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New forms of private governance are being implemented to mitigate the negative consequences of large-scale agricultural investments. These strategies encompass corporate social and environmental responsibility (CSR) and responsible investment, voluntary standards and sustainability certifications, moratoriums, and 'zero deforestation' agreements. What is the real effectiveness of these mechanisms that are based on environmental and social commitments by global value chains? Can these strategies enable a transition from an economy based on agricultural frontiers to one that is more sustainable and integrated territorially? How do these private-sector strategies fit into governmental regulatory frameworks? To answer these questions, this chapter analyzes two of these mechanisms. In Gabon, we study the implementation of the Olam company's CSR policy on a rubber plantation. In Brazil, we analyze the impacts of environmental commitments made by the soya bean and beef global value chains. For each of these case studies, we present the context, the features of the standardization mechanisms, and the limitations of these mechanisms, and propose a few alternative paths to follow to overcome the problems identified. Voluntary mechanisms – whether CSR strategies or arrangements negotiated between a productive sector and NGOs – can only have a limited role in managing the social and environmental impacts of agro-industrial development. The State therefore has a clear regulatory role to play. Even more than the governance of global value chains, it is a matter of inventing new models of sustainable territorial development, along with the accompanying arrangements between the State, global value chains, and other stakeholders. Sustainable Development and Tropical Agri-chains Sustainable Development and Tropical Agri-chains Look Inside Chapter Metrics Downloads 48 Provided by Bookmetrix Reference tools Export citation Add to Papers Other actions About this Book Reprints and Permissions Share Share this content on Facebook Share this content on Twitter Share this content on LinkedIn.

This book links tropical agri-chain dynamics – with which CIRAD and AFD have been involved for decades – to that of sustainable development. Increased environmental and social concerns urge agri-chain actors and development practitioners to design innovations, and public and private actors to invent regulations in connection with agri-chains to improve sustainability.With a view to contributing towards implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this book examines the different roles of agri-chains: as vectors of development, as spaces of innovation, as objects of evaluation, and as arenas of regulation. It builds upon the findings and experiences of CIRAD and its researchers together with their Southern partners, and of AFD and its officers.Linking agricultural production with the other economic sectors, agri-chains are key spaces where local and global challenges to sustainability meet and where local and global actors experiment interlinked or common solutions. (Resume d'auteur)

The renewed interest shown in agriculture by the international community and national governments since the 2008 crisis has firmly placed agri-chain approaches at the heart of development issues and debates. The challenges of sustainable development compel us to define new arenas and new forms of action – which are now multiplying through standards and other regulatory instruments – and to come up with innovative practices and novel ways of deriving value. The variety of explorations of the links between transformations of tropical agri-chains and sustainable development allows us to conclude this book by synthesizing the lessons learnt about the ability of these agri-chains to act as vectors of development, spaces of regulation, frameworks for innovation, and objects of assessment. The proliferation and renewal of agri-chain transformations calls for further exploration and the identification of research perspectives that can help in this endeavour.

Environmental impacts are based on various cause-and-effect mechanisms that link activities to emissions into the atmosphere and, subsequently, to quantitative or qualitative changes in the state of ecosystems and available resources. Assessing these impacts for an agri-chain becomes especially complex since it requires the integration at multiple levels of numerous processes contributing to several impact mechanisms. Fixing assessment objectives in advance is therefore essential in order to optimize the implementation of assessment methods and tools. Co-construction and collaboration with the agri-chain’s actors are also needed to increase knowledge on understanding and modelling impact mechanisms, their integration at different scales, and for a comprehensive assessment of sustainability in order to improve assessment methods and tools.

Chapitre 11; International audience; The climate-smart agriculture concept aims to encourage reflection on the transition to sustainable agricultural systems adapted to climate change. This chapter is based on participatory research studies carried out in Colombia and Burkina Faso to investigate, with farmers, the relevance of new (agroclimatic information) or long promoted (compost) solutions that could be considered climate-smart. These studies were based on an analysis of farmers' strategies to cope with climate change and variability, while also relying on modelling in the case of Burkina Faso. We highlight that these solutions should be dovetailed with existing strategies. The range of adaptation mechanisms used by farmers in Colombia influenced their agroclimatic information needs. In Burkina Faso, these adaptation mechanisms led to specific effects of compost on climate-smart agriculture assessment criteria. We discuss methodological lessons learned for the co-design of farms adapted to climate change.

The ecosystem services concept has been proposed as a response to threats to biodiversity. It is based on a utilitarian view of nature, complementing other conservation strategies—ecosystem services are seen as a way of mitigating climate change and as an adaptive strategy for societies. However, the question remains as to how ecosystems will continue to provide those services in a time of rapid climate change. Most biological communities are disappearing due to climate change combined with other anthropogenic pressures, affecting the functionality of ecosystems that are close to collapse. Rather than maintaining existing ecosystems intact, the focus should be on recognizing their dynamic nature and protecting the functions and services they provide.

This edited volume summarizes information about the situational context, threats, problems, challenges and solutions for sustainable pastoralism at a global scale. The book has four goals. The first goal is to summarize the information about the history, distribution and patterns of pastoralism and to identify the importance of pastoralism from social, economic and environmental perspectives. The results of an empirical investigation of the environmental and socio-economic implications of pastoralism in representative pastoral regions in the world are also incorporated. The second goal is to argue that breaking coupled human-natural systems of pastoralism leads to degradation of pastoral ecosystems and to create an analysis framework to assess the vulnerability of worldwide pastoralism. Our analysis framework provides approaches to help comprehensively understand the transitions and the impacts of human-natural systems in the pastoral regions in the world. The third goal is to identify the successful models in promoting coupled human-natural systems of pastoralism, and to learn lessons of breaking coupled human-cultural pastoralism systems through examining the representative cases in regions including Central Asia, Southern and Eastern Asia, Northern and Eastern Africa, the European Alps and South America. The fourth goal is to identify the strategies to build the resilience of the coupled human-natural systems of pastoralism worldwide. We hope that our book can facilitate the further examination of sustainable development of coupled human-natural systems of pastoralism by providing the summaries of existing data and information related to the pastoralism development, and by offering a framework for better understanding and analysis of their social, economic and environmental implications.