Farmer Seed Exchange and Crop Diversity in a Changing Agricultural Landscape in the Southern Highlands of Ethiopia

Samberg, Leah H.; Shennan, Carol; Zavaleta, Erika S.

doi:10.1007/s10745-013-9579-7

Cited by 46 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Requesting seeds on a regular basis from the same individual is morally reproved and shameful (shame: so̰ orȅ in Tupuri), and as such is avoided as much as possible. Similar observations have been made in other African contexts (Labeyrie 2013, Samberg et al 2013. A deviation from such cultural norms is only tolerated within these relations of geographical and social proximity.…”

Section: Cereal Substitution and Resilience Of The Networksupporting

confidence: 84%

“…Because of the moral rule according to which "begging" seeds from the same partners in two consecutive years is socially penalized (Samberg et al 2013), analyzing seed acquisition networks in two "normal" years would probably have revealed the same absence of stable and repeated partnerships. However, studying the patterns of seed acquisitions through successive cropping seasons characterized by different environmental constraints is instructive, providing information on how farmers may differentially mobilize their social network to adapt their farming strategies to unpredictable climatic variations.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Good year, bad year: changing strategies, changing networks? A two-year study on seed acquisition in northern Cameroon

Violon¹,

Thomas²,

Garine³

2016

E&S

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ABSTRACT. Analysis of seed exchange networks at a single point in time may reify sporadic relations into apparently fixed and longlasting ones. In northern Cameroon, where environment is not only strongly seasonal but also shows unpredictable interannual variation, farmers' social networks are flexible from year to year. When adjusting their strategies, Tupuri farmers do not systematically solicit the same partners to acquire the desired propagules. Seed acquisitions documented during a single cropping season may thus not accurately reflect the underlying larger social network that can be mobilized at the local level. To test this hypothesis, we documented, at the outset of two cropping seasons (2010 and 2011), the relationships through which seeds were acquired by the members of 16 households in a Tupuri community. In 2011, farmers faced sudden failure of the rains and had to solicit distant relatives, highlighting their ability to quickly trigger specific social relations to acquire necessary seeding material. Observing the same set of individuals during two successive years and the seed sources they solicited in each year enabled us to discriminate repeated relations from sporadic ones. Although farmers did not acquire seeds from the same individuals from one year to the next, they relied on quite similar relational categories of people. However, the worse weather conditions during the second year led to (1) a shift from red sorghum seeds to pearl millet seeds, (2) a geographical extension of the network, and (3) an increased participation of women in seed acquisitions. In critical situations, women mobilized their own kin almost exclusively. We suggest that studying the seed acquisition network over a single year provides a misrepresentation of the underlying social network. Depending on the difficulties farmers face, they may occasionally call on relationships that transcend the local relationships used each year.

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Section: Cereal Substitution and Resilience Of The Networksupporting

confidence: 84%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Good year, bad year: changing strategies, changing networks? A two-year study on seed acquisition in northern Cameroon

Violon¹,

Thomas²,

Garine³

2016

E&S

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“…Different scales of private enterprise serve different purposes, informal systems distribute planting material to smallholders and larger multipliers and commercial companies to larger farmers; only together can they claim to 'Work everywhere and for everyone'. The informal sector is often seen as and called a farmer seed system (reviewed: Coomes et al 2015), with farmers producing planting material for their own use and to exchange with or sell to other farmers (Abay et al 2011;Almekinders et al 1994;Samberg et al 2013). Such farmer seed systems (Aw-Hassan et al 2008;Sperling and McGuire 2010;Witcombe et al 2010;Takoutsing et al 2012;Tin et al 2011) and farmer seed businesses (de Boef and Thijssen 2010; Louwaars and de Boef 2012; Neate and Guei 2010) have often been promoted to improve the distribution of planting material.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Innovative and beneficial informal sweetpotato seed private enterprise in northern Uganda

et al. 2017

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Research conducted in the informal sweetpotato seed (vines) supply system in the Gulu region, northern Uganda (2013Uganda ( -2015 revealed a diverse set of actors using private enterprise in a range of selling and marketing channels. The different channels offer an efficient and effective marketing system, providing different services and conveniences for farmers at different prices. The actors include local vine multipliers, traders, dry season root farmers, transporters and town sellers. The local multipliers and dry season root farmers grow crops during the dry season in swampy areas and sell the vines in the following rainy season to the many farmers who lack access to such areas and therefore lack vines to plant. The presentation and discussion of this case study adds to an expanding argument in the literature for increased attention to support actors in informal food crop sectors who are providing sustainable production and marketing systems on a platform of beneficial and innovative private enterprise. Through their commercial operations, vine multipliers and other actors can effectively meet the demand of customers and at the right time and place. With suitable dissemination programmes installed, these actors could also offer access to new varieties otherwise unavailable to the majority of farmers.

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“…At a much finer scale, household-level properties and individual characteristics have also been explored to uncover differential patterns of seed seeking and seed provisioning behaviors within communities. Studies have shown that gender (Zimmerer 2003, Ban and Coomes 2004, Chambers and Brush 2010, Ricciardi 2015, age (Alvarez et al 2005), farmer expertise (Subedi et al 2003, Calvet-Mir et al 2012, Kawa et al 2013, Reyes-García et al 2013, richness of crop diversity (Ban and Coomes 2004, Alvarez et al 2005, Calvet-Mir et al 2012, Reyes-García et al 2013, and household socioeconomic status (Louette et al 1997, Alvarez et al 2005, Nagarajan et al 2007, van Etten and de Bruin 2007, McGuire 2008, Stromberg et al 2010, Rana et al 2011, Samberg et al 2013, Poudel et al 2015 are important factors in understanding the structure of seed circulation networks. Of particular interest for our case study are those dimensions related to household socioeconomic status.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such a use implies that subsistence practices and strategies are uniform across household members. The assumption is revealed by the general trend of collecting household-level data by interviewing a single household member ("household heads" are often preferred), whose answers are considered representative of the household as a whole (van Etten and de Bruin 2007, Stromberg et al 2010, Abay et al 2011, Kawa et al 2013, Samberg et al 2013, Ricciardi 2015. Research designs in which several household members are interviewed are http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol21/iss1/art44/ rare (Alvarez et al 2005, Chambers andBrush 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interhousehold variability and its effects on seed circulation networks: a case study from northern Cameroon

Wencélius¹,

Thomas²,

Barbillon³

et al. 2016

E&S

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ABSTRACT. We present a detailed ethnographic case study of sorghum seed acquisitions in a smallholder farming society in northern Cameroon. The effects of variability in household demographics and socioeconomic status on observed patterns of seed provisioning are explored alongside other variables such as age and gender. Our data set comprised 223 seed acquisition events. Independence tests (Pearson's chi-square and Fisher's exact tests) were carried out to test for significant dependencies between individual-or householdlevel characteristics and properties of seed acquisition events (categories of seed source, social relationship of exchange, and type of landrace). Results indicate that wealth is a structuring factor of the local seed circulation network in as much as it is highly correlated with household composition and size. Members from wealthy households benefit from a more diverse set of seed sources. Their greater number of coresidents and the importance of intrahousehold dynamics of seed transactions also play a role in making wealthy farmers more seed secure than others. The methodological implications of our findings indicate that when documenting seed exchange networks, the collection of data through a single informant or the undertaking of social network analyses at the household level may induce important biases.

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Farmer Seed Exchange and Crop Diversity in a Changing Agricultural Landscape in the Southern Highlands of Ethiopia

Cited by 46 publications

References 30 publications

Good year, bad year: changing strategies, changing networks? A two-year study on seed acquisition in northern Cameroon

Good year, bad year: changing strategies, changing networks? A two-year study on seed acquisition in northern Cameroon

Innovative and beneficial informal sweetpotato seed private enterprise in northern Uganda

Interhousehold variability and its effects on seed circulation networks: a case study from northern Cameroon

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