Showing papers on "Subsistence agriculture published in 1993"

Mortgaging Women's Lives : Feminist Critiques of Structural Adjustment

Abstract: Apart from introductory and concluding chapters by editor Pamela Sparr, this book contains seven country case studies: two from Asia (Sri Lanka and the Philippines), two from subSaharan Africa (Ghana and Nigeria), two from the Middle East (Turkey and Egypt) and one from the Caribbean (Jamaica). All were written by women who grew up in the country they write about and many include original field work? The purpose of these studies is to show how structural adjustment programs (SAPs) imposed by the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund in some five dozen countries has affected women's lives. With the usual holistic approach of women researchers, the studies deal both with the economic activity of women (in the formal market, in the informal market and within the household) and with women, and their children, as consumers of market goods, homegrown produce and public services. Sparr notes three goals of structural adjustment: 1) getting "prices right" which means eliminating price controls and subsidies and often making imports much cheaper to the detriment of local industries producing for the domestic market; 2) minimizing government involvement which implies privatization of government-owned companies, cutbacks in public services, and deregulation in areas such as labour standards but also in areas such as agricultural marketing boards; and 3) creating an "open" economy which generally means developing export-oriented industries and abandoning those seeking to compete with imports; this, in turn, generally requires significant devaluation of the country's currency and therefore a major decline in real wages and living standards. Given the level of development of these countries and therefore the kind of economic activities available to women, four themes dominate the case studies: women in agriculture (whether for home production, local markets or, more rarely, export markets); women in manufacturing, including traditional handicraft or cottage industries, producing for local entrepreneurs or in the free-trade zones dominated by multinational corporations; women entrepreneurs, which generally means small-scale commercial ventures or "higglering" (a term used in both Nigeria and Jamaica, although not with exactly the same meaning); and women, many with professional training, in the public service. One of the important lessons of this book is that "women" are an extremely diverse group and that the impact of structural adjustment policies, or any kind of policy for that matter, differs not only from one country to another, but also between urban and rural women, between social classes, between age groups, and even between the kind of crop produced or the product manufactured. Examples taken from the texts are, therefore, intended to illustrate the richness of the analysis and not to provide generalizations. In agriculture, one of the main thrusts of SAP is to remove subsidies from food crops for local consumption and to promote export production even though world prices may be extremely low. For example, in the Philippines, land was transferred from the traditional crops of rice and corn to the production of sugar cane, bananas and pineapples with a concomitant increase in the size of holdings and greater mechanization but also a rise in the number of landless households. The main result was to further marginalize women in crop production as they are largely excluded from the sugar cultivation. The loss of small holdings meant that many women could no longer rely on a subsistence crop. In Nigeria, agricultural development projects, specifically designed to provide money to help modernize farming actually made it harder for women to get credit or training. In both these countries, overall declines in wages and money income have forced women both to increase household work and to seek outside employment, in areas where jobs are scarce, or to try to start a small business. In Sri Lanka and Jamaica, SAPs have led to the establishment of free-trade zones. …

Defining and explaining tropical deforestation: shifting cultivation and population growth in colonial Madagascar (1896-1940).

Abstract: The case study of deforestation in Madagascar demonstrated how deforestation is a complex phenomenon that reflects interconnections between land-based resources human groups and global political economy; specifically there is a link between changing land use practices affecting shifting cultivation and tropical deforestation. The general development model of exponential population growth and shifting cultivation causing deforestation and environmental degradation is too simplified places undue blame on the victims and isolates shifting cultivation practices from the reality of land use patterns in specific places at specific times. Problematic also is the way definition delimitation and discussion of environmental problems shapes possible solutions. This analysis suggests a theoretical view that links reconstructed regional geography with political ecology. The assertion is that deforestation is historically based on multiple social processes within Madagascar. Land use practices and resource access decisions during the colonial period affected land management and degradation. The colonial state policy played a role in the destruction of tropical flora by fire shifting cultivation and grazing and the responses of Europeans and Malagasys. Context and multiplicity of motivations and practices were key. A review was presented of reconstructed regional geography and political ecology and global tropical deforestation. The description of the political economy of deforestation during colonial times focused on the movement of population into the forests after 1896 and French annexation. Famine resulted. Shifting cultivation laws were passed between 1881 and 1913 due to the desire for rational forest resource management. Ecologically and socially these rules were difficult to enforce; there were resistance due to the threat of the elimination of subsistence living for wage work. Destructive logging practices and forest product extraction after 1921 are described. During 1900-1941 population was below or at replacement level but the government still blamed Malagasys. Shifting cultivation meant different things to the subsistence farmers the state and international agencies. Denial of context promotes an ideology of repression fuels fear and prejudice and promotes the wrong solutions.

Smallholder rubber and swidden agriculture in Borneo: A sustainable adaptation to the ecology and economy of the tropical forest

Abstract: This is a study of the role of Para rubber cultivation in a system of swidden agriculture in Indonesian Borneo. Such smallholdings produce most of Indonesia’s rubber, which is the country’s largest agricultural generator of foreign exchange. Rubber integrates well into Bornean systems of swidden agriculture: the comparative ecology and economy of Para rubber and upland swidden rice result in minimal competition in the use of land and labor — and even in mutual enhancement — between the two systems. Rubber occupies a distinct niche in the farm economy: it meets the need for market goods, while the swiddens meet subsistence needs. The intensity of production on these smallholdings is, as a result, characteristically low (and may even vary inversely with market prices). This reflects the independence of these smallholders from external economic and political influences, which has been the key to their historical success. The special virtues of such “composite systems” merit greater attention by development planners.

The fertility of agricultural and non-agricultural traditional societies.

Abstract: A comparison of demographic data from a sample of traditional, natural-fertility societies demonstrates that the mean total fertility of populations which practise intensive agriculture is significantly higher than that of foragers and horticulturalists. These findings support the association that demographers and economists have long maintained between the intensification of subsistence technology and increases in human fertility. This higher fertility probably results from changes in nutritional status, marriage patterns, and breastfeeding practices that frequently accompany subsistence intensification. A fuller explanation of these fertility differentials, however, will require the collection of further high-quality microdemographic data from a variety of traditional societies.

Factors affecting fertilizer adoption in less developed countries: an application of multivariate logistic analysis in malaŵi

Abstract: Fertilizer is one of the critical inputs used in improving smallholder food and agricultural productivity in Malaŵi. However, analytical studies to identify factors influencing fertilizer adoption have so far never been conducted in Malaŵi and effects of policy changes relating to fertilizer adoption appear to be assessed subjectively. In this paper, a logit model is employed to identify the main factors influencing fertilizer use in farms surveyed in the Lilongwe Rural Development Project. In descending order, crop, farming system, crop variety, credit access, income from off-farm employment and regular labour are the main factors influencing fertilizer adoption, thus, policies impinging on these variables would be expected to have most effect on the number of fertilizer adopters, especially wholly subsistence and groundnut cash-crop farmers most of whom use no fertilizer at present.

Claiming the High Ground: Sherpas, Subsistence, and Environmental Change in the Highest Himalaya

Abstract: Stanley Stevens brings a new historical perspective to his study of a subsistence society in ever-increasing contact with the outside world. The Khumbu Sherpas, famous for their mountaineering exploits, have frequently been depicted as victims of the world's highest-altitude tourist boom. But has the flow of outsiders to Mt Everest and the heights of Nepal in fact destroyed a stable, finely-balanced relationship between the Sherpas and their environment? Steven's innovative use of oral history and cultural ecology suggests that tourism is not the watershed circumstance many have considered it to be. Drawing on extensive interviews and data gathered during three years of fieldwork, he documents the Sherpas' ingenious adaptation to high-altitude conditions, their past and present agricultural, pastoral, trade and forest management practices, and their own perspectives on the environmental history of their homeland.

Household Income, Food Availability, and Commercial Crop Production by Smallholder Farmers in the Western Highlands of Guatemala

Abstract: Crop commercialization among smallholder farmers in developing countries has often been signaled as being detrimental to the economic conditions and food security of the farmers' households.' High variability in market prices of farm products and farm inputs poses significant risks to household income, as do inefficient marketing institutions and inadequate rural infrastructure. Lack of adequate access to credit prohibits smallholder farmers from assuming such risks. Commercialized farm households become more dependent on market conditions for adequate availability of food, as cash crops displace food crops and household consumption of own-produced staple foods is reduced. Thus, the household's vulnerability to food insecurity tends to be increased. Labor inputs by household members are often higher in cash than food crops, which may increase the household's food needs.2 Changes in food intake patterns have been associated with a change toward cash crop production, which often results in diminished nutritional quality of the diet.3 The income and food effects of shifts from subsistence to commer-

Mesolithic Subsistence in North India: Inferences from Dental Attributes

Abstract: differences have helped us to recognize events not considered in the simulation (such as the corridor along the Ebro Valley) and its shortcomings (such as the spread of Basque characteristics). Beyond the coincidences, however, no causal relationship between facts and hypothesis has been demonstrated. What this study shows is that the scenario suggested for the interpretation of the genetic variation in the Iberian Peninsula as the outcome of population history is internally consistent. A direct demonstration may never be possible.

Ogallala: Water for a Dry Land

Abstract: "A sane, scholarly model for addressing local enviro-crises."-Booklist. "This work will give the reader the basis for planning the future of the Ogallala."-Journal of Sustainable Agriculture. This book illustrates that the aquifer is more than a local resource or a regional treasure, and it illuminates the necessity for new management of the aquifer to prevent a return to subsistence conditions on the plains.

Who Grows Food in Russia and Eastern Europe

Abstract: Drawing upon an innovative program of surveys in Russia and Eastern Europe, a prominent Western public policy specialist and Russian geographer present an important empirical study demonstrating a wide diffusion of subsistence food production by both urban and rural households in Eastern Europe and by urban households in Russia. With access to land, rather than occupational specialization, determining who grows food in the stressful 1990s, the paper, based on an extensive survey in 1991 and 1992 with 3,550 Bulgarian, Czechoslovak, and Polish respondents and 2,100 Russian, reveals that most people in the post-Soviet realm consume the food that they produce. 1 diagram, 7 tables, 25 references.

Nomadic pastoralists adopt subsistence strategies that maximise long-term household survival

Abstract: Optimality approaches have been used to investigate the adaptiveness of human subsistence strategies mainly in hunter-gatherer societies. However the ‘static‘ optimality models used are not suitable for investigating the long-term costs and benefits of decisions, especially in societies where wealth is accumulated and hence resources gained in one year have an influence on future years. Here I use dynamic optimality modelling to investigate the adaptiveness of a subsistence strategy in the Gabbra, a nomadic pastoralist group. I show that herders forego short-term gain in favour of long-term household survival. This is done by herders sometimes manipulating the life histories of their sheep. In herds where the breeding rate has been slowed, by restricting ewes’ access to males, females have greater longevity, but fewer offspring per year, than in unmanipulated herds. Models maximising offtake from the herd predict that herd breeding-rate should never be slowed. Models maximising short-term household survival predict herd-breeding rate should always be slowed. Models of long-term household survival predict that herd-breeding rate should be slowed only by relatively wealthy households. This is the behaviour observed. Poor and wealthy house-holds adopt different behaviours, yet all are following optimal strategies for their own level of wealth, that maximise their long-term survival. This is the behaviour that would be predicted on the basis of evolutionary theory, given that a family takes many years to be raised.

Transitions Between Cultivation and Pastoralism in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract: This paper presents a dynamic optimality model of herding and farming as long-term survival strategies. The model can be used to predict which modes of subsistence will be associated with different ecological and economic conditions and therefore to examine under what circumstances people might change from one mode of subsistence to another. It predicts that the shift into pastoralism is associated, principally, with increasing wealth, and examples from recent history support his. It also explains such counter-intuitive b haviour as pastoralists' taking up cultivation in an area although farmers are moving out.

Survival Strategy or Business Training Ground? The Significance of Urban Agriculture for the Advancement of Women in African Cities

Abstract: Crop cultivation and the rearing of livestock in the open spaces of large third world cities have reached the point where their importance as a part of the urban informal sector can no longer be overlooked. In East Africa, several recent surveys have confirmed that urban cultivation, carried on largely by women, is both prevalent and vital to the livelihood of a significant proportion of the population (Freeman 1991; Rakodi 1988; Mazingira Institute 1987). These surveys complement a rather slim body of previous field research focused specifically on urban agriculture in Africa. Most of the latter deal with cities in Francophone central and west Africa (Vennettier 1988, 1972, 1961; Jeannin 1972; Morriniere 1972; Lassere 1958). A number deal with cultivation in the peri-urban fringe (Swindell 1988; Guyer 1987; Haubert 1985). The general conclusion of these studies is that many urban households, at all income levels, produce a considerable proportion of their own subsistence needs. The more recent evidence further suggests that, despite a relatively short history in large African cities like Nairobi, cultivation of open spaces by women seems set to become even more important in the years to come. By contrast, most studies dealing generally with African urban development and the informal sector have either ignored women cultivators altogether (International Labour Organization [ILO] 1985, 1972; Sandbrook 1982; House 1981; Rempel 1978; van Zwanenberg 1972), accorded their food-production efforts little real significance (Peil and Sada 1984, 59; Hake 1977), or viewed them as a subcategory of other, more visible activities of urban women entrepreneurs (Coquery-Vidrovitch 1991; Beavon and Rogerson 1990; Robertson 1976).

Fertilizer Use on Smallholder Farms in Eastern Province, Zambia

Abstract: This study, conducted in Eastern province, Zambia,looks at farmer's practicesregarding use of fertilizer and analyzes the role of fertilizers in the transition from subsistence farming to a more commercialized agriculture. The study is based on data collected from 330 households and several issues like response of crops to fertilizer application, adoption and fertilizer usepractices, farmers' access to fertilizer, determinants of fertilizer use are discussed. Some important policy conclusions that envisaged from the findings are addressed. The study shows that use of fertilizer on traditional varieties can also be a catalyst for agricultural growth

Role of Nepal's Royal Chitwan National Park in Meeting the Grazing and Fodder Needs of Local People

Abstract: It has been increasingly accepted that park management policies in some countries should allow for limited access to park resources by the local people to meet their subsistence and cultural needs. However, too much access to the natural resources of a park may simply cause people to rely on the park resource and manage their own lands less intensively than hitherto.The issue of illegal livestock-grazing and fodder-cutting in Royal Chitwan National Park (RCNP) by local people is examined. The study area was comprised of 16 village units having an estimated population of 148, 404 people in 21, 621 households. Despite the presence of a large number of armed guards, the data from interviews with farmers indicated that illegal livestock-grazing and fodder-cutting in RCNP were prevalent. In the spring season, grazing intensity on the Park was higher than in other seasons, whereas cutting of fodder was intense in both winter and spring seasons.The actual monitoring of 11 patches (totalling 365 ha) of grasslands or savanna for a calendar year inside the Park but near its boundary, indicated that illegal grazing averaged 4.1 head per ha (3.0 cattle, 0.9 buffalo, and 0.2 sheep/goats). In addition, the livestock biomass was found to be increasing by 2.36% per annum in Park-adjoining villages. There is some evidence that villagers adapt their livestock practices in response to the availability (illegal) of grazing in, and fodder-removal from, the Park.The pressures for illegal access to park resources will continue to grow and eventually will exceed the capacity of the resource to recover from harvest. The best approach to resolve this illegal livestock grazing issue is neither strict protection nor widely-expanded access. The Park should consistently work to induce a gradual behavioural change, on the part of the farmers, to stall-feed livestock from fodder originating from their own farms and/or from community plantation.

Subsistence and social change in the lower Mississippi valley: the Reno Brake and Osceola sites, Louisiana

Abstract: There are few systematic analyses of late prehistoric subsistence practices in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Nonetheless, traditional scenarios attribute the advent of large-scale social and politi...

The origins of subsistence agriculture in Oceania and the potentials for future tropical food crops

Abstract: Subsistence agriculture in the Pacific Islands has a complex prehistory centered on western Melanesia. Based on an analysis of cultigen provenience, a sequential model of a three-tiered crop structure of indigenous agricultural systems has been derived: (1) The independent early domestication of endemic species in the New Guinea region; (2) introduction of species from Southeast Asia; (3) the advent of American crop plants. The temporal sequence has archaeological and linguistic confirmation of 10 000 years ago for the beginnings of agriculture, 6000 years for Southeast Asian introduction, with the sweet potato contributing in Polynesia in prehistory, and in Melanesia only in post-Columbian times. Recent research directed toward issues of domestication in New Guinea and subsistence prehistory in Australia on three genera,Canarium, Colocasia andIpomoea, exemplify under-recognized resources with quite different potentials for economic botany. Unlike past exploitation of indigenous plant resources, future users of plants such as those exemplified, and especially where commercialization is involved, cannot avoid addressing intellectual property rights that pertain to species domesticated, selected or conserved by peoples of the non-industri-alized world.

Hurricane Hazard in Western Samoa

Abstract: DURING the past two decades geographers and others have studied how commoditization and marginalization determine the effects of hazards on peripheral societies. It has been argued that most natural hazards, though unpredictable, are a known part of the environment for which precapitalist societies had coping mechanisms. The real cause of contemporary disasters resulting from these hazards is changing social and economic relationships associated with incorporation into the global economy. The moral economy (Scott 1976), which consists of nonmarket, reciprocal social relationships that guarantee subsistence for all members of precapitalist societies, has been replaced by market relationships that intensify vulnerability of marginal households and groups during periods of natural stress (O'Keefe, Westgate, and Wisner 1976; Watts 1983). Moreover, the shift from subsistence to cash-crop production can intensify vulnerability by emphasizing a small number of profitable crops rather than the diverse array of crops associated with subsistence production (Campbell 1984). Finally, outside disaster-relief efforts tend to increase dependency and vulnerability to natural hazards by weakening local self-sufficiency and exchange (Thaman, Meleisea, and Makasiale 1979; Bayliss-Smith and others 1988). This article examines these issues in two rural villages during the aftermath of a hurricane in Western Samoa. Rural Western Samoans have become involved in the global market through production of export crops, through emigration, and through wage labor. The evidence from this case study suggests that the relationship between participation in the global economy and household and community vulnerability to hazards is complex. Social relationships and institutions at the village level are important intermediary variables in the relationship, and these variables can be fairly resistant to transformation. BACKGROUND AND METHODS On 2-4 February 1990, Hurricane Ofa passed over Western Samoa and caused extensive damage on the islands. One of the most severe tropical storms to hit Western Samoa since the recording of such events began in 1831 (Ulafala 1990), the hurricane damaged or destroyed many crops and structures on both of the high islands that constitute the country. As most rural households in Western Samoa grow the bulk of their staple food and as the urban populace obtains much of its foodstuff from the local market, the storm severely disrupted the local food supply. Local staples were especially scarce from May until late July, three to six months after the hurricane. Relief aid came in various forms from around the world. The data presented here are based on household interviews, landuse surveys, and general observations recorded from early April 1990 to late August 1990, two to seven months after the storm, in Fusi and Vaipua, two villages on the island of Savaii. A sample of fifteen households was selected in each village. The mayor or a knowledgeable member of his family was asked to place each village household in a high, average, or low socio-economic category, without further definition of those categories. Sample households were drawn from each category in proportion to the number placed in each category. In May, each sample household was surveyed as to staple foods eaten at the two main daily meals during the most recent four-day period that included a weekend. A second survey of the sample households in late June was used to gather information on food gifts given and received during the most recent five-day period that included a weekend. A census of all households in both villages, conducted from May through July, included questions about hurricane damage and repairs. SUBSISTENCE AND CASH-CROP STRATEGIES The high crop diversity typical of traditional shifting cultivation is averred to be a sound strategy for mitigating the effects of natural hazards on Pacific islands (Thaman, Meleisea, and Makasiale 1979; Campbell 1984). …

Traditional storage of yams and cassava and its improvement

Abstract: In the past, roots and tubers were mainly subsistence crops With the increased tendency to urbanisation and thus more and more dependence of the African people on low-price foods, a gradual move away from subsistence crops towards cash crops has occurred To accommodate this, wide groups of the rural population have been able to enter into commercial agriculture and now not only cultivate crops to secure food for themselves

Human development and environment in the andes: a geoecological overview

Abstract: The natural environment and human development and culture are closely related. The basic physical features of relief, climate, and soil and the biological resources of flora and fauna were important factors that influenced early human evolution, expansion, and development. In Latin America, the geoecological features gave rise to horizontal and vertical differentiation. Two examples are examined. In Mexico between 1600 B.C. and A.D. 1500 climatic changes resulted in population fluctuations, varying degrees of environmental damage, and cultivation change from dryland farming to irrigated fields. The system of subsistence of the Callawaya people in Bolivia is adapted to the environment and each family owns land in all altitudinal belts between 3,000 and 4,300 m, so that they are almost self-sufficient and risks of food shortage are minimized. Today, population pressure, on the one hand, and migration to the cities, on the other, have undermined traditional land use. Socioeconomic change in rural mountain areas is inevitable and a balance should be maintained between preservation of traditional, though less productive, systems and the modernization and improvement of the standards of living of mountain people.

«A tendency to discourage them from cultivating»: Ojibwa agriculture and Indian affairs administration in Northwestern Ontario

Abstract: During the fur-trade period, Ojibwa of northwestern Ontario commenced agricultural production for commercial sales to fur traders. Subsistence production increased with population throughout the 19th century, and agriculture became an important aspect of the regional Ojibwa economy. Development ot the agricultural sector was a primary incentive for the signing of Treaty 3 , which included promises of federal farming assistance. After an auspicious start in reserve agriculture, Canada prohibited unregulated commercial sales of Indian produce after 1881, causing many Ojibwa to abandon farming. Ojibwa agriculture virtually ceased throughout the region by the early 20th century. The Ojibwa, described as hunters and gatherers in the first ethnographies from northwestern Ontario, were actually a people dislodged from farming several decades earlier.

Historical trends in forager and farmer exchange in the Ituri rain forest of northeastern Zaïre

Abstract: Using oral histories, archival materials, and observations of present behavior, a largely hypothetical historical reconstruction of the natural resource exploitation and subsistence practices of Lese farmers and Efe foragers in the Ituri Forest of northeastern Zaire is presented. Distinct epochs associated with the advent of forest agriculture, Belgian colonization, and post-independence economic collapse have resulted in changes in local population density, the range of forest resources exploited, and the spatial distribution and intensity of resource use. Broadly speaking, there has been a historical trend toward sedentism, spatial clumping of settlements, localization of resource exploitation, reduced importance of forest carbohydrates in the diet, and an increased reliance on agricultural products. Over time the Efe and Lese exchange system has changed, in relation to the items traded and the relative dependence of each partner on the exchange relationship. Involvement in this alliance has had a considerable impact on Efe settlement pattern, diet, and probably fecundity. It ultimately placed the Lese in a position of power over the Efe, and provided the farmers with means to enter a transient monetary economy. By providing a retrospective on Efe and Lese subsistence, we hope to demonstrate that to decipher the relative benefits and constraints of this contemporary exchange relationship, we must understand their historical etiology.

Historical Trends in Forager and Farmer Exchange in the Ituri Rain Forest of

Abstract: Using oral histories, archival materials, and observations of present behavior, a largely hypothetical historical reconstruction of the natural resource exploitation and subsistence practices of Lese farmers and Efe foragers in the Ituri Forest of northeastem Zaire is presented. Distinct epochs associated with the advent of forest agriculture, Belgian colonization, and post-independence economic collapse have resulted in changes in local population density, the range of forest resources exploited, and the spatial distribution and intensity of resource use. Broadly speaking, there has been a historical trend toward sedentism, spatial clumping of settlements, localization of resource e-xploitation, reduced importance of forest carbohydrates in the diet, and an increased reliance on agricultural products. Over time the Efe and Lese e-xchange system has changed, in relation to the items traded and the relative dependence of each partner on the exchange relationship. Involvement in this alliance has had a considerable impact on Efe settlement pattem, diet, and probably fecundity. It ultimately placed the Lese in a position of power over the Efe, and provided the farmers with means to enter a transient monetary economy. By providing a retrospective on Efe and Lese subsistence, we hope to demonstrate that to decipher the relative benefits and constraints of this contemporary exchange relationship, we must understand their historical etiology.