Search

Copyright of Revista Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Niñez y Juventud is the property of Centro de Estudiso Avanzados en Ninez y Juventud alaianza Cinde, Universidad de Manizales and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In recent years, quinoa (traditionally grown in South America) has been imagined as a food crop that addresses the world's most pressing problems: climate change, water scarcity, food insecurity, malnutrition, and economic inequality. Valued for being nutritionally exceptional and resistant to several agronomic stresses, quinoa has attracted the attention of consumers, researchers, and development agencies. This paper focuses on the World Quinoa Congress and other international gatherings of experts (plant scientists, quinoa farmers, social scientists, development practitioners, and entrepreneurs) who produce and share knowledge about quinoa's cultivation, production, consumption, and diversification. I examine how various actors materialize quinoa through different ways of conceptualizing seeds, property, and knowledge. In some cases, quinoa is part of a larger socioecological system, while in others, seeds are disembedded from their geographical context and studied in terms of their efficiency and yields. I explore the convergence and divergence of knowledges that accompany quinoa's globalization, shedding light on the frictions, conflicting priorities, opportunities, and questions that arise in spaces of knowledge creation and exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Dual-purpose systems are important components in the food production line, especially with the increasing interest of consumers demanding food products that are not produced in intensive enterprises that are, in the eyes of the public, deleterious to animal welfare. How would biotechnologies such as artificial insemination or embryo transfer help to improve the efficacy of small community farmers, as the dominant system in the tropics? Different limitations must be considered, such as inadequate record keeping, the limited ability of farmers to invest in their farms, an undefined breeding program limiting genetic progress, challenging environmental conditions, inadequate infrastructure, nutritional practices, and health issues; these are the main considerations of this review. Dual-purpose husbandry might well be the most commonly employed cattle management system in tropical regions worldwide. The advantages of producing both meat and milk, although in reduced quantities, gives an edge to the farmer in coping with the volatile economic conditions that prevail in the region. Herein, we discuss the different methods of cattle management under tropical conditions based on the financial and social structure of this system. An account of the sanitary and nutritional conditions available to the farmers and how these factors affect the profitability of the enterprise will also be given. Finally, we will discuss how these systems can take advantage of several biotechnological procedures, and how these tools (such as controlled natural mating, artificial insemination, and embryo transfer) affect reproductive outcomes. The present review will mainly concentrate on production systems located less than 1000 m above sea level, as the problems and shortcomings of cattle raised above this arbitrary landmark are quite different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is high on the science and policy agenda of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), requiring context-specific adaptation. Studies on endogenous cultural institutions (ECIs) in climate adaptation are fragmented, impeding policy orientation. This suggests the need for complementary evidence on ECIs to inform adaptation practice. Through a sample of 158 households in rural Cameroon, we contribute to bridge this gap, by: (1) exploring socio-political factors shaping peasant farmers' compliance with agro-based ECIs, and (2) estimating the effect of ECI compliance on farmers' adaptation practices. Our estimation revealed the following: While political factors do not sufficiently explain compliance, state influence, mirrored through the application of formal rules negatively affects ECI compliance. Traditional rain forecast significantly explains climate adaptation; however, the pouring of libation does not. The age of peasant farmers also positively affects compliance with ECIs. We conclude that compliance with ECIs manifest in climate adaptation in varying proportions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that access to informational, financial, and human capital influences specific climate variability adaptation strategies. Even though this argument is highly supported within the conventional wisdom circle, the extant literature remains sparing, particularly covering non-arid spaces in the global south. Relying on cross-sectional data covering 150 smallholder crop farmers from southern Ghana, augmented with focus group discussions, we answer the research question: What is the relationship between access to financial, informational, and human capital and climate variability adaptation strategies in a peri-urban geography? The results were estimated using multivariate probit regression. The findings showed that informational, financial, and human capital significantly influenced climate variability adaptation strategies. Specifically, informational capital significantly influenced organic manure application and irrigation. Financial capital through savings significantly influenced crop rotation. Formal and informal credit sources had no significant influence on climate variability adaptation strategies. Human capital - household labour significantly influenced mixed cropping, organic manure, and irrigation. Formal financial institutions are encouraged to adapt tailor-made requirements that are sensitive to the high-level informalities pertaining to peasant farming. And consider reducing loan interest rates to foster financial inclusion. Governments in sub-Saharan Africa could target improving farmers access to informational, financial, and human capital to build resilient climate variability adaptations.

Dual-purpose husbandry might well be the most commonly employed cattle management system in tropical regions worldwide. The advantages of producing both meat and milk, although in reduced quantities, gives an edge to the farmer in coping with the volatile economic conditions that prevail in the region. Herein, we discuss the different methods of cattle management under tropical conditions based on the financial and social structure of this system. An account of the sanitary and nutritional conditions available to the farmers and how these factors affect the profitability of the enterprise will also be given. Finally, we will discuss how these systems can take advantage of several biotechnological procedures, and how these tools (such as controlled natural mating, artificial insemination, and embryo transfer) affect reproductive outcomes. The present review will mainly concentrate on production systems located less than 1000 m above sea level, as the problems and shortcomings of cattle raised above this arbitrary landmark are quite different.

Internet of Things (IoT) technologies can greatly benefit from machine-learning techniques and artificial neural networks for data mining and vice versa. In the agricultural field, this convergence could result in the development of smart farming systems suitable for use as decision support systems by peasant farmers. This work presents the design of a smart farming system for crop production, which is based on low-cost IoT sensors and popular data storage services and data analytics services on the cloud. Moreover, a new data-mining method exploiting climate data along with crop-production data is proposed for the prediction of production volume from heterogeneous data sources. This method was initially validated using traditional machine-learning techniques and open historical data of the northeast region of the state of Puebla, Mexico, which were collected from data sources from the National Water Commission and the Agri-food Information Service of the Mexican Government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is no doubt that Zimbabwe's Fast Track Land Reform Program resulted in repeasantization. As several studies point out, it also resulted in accumulation from below by a majority of the resettled peasantry. Our study focuses on an area where counter-agrarian reform is in motion and accumulation from below is constrained. In this location, we argue that repeasantization is severely being contested as indicated by the re-emergence of a dual-mode of production and the subsequent 'virtual' dispossession and proletarianization of the land reform beneficiaries. Our findings shed more light on the dynamics of capitalism and agrarian politics in a context where land reforms are implemented under neoliberalism. In this enclave, peasants after accessing land through the land reform collectivized their land and parceled it to the downsized and nearby capitalist farming system. The capitalist farming system engages in spatio-temporal fix by moving from one rural site to another as it follows the dictates of accumulation. While the possibility of full-scale land dispossession exists, the current state ownership of land and the peasantry's resistance provided some brakes to full-scale land dispossession. At the same time, the state's limited support to land reform beneficiaries fuels this localized land dispossession. The peasantry's exploitation in this enclave ranges from corvee labor to coercion into the mini-land enclosures; these are implemented by village heads, who are local state functionaries. This study also recasts the relevance of the Marxist framework in understanding rural dynamics more specifically; it revisits Karl Kautsky's arguments on the coexistence thesis of the peasantry and capitalist farming and illustrates the Zimbabwean state's ambivalence with regards to the conditions of peasant and capitalist farming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the process of formation and development of lease relations in the agrarian sector of Tavria province in the second half of the 19th century-1917 in the conditions of vendible farming and animal husbandry development. The causes of widespread leasing and the specificity of this process in different counties of the province are analyzed. The role of landlord ownership in the formation of the lease fund of the region is determined. The vast lands served as a significant source of productive and non-productive profit for the local nobility. Few owners of capitalist-type farms used the proceeds of the lease to modernize their farms. Lease was the main means of land use for the vast majority of nobles. The ways of involving the Taurian peasantry in the lease relations in the conditions of its property and social differentiation are revealed here. Attention is drawn to the fact that the wealthy peasantry was the main tenant who used the leased land primarily for the organization of commercial agriculture. Characterization of the types of land constituting the lease fund of the region have been made. It has been found that private ownership constituted its vast majority, as well as peasant allotments, treasury lands and private institutions. The specifics of the lease of state-owned lands in Tavria province are shown. A wide variety of statistical sources cover the types of land leases and regional features of their using. Skopschina was a popular form of rent; however, on the areas of commercial agriculture, there was a dynamic development of monetary rent as a characteristic feature of capitalist housekeeping. The dynamics of changes in rental prices in the context of species and regional differentiation are traced. The advantages and disadvantages of rent for the owners and tenants of the province are highlighted. It was concluded that the lease occupied an important place in the land tenure and land using of the population of Tavria province - above all, the nobility and the peasantry as the main subjects of lease relations and makers of agricultural products. It contributed to the development of entrepreneurship and the strengthening of capitalist forms of farming in the countryside.

This article examines the political effects of the spiritualization of ecology by considering the theoretical debate opposing ecology as subpolitics (i.e., a vector of new forms of politicization) and ecology as post-politics (i.e., a vector of depoliticization). This debate addresses the links between ecology, spirituality, and politics and hinges on the contrasting ways in which these terms may be understood. This study brings empirical specicity to this debate by analyzing how it unfolds among environmentalist farmers in France. The ndings show how different views on ecology, spirituality, and politics coexist in one and the same movement depending on the farmers' backgrounds. This demonstrates the ongoing redenition of spirituality as a cultural category crosscutting the modern opposition between politics and religion, and highlights an understanding of the spiritualization of ecology as the addition of alternative political perspectives, more or less openly competing, rather than as a one-dimensional process of (de)politicization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The green revolution that started in Mexico in the 1940s provoked a technological dependence on agricultural materials provided mainly by the United States and still lingers today with the commercial opening and globalization of markets. In this documentary review, we analyze some socioeconomic consequences that these models of development have had on national agriculture and farmers. The work contributes by reinforcing criticisms of developmental policies undertaken by Government since they have benefited a small elite class of producers while the majority of producers have been marginalized from support programs aimed at boosting agricultural modernization. We also support the arguments of those who discuss the debt owed to farmers and in favor of developing public policies that contribute to a more equitable distribution of resources in order to achieve a truly sustainable development.

Copyright of Economía, Sociedad y Territorio is the property of El Colegio Mexiquense and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Internet of Things (IoT) technologies can greatly benefit from machine-learning techniques and artificial neural networks for data mining and vice versa. In the agricultural field, this convergence could result in the development of smart farming systems suitable for use as decision support systems by peasant farmers. This work presents the design of a smart farming system for crop production, which is based on low-cost IoT sensors and popular data storage services and data analytics services on the cloud. Moreover, a new data-mining method exploiting climate data along with crop-production data is proposed for the prediction of production volume from heterogeneous data sources. This method was initially validated using traditional machine-learning techniques and open historical data of the northeast region of the state of Puebla, Mexico, which were collected from data sources from the National Water Commission and the Agri-food Information Service of the Mexican Government.

The limited access to land in most African states has engendered a fierce competition, especially among various agricultural user groups. The two major groups of agricultural land users are transhumant pastoralists and sedentary peasant farmers. The internecine conflict between these agro-user groups has grave implications for human security in Nigeria and beyond. Explanation of the conflict has centred on climate change and environmental security, population growth and urbanisation, and insecurity. However, the transnational character of this conflict, often made possible by relevant regional protocols, has not received adequate scholarly attention. This paper argues that networking of regional bodies and other stakeholders is the panacea for tackling the tension-soaked relationship between these land users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Development Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose - An analysis of the development in Polish agriculture from 1918 to 1939 and 1945 to1956. Research method - The article uses scientific historical and economical methods. Source texts of the state provenance were analysed: legal acts, printed sources (mainly statistical), archival records. In the economic studies, the analysis included statistical data, dynamics of phenomena, and comparative studies. Results - The analysis of changes in agriculture in Lower Silesia in the studied periods demonstrates that despite the under-investment and its marginal economic importance in Germany from 1918 to 1939, the agriculture in Lower Silesia was at a much higher level than the agriculture in pre-war Poland. Communism coming into power post 1945 and Poland entering the so-called Eastern Block hindered further development of capitalist agriculture in Lower Silesia. The agricultural structure created after World War II was not adapted to the character of farms taken over and the existing agricultural system was completely different from the socio-political assumptions based on agricultural reform and on the socialist character of agriculture prevailing from 1945 to 1956. Originality / value - The analysis of agricultural economy in the studied period was not sufficiently described in the source literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some farmers in the Central Finger Lakes Region of New York balance their production between principles of peasant farming and capitalist farming. They struggle to extend their sphere of autonomy and subsistence production, while extended commodity production is often a response to external forces of the state and capital. This struggle, together with a quantitative increase of small farms, can be described as an instance of repeasantization. Based on inductive, empirical qualitative social research, this case study describes the economy and social organization of six farms in the area under investigation and explores the applicability of the rich theory of peasant farming to agriculture in this community. Besides selling commodities to pay for many farming inputs and consumer goods, the farms produce for their subsistence and that of their community. They exchange products and services with other farms, they build networks of mutual provisioning, support, and mentorship, and try to take good care of the land. This paper shows that subsistence production and peasant culture are not restricted to the past or the Global South, but also exist as pockets of peasantness on six New York farms. The perspective applied in this paper suggests that principles of peasant farming may shape farming on other US farms, too, if we accept that these principles intersect with constrains of the larger capitalist market society in which they are embedded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The green revolution that started in Mexico in the 1940s provoked a technological dependence on agricultural materials provided mainly by the United States and still lingers today with the commercial opening and globalization of markets. In this documentary review, we analyze some socioeconomic consequences that these models of development have had on national agriculture and farmers. The work contributes by reinforcing criticisms of developmental policies undertaken by Government since they have benefited a small elite class of producers while the majority of producers have been marginalized from support programs aimed at boosting agricultural modernization. We also support the arguments of those who discuss the debt owed to farmers and in favor of developing public policies that contribute to a more equitable distribution of resources in order to achieve a truly sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peasant farming persists despite centuries of attempts to make it disappear. Revisiting Daoism, the duality between nature and culture in Western philosophy, the archetypes and myths in Jungian psychology, and emotions in neurophysiology, new attributes are suggested for peasant farming, providing some indication of why peasant farming cannot be compared to any other form of farming. It is because peasant farming has been excluded for centuries, and because it has been spared the contradictions and shortfalls of a Western productivist model, that it still keeps, often intact, the essence of what could become a new Social Contract for humanity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The system of organization and further implementation of structural units of agricultural cooperation of sales and supply operations in the pre–farm period is analyzed. The most effective forms and methods of intermediary work of the cooperative system are revealed. The importance of ensuring the functioning of the mechanism of sales and supply work for the economic growth and support of the interests of peasant farms, ensuring their economic needs is revealed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Bylye Gody is the property of Cherkas Global University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In 2006, the government of Morocco decided to privatize the land of the former socialist-inspired collective state cooperatives, which had been created in the early 1970s. The resulting shift in land control is happening alongside - but is also provoking - wider processes of agrarian change, manifested among others things in land sells, the introduction of new high-value crops, the use of new technologies (tubewells and drip irrigation), and alterations in labour relations. These transformations influence the development of family farming and gender relations. On the basis of an ethnographic and historical study conducted in a dissolving state cooperative in the agricultural plain of the Saïss we suggest opening the "black box" of the family farm to illustrate the gender dynamics that mark the impact of current agrarian dynamics today. Through this lens we first of all illustrate how during the period of the state cooperative the land, the farms, and the families were deeply intertwined through labour relations and by how the land was used, forming the identities of peasant women and men. By retracing the development of various peasant families we illustrate how this farming model is changing today. The current agrarian dynamics offer new possibilities of being and becoming to some young men and "modern" farmers. Nevertheless, various peasant women increasingly find less pride in their agricultural work and actively seek to develop new rural feminine identities, which is not easy. As such, we observe how the future becoming of peasant farming will strongly depend on the next generation of farmers and of their aspiration of modernizing their future becoming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the recent history of peasant farming in a Moroccan oasis to reflect on the relationship between agrodiversity, labor and tradition in contemporary smallholder systems. Many agrarian scholars and food sovereignty activists emphasize the role of peasant farmers in protecting agricultural biodiversity. This paper argues that certain kinds of agrodiversity may in fact be ‘new', a product of recent agrarian transformations that adapt and in some cases reject agricultural traditions. Ethnographic research in pre-Saharan Morocco found that some households used migration remittances to experiment with new crops and produce for the market for the first time. In recognizing the ambivalent relationship peasant farmers may have towards tradition, this paper contends that it is important to locate a political economy of agrodiversity in the larger context of the contemporary agrarian question and to relate agrodiversity to the changing labor regimes that enable peasant farming systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Polis (07176554) is the property of Polis - Revista Academica Universidad Bolivariana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Historia Agraria is the property of Historia Agraria and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Land grabbing has emerged as a form of production and export of food and biofuels in the Third World by enterprises owned by foreign governments and business entities. Large tracts of land are either leased or sold to these enterprises cheaply by the state, usually with the argument that such land is empty and needs to be put to good use. But land grabbing dates back to colonial times, thus substantially shaping the political economy of such countries as South Africa, Kenya and Zimbabwe. It is therefore fitting at this conjuncture to discuss land grabbing in its holistic and historical context, noting that smallholding agriculture juxtaposed against large scale commercial farming will for a long time define agrarian class struggles, the character of the state and the project of nation building. Over the last decade or so land distribution in Zimbabwe by the Mugabe government was assumed to be heading for disaster. Recent information, however, reveals that productivity has improved, tobacco exports are improving and smallholders accessing affordable farm input and markets while getting a fair reward for their labour behave no differently from large scale commercial farmers. In the final analysis the issue of equity and poverty elimination needs to be central in addressing the land and agriculture question in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article I discuss the role of the market on the different branches of the agriculture in a Transylvanian village analysing the complex forms of the market and market behaviour that exist in a peculiar rural settlement. The village once had a sort &regional centre role where families who earned a living from non-agricultural activities lived in high number but this role had faded with socialist modernisation, thus nowadays the main sector is the agriculture. Regarding the links between agricultural production and the market the article delimitates three behavioural patterns, namely self-sufficiency, partial market integration and dominant market integration (differentiating the locations where farmers place their products, too), arguing that in fact these patterns may be found many times in the same households and there are no clear forms of market behaviour. In concordance I argue also that self-sufficiency is not more than a scientific tool used in the description of traditional economies but it does not really exist, and self-sufficiency and market ate not opposed, but on the contrary, they complement each other. Consequently the article tries to demonstrate that the peasant farming depends in many ways -- both in its consumption and production - on the market and that the market effects in fact mean inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]