Agricultural Systems: Agroecology and Rural Innovation for Development

Agroecology and Rural Innovation for Development

Sieglinde Snapp, Barry Pound, Sieglinde Snapp, Barry Pound

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780128020951
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Agribusiness
• Index: Business

Agricultural Systems, Second Edition, is a comprehensive text for developing sustainable farming systems. It presents a synthetic overview of the emerging area of agroecology applications to transforming farming systems and supporting rural innovation, with particular emphasis on how research can be harnessed for sustainable agriculture. The inclusion of research theory and examples using the principles of cropping system design allows students to gain a unique understanding of the technical, biological, ecological, economic and sociological aspects of farming systems science for rural livelihoods.

This book explores topics such as: re-inventing farming systems; principles and practice of agroecology; agricultural change and low-input technology; ecologically-based nutrient management; participatory breeding for developing improved and relevant crops; participatory livestock research for development; gender and agrarian inequality at the local scale; the nature of agricultural innovation; and outreach to support rural innovation. The extensive coverage of subjects is complemented with integrated references and a companion website, making this book essential reading for courses in international agricultural systems and management, sustainable agricultural management, and cropping systems.

This book will be a valuable resource for students of agricultural science, environmental engineering, and rural planning; researchers and scientists in agricultural development agencies; and practitioners of agricultural development in government extension programs, development agencies, and NGOs.

• Provides students with an enhanced understanding of how research can be harnessed for sustainable agriculture
• Incorporates social, biological, chemical, and geographical aspects important to agroecology
• Addresses social and development issues related to farming systems

Section III

Context for Sustainable Agricultural Development

Outline

Chapter 10 Gender and Agrarian Inequities

Chapter 11 The Innovation Systems Approach to Agricultural Research and Development

Chapter 12 Outreach to Support Rural Innovation

Chapter 13 Climate Change and Agricultural Systems

Chapter 10

Gender and Agrarian Inequities

Rachel Bezner Kerr

Abstract

This chapter focuses on gender dimensions of inequality in agriculture and rural development. The first section examines inequality on a global scale, discussing some of the major historical, economic, and institutional dynamics instrumental in shaping contemporary inequalities. A basic definition of gender is explained, and the ways in which gender inequality occurs in terms of access to productive resources is discussed. These productive resources include land, labor, inputs, and knowledge. The final section considers the ways in which the work of development practitioners, agronomists, and research scientists is embedded in the systems of inequality, and aspects to consider when designing and conducting agricultural research and extension if sustainable agricultural systems are the end goal. A case study from Northern Malawi, and examples from Tanzania and elsewhere provide specific examples of gender and other inequalities, and how agricultural research can try to address these inequalities in the approach to, and methods of, research.

Keywords

Gender; inequality; land; political economy; small-scale farmers

Introduction

This chapter focuses on agrarian inequalities at multiple scales: the global, community, and household level. Several global scale issues—land struggles, climate change, and trade agreements—are examined to consider the implication for agrarian inequalities. A focus on the gender dimensions of inequality and associated struggles is highlighted, to bring attention to gender equity into rural development planning and agricultural innovations. Several case studies highlight the need to consider gender and other social inequalities in agroecological approaches.

Inequality and Agricultural Systems in Perspective

Inequality at a Global Scale

Farmers around the world are operating within radically unequal political economic contexts. For example, let us start with a successful maize farmer in the US corn belt, who farms thousands of acres of a single crop with expensive machinery, purchasing vast amounts of hybrid seeds, pesticides, and fertilizers, drawing on computer-processed satellite data, and receiving a sizable share of his income from government subsidies. Near the other end of the farming spectrum, we could find a small farmer in Malawi, working a one-acre field by hoe, cultivating maize and other edible crops while the best land in her region is devoted to tobacco, lacking much capital or access to credit, and struggling with the increased cost of fertilizer and seeds (the latter which might be purchased from the same transnational corporation as our American maize farmer), receiving virtually no extension support, and facing additional responsibilities within her household as a caregiver to children of relatives who have been orphaned by AIDS. From this basic example, which has innumerable global permutations, a number of questions might jump out. For instance, what do these disparities mean for agricultural scientists? How did farming systems get shaped this way? What does “development” mean for the Malawian farmer? What are the prospects for the Malawian farmer in an increasingly competitive market with other producers, such as the American farmer? What policy changes might help support her farming? Where does agricultural science fit in all of this?

This chapter attempts to provide some context for these questions relevant to small farmers in the Global South, reviewing some of the major dimensions and scales of inequality affecting rural development. It makes the case that effective development interventions, including those of agricultural science, require attention to the historical, political, economic, and social context. At a basic level, inequality entails differences in economic, political, and social power that are discernible between and within nations, regions, communities, and households. We begin with the international scale, and move downwards in scale toward the household.

Global Inequality: The Big Picture

On an international level, development and inequality are most commonly framed in terms of per capita income. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has sought to broaden the criteria for understanding development with the “human development index” (HDI), which includes health and education as well as income, published annually in its Human Development Report. In 2014, the poorest two-thirds of the world’s population received less than 13% of the world’s income, compared to the richest 1% who received about 15% (UNDP, 2014, p. 39). Inequality within countries rose in 50% of all nations making up 70% of the global population between 1990 and 2012 (UNDP, 2014, p. 38). High inequality makes it more difficult to reduce poverty, threatens social stability, and undermines democratic values.

Agriculture provides a telltale sign of development rankings. On a global scale, the higher the percentage that farming represents within a nation’s employment structure, the lower that nation tends to be in terms of both per capita gross domestic product (GDP) and the HDI and, ironically, the more food insecure it tends to be, a point that will be returned to in the third section of this chapter. An estimated 1.2 billion people around the world are estimated to live on less than US$1.25 per day: and three-quarters of them live in rural areas of the Global South (UNDP, 2014, p. 19). The term ‘Global South’ is used as an alternative to ‘developing countries’, which has problematic assumptions (i.e. development is a linear process and ‘developed’ countries are more ‘advanced’ along a universal trajectory), or ‘Third World’ which was more appropriate during the Cold War era. An additional 1.5 billion people subsist on US$2.50 per day or less. Over 870 million people globally suffer from chronic undernourishment (UNDP, 2014, p. 28). Again, a large majority of this chronically undernourished population lives in rural areas. However, poverty and desperation in rural areas are also linked to the urbanization of poverty; the United Nations Human Settlement Programme estimates that roughly 860 million people currently live in slum conditions in the Global South, and if current trends continue this population is expected to double by 2030 (UNHABITAT, 2014).

Contemporary inequality trends have been shaped in part by historical factors, particularly European imperialism. Europe and its settler colonies are at the top of all indices of development, along with Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong, while the nations of Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia that were formerly controlled by Europe are positioned at varying levels below. Global economic inequality has profound political manifestations in such things as the ability to establish the rules for economic governance through multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and World Trade Organization (WTO). It also has environmental dimensions that are most stark in the uneven responsibility for global climate change, and in the uneven vulnerability to its fallout (see Box 10.1). The challenges posed by climate change are taken up again in Chapter 13, Climate Change and Agricultural Systems, of this book.

Box 10.1

The Inequality of Climate Change

In addition to assessing and summarizing mounting scientific evidence on anthropogenic climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has consistently drawn attention to the fact that the world’s wealthiest, most industrialized nations have a disproportionately large role in emitting destabilizing greenhouse gases. Many of the world’s poorest nations (and particularly the poorest people within them) will be most adversely affected by changing precipitation patterns, more severe weather, and rising sea levels. Some of these changes have already been observed, and have had impacts on crop production, according to the recent IPCC reports (IPCC, 2014).

Source: See http://www.ipcc.ch/.

Another crucial dimension of macroscale inequality that influences prospects for rural development is the increased global market concentration (or the share of global industry sales by the largest firms) of agricultural input and food processing industries. By 2009, the top eight firms in crop seeds, agricultural chemicals, animal health, and farm machinery accounted for a share of between 61% and 75% of all global market sales (Fuglie et al., 2011). This concentrated corporate economic power significantly affects both the input and output sides of agriculture. Fewer firms supplying inputs to farmers means increased corporate control over the types of inputs available, tensions over intellectual property rights, and often means higher input prices. Agricultural input prices have risen faster than farm commodity prices globally. At the same time, the fertilizer industry has invested limited research and development (accounting for an estimate less than 0.25% of sales, according to a recent review of 42 of the largest firms), such that profits have not led to...