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Without rapid changes to agriculture and food systems, the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change will not be met. Food systems are one of the most important contributors to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but they also need to be adapted to cope with climate change impacts. Although many options exist to reduce GHG emissions in the food system, efforts to develop implementable transformation pathways are hampered by a combination of structural challenges such as fragmented decision-making, vested interests, and power imbalances in the climate policy and food communities, all of which are compounded by a lack of joint vision. New processes and governance arrangements are urgently needed for dealing with potential trade-offs among mitigation options and their food security implications.

Contains fulltext : 287534.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) Abstract: Drawing on longitudinal research engagement with villages and government projects in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, we argue the case for a strong revamp of government policies on rural development. Thereby we suggest that the legitimacy of ascribing to policy a notion of “post-apartheid” is largely redundant as current development policies in rural South Africa have not changed sufficiently. Notably the underlying rationale behind government interventions and associated governance mechanisms remains highly technocratic. This represents a strong continuity in the role of the state and its quest to restructure and modernise the rural economy. We question the efficacy of such a technocratic approach when it seems so disconnected from the socio-economically fluid and spatially heterogeneous spaces created by rural populations who, in the process of defining and pursuing their livelihood goals in relation to particular identities, and ideals around notions of modernity, produce livelihood constructions and identities that are seldom confined to the village or the agricultural sector alone. 17 januari 2023

Decision-making under uncertainty is important for managing human-natural systems in a changing world. A major source of uncertainty that challenges decisions is rooted in their multi-actor settings, i.e., the poorly understood societal actors with diverse values, complex relationships, and conflicting management approaches. Despite general agreement across disciplines on co-producing knowledge for viable and inclusive outcomes in multi-actor settings, there is still limited conceptual clarity and no systematic understanding on what co-production means in decision-making under uncertainty and how it can be achieved. Here, we use content analysis and clustering to systematically analyse 50 decision-making cases with multiple time and spatial scales across 26 countries and in 9 different sectors in the last decade to serve two aims. The first is to synthesise the key recurring approaches that underpin high quality decision co-production across many cases of diverse features. The second is to identify important deficits and opportunities to leverage existing approaches towards flourishing co-production in supporting decision-making. We find that four general approaches emerge centred around: promoting innovation for robust and equitable decisions; broadening the span of co-production across interacting systems; fostering social learning and inclusive participation; and improving pathways to impact. Additionally, five key areas that should be addressed to improve decision co-production are identified in relation to: participation diversity; social learning; power relationships; governance inclusivity; and transformative change. Characterising the emergent approaches and their key areas for improvement can help guide future works towards more pluralistic and integrated science and practice.

This paper emphasizes the importance of researcher position and reflexivity for professionals in the ecological and development sciences. We draw on critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyze a selection of scientific papers written by Namibian Community-based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) professionals and their relationships with public discourse regarding this conservation and development program. These papers mainly show “success” whilst disregarding “failure” of elements in the program that elsewhere are highly criticized (especially trophy hunting and ecotourism). In addition, they seem to disregard questions concerning researchers’ conflicts of interest that bear on the papers’ “objectivity.” We argue that such positions beg more transparency and epistemological accountability. In particular, we propose greater disclosure and reflexivity regarding researcher positioning as an important methodological response for illuminating when and how researchers have an interest in specific outcomes of their research, so as to enhance interpretation of the knowledge produced by such research.

The functioning of markets is premised on the creation of collaborative relationships and networks. Food markets in Zimbabwe are evolving in response to state interventions that aim to restructure the marketplace and the flow of produce. This article explores Mbare Musika, the oldest and largest marketplace in Harare supplying the city with fresh fruit and vegetables. We analyse Mbare Musika from the perspective of the interactions among farmers and retailers, vendors, transporters, intermediaries, officials, and customers, in creating and sustaining a specific enduring market. We use actor narratives to understand the ordering and (re)ordering of people and produce in the context of informalization, shifting polycentric relationships, and market infrastructure to sustain livelihoods anchored on the circulation of large volumes of diverse fresh produce. The market is overtly economic in outlook but, intrinsically, it is a social arena where discourses are continuously reconstructed, reproduced, and expressed through daily interactions. We situate Mbare Musika in past and present sociopolitical processes of transformation in Zimbabwe.

Urban food is a key lever for transformative change towards sustainability. While research reporting on the urban food practices in support of sustainability is increasing, the link towards transformative potential is lacking. This is because research on urban food is often place-based and contextual. This limits the applicability of insights to large-scale sustainability transformations. This paper develops a framework to synthesise insights from urban food research across multiple disciplines and explores its links to transformations research. We have developed a framework of signposts for transformative change based on processes and outcomes that are considered key for sustainable (urban) food transformations. Secondly, we classify diverse urban food practices to elevate them beyond their local, place-based contexts. We find that urban food practices carry a lot of potential to facilitate sustainability transformations. Based on that analysis, we provide insights on how urban food research can further contribute to harnessing the transformative potential of urban food practices for actionable purposes.

This Special Issue was invited by LAND as a follow-up on the Special Issue on “Changing Land Uses, Changing Livelihoods,”, published in 2016, but with a specific focus on Africa and on exploring the linkages between various aspects of human—environmental change and climate change. Given that Africa is one of the most vulnerable regions globally to climate change, we felt a focus on this region was timely and critical. Improved knowledge on the complex interactions between the multiple drivers of landscape and livelihood change and the impacts of and responses to these changes is required if we are to consider future pathways that are African-led, equitable, and just and that take account of local contexts, cultures, complexities, and realities. Too often development and landscape management interventions and adaptation options are imported from elsewhere and consequently de-contextualized and de-politicized, ignoring the legacies of colonialism, as well as important local sociocultural contexts. See Editorial for Special Issue: “Livelihood and Landscape Change in Africa: Future Trajectories for Improved Well-Being under a Changing Climate”.

Indigenous people are engaged in legal battles to restore their rights to their land. They are not only seeking to undo the injustices of the past, but also ways to improve their livelihoods. Finding a legal way to address their rights to their ancestral lands has evolved as an important politico-legal instrument. Backed by litigators, international treaties, concerned scholars and funding arrangements litigating on ancestral land rights matters has emerged as an important ‘weapon of the weak’. Reclaiming their land appears not so easy and is not so straight forward. We address the recurrent issues, the pitfalls, the challenges that emerge during and after litigation which is only one of the many steps in restoring rights.

Agriculture and food systems are in urgent need of transformation. Various foresight reports unpack food systems’ challenges and propose diverse pathways of change towards sustainability. We interrogate the framings and proposed pathways of eleven selected reports from a food system perspective, with a focus on environmental and climate change implications. We synthesize key drivers of food systems and their impact on food system outcomes. We distil trends and strategies identified across the reports and their scenarios and discuss the diversity of ‘sustainability pathways’ and ‘solution spaces’. There is general agreement that resource protection and adaptation balanced with significant greenhouse gas emission reductions are vital to food system transformation. There is less consensus on the choice of change options and how to address potential trade-offs. While new technologies or consumption changes are described, more attention needs to be paid to overcoming blind spots like implications for equity or changes in governance mechanisms.

Palaeohydrological studies usually focus on extreme events and long-term changes as observed from floodplain archives. As a consequence, the information that is obtained inheritely reflects palaeohydrological conditions from a specific compartment of the hydrological system only, namely the discharge area which acts as a drain for runoff and groundwater. In contrast, palaeohydrological conditions in recharge areas, outside the floodplains, are less well understood and documented.Aeolian drift sands are a typical feature in the European sand belt, and reflect phases of human induced and climatically modulated Holocene landscape instability. As the European sand belt is characterised by shallow phreatic groundwater tables in climates with a precipitation surplus, we might theoretically expect aeolian activity to interfere with a fluctuating groundwater table and/or precipitation events. The aim of this presentation is to explore the possibilities and limitations of four types of palaeohydrological proxy that were retrieved from a variety of different sites in drift sand landscapes in NE Belgium (Campine area): (1) soil horizon morphology of buried podzols, (2) deflation surfaces, (3) drift sand depositional facies and (4) palaeobotanical remains in organic-rich sediment.The palaeohydrological information that these proxies contain will be discussed according to various characteristics. These include the continuity of the archive (continuous or discontinuous), the resolution (high resolution or integrated proxy), and whether the proxy is indicative for outcropping groundwater or precipitation events.Podzol soil horizon morphology is an indicator of the average highest groundwater table position over a time period of several thousands of years prior to landscape instability and sand drifting, and can thus be qualified as an integrated proxy. Overblown deflation surfaces can only be used as an upper limit of the highest palaeo-groundwater table in between podzolisation and drift sand deposition, and can be qualified as a discontinuous low-resolution proxy. Drift sand depositional facies is a highly discontinuous proxy but can be used to verify whether deposition took place in dry, wet or standing water environments, with or without the influence of significant precipitation events and/or running water. Undoubtedly, palaeobotanical remains (macrobotanical and pollen) in overblown peat and peaty sand from the deepest parts of the drift sand landscape offer the highest resolution in terms of chronology (century to decades) and highest reliability in terms of water source tracing (outcropping groundwater vs precipitation).Proxy verification mainly relies on fragmentary historical information derived from maps covering the last 250 years. Most importantly, when different proxies are available at the same site, they usually show strong internal consistency. A good example is the presence of peat with aquatic palaeobotanical remains in the deepest parts of the landscape where the underlying podzol soil also shows hydromorphic features and the overlying drift sand contains elements that are typical for deposition in wet environments.We conclude that the above outlined complementary set of palaeohydrological proxies is a promising tool to reconstruct past hydrology in drift sand landscapes from the European sand belt.

In the face of increasing global population, water scarcity and the need to tackle poverty in developing countries, various projects and organisations have promoted low-cost irrigation technologies for smallholder farmers. The non-governmental organisation (NGO) International Development Enterprises (iDE) is one well-known organisation that took up the challenge to re-engineer conventional irrigation technologies with the explicit objective to meet the needs of smallholder farmers. iDE perceives low-cost irrigation technologies for individual smallholder farmers as a potential solution to rural hunger and poverty. With these goals in mind, iDE started the Rural Prosperity Initiative (RPI), implemented in Myanmar, Nepal, Ethiopia and Zambia, financed by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Re-design criteria for the irrigation technologies are low investment cost, rapid returns on investment, suitability for various small plots, and simple operation and maintenance (Postel et al., 2001; Keller, 2004; Polak et al., 2007). Technologies developed include low-cost plastic tanks for collecting and storing rainwater, pressure and suction treadle pumps for lifting water, low pressure sprinklers as well as drip emitters for efficient water application. Moving away from the traditional practice of simply ‘handing-out’ technological innovation to farmers, iDE operates with a market-based or business approach. The idea is to support farmers so that they can invest in and craft their own way out of poverty by increasing crop productivity and income from marketable surpluses. In this idea, the rural smallholder figures as a (potential) entrepreneur, producer and customer, rather than as a beneficiary and recipient of aid.

Rural people’s livelihoods are intimately linked to the landscapes in which they live and are particularly vulnerable to changes in these landscapes (Suich et al [...]

Contains fulltext : 68962.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) to mark forty years of commitment to the field of development geopgraphy by Ton van Naerssen

Investigating continuities and discontinuities is useful for an analysis of changes over time. Continuity is not just a simple, unbroken line of events, but involves a set of institutional and discursive linkages. The paper explores continuities in that relate to the agricultural expert system that has gradually taken shape in South Africa and that plays a prominent role in the design of land reform. The persistence of continuities indicates the extent to which dramatic transformations of the institutional infrastructure in agriculture have occurred, but with fewer changes in its content. Historical and contemporary analysis allows us to underline the continuity of prescriptions and modes of ordering in the past and present, evident in three land and agrarian reform projects in the Eastern Cape.

Contains fulltext : 160918.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

Contains fulltext : 160920.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

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Members of the NFAT (nuclear factors of activated T cells) gene family have been investigated in numerous organisms, including man and mouse. All NFATs may be synthesized in several isoforms differing in amino or carboxy termini due to 5′ and 3′ alternative splicing of the corresponding mRNA. Recently, we mapped the murine Nfat5 gene to chro- mosome 8D. In the present paper we describe for the first time the complete sequence and primary structure of murine Nfat5, two new spliced isoforms, and the expression of murine Nfat5 in embryonic and adult mouse tissues.

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This book focuses on empirical experiences related to market development, and specifically new markets with structurally different characteristics than mainstream markets. Europe, Brazil, China and the rather robust and complex African experiences are covered to provide a rich multidisciplinary and multi-level analysis of the dynamics of newly emerging markets. This book analyses newly constructed markets as nested markets. Although they are specific market segments that are nested in the wider commodity markets for food, they have a different nature, different dynamics, a different redistribution of value added, different prices and different relations between producers and consumers. Nested markets embody distinction viz-a-viz the general markets in which they are embedded. A key aspect of nested markets is that these are constructed in and through social struggles, which in turn positions this book in relation to classic and new institutional economic analyses of markets. These markets emerge as steadily growing parts of the farmer populations are dedicating their time, energy and resources to the design and production of new goods and services that differ from conventional agricultural outputs. The speed and intensity with which this is taking place, and the products and services involved, vary considerably across the world. In large parts of the South, notably Africa, farmers are ‘structurally’ combining farming with other activities. By contrast, in Europe and large parts of Latin America farmers have taken steps to generate new products and services which exist alongside ongoing agricultural production. This book not only discusses the economic rationales and dynamics for these markets, but also their likely futures and the threats and opportunities they face.

Contains fulltext : 68593.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) to mark forty years of commitment to the filed of development geopgraphy by Ton van Naerssen

Contains fulltext : 68548.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access) to mark forty years of commitment to the filed of development geopgraphy by Ton van Naerssen

Contains fulltext : 68876.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) to mark forty years of commitment to the filed of development geopgraphy by Ton van Naerssen

Contains fulltext : 73103.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access)

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Contains fulltext : 68871.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) to mark forty years of commitment to the field of development geopgraphy by Ton van Naerssen

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Contains fulltext : 68940.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) to mark forty years of commitment to the filed of development geopgraphy by Ton van Naerssen

Contains fulltext : 73115.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

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Friedreich's ataxia (FA) is an autosomal recessive disease that has been attributed to a GAA triplet repeat expansion in the first intron of the X25/frataxin gene. Impaired glucose tolerance is present in up to 39% of FA patients, and clinically apparent diabetes is seen in approximately 18% of the affected individuals. Subjects carrying the X25/frataxin GAA repeat in a heterozygous state do not develop FA and, therefore, represent an ideal model to study the underlying metabolic defects that contribute to the diabetes associated with this disorder. In the present study, we have compared 11 first-degree relatives of FA patients (i.e., parents or heterozygous siblings of FA patients) with matched normal control subjects to study the parameters of glucose metabolism. An oral glucose tolerance test revealed diabetes in one of the heterozygous subjects who was excluded from further analyses. Using an octreotide-based quantification of insulin sensitivity, 8 of the remaining 10 study subjects showed pronounced insulin resistance, reflecting a significant difference from the control group (P = 0.001). In conclusion, a heterozygous expansion of the X25/frataxin GAA repeat in healthy individuals is associated with insulin resistance and might be considered a genetic co-factor in the pathogenesis of mitochondrial subtypes of diabetes.

In healthy humans, insulin is secreted in an oscillatory manner. While the underlying mechanisms generating these oscillations are not fully established, increasing evidence suggests a central role for phosphofructo-1-kinase/muscle subtype (PFK1-M), which also serves as the predominantly active PFK1 subtype in the pancreatic beta-cell. The fact that normal oscillatory secretion is impaired in subjects with impaired glucose tolerance and healthy relatives of patients with type 2 diabetes suggests that this defect may be involved in the secretory dysfunction. To evaluate a possible link between inherited PFK1-M deficiency in humans (Tarui's disease or glycogenosis type VII) and altered insulin oscillations, in vivo studies were performed. We determined basal insulin oscillations during 2 h of frequent plasma sampling in two related teen-aged individuals with homozygous and heterozygous PFK1-M deficiency compared with nondeficient, unrelated control subjects. As predicted by the underlying hypothesis, normal oscillations in insulin secretion were completely abolished in the individual with homozygous deficiency of PFK1-M and significantly impaired in the heterozygous individual, as shown by spectral density and autocorrelation analyses. Thus, deficiency of PFK1-M subtype in humans appears to be associated with an impaired oscillatory insulin secretion pattern and may contribute to the commonly observed secretion defects occurring in type 2 diabetes.