Search

Bolivia is among the countries with the highest deforestation rates in Latin America due to the expansion of commercial agriculture, timber production, and mining activities. At the same time, smallholder farmers face challenges such as the impacts of climate change, soil degradation, and unstable market prices. Local and international actors have promoted dynamic agroforestry (DAF) as an approach to improve living conditions, restore natural habitats and increase adaptive capacity for over two decades. Currently, stakeholders involved in promoting DAF in the Alto Beni region of Bolivia seek to understand better how the approach has integrated with and potentially changed local socio-ecological realities. Accordingly, our goal was to explore whether DAF training and the possible implementation of DAF have contributed to new ways of doing, knowing, meaning, and organising in smallholder agroecosystems in the study area. We draw on relational concepts, including nonhuman agency and the emphasis on dynamics and processes, to frame our research interest. We used participant observation, interviews, narrative walks, and a mapping exercise to address the research question with twenty farmers and other stakeholders in the region. Preliminary results indicate that participating in the DAF training has indeed created space for exchange, reconsideration, and re-strengthening of social-ecological relations. By engaging more deeply with the roles and needs of flora, fauna and soil, feelings of kinship were rekindled, according to participants. We suggest that this perception shift towards reciprocity and care will play a major role in initiating long-term changes in farming practices. The participants also attempted to raise awareness and encourage their family and community members to cease practicing shifting cultivation and to diversify their production systems. Ongoing follow-up activities and consistent communication with promoting organisations will be essential for maint

Crop Area Integrated Photovoltaics (CAIPV) systems yield electricity and crops on the same area of land. Most CAIPV research and commercial activity over the last decade has taken place in temperate countries of the Global North; activity in Africa has been comparatively very limited. Depending on several factors, the shade from the PV arrays may cause crop yields to decrease, increase, or remain close to control. It is expected that yields of many crops would increase on sunny arid sites in Africa. This paper seeks to quantify and compare CAIPV's two yield components (electricity and food) under different scenarios in the African context, with a close look at potential CAIPV integration into PV mini-grids. Metrics of PV energy generation and demand are contrasted with crop yield and demand, and it is shown that the PV surface area required to meet electricity needs of most Africans is dwarfed by the corresponding land area needed for crops to meet nutritional needs. As PV area corresponds to crop area in CAIPV, it becomes clear that per capita food yields of projects will only make a miniscule contribution to local nutrition if distributed equally amongst all users of a mini-grid. Corollary agricultural benefits of mini-grids such as food refrigeration and electrified crop processing are noted to be attributed solely to the PV electricity, and have no relation to the shade provided by the PV arrays. Nevertheless, it is shown that significant quantities of food and jobs may be created if CAIPV systems can increase their surface area by securing large energy offtakers, whether in the form of off-grid industrial clients, via on-grid feed-in tariff schemes, or even future possibilities of large-scale PV-to-fuel intercontinental export operations. In all cases, policy support is urged in building the educational, legal, and financial frameworks to facilitate such scaling., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (published version)

Farmers in coffee producing countries may not be aware of the economic, social and ecological benefits available through organic agriculture. At a local, regional and global scale, smallholder coffee farmers can discover that organic production methods are linked to provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting ecosystem services. It is assumed that organic agriculture has a significant influence on soil parameters, and by association, on ecosystem services. Differences between farming systems in soil chemical properties reveal advantages for coffee farmers and shows the ecosystem services derived through organic agriculture at a local level. Benefits discovered in organic coffee systems are higher inputs of organic matter, higher biodiversity of soil microorganisms, less soil erosion, and the potential for higher aggregate stability and superior nutrient circulation.