed literature on, the importance of fire for socio-economic and environmental survival in savanna environments. Addressing a continuing lack of research on the political ecology of fire, this study investigates the historical and present day socio-economic, environmental and political frameworks that affect anthropogenic burning regimes and land management in the Kafinda Game Management Area and Kasanka National Park in Zambia. A series of participatory research activities revealed the continuing importance of fire to rural livelihoods, but that a mismatch in desired burning regimes exists between local stakeholders. The paper argues that local power relations are preventing the local communities from adopting burning regimes that would be more environmentally sustainable and more in line with present day farming systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between population mobility and farming is complex and has been the focus of numerous studies. Despite differing perspectives on the subject, there is an increasing realization that migration sustains farming in many rural communities, but with contradictory effects. Notwithstanding this conclusion, there is a paucity of village level studies that explain the precise ways in which migration in its various forms affects the survival of small farms. This paper reports on the results of a village level study of migration and small farming in the Rio Grande Valley of Jamaica. Apart from highlighting the various ways in which migration affects small farming at the local level, the study confirms the contradictory impact of migration on small farming in this remote agricultural community. It is noted, however, that the net effect is positive and the capital and labour resources, which are made available as a result of migration, play pivotal roles in the survival of small-scale farming as an economic activity in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades contract farming as a mechanism that integrates and subordinates agricultural production to export oriented agribusiness has expanded in Third World countries. In Mexico contract farming dominates the production of horticultural crops for processing and export. It is also used for barley and to grow some varieties of wheat for Cargill. The contract farming labour agreement represents an institution that links local and global processes where agribusiness is the key actor that integrates local farmers to national and world markets. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the implications of contract farming for productive relations by examining its impact upon farmers and firms. The study found that despite the disadvantages of contract farming for growers, and the disproportional risks born by producers, they enter into contract farming labour agreements because they lack alternatives for financing, technical assistance and access to markets. The experience of contract farming in Mexico and several Third World countries shows that its growth is related to the implementation of neo-liberal policies that are accompanied by the withdrawal of state support and regulation of agricultural production. In this context, contract farming represents a livelihood strategy for many Mexican growers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many researchers in the Caribbean have protested the generally negative stereotyping of small–scale farmers and the small–scale domestic agricultural sector. The essence of this pejorative attitude is that small–scale farmers display apathy and resistance to change and are reluctant to accept innovations. A major reason for this perspective is a lack of knowledge and understanding of and sensitivity towards the factors that influence and inform farmers’ decisions. Studying the decision–making of small–scale farmers can, therefore, shed light on their activities and help inform policymaking. This paper uses the example of small–scale yam farmers in central Jamaica to explore and investigate important issues related to decision–making innovations around four questions. Can the decisions of farmers about innovations be considered to be rational? What are the major factors that influence decision outcomes? Why do so many agricultural innovations and modernization initiatives that target small–scale farmers fail? Do farmers really shun innovations that have clear and obvious benefits and, if so, why? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil degradation assessments for mixed farming systems of the Molopo Basin (North West Province, South Africa and Southern District, Botswana) are provided from farmer–based research, designed to quantify nutrient fluxes across the farming system and to analyze the social, economic, political and environmental factors affecting nutrient management practices. This paper discusses the practical difficulties of how to use participatory farmer–led studies to assess soil degradation extent and its causes, and of then disseminating this information to farming communities and policymakers. Nutrient balance studies show that land degradation is evident on arable fields as soil nutrient depletion (the main threat to poorer manure–reliant farmers) and soil acidification (the main threat to wealthier farmers who have become dependent on inorganic fertilizer additions). Integrated nutrient management strategies involving both compound fertilizer additions and regular manure inputs can mitigate most soil degradation even on the sandy infertile Kalahari soils, but remain infrequently practised. The need to retain nutrient flows through the livestock sector from rangeland to arable land is thus vital to environmental sustainability and offers an applicable entry point for agricultural development initiatives and support. Factors identified as threatening the flow of nutrients from rangelands to arable lands include policy settings in terms of the different support programmes offered to communal farmers, village–level extension advice, household poverty levels and labour constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bhutan is a developing country emerging from physical and political isolation. Because of political and economic pressures the Government has initiated a programme of rapid agricultural development. Owing to institutional inexperience and the lack of trained manpower this programme is uncritically based on imported ideas and technology. Traditional sustainable agricultural systems are being influenced and Bhutan's social and physical environment is changing. This paper critically reviews two components of the agricultural programme: the adoption of new high-yielding varieties of cereals which may be ill-adapted to Bhutan and which displace hardy and resistant native varieties; and the Government's policy towards two important cash crops, cardamom and potato, which may have adverse environmental effects. The paper concludes that there are sufficient grounds to be concerned about the unintended consequences of agricultural development in Bhutan, which when undertaken without an understanding of the social and physical environment of the rural households will lead to unanticipated problems and failures. A more holistic approach is recommended, and the establishment of a system of environmental monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The following two papers result from a meeting held in the Society's House on 23 February 1989. The first paper provides an overview of the present levels of, and estimated potential for, irrigation agriculture in Africa south of the Sahara. The important contribution of small-scale schemes to the total irrigation area and their favourable economic costs and returns when compared with larger-scale schemes is clearly demonstrated. The examples provided in the second paper indicate the variation of purposes for which large-scale irrigation projects are used, and provide details of the economic impact and returns from some such projects in Southern Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Multifunctional agriculture is favoured by EU rural policy and considered as a tool for integrated and sustainable rural development. Recent approaches to define the multifunctional practices of rural farm households (different from those of 'conventional' agriculture) according to the use of their resources result in three dimensions: deepening, broadening and regrounding. In this paper, the multifunctional practices of farm households in six rural areas of Greece with different characteristics of agricultural production are examined. Data were obtained from interviews with farmers about the practices of their households. The findings indicate that regrounding practices are encountered more often in all areas and are not associated with the degree of the 'professionalisation' of agriculture in each area. Broadening and deepening practices are less common for two reasons: some of these practices take place at a level independent from most Greek farmers, and demand appears to shape some of these practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how double exposure to economic and environmental stressors – and the interaction between the two – affect smallholder farmers in Mozambique's Limpopo River Basin. Studying two case study villages we find that people, in general, are resilient to environmental stressors. However, most households show less resilience to the socioeconomic stressors and shocks that have been introduced or intensified by economic globalisation. Our findings indicate that economic change brought about by structural adjustment policies pressures rural people to alter their approach to farming, which makes it more difficult for them to respond to environmental change. For example, smallholder farmers find it difficult to make a transition to commercial farming within the Limpopo Basin, in part because farming techniques that are well adapted to managing environmental variability in the region – such as seeding many small plots – are not well suited to the economies of scale needed for profitable commercial agriculture. People use a variety of strategies to cope with interactive environmental and economic stressors and shocks, but many face considerable constraints to profitably exploiting market-based opportunities. We conclude that economic stressors and shocks may now be causing small-scale agriculture to be less well adapted to ecological and climate variability, making smallholders more vulnerable to future climate change. Some local level policy interventions, including those that support and build on local environmental knowledge, could assist rural agricultural societies in adapting to future environmental change in the context of economic globalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of experimental fingerponds: an integrated flood recession aquaculture–agriculture production system in the Lake Victoria wetlands in Kenya. The overall aim of the study is to assess the potential of fingerponds as a sustainable wetland farming system for improving food security at the subsistence level and within the context of the existing livelihood activities. The contribution of this new activity to rural household livelihoods is evaluated. Since it is a sustainable technology, based on natural events, the production level is intermediate and the benefits may not be high in the short term. Economic analysis shows that the gross margin and net income of fingerponds is about 752 and 197 Euros per hectare per year, respectively. This is about an 11% increase in the annual gross margin of an average rural household around Lake Victoria. The additional per capita fish supply is 3 kg per season or more from a 192 m2 pond. The potential fish protein supply of 200 kg/ha is high compared with most existing terrestrial protein production systems. Fingerponds have the potential to contribute to household food security and to improve livelihoods. Sensitivity analysis indicates that biophysical variations, which may occur from one wetland to another, have implications for the functioning, and consequently the economic performance, of fingerponds. This reinforces the need for the integration of these systems into other household activities to buffer the household against potential risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food is the most basic of the needs of the urban poor in developing countries, and yet relatively little is known about the supply systems through which such needs are met. This is in great contrast to research undertaken on shelter. The urban food supply system is a complex network of production, distribution and consumption linkages, but three main sources of food for the poor may be identified. First, there is the conventional retail sector which has become increasingly dominated by imported commodities and retailing methods, much of which is the consequence of changing dietary preferences and has led to growing food dependency. Not surprisingly, given the cost of food retailed through the conventional sector, the poor have sought alternative sources. The most obvious is through the operations of the petty-commodity or informal sector, but in addition a surprising amount of urban subsistence food is still produced within the cities of Asia and Africa. It would appear that, in general, many authorities still hold repressive attitudes towards the informal or subsistence sectors, largely because their activities spoil the image of the modernizing, Westernized city that the planners wish to convey to the outside world. Clearly, however, these sectors are performing a useful function, but the ways in which and the extent to which their activities benefit the poor is still largely undocumented. It is the argument of this paper that much more information is required on the complexities of the urban food supply system in order to bring about more effective planning to meet the needs of the poor. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Indicates the variation of purposes for which large-scale irrigation projects are used, and provides details of the economic impact and returns from some such projects in Southern Africa. The paper resulted from a meeting held in the Society's House on February 23, 1989.

This study aims to explain a farmer–herder conflict in the inland Niger delta of Mali. We focus on the interests and motivations of the actors involved in the conflict and the rent seeking of the local administration in handling the conflict. Since independence, the customary pastoral leaders (the jowros) have gradually lost power and wealth to the benefit of previously underprivileged farmers (the rimaybé). We argue that this process is mainly the result of national policies and laws giving priority to agricultural development at the expense of pastoralism. The result has been large-scale conversions of dry season pastures to rice fields. This pastoral marginalisation also results in increased land use conflicts between herders and farmers. In addition, rent seeking by local officials is perpetuating land use conflicts in the area. Hence, officials are benefiting from conflicts, while especially pastoralists, but also farmers, are losing out. The droughts of the 1970s and 1980s, leading to a more rapid encroachment of rice fields on pastures, as well as the power vacuum that emerged in the early days of the decentralisation process, further aggravated land disputes. Finally, we use this case study to call for an inclusion of issues of rent seeking and corruption more centrally in political ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maize diversity is important to the livelihoods of millions of farmers in Mexico, the crop's centre of origin; to maize breeders seeking new genetic material; and to producers and consumers worldwide. Key social processes that determine maize diversity include historic and cultural emphases on maize as a primary crop; land-use practices encompassing heterogeneous agro-ecological conditions; farmers’ seed-saving practices; farmer selection of useful traits; and farmer seed exchange and purchasing networks. We consider the impacts of recent agricultural and rural development policies on these processes. We focus on La Frailesca, a commercial and semi-subsistence maize-growing region in southern Mexico. Qualitative data were collected via focus group discussions, semi-structured interviews, and participant observation in four villages at intervals over a 2-year period. These techniques were complemented with semi-structured interviews with local and state policymakers. Observations suggest that policies promoting market liberalisation, agricultural modernisation, and rural education have contributed to significant changes in the social processes which have historically generated maize diversity. Increasing numbers of smallholder maize producers are diversifying into alternative livelihood options, including temporary or permanent migration, and cultural and economic emphases on maize production are changing. Changes in La Frailesca raise important questions about the fate of maize genetic diversity as the Mexican agricultural sector is further realigned with the global agricultural economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which seeks to address the opportunities, challenges and viable interventions for sustainable water resources management for the entire Great Ruaha Basin upstream of Mtera Reservoir in Tanzania. It explores the rising conflicts over water availability for irrigation, as well as over access to water for livestock. The study conducted a fieldwork to assess the hydrological characteristics of the basin, the irrigation systems, agricultural practices, farming systems, geographical characteristics and the size of the study area.

In Ireland ‘commonage’ refers to lands jointly owned by several individuals who have grazing rights. Commonage can provide the low-intensity grazing regime regarded as optimal for habitat conservation, and it is also unlikely to suffer the negative impacts of building development or coastal engineering. Today, however, the traditional control systems of coastal commonage are generally moribund, leading to habitat degradation. The only viable future management model is likely to be one based on local community control. Community management would have the legitimacy to counter the negative perceptions of external authority that generate environmental degradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaluation of Ontario's Environmental Farm Plan (EFP) scheme, launched in 1993, provides an opportunity for comparisons with agri-environmental measures instituted in the European Union and other parts of North America. The EFP has a strong ‘bottom-up’ dimension in that it is farmers’ organizations that have been central both to the scheme's instigation and to its ongoing management. This has affected the nature of the actions taken by individual farmers participating in the scheme. These actions are reviewed, especially in terms of the participants’ attitudes towards stewardship of the land, environmental outcomes, cross-compliance measures, barriers to participation and the role of statutory regulation. Some contrasts are drawn with the greater ‘top-down’ controls exerted in several EU agri-environment schemes, with the latter's promotion of extensification and the changing role of farmers as ‘producers of countryside’ in a multi-functional agricultural system. The diffusion of EFP schemes throughout Canada is noted and is cited as confirming the maintenance of fundamentally different attitudes to the development of farm-based environmental actions compared with those adopted in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses sustainable farmland management as political and cultural discourse. Information on the political economy of agriculture is presented. A discussion of the way ideas of sustainable agriculture are shaped and contested among various languages and knowledge communities is also given.

Extensive herding is an important activity in northern Cameroon, in terms of both the local social economy and local land management. However, this activity is strongly linked to the availability and accessibility of fodder resources. Due to territorial processes, such as land clearance and wood harvesting, this resource is receding and pasturelands are becoming fragmented. Herders are facing new challenges to secure their livelihoods, and, in this context, fodder trees are emerging as a key resource, allowing herds to subsist up to the end of the dry season. Increasingly, trees are playing a significant part in the herders’ strategies to feed their herds in time and space and to ‘root’ their activities to particular lands. This trend requires an analysis of the importance of fodder trees in the definition of territorial strategies operated by herders in northern Cameroon, in the context of various herding systems (nomadic herding, agro herding using transhumance, and settled agro herding). A discussion of herding strategies needed to address the decreasing access to fodder resources highlights the problems of current extensive herding systems and leads to proposed alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tunisia is a marginal country hydrologically and it has adopted a number of distinctive methods of water management for agriculture. The central region supports modern dam irrigation, whilst traditional rainwater harvesting is practiced in the south. These contrasting techniques are described and evaluated in terms of sustainability using empirical field data and secondary literature for two study sites. Research focuses primarily on the physical environment, but socio-cultural and economic viability are also examined. Analysis indicates that traditional water management advantageously partitions the continuum dividing hazards and resources through subtle manipulation of the environment. A potentially hazardous environment is rendered secure by resourceful water management based on community action and cumulative knowledge. This practice minimizes community dependency and local economic imbalance. With dam irrigation, carrying capacity is established more forcibly by centralized control in order to place society within world markets. An almost total break from environmental variability is made in the short term, but this can lead to disequilibrium over longer durations. Additionally, the spatial and social distributions of development are uneven. In Tunisia, maintenance of traditional methods can reduce the negative impacts caused by modern programmes and support their positive characteristics. A mix of both methods offers a foundation to sustainable water supply in the new millennium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines extant agricultural and near shore fisheries activities on South Tarawa, Kiribati. Impact of extant agricultural and fisheries activities on health, nutrition and the environment; Overview of the dietary situation in Kiribati; Reasons for the changes in the local diet in Kiribati.

Examines the evolution of soil conservation technology in the farming system in Jamaica. Influences on development of soil conservation practices; Sources of information on technology development; Background on agricultural practices in the Cedar Valley; Role of local knowledge in technology development.

Discusses the dilemmas of economic development in Oceania. Details of the shift to orthodox development policy; Political economy of agro-exports in Tonga; Policy implications.