Showing papers on "Subsistence agriculture published in 1999"

Hunting for Sustainability in Tropical Forests

Abstract: 1. Hunting for the Snark, by Elizabeth L. Bennett and John G. RobinsonI: Biological Limits to Sustainability2. Carrying Capacity Limits to Sustainable Hunting in Tropical Forests, by John G. Robinson and Elizabeth L. Bennett3. Evaluating the Impact and Sustainability of Subsistence Hunting at Multiple Amazonian Forest Sites, by Carlos A. Peres4. The Sustainability of Current Hunting Practices by the Huaorani, by Patricio Mena V., Jody R. Stallings, Jhanira Regalado B. and Ruben Cueva L.5. Sustainability of Ach Hunting in the Mbaracayu Reserve, Paraguay, by Kim Hill and Jonathan Pad6. Impact of Sustainability of Indigenous Hunting in the Ituri Forest, Congo-Zaire: A Comparison of Unhunted and Hunted Duiker Populations, by John A. Har7. Threatened Mammals, Subsistence Harvesting, and High Human Population Densities: A Recipe for Disaster?, by Clare D. FitzGibbon, Hezron Mogaka, and John H. Fanshawe8. Hunted Animals in Bioko Island, West Africa: Sustainability and Future, by John E. Fa9. Differential Vulnerability of Large Birds and Mammals to Hunting in North Sulawesi, by Timothy G. O'Brien and Margaret F. Ki10. The Impact of Traditional Subsistence Hunting and Trapping on Prey Populations: Data from Wana Horticulturalists of Upland Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, by Michael AlvardII: Sociocultural Context Influencing Sustainability11. A Pound of Flesh: Social Change and Modernization as Factors in Hunting Sustainability Among Neootropical Indigenous Societie, by Allyn MacLean Stearman12. Wildlife Conservation and Game Harvest by Maya Hunters in Quintana Roo, Mexico, by Jeffrey P. Jorgenson13. The Sustainability of Subsistence Hunting by the Sirion Indians of Bolivia, by Wendy R. Townsend14. Cable Snares and Nets in the Central African Republic, by Andrew Noss15. Saving Borneo's Bacon: The Sustainability of Hunting in Sarawak and Sabah, by Elizabeth L. Bennett, Adrian J. Nyaoi, and Jephte Sompud16. Agta Hunting and Sustainability of Resource Use in Northeastern Luzon, Philippines, by P. Bion Griffin and Marcus B. GriffinIII: Institutional Capacity for Management17. Hunting for an Answer: Is Local Hunting Compatible with Large Mammal Conservation in India?, by M. D. Madhusudan and K. Ullas Karanth18. Enhancing the Sustainability of Duiker Hunting Through Community Participation and Controlled Access in the Lob k Region of Southeastern Cameroon, by Cheryl Fimbel, Bryan Curran, and Leonard Usongo19. Traditional Management of Hunting in a Xavante Community in Central Brazil: The Search for Sustainability, by Frans J. Leeuwenberg and John G. Robinson20. Community-Based Comanagement of Wildlife in the Peruvian Amazon, by Richard Bodmer and Pablo E. PuertasIV: Economic Influences on Sustainability21. Wildlife Use in Northern Congo: Hunting in a Commercial Logging Concession, by Philippe, Auzel and David S. Wilkie22. Socioeconomics and the Sustainability of Hunting in the Forests of Northern Congo (Brazzaville), by Heather E. Eves and Richard G. Ruggiero23. Impact of Subsistence Hunting in North Sulawesi Indonesia, and Conservation Options,, by Rob J. Lee24. The Trade in Wildlife in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, by Lynn Clayton and E. J. Milner-GullandV: Synthesis25. Hunting for Sustainability: The Start of a Synthesis, by Elizabeth L. Bennett and John G. Robinson

Climate Change, Agriculture, and Developing Countries: Does Adaptation Matter?

Abstract: Most developing countries depend heavily on agriculture; the effects of global warming on productive croplands are likely to threaten both the welfare of the population and the economic development of the countries. Tropical regions in the developing world are particularly vulnerable to potential damage from environmental changes because the poor soils that cover large areas of these regions already have made much of the land unusable for agriculture. Although agronomic simulation models predict that higher temperatures will reduce grain yields as the cool wheat-growing areas get warmer, they have not examined the possibility that farmers will adapt by making production decisions that are in their own best interests. A recent set of models examines cross-sectional evidence from India and Brazil and finds that even though the agricultural sector is sensitive to climate, individual farmers do take local climates into account, and their ability to do so will help mitigate the impacts of global warming.

Peoples of the Northwest Coast: Their Archaeology and Prehistory

Abstract: Ecology - environments and demography the first inhabitants of the Northwest Coast the Pacific and modern periods Northwest Coast subsistence households and beyond status and ritual warfare Northwest Coast art.

The Subsistence Perspective: Beyond the Globalised Economy

Abstract: The aim of the subsistence perspective is happiness, quality of life and human dignity. In movements most often led by women, particularly in the third world, the authors demonstrate a different and more effective form of politics and economic thought, with the emphasis on development from the bottom-up.

A Variation on a Basic Theme: The Transition to Farming in Southern Central Europe

Abstract: This paper attempts to summarize the past years of research on the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in Central Europe and to review recent discussions about the origin and spread of the Early Neolithic. Particular emphasis is given to the debate about migration or diffusion. A combined migrationist/diffusionist model is presented, arguing for an emergence of a farming economy among hunter-gatherer populations in Transdanubia and the subsequent spread of this economy through migration. The new settlers interacted with local Mesolithic groups and adopted and incorporated local material culture and sometimes even aspects of local Mesolithic economy, a process which continued throughout the Early Neolithic. With time, population increase, subsequent competition for resources, and climatic instability led to a destabilization of traditional Early Neolithic society and finally to the outbreak of severe intercommunity violence. The only escape from mutual extinction was a rearrangement of subsistence and social and political structures, possibly with contributions from surviving Terminal Mesolithic groups.

Applying Agroecology to Enhance the Productivity of Peasant Farming Systems in Latin America

Abstract: The great majority of farmers in Latin America are peasants who still farm small plots of land, usually in marginal environments utilizing traditional and subsistence methods. The contribution of the 16 million peasant units to regional food security is, however, substantial. Research has shown that peasant systems, which mostly rely on local resources and complex cropping patterns, are reasonably productive despite their land endowments and low use of external inputs. Moreover analysis of NGO-led agroecological initiatives show that traditional crop and animal systems can be adapted to increase productivity by biologically re-structuring peasant farms which in turn leads to optimization of key agroecosystem processes (nutrient cycling, organic matter accumulation, biological pest regulation, etc.) and efficient use of labor and local resources. Examples of such grassroots projects are herein described to show that agroecological approaches can offer opportunities to substantially increase food production while preserving the natural resource base and empowering rural communities.

The Prehistory of Food: Appetites for Change

Abstract: Preface, Introduction, Chris Gosden. Part I: Food and Culture, Andrew Sherratt, Cash Crops before cash: hunting, farming, manufacture and trade in earlier Eurasia, Christine Hastorf, Cultural Implications of Crop introductions in Andean prehistory, Alejandro Haber, Uywana, the house and its indoor landscape: oblique approaches to, and beyond, domestication, Soren Blau, Of water and oil: exploitation of natural resources and social change in eastern Arabia, Gustavo Politis, Plant exploitation among the Nukak hunter-gathers of Amazonia: between ecology and ideology. Part II: Introductions, Helen Leach, Food processing technology: its role in inhibiting or promoting change in staple foods, K. Mehra, Subsistence changes in India and Pakistan: the Neolithic and Chalcolithic from the point of view of plant use today, Sarah Nelson, Megalithic monuments and the introduction of rice into Korea, Catherine Andrea, Dispersal of domesticated plants into northeastern Japan, Elizabeth Reitz, Native Americans and animal husbandry in the North American colony of Florida. Part III: Food and the Landscape, Tim Bayliss-Smith & Jack Golsen, The meaning of ditches: deconstructing the social landscapes of New Guinea, Kuk, phase 4, Chris Godsen & Lesley Head, Different histories: Papua New Guinea and Australia compared, Christophe Sand, From the swamp to the terrace: intensification of horticultural practices in New Caledonia, from first settlement to European contact, Robert Kuhlken, Warfare and intensive agriculture in Fiji, Carol Palmer, Who's land is it anyway? An historical examination of land tenure and agriculture in northern Jordon, Ken Thomas, Getting a life: stability and change in social and subsistence systems on the North-West Frontier (Pakistan) in later prehistory, Yuri Vostretsov, Interaction of maritime and agricultural adaptation in Japan sea basin, Kevin MacDonald, Invisible Pastoralists: sedentists and livestock remains in the later prehistory of arid West Africa, Willem van Zeist, Evidence for agricultural change in the Balikh basin, Northern Syria. Part IV: Plants and People, Edmond de Langhe & P. de Maret, Tracking the banana: significance to early agriculture, Randi Haaland, Theory and evidence in archaeological interpretation of the transition from gathering to domestication: the puzzle of the late emergence of domesticated sorghum in the Nile Valley, Deborah Pearsall, The impact of maize on subsistence systems in South America: an example from the Jama River Valley, Coastal Equador, Michael Therin, Richard Fullagar & Richard Torrence, Starch in sediments: a new approach to the study of subsistence and land use in Papua New Guinea, A. Butler, Traditional seed cropping systems in the temperate Old World: models for antiquity, George Wilcox, Agrarian change and the beginnings of agriculture in the Near East: evidence from wild projenitors, experimental cultivation and archaeobotanical data.

The transformation of rural Mexico : reforming the ejido sector

Abstract: Mexico's rural reforms of the early 1990s were designed to bring corn growers and other largely subsistence farmers into the cultivation of crops with appeal in global markets. This was to be accomplished through the reduction and eventual elimination of subsidies and guarantee prices to basic crops and a relaxation of tenure constraints on ejido land. Contributors to this anthology give us a close look at how the reforms have operated in fact, and how the approximately 25 million Mexicans still living in the countryside (about one-quarter of the nation's population) are responding to the ending of Mexico's 50-year experiment with communal land.

Food Consumption and Subsistence in Three Caboclo Populations on Marajó Island, Amazonia, Brazil

Abstract: In this article data on household food consumption is used to further understanding of subsistence strategies in three Caboclo populations on Marajo Island, Amazonia, Brazil. Data were collected using participant observation and 24-hour food recalls in 16 households for 7 consecutive days during the rainy (March) and dry (July) seasons. Marajo-Acu households (n = 6) had the highest levels of energy and protein intake relative to recommendations. This was probably related to their successful integration into the prosperous acai (a palm fruit) market of the riverine area. Praia Grande households (n = 6) had the lowest values for energy intake (rainy season), which supports the authors' ethnographic observations of some instability in the subsistence system of this population. Paricatuba households (n = 4) exhibited intermediate values of energy and protein intakes, but less seasonal variation in consumption than the other two populations. Despite the differences observed, food consumption does not appear to be a major limitation for any of the three populations. The data support recent hypotheses concerning the concomitant and multiple use of varzea (floodplain) and terra firme (upland) environments by the Caboclos and integration into the local market economy as the central strategies in dealing with the so-called socioenvironmental constraints of the Amazonian floodplain.

Agriculture, underemployment and the cost of rural labour in the Roman world

Abstract: On many important aspects of the economic life of the rural population there is little that can be said. The complaint about the lack of secure data regarding the rural population of the ancient world has often been repeated, and there is no reason to restate the remarks about the lack of interest in the ancient sources for this topic. There is a danger, however, that absence of information may lead to an over-simplified picture of what actually happened. It is generally assumed that 80 or 90% of the ancient population was engaged in agriculture and that, conversely, only a small part of the population was engaged in non-agricultural work. Ancient historians have a tendency to treat the various sectors in the economy—commercial farming, subsistence farming, industries, and services (especially transport)—as strictly detached from each others. This is too simplistic a picture. We should not underestimate the importance of the employment of various economic strategies by the ancient farming population. This means that a peasant might also have been from time to time a charcoal maker, muleteer, or textile worker. If so, then agriculture and the non-agricultural sectors were indissolubly connected.

Why Do Farmers Expand Their Land Into Forests? Theories and Evidence From Tanzania

Abstract: This paper examines the causes of agricultural land expansion and deforestation in Tanzania. In the theoretical section, two different—and partly contradicting—sets of hypotheses are outlined. These are based on a subsistence approach, emphasising the food or income requirements of farm households, and a market approach, focussing on the relative profitability of agriculture. The statistical analysis shows that increased agricultural output prices, in particular for annual crops, is a major factor behind agricultural expansion. An increase of 1 per cent in output prices leads to about 1 per cent increase in agricultural area. Other factors such as input prices, technology and economic growth are tested and discussed, but the conclusions are less robust. The controversial role of population growth in explaining deforestation is addressed. Generally the results lend support to the market rather than the subsistence approach. JEL classification code: Q12, Q23, C23

Community‐based management of subsistence fisheries in Samoa

Abstract: Much subsistence fishing in tropical regions is based in discrete communities which have a high level of marine awareness and some degree of control of adjacent waters. These factors provide an ideal basis on which to motivate communities to manage their own marine resources. A fisheries extension programme in Samoa encouraged each village community to define its key problems, discuss causes, propose solutions and take appropriate actions. Various village groups, including women’s and untitled men’s groups, provided information which was recorded (as problem/solution trees) on portable white-boards. The extension process culminated in a community-owned Fisheries Management Plan which listed the resource management and conservation undertakings of the community. Undertakings ranged from enforcing laws banning destructive fishing methods to protecting critical marine habitats. Within the first 2 years, the extension process commenced in 65 villages, of which 44 have produced Village Fisheries Management Plans to date. A large number (38) of these villages chose to establish community-owned Marine Protected Areas.

Agricultural Intensification, Diversification, and Commercial Production Among Smallholder Coffee Growers in Central Kenya

Abstract: The research summarized in this article establishes direct links between the scale, process, and output of agricultural production by examining the dynamics of intensification, crop diversification, and commercialization. Small farm survey results from Kirinyaga District, Kenya, show that diversified production provides smallholders with the opportunity to select a particular crop or crops for commercial production (such as coffee, French beans, or tomatoes) in order to increase farm-generated income while meeting increasing demands for local farm produce and export crops. The study shows that income per hectare (acre) does not consistently increase with increasing farm size, regardless of the level of commercialization. Smallholders operating at the 1.2 to 1.6 hectare (3–4 acre) scale appear to engage in higher-risk, more diversified, commercial production strategies than those with less area under production. These findings expand upon induced intensification theory and support the thesis that increased agricultural productivity results from both subsistence- and commodity-based production, though the research focuses on the latter.

Seeds of urbanism: palaeoethnobotany and the Indus Civilization

Abstract: Palaeoethnobotanical evidence reveals that there was increasing emphasis on greater varieties of species and cropping practices in the changing subsistence of the Indus civilization: agricultural intensification is discussed in relation to social and environmental changes.

Classic Lowland Maya Political Organization: A Review

Abstract: This paper reviews recent archaeological research concerning Classic Maya lowland political systems (ca. A.D. 250–1000). It focuses specifically on (1) subsistence practices revealed through the analysis of prehistoric climate, available resources, agricultural technologies, and diet; (2) population distribution, density, and size revealed through the analysis of settlement practices and architectural function; (3) social differentiation and interaction revealed through the analysis of burial practices, diet and health, architecture, and production, consumption, and exchange patterns; and (4) ancient Maya political economy (how it was funded) revealed through the analysis of community organization, ritual activities, the Classic Maya collapse, and warfare. It finally ends with a brief discussion of the future of Maya archaeology. A key factor that recurs throughout this review is the noticeable amount of variability that existed—varied resources, subsistence strategies, settlement practices, and social and political systems. An understanding of this variability is the key to appreciate fully the Classic Maya.

Security Rights, Subsistence Rights and Liberties: A Theoretical Survey of the Empirical Landscape

Abstract: Since World War II the proliferation of international human rights agreements has been an unprecedented development in the history of international law. Organizations like Amnesty International, Freedom House, and the US State Department first issued global reports on human rights practices in the 1970s. More recently, these organizations and others have issued human rights news virtually worldwide via the Internet, allowing scholars and practitioners alike to gain a better and more current knowledge of countries' human rights performance.1 As a result of these new communications

Pithoi and food storage in Neopalatial Crete: A domestic perspective

Abstract: This paper seeks to investigate the relative subsistence potential of Late Minoan I households in Crete on the basis of the archaeological evidence. It aspires to develop a methodological framework for the examination of the subsistence economy based on storage containers (pithoi) and installations recovered in seventy houses. By identifying different storage strategies and converting capacity estimates into calorific values we infer differences in households’ subsistence potential. Ordinary households had low subsistence potential and only a few of the elite households had a markedly higher subsistence potential. While this ensured for these elite households high self‐sufficiency and participation in conspicuous consumption, it could not have served in alleviating the community's food shortages, should these have occurred. The emerging Late Minoan IB picture attests to the highly centralized and hierarchical organization of the subsistence economy, in keeping with the centralizing trend manifest...

Farmers do it better: local management of change in southern Burkina Faso

Abstract: This paper focuses on the province of Sissili in southern Burkina Faso, an area that saw widespread immigration caused by the Sahelian droughts since the 1970s. This immigration caused concern over the economic and environmental sustainability of the province. However, over a period of two years of close contact with farming communities, adaptive and innovative actions were noted as people developed new resource-use patterns to safeguard both environment and livelihood. The study examines various aspects of the production and livelihood system of indigenous and immigrant ethnic groups and shows that: the purpose of the emerging new resource use arrangements is to guarantee subsistence for all; negotiation between ethnic groups and communities is the mechanism that guarantees subsistence; landscapes (lifescapes) are not static and are created through assimilation of information and different farming systems; the objective of local production systems is to maximize livelihood subsistence and to minimise negative environmental impacts which threaten long term sustainability. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Sustainable management of natural resources in African and Asian mountains

Abstract: African and Asian mountains and highlands are ecoregions of particular importance for sustainable development due to their intensive land-use systems, their generally low economic productivity and integration, and the increasing rates of land degradation and mountain hazards. Opportunities for sustainable development exist, if ways to overcome land degradation can be found. The percentage of people who are engaged in subsistence agriculture can be reduced in favor of the secondary and tertiary sectors, protected areas can be better managed, access to remote areas improved, mountain waters utilized in a more integrated highland-lowland interaction, and mechanisms to manage conflicts developed. Research in support of sustainable development needs to focus on transdisciplinary approaches in order to develop appropriate technologies, improve land-management systems, and most importantly, create an enabling institutional environment. International cooperation is an essential tool for exchanging and communicating successful experiences from the local level to regional levels.

A reconstruction of Middle Preclassic Maya subsistence economy at Cahal Pech, Belize

Abstract: The recovery of animal and plant remains from the site of Cahal Pech provides data on early diet and subsistence practices in the Belize Valley region of the Maya lowlands. Analysis of the material remains suggests that the Middle Preclassic Maya were practising a mixed subsistence economy relying on agricultural foodstuffs, local terrestrial game species, freshwater fish and shellfish and marine reef fishes. Isotopic analysis of human bone is used to aid in the reconstruction of actual food consumption.

Alguito para ganar(a little something to earn): profits and losses in peasant economies

Abstract: We explore various ways in which small-scale peasants in the highlands of Peru conceptualize the everyday concept of profit in the contemporary context of neoliberalism. Through a process of approximations, we use the results of a survey of potato fields in two comparable valleys in Peru to clarify the differences between a strict business accounting procedure to establish profits or losses and the procedure that peasants use to evaluate the profitability of cash crops. We suggest that peasants evaluate profits or losses of cash crops in terms of a simple cash-out and cash-in flow. We indicate that this kind of calculus carries an implicit subsidy that permits market participation but provides little or no long-run benefit under prevailing productivity conditions and price levels. We also look at how farmers evaluate the status of their subsistence crops by showing that they ignore important cash expenses that are necessary to produce them. Finally, we describe accounting procedures characteristic of Andean peasants to understand how they monitor resource flows in their household-based farms. Analysis of the data leads us to question the "subsistence first" model of peasant economies and to posit an interdependent relationship between subsistence and commercial sectors in which money plays an important but perverse role as it cycles through the market and the household.

Trading on inequality: Gender and the drinks trade in southern Tanzania

Abstract: This article explores the economic logic of the domestic drinks market and its place in the subsistence strategies of men and women in a rural district in southern Tanzania where womens brewing coexists with mens monopolisation of the sap alcohol markets. The seasonal availability of sap alcohols combined with the districts integration into national grain markets creates a short-lived opportunity for some women to supplement their income from the production and sale of maize beer an opportunity made possible by the unequal economic interdependence of men and women and of different regions of Tanzania. The seasonal expansion of the market in maize beer occurs at a time when maize prices are high and household grain stocks spent or minimal. Brewers must choose between their immediate consumption needs and investing their small reserves of cash or grain in beer production in the hope that it will generate longer-term profit. As in other parts of Tanzania this choice is idiomatically expressed through the contrast between eating (kulia) and generation (zalisha) through which grain and the money to which it is explicitly compared can be made to reproduce itself through careful investment. (excerpt)