Crop diversification as a smallholder livelihood strategy within semi-arid agricultural systems near Mount Kenya

McCord, Paul; Cox, Michael; Schmitt-Harsh, Mikaela; Evans, Tom

doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2014.10.012

Cited by 166 publications

(112 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…In line with [49], we find that farmers who have access to extension contacts were more likely to increase the extent of their coping with production shocks.…”

Section: Determinants Of the Extent Of Coping With Production And Marsupporting

confidence: 83%

Coping with Shocks and Determinants among Indigenous Vegetable Smallholder Farmers in Kenya

Ngenoh¹,

Kebede²,

Bett³

et al. 2018

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Farm households in developing countries are faced with various challenges one of which is occurrence of unexpected negative events namely shocks. Shocks could be caused by extreme adverse natural events (droughts, storms, flood, and landslides) and market-related events (fuel, food, input and output price fluctuations, volatilities and price hikes). Most of these shocks affect production systems, food markets and local economies, all of which have direct effects on food security. This study explores the prevalence of shocks among indigenous vegetable farmers in Kenya followed by an assessment of the type of coping strategies in response to these shocks. We find that over two thirds of farmers have coping strategies that are not based on market-related insurance mechanisms; rather they use strategies such as working for more hours and selling assets. We analyze which socioeconomic and institutional factors determine households' decision and extent of coping with shocks. The results showed that access to high-value markets and market information were the major factors informing their decision and extent of using coping strategies along with access to critical services such as credit, extension, and farmer groups. This has significant policy implications regarding the dissemination of information and promotion of credit markets through mobile phone-based platforms for easy accessibility in remote rural areas. Social capital should be encouraged because it acts as a necessary and sufficient conduit for information dissemination and mutual support to help farmers' access critical services and resources needed for successful and sustainable implementation of relevant and appropriate coping strategies.

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“…In line with [49], we find that farmers who have access to extension contacts were more likely to increase the extent of their coping with production shocks.…”

Section: Determinants Of the Extent Of Coping With Production And Marsupporting

confidence: 83%

Coping with Shocks and Determinants among Indigenous Vegetable Smallholder Farmers in Kenya

Ngenoh¹,

Kebede²,

Bett³

et al. 2018

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“…Nonetheless significant global agrobiodiversity is concentrated in the fields and gardens of smallholders in the context of these limitations and constraints [52]. Agrobiodiversity is furnished through locally accessible seed systems and it reduces the risk of crop loss in low-input agroecological conditions [1,17,27], in addition to furnishing locally valued foods. The adequate management of soil and water resources is integral to these functions of agrobiodiversity that, in turn, provides nutritional and health benefits to smallholder populations.…”

Section: Empirical Focus and Research Methodology: Global Smallholdermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The wide-ranging interactions of agrobiodiversity amid global change encompass: (a) the management, quality, and access to livelihood-related resource inputs (e.g., skills, knowledge, and labor engaged directly with agrobiodiversity and supporting resources, such as soils and water) amid the livelihood diversification of food-growers [12][13][14]; (b) ecosystem services and specifically interactions within agrobiodiversity-supporting ecological systems (plant-soil interactions) [10,15]; (c) crop and food-growing strategies using agrobiodiversity for combined economic, environmental, and cultural rationales [16][17][18][19][20][21] including agrodiversity, which refers to management of environmental variation in agriculture [5,22]; (d) adaptation, resilience, and mitigation in response to climate change [23][24][25][26][27]; (e) biodiversity use and conservation [9,[28][29][30][31][32]; (f) market opportunities [33,34]; and (g) food security and sovereignty together with nutrition and dietary diversity and human well-being [35][36][37][38][39]. Each of the above linkages is receiving increased research and policy interest that includes synthesis treatments of multiple linkage types [40,41].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward the Integrated Framework Analysis of Linkages among Agrobiodiversity, Livelihood Diversification, Ecological Systems, and Sustainability amid Global Change

Zimmerer

Vanek

2016

Land

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Scientific and policy interest in the biological diversity of agriculture (agrobiodiversity) is expanding amid global socioeconomic and environmental changes and sustainability interests. The majority of global agrobiodiversity is produced in smallholder food-growing. We use meta-analyses in an integrated framework to examine the interactions of smallholder agrobiodiversity with: (1) livelihood processes, especially migration, including impacts on agrobiodiversity as well as the interconnected resource systems of soil, water, and uncultivated habitats; and (2) plant-soil ecological systems. We hypothesize these interactions depend on: (1) scope of livelihood diversification and type resource system; and (2) plant residues and above-/belowground component ecological specificity. Findings show: (1) livelihood diversification is linked to varied environmental factors that range from rampant degradation to enhancing sustainability; and (2) significant ecological coupling of aboveground and soil agrobiodiversity (AGSOBIO assemblages). The environmental impacts of livelihood interactions correspond to variation of diversification (migration, on-farm diversification) and resource system (i.e., agrobiodiversity per se, soil, water). Our findings also reveal mutually dependent interactions of aboveground and soil agrobiodiversity. Results identify livelihood diversification-induced reduction of environmental resource quality with lagged agrobiodiversity declines as a potentially major avenue of global change. Our contribution re-frames livelihood interactions to include both agrobiodiversity and ecological systems. We discuss this integrated social-environmental re-framing through the proposed spatial geographic schema of regional agri-food spaces with distinctive matrices of livelihood strategies and relations to biodiversity and resources. This re-framing can be used to integrate livelihood, agrobiodiversity, and ecological analysis and to guide policy and scientific approaches for sustainability in agriculture and food-growing.

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“…5) illustrates how agroforestry can directly and indirectly mitigate the effects of floods and drought, contributing to a more robust livelihood system. Further, agroforestry was being used by some people to increase on-farm crop diversity, which can increase redundancy within the agricultural system (McCord et al 2015). Redundancy means that a significant proportion of the diversity of plants could be lost on the farm without having a significant effect on farm production in the short term (Kindt et al 2006, Dawson et al 2013.…”

Section: Agroforestry Benefits During Flood and Droughtmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of agroforestry in building livelihood resilience to floods and drought in semiarid Kenya

Quandt¹,

Neufeldt²,

McCabe³

2017

E&S

109

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ABSTRACT. Climate change may create serious problems for farmers by increasing precipitation variability and drought and flood events. Understanding how to build livelihood resilience to these effects is a pressing need. Agroforestry is one potential solution. Although many people intuitively link agroforestry with livelihood resilience to floods and drought, little comprehensive empirical evidence exists. Here, we strive to answer the call for more empirical evidence by drawing on field work in Isiolo County, Kenya to ask the research question: How does agroforestry help smallholder farmers build livelihood resilience to floods and drought? We used a mixed-methods approach that included 20 qualitative case study households and 338 quantitative household surveys. Our major findings are: (1) practicing agroforestry can influence perceptions of floods and drought, (2) specific environmental and livelihood benefits of agroforestry contribute to livelihood resilience, and (3) agroforestry directly and indirectly builds livelihood resilience to floods and drought. Identifying potential climate change adaptation strategies is crucial for smallholder farmers. Our research indicates that agroforestry is one promising option.

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Crop diversification as a smallholder livelihood strategy within semi-arid agricultural systems near Mount Kenya

Cited by 166 publications

References 64 publications

Coping with Shocks and Determinants among Indigenous Vegetable Smallholder Farmers in Kenya

Coping with Shocks and Determinants among Indigenous Vegetable Smallholder Farmers in Kenya

Toward the Integrated Framework Analysis of Linkages among Agrobiodiversity, Livelihood Diversification, Ecological Systems, and Sustainability amid Global Change

The role of agroforestry in building livelihood resilience to floods and drought in semiarid Kenya

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