Search

Agricultural expansion into subtropical and tropical forests causes major environmental damage, but its wider social impacts often remain hidden. Forest-dependent smallholders are particularly strongly impacted, as they crucially rely on forest resources, are typically poor, and often lack institutional support. Our goal was to assess forest-smallholder dynamics in relation to expanding commodity agriculture. Using high-resolution satellite images across the entire South American Gran Chaco, a global deforestation hotspot, we digitize individual forest-smallholder homesteads (n = 23,954) and track their dynamics between 1985 and 2015. Using a Bayesian model, we estimate 28,125 homesteads in 1985 and show that forest smallholders occupy much larger forest areas (>45% of all Chaco forests) than commonly appreciated and increasingly come into conflict with expanding commodity agriculture (18% of homesteads disappeared; n = 5,053). Importantly, we demonstrate an increasing ecological marginalization of forest smallholders, including a substantial forest resource base loss in all Chaco countries and an increasing confinement to drier regions (Argentina and Bolivia) and less accessible regions (Bolivia). Our transferable and scalable methodology puts forest smallholders on the map and can help to uncover the land-use conflicts at play in many deforestation frontiers across the globe. Such knowledge is essential to inform policies aimed at sustainable land use and supply chains.

This article critically contributes to the debate on private large-scale agriculture for export crop production as a means to address the problem of food security in Ethiopia. The reviewed literature was identified by combining relevant keywords. The consumer price index and rainfall pattern, food gaps and affected population were calculated and presented using Microsoft Excel software. The paper argues that although private large-scale agriculture has opportunities in terms of employment generation, income and national-level growth, it poses risks to small-scale farmers’ food security. Loss of access to agricultural land and exposure to market risks endanger their food and livelihood security. The analysis suggests that both large-scale and small-scale agriculture is not a viable means to effectively reduce Ethiopia’s complex food insecurity and hunger. Improving food production for local consumption through transforming small-scale farms to medium-sized labour-intensive farms coupled with investment in manufacturing and building social protection through the adoption of well-intentioned state-directed development interventions that care about the well-being of individuals and households is needed.

Small-scale agriculture (SA) is regarded as unsustainability because of its low benefit. To protect traditional agricultural landscapes like terraces through SA will be difficult. However, in China, terraces are still maintained well by smallholders now. This study takes the family as a basic unit and SA in Hani terraced region as an object to explore its sustainability from the perspective of labor productivity (LP) through the questionnaire method. The findings are that peasant households work on both farm and non-farm jobs. They get a low income (3854.5 yuan RMB) from hybrid-rice-cropping and a high income (44,665.8 yuan RMB) from non-farm jobs but spend a small part of labors (34.23 person•days) in growing hybrid-rice and expended lots of labor (522 person•days) for non-farm jobs. In conclusion, LP of hybrid-rice-cropping is 1.32 times that of non-farm jobs for a household. The result shows SA in Hani terraced region has a higher return of labor investment than non-farm jobs. It is different from the common impression of the low benefit of SA and also explains why SA still continues to exist in the mountainous area in China now. However, SA in Hani terraced region also faces challenges with salary level rise of non-farm jobs and part-time farmers’ requirement for living quality improvement. In the future, promoting industrial integration development in this region to add local employment for improving farmers’ income is a feasible approach to protect terraced landscapes.

In recent decades, small-scale farmers’ market orientation approaches have increasingly been adopted to tackle the problem of food insecurity. However, little is known about how this affects other non-market exchange relationships. The present paper addresses this knowledge gap using qualitative data gathered from small-scale farmers at three selected sites in northern Ethiopia. We took a social exchange theory perspective to examine how resource exchanges have altered after-market orientations in rural communities. The results indicate that, in addition to the benefits for better-off households, integration into the market economy improves the bargaining power and autonomy of middle-income groups as well as the physically fit younger generations. The results also suggest that market orientation generates new livelihood opportunities and market-based relationships, which in turn facilitate the formalisation and transformation of local institutions. On the other hand, market orientation has adverse impacts on traditional practices of resource exchange – such as labour for labour, oxen for labour, labour for harvest/yield, or labour for food – or the exchange of other services. Our results indicate that because these in-kind resource exchange relationships have been replaced by monetary transactions, the poor have become even more vulnerable. The policy implication is that while promoting market-driven approaches to food security, complementary mechanisms must be put in place to empower those living in the most vulnerable conditions.

Risk often inhibits on-farm investment by smallholder farmers. Recent evidence indicates that index insurance and stress tolerant seeds can separately and partially offset this risk effect. In this study, we explore whether the complementarities between these two risk management technologies can be harnessed to underwrite a resilient, high productivity small farm sector. Utilizing a multi-year randomized control trial that spanned two countries and exploits natural variation in weather shocks, we find that drought tolerant maize seeds mitigate the impact of mid-season drought. Compared to farms in control villages, where shocks have persistent effects that reduce future investment and productivity, those with access to both drought tolerant seeds and multi-peril index insurance show greater resilience and immediately bounce back from shocks. Experiential learning is key to realizing this resilience effect: Farmers who experienced shocks intensify their subsequent use of the technologies and exhibit what we call resilience-plus, while those who did not experience shocks disadopt. Together these findings showcase important complementarities between these risk mitigating technologies and the crucial role learning plays in tapping their potential stochastic and dynamic benefits to small farmers.

Africa is highly vulnerable to changes in global climatic conditions due to its low adaptive capacity and sensitivity to changes in climatic variables, particularly in the agricultural sector. A key attribute of studies on climate change coping strategies and adaptation mechanisms in Africa is that they lack local specificity. Within a discourse dominated by large-scale attempts to measure the extent of climate change and its impacts with methods drawn from physical and biological sciences, there is little focus on how locally-specific knowledge and practices help communities to cope with effects of adverse environmental conditions on their agriculture at the farm level. From a sample of 115 respondents drawn from South Africa and Kenya and through interviews, discussions and interactions, this paper demonstrates that local residents deploy their indigenous knowledge in predicting seasonal weather and rainfall patterns, determining wind speed and direction, preserving grains for planting purposes and various traditional farming support systems to lessen the impacts of climate change on their agricultural activities. The paper concludes that merging local knowledge with modern science in Africa could help develop a syncretic agronomical knowledge amongst farmers in handling climate change.

The changes experienced since the mid-20th century because of the industrialization of agriculture, have favored the disconnection between food production, nature and society. This places us in front of a series of socio-ecological challenges that need to be solved in order to stop the crisis of small-scale agriculture and the deterioration of agro-ecosystems. In contrast to the logics that delocalize production from consumption, breaking the link with the territory, various initiatives are integrating increasingly agro-ecological practices and adapting their forms of commercialization towards more sustainable and territorialized models. With the need to identify the transformative strategies in which farmers are advancing to create sustainable food systems, two case studies in Spain (Extremadura and Asturias) are analyzed. The results show how cooperative approaches, collaborative networks rooted in the territory and voluntary agreements established between different agents in the agri-food system, are key factors in enabling small producers to improve their participation and empowerment in the agri-food system while promoting systemic strategies to change hegemonic production and consumption modes., Los cambios experimentados desde mediados del siglo XX, como consecuencia de la industrialización de la agricultura, han favorecido la desconexión entre la producción de alimentos, la naturaleza y la sociedad. Esto nos sitúa frente a una serie de retos socio-ecológicos que necesitan ser resueltos para frenar la crisis de la agricultura de pequeña escala y el deterioro de los agroecosistemas. En contraposición a las lógicas que deslocalizan la producción del consumo y que rompen el vínculo con el territorio, diversas iniciativas están integrando prácticas crecientemente agroecológicas y adaptando sus formas de comercialización hacia modelos más sostenibles y territorializados. Con la necesidad de identificar las estrategias transformadoras en que los agricultores avanzan para crear sistemas alimentarios sostenibles, se analizan dos estudios de caso exploratorios en España (Extremadura y Asturias). Los resultados muestran cómo los enfoques cooperativos, las redes colaborativas enraizadas en el territorio y los acuerdos voluntarios de colaboración que se establecen entre diferentes agentes del sistema agroalimentario son factores clave para permitir a los pequeños productores mejorar su participación y empoderamiento en el sistema agroalimentario, a la vez que se fomentan estrategias sistémicas para cambiar los modos de producción y consumo hegemónicos, Este estudio recibió financiación del programa de investigación e innovación Horizonte 2020 de la Unión Europea, en el marco del convenio de subvención N◦ 81819, por el proyecto titulado: Codiseño de nuevos modelos de contrato para medidas innovadoras agroambientales y climáticas y para la valorización de bienes públicos ambientales y del proyecto SAVIA-Sembrando Alternativas de Innovación Agroecológica, financiado por las ayudas de la convocatoria 2019 a proyectos de I+D para jóvenes investigadores de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (ref: SI1/PJI/2019-00444).

In the recent past, precision agriculture has proven to be an effective means for farmers to optimize productions by reducing efforts and losses. Usage of UAV has proven to be beneficial for large scale agriculture. The applications of UAV in small scale agriculture and horticulture has certain limitations due to the scale and elevation variations. The current paper aims at conceptualizing a novel remote sensing-based framework for optimizing spraying locations and heights for horticulture. The data used constitutes of DEM and visual images captured from UAV platform. The paper also covers a small use-case for coconut tree plantation for implementation and validation. The results suggest that implementation of such algorithm may help in reducing wastage of spraying chemicals and in-turn will reduce adverse environmental impacts of spraying. Further integrating current work with UAV systems for optimization of path will improve UAV efficiency.

This chapter highlights the challenges in the agriculture sector in Africa and shows that the current systems are not productive, but are linear, dependent on fossil fuels, and even depleting natural resources. The chapter reviews the potential of sustainable intensification of agriculture with an emphasis on diversified cropping systems and value chain enhancement as an option to promote the bio-based economy in the rural regions of Africa. The chapter uses data and experiences from an ongoing programme in Malawi (www.innovafrica.eu), where maize-legume cropping systems were adopted by smallholders. There is great potential to apply the 3Rs principle of the bio-based economy (i.e., reduce, reuse and recycle) in the farming systems at the production, post-production, marketing and processing stages of the value chain. To sum up, the sustainable intensification approach, inclusive of value chain development, appears to be a promising option for smallholders in Sub-Saharan Africa, which can improve productivity, increase farmers’ income, encourage gender mainstreaming and at the same time reduce environmental impacts.

Global economic value of agriculture production resulting from animal pollination services has been estimated to be $235&ndash, $577 billion. This estimate is based on quantification of crops that are available at the global markets, and mainly originates from countries with precise information about quantities of agriculture production, exports, and imports. In contrast, knowledge about the contribution of pollinators to household food and income in small-scale farming at local and regional scales is still lacking, especially for developing countries where the availability of agricultural statistics is limited. Although the global decline in pollinator diversity and abundance has received much attention, relatively little effort has been directed towards understanding the role of pollinators in small-scale farming systems, which feed a substantial part of the world&rsquo, s population. Here, we have assessed how local farmers in northern Tanzania depend on insect-pollinated crops for household food and income, and to what extent farmers are aware of the importance of insect pollinators and how they can conserve them. Our results show that local farmers in northern Tanzania derived their food and income from a wide range of crop plants, and that 67% of these crops depend on animal pollination to a moderate to essential degree. We also found that watermelon&mdash, for which pollination by insects is essential for yield&mdash, on average contributed nearly 25% of household income, and that watermelons were grown by 63% of the farmers. Our findings indicate that local farmers can increase their yields from animal pollinated crops by adopting more pollinator-friendly farming practices. Yet, we found that local farmers&rsquo, awareness of pollinators, and the ecosystem service they provide, was extremely low, and intentional actions to conserve or manage them were generally lacking. We therefore urge agriculture authorities in Tanzania to act to ensure that local farmers become aware of insect pollinators and their important role in agriculture production.

By 2050, the world’s population will reach 9.1 billion, which requires an increase of food production by 70 percent compared to 2005 (FAO,2018). Nearly all the increase will occur in developing countries, where agriculture plays a major role to provide employment, income and to improve food security. One of the major challenges of increasing food supply is the limited water resources. Agriculture, as the driver of freshwater exploitation has, therefore, to be transformed into more resource efficient production (FAO, 2003). The world’s limited freshwater resources are potentially threatened by the expansion of agriculture. Increasing the potential output per amount of water used is an appropriate practice to improve production efficiency while protecting water resources. Therefore, increasing the productivity of agricultural water use in a sustainable manner is essential to ultimately sustain the social and economic conditions of livelihoods. Crop water productivity has grown into one of the major approaches to cope with water scarcity and advance crop-water relation. The number of conceptual frameworks and implications is ample, but there is always a growing need to review the step-by-step approach beyond. In this Field guide, practical pathways are presented to provide a comprehensive approach for assessing and improving crop water productivity in small-scale agriculture. The Field guide draws lessons learned in three countries (Burkina Faso, Morocco and Uganda) within the framework of FAO project “Strengthening Agricultural Water Efficiency and Productivity at the African and Global Level” funded by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

Alternative food networks are organisations of consumers and food producers that oversee and promote the functioning of short food supply chains, with the aim of fostering a direct and local exchange between producers and consumers. New short-chain economic infrastructures provide food producers – especially small-scale farmers – with a whole new set of commercial opportunities, directed towards the construction of an alternative food economy. But how does value circulate within these innovative economic platforms? And what values are debated, negotiated and exchanged through these circuits? Employing the analytical lenses of de-commodification and embeddedness, this article discusses the modalities and outcomes of the processes of value-creation and value-appropriation that spring out of the direct exchange occurring between consumers and food producers in the alternative food economy. Based on empirical data collected through extensive qualitative field research in Italy and England, the article exposes the dynamics and limits of the on-going processes of de-commodification, proposing an analysis centred on the concept of ‘partial’ de-commodification. This conceptual tool is used to assess the differences that emerged between the Italian and English fields, and to provide conclusive remarks about the potential of place- and culture-specific configurations of practices to advance a transformation of the food system.

The dearth of technological progress in small-scale agricultural activities in sub-Saharan Africa has been majorly attributed to inappropriate innovations. This study employs the user-producer appr...

Habitat fragmentation, the transformation of interconnected large habitats into several small patches, is generally considered to have a negative influence on biodiversity. Management policies should therefore favour strategies that minimize fragmentation. We studied amphibian diversity and compositional patterns in a complex montane agroforestry matrix of north-eastern Colombia to assess whether small-scale agroforestry is a viable way of reconciling crop production, farming, and biodiversity conservation. A total of five different land-use systems, including natural cloud forest, were compared. We used standardized visual and acoustic transect sampling routines in combination with field-based habitat assessments to establish amphibian assemblage data sets and corresponding habitat templets. Data sets were analysed using classical species richness and diversity statistics in combination with multivariate procedures to address compositional aspects. PER(mutational)MANOVA models were applied to identify environmental and land-use type-specific drivers of shifts in assemblage composition. Results show that agricultural management has a strong influence on amphibian species richness and diversity. With the exception of high intensity cattle pasture, diversity was generally highest in agriculturally used sites particularly in shaded plantations. Species composition differed markedly between different land-use types, indicating that there was not a single best land-use type that supported all species. This highlights the need for a landscape approach to biodiversity conservation in fragmented forests and consequently requires refocusing on conservation in management units as well as in the matrix. In human modified montane forest landscapes small-scale agriculture that generates landscape heterogeneity should therefore be promoted to effectively safeguard biodiversity.

Loliondo Game Controlled Area (LGCA) is unique in East Africa that provides mixed land use activities for the community. The main land uses in LGCA are livestock keeping, wildlife conservation, small scale agriculture, tourism and hunting of wild animals. For decades, Maasai pastoralists coexisted with LGCA but restricted to hunt, set snares and conducting large scale farming. From the year 2000 expansion of agricultural activities have been noted which has escalated the decline of wildlife. I this study the land use/cover change occurred in LGCA for the period of 20 years have been determined and assessed. Supervised classification method was used whereby six classes namely forest, bare land, sand, water, grass land and agriculture were categorized. The results show that from 1996 to 2016 there is a major land cover change on forest, agriculture, bare land, grassland, water bodies and sand by 19.63%, 8.74%, 15.32%, 50.08%, 4.51 %and 1.72%, respectively. Specifically, forest cover is decreasing at 1467.81 ha per year while agriculture is increasing at the rate of 1,467 ha per year. The study concluded that clearing of forest and large scale agriculture has destroyed vegetation cover threatening the existence of wildlife which to a great extent requires immediate measures to counterbalance this effect.

In Spring 2015, a series of earthquakes and aftershocks struck Nepal. The earthquakes caused significant changes in labor and land availability, cash income needs, and land quality. We examine how these post-earthquake impacts converged with ongoing agricultural shifts. Earthquake-related socio-economic and landscape changes specifically motivate the adoption of cardamom, Amomum subulatum, a high-value ecologically beneficial, and low labor commercial crop. We investigate reasons for the increased interest in cardamom post-earthquake, and challenges associated with it. We find that adopting cardamom serves as an important post-disaster adaptation. However, more broadly, unevenly distributed interventions coupled with the high capital costs of agricultural transition exacerbate social differentiation in communities after the disaster. Adoption is often limited to economically better off smallholder farmers. This paper extends previous research on disasters and smallholder farming by highlighting the specific potential of disasters to accelerate agricultural transitions and resulting inequality from the changes. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s13280-018-1021-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Quantity depletion and quality deterioration issues arising from the extraction of groundwater have been discussed in previous studies. However, the literature reveals no systematic analysis of the possible social welfare losses due to the cost of both quantity depletion and quality deterioration. This paper therefore investigates the long run welfare cost of using groundwater for agriculture by including both quantity depletion and quality deterioration costs simultaneously. This is achieved through an empirical study of onion farmers in Sri Lanka who use groundwater for their cultivation. A significant social welfare loss is found in terms of both groundwater quantity and quality deterioration costs and which is likely to increase over the long run. This is shown to have important long run implications for land use management.

15 páginas Tourism and agriculture are important contributors to the development of local economies. Many developing nations that are now experiencing rapid tourism growth have agrarian societies and tourism is the first or second source of export earnings. In this context, the main objective of this study is to identify what are the main challenges for horticultural value chains to effectively benefit from tourism and foster sustainable development in the United Republic of Tanzania. Our results are based on pro-poor tourism, which is an approach that aims at generating net benefits for the poor, including unlocking opportunities by building a more supportive policy and planning framework. The study concludes that tourism and agriculture have an important contribution to make to local development in Tanzania. However, horticultural supply chains face a number of constraints that hold back growth and competitiveness in reaching the local tourism industry. These constraints can be divided into two main categories: lack of direct communication channels; and bottlenecks or inefficiencies in the supply chain.

People, places, and production contributing the least to climate change will suffer the most. This calls for adaptation as a key climate change response. But adaptation is surrounded by problems. Finance is uncertain and fragmented, mainstreaming into development is complicated, and technical solutions often overshadow existing social relations and institutions. From a gender perspective, and as a critical research initiative to support the building of sustainability science as an umbrella field, this article raises three pertinent questions on adaptation in the global South: what is its purpose, how can development inform it, and what institutions in terms of rights and responsibilities are core to it? Focusing on sub-Saharan small-scale agriculture, three main points emerge. Regarding the purpose, adaptation should be a transformative pathway out of poverty, ill-health, and food insecurity. Regarding development, adaptation can learn from how development theory, policy, and practice have addressed women, gender, and environment in varied settings and debates. Regarding core institutions, adaptation must address gender regimes that regulate access to, use of, and control over resources, especially those defining land distribution, labour division, and strategic decision-making power. To conclude, I propose gender-informed research questions for further inquiry.

Agriculture has a significant role in contributing to rural economic growth and ensuring food security. However, the agricultural sector has been exposed to challenges such as climate change and sc...

The HIV/AIDS pandemic has proven to be one of the single biggest obstacle in attaining household food security in sub-Saharan Africa. This review explores the extent of HIV/AIDS pandemic and its downstream effects on agriculture. This publication discusses how low input technologies can be used to improve the rural and small scale agriculture based livelihood and discusses the possible ways of transforming the vulnerability of the HIV affected communities and the old people. The objective is to make tasks associated with agricultural production easier through the use of drip kits, jab planters, simple hand tools and zamwipe for applying herbicides. Changing to sustainable farming systems such as conservation agriculture, mycorhizal inoculation technology, suitable cropping systems and biochar based soil amendments. If properly implemented these have potential to increase security. By selecting compatible techniques, the vulnerable portion of the population can move to self sustainance.

Bakari MS, Abdallah JM, Hella JP. 2018. Adaptation strategies of small-scale agriculture production to climate change impacts in Micheweni, Tanzania. Trop Drylands 3: 60-75. The impacts of climate change in the form of prolonged drought, low rainfall, increasing temperature and sea level rise are predicted to affect developing nations especially in the dryland region such as in Africa. This study was conducted in three Shehias within Micheweni district, Pemba, Tanzania to assess the extent of climate change impacts and crop yields. Specifically, the study aimed to identify and assess climate change impacts to small scale farmers, assess the link between precipitation, temperature, sea-level rise, crop/fish production, identify and assess climate change adaptation strategies by small-scale farmers in the District. Primary data were obtained through focus group discussions, key informants, and households. Household questionnaires and checklists were used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data to obtain information from respondents. In each Shehia, a sample of 30 households was randomly selected from the register for household interviews. Climate data were obtained from Pemba Meteorological Headquater at Chake Chake Airport and the Matangatuani station. Secondary data were extracted from literature review. Data analysis was done using Excel (to get descriptive statistics), Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), correlation analysis and content analysis methods. The trend of climate measured for the last 30 years showed decreasing precipitation and increased temperatures. The highest annual average rainfall was 196.2 mm (1986) and the lowest 72.5 mm (2001) measured at the Matangatuani Meteorological station. Crop failure, low crop production, soil infertility, crop pests/diseases and seawater intrusion were major climate change impacts. Results indicated annual decrease in crop production in the past 10 years, with pests and diseases, uneven distributed low rainfall and extended drought periods. Crop rotation, use of improved seeds and new crop varieties, fertilizer application, irrigation, mixed cropping, and adjusting sowing dates were some of adaptation strategies. Seawater rise and intrusion constrained paddy farm production where fish and salt farming contributed to environmental degradation in farming areas. The decrease in crop production resulted mostly from climate variations; hence community should establish short-term and drought-resistant crops.

Nowadays, the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) drones are mostly used in civil and military fields for security and monitoring purposes. They are also involved in the development of electronics communications and navigation systems. The UAVs are the aerial vehicles with a built-in power system having capability of controlling by a remote control system or leads to fly automatically. Rapid increase in their use due to sensors mobility in its small size that becomes the UAVs to fly at lower altitude and their significant contributions to the image processing studies, where the photogrammetric surveys in small scale areas are given importance for landslide and erosion monitoring. This paper is going to consider agriculture activities like detecting crop diseases, finding crop patterns and conduct small scale agriculture policies for study and research. In our study, the UAV drone is used for the image data collection purpose and structure form motion (SfM), algorithmic approach is utilized for producing the volumetric structure or 3-D structure of images. These 3-dimensional structures are further used for building information modeling systems and performing different operations like image classification, enhancement and segmentation. Our approach highlights better and efficient results than others agriculture images approaches captured by UAVs at high altitude.

Market data indicates that the average age of Malaysian farmers to be 50 years old and that the majorities are in the B40 group. Malaysia have so much of land with a small population of over 30 million compared with neighbours country and yet still need to import over 50 billion in food commodities annually to feed the nation. Small-scale farmers are having issues in communicating with each other and usually lack of Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) compare to industrial farming. An information sharing platform is prominent to disseminate information and knowledge between farmers especially for most of the young farmers who having issues when they newly start to involve in agriculture field. This paper is about to design and develop a framework of dynamic web-based knowledge management system with Chatbot application in order to utilize the information sharing platform to disseminate knowledge and build networks among small-scale farmers and related experts. Thus, information sharing and working together with a related expert will effectively improve both the quality and quantity of the product and also against the diseases on the spot.

Changes in land-use and land-cover, including both agricultural expansion and the establishment of protected areas, have altered the landscape pattern and extent of forest and wetland cover in the tropics. In Central America, land-use and land-cover change is also threatening the cultural resources of the region’s ancient Maya heritage since many ancient sites have been degraded by burning, deforestation, and plowing. In this study of Orange Walk District of northern Belize, from the 1980s to the present, we used multitemporal Landsat data with a random forest classifier to reveal trends in land-use and land-cover change and the increasing loss of forest and wetlands. We develop a random forest classifier that is time-generalized to map land-use and land-cover across the entire Landsat record, including Landsat 4, 5, 7, and 8, with a single algorithm. Including multiyear and seasonal composites was important for obtaining cloud-free coverage and distinguishing between different land-use and land-cover types. Early deforestation (1984–1987) was in small patches scattered across the landscape and likely driven by small scale agriculture such as milpa and smaller area tractor and horse-drawn plowing. The establishment of protected areas in the late 1980s and early 1990s allowed for forest regrowth in these areas, while wetland losses were high at 15%. The transition to industrial agriculture in the 2000s, however, drove a 43.6% expansion of agriculture and a 7.5% loss of forest and a 28.2% loss of wetlands during the ~15 years. Protected areas initiated in the 1980s led to a nearly 100 km2 decrease in agriculture from 1984–1987 to 1999–2001, and they became essential refugia for habitat and maintaining ecosystem services.

Empirical literature finds gender and presence of children as key determinants of unpaid work time. There is also extensive research on women’s role in small-scale agriculture and women’s disproportional representation in informal employment in developing countries. However, there has been no work to empirically link a woman’s time spent simultaneously doing paid and unpaid work with her type of employment. The availability of rich time use data from South Africa yields an opportunity to explore this critical question with empirical rigor. Results show that small-scale agriculture and informal employment are associated with women doing more paid and unpaid work simultaneously implying a positive non-pecuniary benefit of certain types of employment related to women’s need to navigate strict time constraints and limited choices.

A number of studies use meteorological records to analyze climate trends and assess the impact of climate change on agricultural yields. While these provide quantitative evidence on climate trends and the likely effects thereof, they incorporate limited qualitative analysis of farmers' perceptions of climate change and/or variability. The present study builds on the quantitative methods used elsewhere to analyze climate trends, and in addition compares local narratives of climate change with evidence found in meteorological records in Zambia. Farmers offer remarkably consistent reports of a rainy season that is growing shorter and less predictable. For some climate parameters-notably, rising average temperature-there is a clear overlap between farmers' observations and patterns found in the meteorological records. However, the data do not support the perception that the rainy season used to begin earlier, and we generally do not detect a reported increase in the frequency of dry spells. Several explanations for these discrepancies are offered. Further, we provide policy recommendations to help farmers adapt to climate change/variability, as well as suggestions to shape future climate change policies, programs, and research in developing countries.

Made available in DSpace on 2018-11-26T16:32:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2016-03-01 Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) Growing Cassava ( Manihot esculenta ) in Mato Grosso, Brazil: Genetic Diversity Conservation in Small-Scale Agriculture. Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is a tropical species that stands out as a food source for developing countries. Within an ethnobotanical and socioeconomic context, this study aimed to compare the level of genetic diversity of cassava maintained by small farmers in three municipalities of the Cuiaba Lowland in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil: Caceres, Porto Estrela, and Santo Antnio do Leverger. This region, which is included in the center of origin of cassava, is currently undergoing profound socioeconomic changes that can have negative impacts in the on farm conservation of cassava agrobiodiversity. We characterized 211 genotypes collected in 40 households in 10 communities, using 14 microsatellite loci. High levels for the observed (H (O) = 0.587) and expected (H (E) = 0.525) heterozygosities were found, whereas most of the genetic diversity was concentrated within communities (92%). A genetic differentiation was found between the municipality of Santo Antnio do Leverger and the municipalities of Caceres and Porto Estrela, not only due to a higher geographic distance among them, but also due to soil, climatic, and cultural factors. A different number of local varieties was observed in each municipality, while the number of unique varieties in each municipality was high, 83%, 84%, and 61%, respectively, representing an important aspect for the in situ conservation of this crop. Although local names provided by farmers were phenotypically coherent, intravarietal variability among local varieties sharing the same name was high (97%). Santo Antnio do Leverger was considered as a priority area for in situ conservation. Nevertheless, in view of the decline in local traditional agriculture systems and socioeconomic transformations in this region, public policies providing support and incentives to farmers are necessary. Univ Sao Paulo, ESALQ, Dept Genet, Piracicaba, SP, Brazil Univ Estadual Paulista, Dept Ecol, Rio Claro, SP, Brazil Univ Estadual Mato Grosso UNEMAT, Fac Ciencias Agr & Biol, MT, Dept Ciencias Biol, Campus Caceres, Caceres, MT, Brazil Inst Agron Campinas, Secao Hort, Campinas, SP, Brazil Univ Estadual Paulista, Dept Ecol, Rio Claro, SP, Brazil FAPESP: 2008/03822-3

There is a need for an evidence-based approach to identify how best to support development of groundwater for small scale irrigation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We argue that it is important to focus this effort on shallow groundwater resources which are most likely to be used by poor rural communities in SSA. However, it is important to consider constraints, since shallow groundwater resources are likely to be vulnerable to over-exploitation and climatic variability. We examine here the opportunities and constraints and draw upon evidence from Ethiopia. We present a methodology for assessing and interpreting available shallow groundwater resources and argue that participatory monitoring of local water resources is desirable and feasible. We consider possib le models for developing distributed small-scale irrigation and assess its technical feasibility. Because of power limits on water lifting and also because of available technology for well construction, groundwater at depths of 50 m or 60 m cannot be regarded as easily accessible for small-scale irrigation. We therefore adopt a working definition of shallow groundwater as < 20 m depth. This detailed case study in the Dangila woreda in Ethiopia explores the feasibility of exploiting shallow groundwater for small-scale irrigation over a range of rainfall conditions. Variability of rainfall over the study period (9 % to 96 % probability of non-exceedance) does not translate into equivalent variability in groundwater levels and river baseflow. Groundwater levels, monitored by local communities, persist into the dry season to at least the end of December in most shallow wells, indicating that groundwater is available for irrigation use after the cessation of the wet season. Arguments historically put forward against the promotion of groundwater use for agriculture in SSA on the basis that aquifers are unproductive and irrigation will have unacceptable impacts on wetlands and other groundwater-dependent ecosystems appear exaggerated. It would be unwise to generalise from this case study to the whole of SSA, but useful insights into the wider issues are revealed by the case study approach. We believe there is a case for arguing that shallow groundwater in sub-Saharan Africa represents a neglected opportunity for sustainable intensification of small-scale agriculture.

In most urban areas of sub-Saharan Africa, the migration of people from rural to urban areas in search of better socio-economic conditions and improved livelihoods is contributing to increased unemployment levels, poverty and large scale urban deprivation. Given such poverty situations and the prevalence of people who survive on less than 2 USD per day, local populations in these areas are increasingly vulnerable to food insecurity as well as malnutrition. One way out of this poverty trap is practicing small scale agriculture both for subsistence and income-generating purposes. In this paper, the role of small scale fish farming as a livelihood strategy by urban farmers in the city of Jos has been investigated by means of a mixed-method research design. Thus, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected for analyses in order to understand the various dimensions of small scale fish farming amongst 50 respondents randomly selected in the city of Jos, Nigeria. The results have shown the spatial distribution of these farming practices, as well as the demographic attributes of these farmers. Small-scale fish farming is a viable source of food, generating local employment opportunities as well as much needed income in an environment of urban deprivation. Some of the income (above ₦20,000 or 55.56 USD) derived from this fish farming significantly alleviates poverty, as it exceeds the Nigerian national minimum wage of ₦18,000 (50.00 USD). Results also show that the lack of reliable water supplies and high production costs are some of the most constraining problems that militate against operational effectiveness and efficiency, along with poor marketing of their produce and lack of preservation facilities. The lack of access to credit facilities was also mentioned as one of the problems besetting this activity. From the perceptions of the respondents in this study, a number of negative environmental impacts associated with small scale fish farming have been highlighted. Given these results and the growth potential of this kind of farming in Jos, more integrated local development planning is recommended for addressing the infrastructural and resource needs of practicing farmers for achieving long term sustainability in small scale fish farming.

The use of ICT has become essential to help farmers collect important and updated information and knowledge which are valuable resources that farming depends on. The study embarked on investigating the problem sources of unavailability or lack of timely, relevant and accurate farming information and knowledge for small-scale farmers. The main target is to deal with plant diseases and how to manage them by carefully diagnosing the plants leaves. This work proposes to use image analysis and convolutional neural networks and the ever increasing capability of machine learning such as supervised learning to offer a mobile solution the other functionality is development of agro advisory system to argument the work of extension farmers. A Design Science Research Methodology was followed in shaping skeleton of the proposed prototype by establishing the status quo of ICT use and readiness of the intended users. The developed prototype will be subjected to three usability measures to test if indeed it is timely, relevant and accurate as the farmers need it to be.

L'agroecologia viene spesso presentata come un'alternativa agli attuali sistemi di produzione diffusi, sebbene ci siano molte domande sulla reale possibilità di una produzione alimentare sufficiente- mente elevata per una popolazione in crescita. L' analisi sviluppata in questo paper è basata sulla ricer- ca scientifica degli ultimi vent'anni e sulle l'attività delle ONG, dei movimenti degli agricoltori e delle organizzazioni governative di diversi contesti. L'obiettivo è quello di fornire un panorama dei princi- pali argomenti in discussione per una transizione agroecologica dei sistemi alimentari mondiali, individ- uando alcune sfide prioritarie e immaginando chi saranno i partecipanti questo cambiamento. Data la complessità del tema, alcuni temi specifici non sono stati presi in considerazione (ad esempio valore nutrizionale degli alimenti, salute), invece ci siamo concentrati su quelle questioni trasversali che stanno infiammando il dibattito in contesti istituzionali e non istituzionali .

This study applies a systems thinking approach by using the seven-step Evolutionary Learning Laboratory (ELLab) framework to identify the most economically, environmentally, culturally and socially appropriate systemic solutions to improving the quality of life for women smallholders in rural Haiphong (Northern Vietnam), with a special focus on the perceived (visible) problem of labour constraints. This paper focuses on the first five steps of the ELLab. Income, production efficiency (leading to less work pressure) and health were found to be the major contributing factors for improving the quality of life of the women farmers. The systemic interventions that will have the most effect on achieving the aforementioned leverages were defined, and the first integrated management plan was formulated to improve the quality of life of the women farmers. Although not part of this paper, further refinement and validation of the plan will be carried out in the next two steps of the ELLab process. The outcomes and lessons learned from this research will be shared with other case studies via a globally established ‘sharing platform’ in the Access Hub of the web-based think2impact(http://think2impact.org) package. The purpose of this process is not only to improve the local knowledge and systemic management plans to help the women in agriculture in Haiphong but also to contribute to enhancing the global knowledge pool on dealing with complex issues in rural areas of many countries around the world. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The study was carried out in Haiphong, a typical lowland area of the Red River Delta of Northern Vietnam. The main objective of this research was to analyse the current conditions under which women smallholders are operating (Part I), in order to serve as a basis to identify major challenges and potential intervention strategies to reduce labour hardship and improve their quality of life (Part II). Both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods were employed to gain an in-depth understanding of the current conditions. It was found that issues associated with the target group were multi-dimensional, requiring multi-stakeholder related interventions. These varied from interrelated problems such as a lack of capital and production devices to market constraints, production capability and gender-biased domestic chores and production tasks. A comprehensive and informed approach is therefore required that focuses on (i) coordinated planning and multi-stakeholder cooperation; (ii) enhanced transparency and accountability; and (iii) utilization and mobilization of available resources. Although the suggested solutions are legitimate as based on the traditional approach of context and problem analyses, it is clearly insufficient to understand the systemic interplays among different issues and to address the real issues and root causes of the difficulties the women are facing. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This article reviews the policy directives of national and provincial Departments of Agriculture in Canada and their uptake in practice on family farms in New Brunswick. Using Statistics Canada data, it explores the extent to which farmers’ practices have mirrored the agricultural policy directives. It finds that agricultural policy favored industrial farm operations and processing companies and spurred concentration by creating ever larger farms. By documenting how policy discourses shift in tandem with farm practices, the article illustrates how agricultural policy development is a key driver in the structural transformation of agriculture. But this case study also shows that despite their exclusion from policy initiatives, small farms have stubbornly remained part of the New Brunswick’s rural landscape.

This paper develops and applies a simple non-parametric methodology for estimating the direct and indirect economic contribution of small-scale black agriculture in South Africa. The direct contribution is understood as the per capita food expenditure savings of agriculturally-active households relative to other households. Meanwhile, the indirect contribution is understood as the expenditure savings enjoyed by rural households by virtue of residing in areas characterised by widespread, albeit modest local production. The analysis is based on the Income and Expenditure Survey of 2010/11. Further to estimating the magnitude of the direct and indirect contribution of small-scale agriculture, the paper seeks to provide econometric evidence for the economic logic underpinning the indirect economic contribution of small-scale black agriculture.

The integrated livestock, crops, and fish (VAC) model of integrated small scale agriculture has been important to economic and ecological sustainability in Vietnam for many centuries. Recently, emerging waterborne diseases including avian influenza as well as the potential for zoonotic disease arising from small scale farms have jeopardized the VAC model. In order to promote mitigation of the risk of waterborne and other diseases in the VAC system, there needs to be recognition of the significant predictors of such behavior, particularly with respect to water sources including well and rain water. We report primarily quantitative results of research generated from 300 farms in each of North and South Vietnam that indicate the small scale farmers who are more likely to engage in mitigation of waterborne disease are those who raise pigs, perceive themselves to be more at risk of HPAI infection from well water, report they are good livestock managers, value the advice of health care workers, and where a female household member is the decision maker for family health. These results bear importance to water and health policy formulators in rural Vietnam. (JEL I130, I180, O130, Q180, Q570). JEL CLASSIFICATIONS: I130: Health and economic developmentI180: Public healthO130: Economic Development: Agriculture; EnvironmentQ180: Agricultural policy; Food policyQ570: Ecological economics: biodiversity conservation.

One of the greatest current challenges to human society is ensuring adequate food production and security for a rapidly growing population under changing climatic conditions. Climate change, and specifically rising temperatures, will alter the suitability of areas for specific crops and cultivation systems. In order to maintain yields, farmers may be forced to change cultivation practices, the timing of cultivation, or even the type of crops grown. Alternatively, farmers can change the location where crops are cultivated (e.g., to higher elevations) to track suitable climates (in which case the plants will have to grow in different soils), as cultivated plants will otherwise have to tolerate warmer temperatures and possibly face novel enemies. We simulated these two last possible scenarios (for temperature increases of 1.3°C and 2.6°C) in the Peruvian Andes through a field experiment in which several traditionally grown varieties of potato and maize were planted at different elevations (and thus temperatures) using either the local soil or soil translocated from higher elevations. Maize production declined by 21%-29% in response to new soil conditions. The production of maize and potatoes declined by >87% when plants were grown under warmer temperatures, mainly as a result of the greater incidence of novel pests. Crop quality and value also declined under simulated migration and warming scenarios. We estimated that local farmers may experience severe economic losses of up to 2,300 US$ ha-1 yr-1 . These findings reveal that climate change is a real and imminent threat to agriculture and that there is a pressing need to develop effective management strategies to reduce yield losses and prevent food insecurity. Importantly, such strategies should take into account the influences of non-climatic and/or biotic factors (e.g., novel pests) on plant development.

Agroforestry systems are widely recognized as an important way to address numerous environmental challenges in tropical areas. They represent a sustainable alternative form of land-use for small-scale agriculture, responding to the economic development needs of communities and offering a number of ecosystem services. This article presents an evaluation of the short- and medium-term profitability of two experimental agroforestry systems where fruit trees are predominant, which were established in 2009 in the Tapajos region of the Brazilian Amazon, state of Para. An analysis of net present value (NPV) confirms that the two experimental systems studied recover their total implementation and operating costs within a 20 years time horizon. These results underlie that prices of inputs are stable and farmers have access to markets, credit, and agricultural knowledge. The two experimental systems are compared to plots under traditional slash-and-burn cultivation, and Bragantino system. The results support changes to public policies in order to facilitate alternatives to slash-and-burn cultivation by supporting access to credit, knowledge of alternative agricultural practices, transportation systems, and industries that transform agricultural products. The consideration of ecosystem services should add a supplementary argument in favour of policies that promote agroforestry systems and thus limit the practice of slash-and-burn subsistence agriculture.

This article examines the relationship between unemployment, family structure, and labor allocation in rural South Africa. Chronic joblessness has meant that many young, unemployed adults remain in the parental home. However, their productive labor is often not utilized in family farming. Using detailed ethnographic data on intra-household social relations, I argue that the prohibitive cost of marriage, and its consequent decline, has led to the erosion of obligations formerly implied by the “conjugal contract”. Young, unmarried adults often have limited responsibilities to provide labor or income to the parental home, diminishing the overall viability of small-scale farming.

The decline in the number of farms, seen as one of the main dimensions of agricultural structural change, is presumed to predominantly take place in areas with farming difficulties, such as the disadvantaged European Alpine mountain regions. Especially regarding dairy farms, facing profound changes due to pending EU policy reforms, many questions remain unanswered concerning structural change patterns. This paper presents a follow-up qualitative study that for the first time visualizes a pattern of farm household strategies among Austrian dairy farmers in a specific particularly disadvantaged mountain region. The pattern contains disengaging farms, professionalizing farms, and three differing types of stable reproduction farms. The examination shows that this revealed typology provides a suitable framework for the ex ante indication of agricultural structural change.

Spatially explicit information on local perceptions of ecosystem services is needed to inform land use planning within rapidly changing landscapes. In this paper we spatially modelled local people's use and perceptions of benefits from forest ecosystem services in Borneo, from interviews of 1837 people in 185 villages. Questions related to provisioning, cultural/spiritual, regulating and supporting ecosystem services derived from forest, and attitudes towards forest conversion. We used boosted regression trees (BRTs) to combine interview data with social and environmental predictors to understand spatial variation of perceptions across Borneo. Our results show that people use a variety of products from intact and highly degraded forests. Perceptions of benefits from forests were strongest: in human-altered forest landscapes for cultural and spiritual benefits; in human-altered and intact forests landscapes for health benefits; intact forest for direct health benefits, such as medicinal plants; and in regions with little forest and extensive plantations, for environmental benefits, such as climatic impacts from deforestation. Forest clearing for small scale agriculture was predicted to be widely supported yet less so for large-scale agriculture. Understanding perceptions of rural communities in dynamic, multi-use landscapes is important where people are often directly affected by the decline in ecosystem services.

Increasingly, maize is becoming a staple food for many Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries, and hence, it is regarded important in mitigating increasing incidences of hunger and famine in the region. This article reviews and compares literature related to farm level technical efficiency of small-scale maize production among countries of the SSA. A total of 17 studies from 11 different countries were examined. At least 2 studies related to small-scale maize farmers' technical efficiency were drawn from 6 countries, East African region being the most represented. Presentations of discussions were divided into three regions namely the West Africa, the East Africa, and the Southern Africa regions, respectively. Maize productivity in the Sub-Saharan region seem to be low, South Africa scoring only 4.37 tonnes/ha of maize far less than the potential grain yield of maize ranging between 7 tonnes/ha to 12 tonnes/ha. This prompts the region to import more grains to meet its domestic demand. The average technical efficiency (TE) index from all the studies reviewed is 70%. Although South Africa as a country had the highest average score of technical efficiency index (98%), West Africa as a region had the highest score of 82%, followed by Southern Africa region with 72%, and East African region scored only 57% on average. Overall technical efficiency scores suggest that there is considerable room to maximize agricultural output with the available resources and without changing the existing technologies. All reviewed studies sought to explain socioeconomic factors responsible for farm level variation in TE. Family farm labour (household size), availability of maize markets, improved seed variety, use of agro-chemical, access to farm credit, off-farm incomes and group membership were key outstanding socioeconomic factors that had a positive and significant impact on technical efficiency in the SSA region. For increased maize output and reduced budgets on maize imports, the region needs to focus and catalyse policies related to strengthening research and dissemination of technologies on maize breeding, labour saving technologies, growth in agro- industry, strengthening farmer cooperatives and maize markets, and strengthening of farmers' savings and credit facilities.

Agricultural expansion is one of the prime driving forces of global land cover change. Despite the increasing attention to the factors that cause it, the patterns and processes associated with indigenous cultivation systems are not well understood. This study analyzes agricultural change associated with subsistence-based indigenous production systems in the lower Pastaza River Basin in the Ecuadorian Amazon through a spatially explicit dynamic model. The model integrates multiple logistic regression and cellular automata to simulate agricultural expansion at a resolution consistent with small scale agriculture and deal with inherently spatial processes. Data on land use and cultivation practices were collected through remote sensing and field visits, and processed within a geographic information system framework. Results show that the probability of an area of becoming agriculture increases with population pressure, in the vicinity of existing cultivation plots, and proximity to the center of human settlements. The positive association between proximity to cultivation areas and the probability of the presence of agriculture clearly shows the spillover effect and spatial inertia carried by shifting cultivation practices. The model depicts an ideal shifting cultivation system, with a complete cropping-fallow-cropping cycle that shows how agricultural areas expand and contract across space and over time. The model produced relatively accurate spatial outputs, as shown by the results of a spatial comparison between the simulated landscapes and the actual one. The study helped understand local landscape dynamics associated with shifting cultivation systems and their implications for land management.

Desertification is the most disturbing and detrimental cause of rural vulnerability in Cape Verde, affecting families' material and environmental resources. Combating desertification in Cape Verde is complex because it involves addressing a mixture of endogenous (manual agriculture, fuel wood and fodder extraction, land tenure and steep slopes) and exogenous drivers (high rainfall variability, climate change, prolonged drought or heavy rainfall). To address and mitigate the adverse effects of desertification, it is necessary to develop an approach that identifies and brings together all the key stakeholders affected by and acting on the desertification issue, including land users, policy makers, managers, researchers and rural development technicians. This paper presents a hybrid methodology based on global best practices, applied in Cape Verde. It combines experiences and skills of local stakeholders (farmers, local association of land users and local non-governmental organizations) with scientific knowledge of external stakeholders such as technicians of the Ministry of Rural Development, environmental advisors of Municipalities and researchers. Integration takes place following a participatory process of appraising and selecting desertification control strategies. The paper presents the first results obtained from application of the hybrid methodology to Ribeira Seca, the largest watershed of Santiago Island. The approach was evaluated with local and external stakeholders. Both groups appreciated that they could voice their views and discuss ways to overcome barriers and also to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by jointly selected promising desertification mitigation options. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Climate change (CC) clearly impacts food production, but risks on the climatic suitability of agricultural areas for vegetable crops, their pests and associated natural enemies are largely unexplored. Tomato, one of the most important vegetables in the world, is grown mostly outdoors, and may be severely impacted by CC. Farmers cultivating tomatoes need to adapt to an increase in the potential for outbreaks of pests favoured by CC and disruption of biological control, yet, no attempt has been made to simultaneously evaluate CC effects on a crop-pest-natural enemy system for tomato or any other crop. Here, we modelled the suitability of areas equipped with irrigation facilities (AEI) in 2050 for tomato, the two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae, a mite pest of tomato among more than 200 crops, and its key predator Phytoseiulus persimilis. We evaluated the suitability of AEI for tomato production under a 1.6 °C warming by 2050, within the targets of the Paris agreement. Projections show that climatic conditions become unsuitable for tomato production on 30%–100% of AEI for seven out of the 29 top tomato producing countries of the world. Model predictions suggest that two-spotted spider mite potential for outbreaks would increase substantially in nine countries in Europe, Africa and Asia, while biological control failures would occur globally. Model results have a significant relationship with growth rates for the three species measured in outdoor experiments, and farmer/expert perceptions on two-spotted spider mite outbreak severity captured via interviews. The expansion of AEI in other agricultural areas in the sub-Saharan Africa may offset losses of suitable land. However, several nations in the Middle East and South Asia with prevalent small scale agriculture would experience devastating impacts because of the unsuitability of conditions for tomato production and the potential increase in two-spotted spider mite outbreaks.

Small-scale farming provides both food and livelihoods for the vast majority of the global poor. Thus, increasing and stabilizing farm incomes and food production in developing countries is fundamental to reducing global poverty. Policies for rural development such as improved access to non-agricultural incomes or land titling may benefit farmers, but they may also lead to farm consolidation with unintended consequences for aggregate food supply. Using a large panel dataset of rural households in Uganda, we parse apart how farm size affects the level and riskiness of agricultural incomes as well as of local food supply. Our findings indicate that while output per unit of land does decline with increasing farm size as suggested by previous literature, agricultural incomes increase with farm size. We show further that while the variance of agricultural incomes declines with increasing farm size, the variance of local food production increases with farm size. These results suggest that farmers benefit from larger farms, earning higher and more stable incomes while consumers suffer from lower and more volatile food supply.

Incidences of food shortage and poverty are highly reported on Africa specifically sub-Saharan part, despite having a large number of the population engaging in agriculture residing in the rural area. Different scholars have managed to associate food security which involves food availability, food access, food utilization and stability at the household level with various factors. The study takes a similar root in pinning down factors related to the food shortage in Singida. Taking into account socio-economic characteristics of household in analysis, it is indicated that food shortage in Singida area is more pronounced during farming season, that is November to March and it is associated with gender, marital status, education level, occupation and place of residence of the household head. Meanwhile, age of head of household, total manpower in the household, amount of maize harvested, the use of fertilizer, farm size and household expenditure on food had no significant effect in determining food shortage at the household level. Since education has shown a significant positive effect of not having food shortage, and community in Singida depends much on rain-fed agriculture system, the problem of food shortage may be tackled through extension services toward creating awareness on improved agriculture practice for more farm yield given the small piece of land available, and improvement in storage mechanism.

The threat of global climate change has caused concern among scientists because crop production could be severely affected by changes in key climatic variables that could compromise food security both globally and locally. Although it is true that extreme climatic events can severely impact small farmers, available data is just a gross approximation at understanding the heterogeneity of small scale agriculture ignoring the myriad of strategies that thousands of traditional farmers have used and still use to deal with climatic variability. Scientists have now realized that many small farmers cope with and even prepare for climate change, minimizing crop failure through a series of agroecological practices. Observations of agricultural performance after extreme climatic events in the last two decades have revealed that resiliency to climate disasters is closely linked to the high level of on-farm biodiversity, a typical feature of traditional farming systems.