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Subsistence agriculture

About: Subsistence agriculture is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 8069 publications have been published within this topic receiving 156876 citations. The topic is also known as: subsistence farming.


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Book
05 Jun 2012
TL;DR: The Locavore's Dilemma as mentioned in this paper argues that the current food-supply chain is a superior alternative that has evolved through constant competition and ever-more-rigorous efficiency, and a world food chain characterized by free trade and the absence of agricultural subsidies would deliver lower prices and more variety in a manner that is both economically and environmentally more sustainable.
Abstract: A new generation of food activists has come to believe that "sustainable farming" and "eating local" are the way to solve a host of perceived problems with our modern food supply system. By combining healthy eating and a high standard of environmental stewardship, these locavores think, we can also deliver important economic benefits and increase food security within local economies. But after a thorough review of the evidence, economic geographer Pierre Desrochers and policy analyst Hiroko Shimizu have concluded these claims are mistaken. In The Locavore's Dilemma, they explain the history, science, and economics of food supply to reveal what locavores miss or misunderstand: the real environmental impacts of agricultural production; the drudgery of subsistence farming; and the essential role large-scale, industrial producers play in making food more available, varied, affordable, and nutritionally rich than ever before in history. At best, they show, locavorism is a well-meaning marketing fad among the world's most privileged consumers. At worst, it constitutes a dangerous distraction from solving serious global food issues. Deliberately provocative, but based on scrupulous research and incontrovertible scientific evidence, The Locavore's Dilemma proves that: * Our modern food-supply chain is a superior alternative that has evolved through constant competition and ever-more-rigorous efficiency. * A world food chain characterized by free trade and the absence of agricultural subsidies would deliver lower prices and more variety in a manner that is both economically and environmentally more sustainable. * There is no need to feel guilty for not joining the locavores on their crusade. Eating globally, not only locally, is the way to save the planet.

56 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze how the twin concerns of lost varietals and lost cultures are bound together in the socio-political process of standardization, and explain some areas of resistance.
Abstract: The loss of genetic diversity of thousands of plants and crops has been well documented at least since the 1970s, and has been understood as a result of epistemological and political economic conditions of the Green Revolution. The political economic arrangement of the Green Revolution, alongside a post-war focus on economies of scale and export-oriented growth, replace high-yield single varieties of crops for a diverse array of varieties that may not have the same yield, but may be able to resist pests, disease, and changing climatic conditions. Also, the harvest does not flow in all directions equally: Whereas small holder subsistence farming uses a large variety of crops as a food source and small-scale trade, the industrial economic system requires simplified, machine harvested ship-loads of one variety of maize, for example. Diverse varieties of different crops confound the machines, whereas one variety of wheat can be harvested with one setting on a machine. However, none of this is new. The purpose of this article is to analyze how the twin concerns of lost varietals and lost cultures are bound together in the socio-political process of standardization, and to explain some areas of resistance.

56 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored how rural households in six villages in the lowlands of Champasak Province in southern Laos make a living and examined some of the issues involved in attempting to promote intensive, market-oriented rice farming in a context of an emerging on-farm labour shortage combined with an increasing flow of remittances from migrant family members.
Abstract: Despite being a low-income, agriculture-based country with a subsistence orientation, Laos is in the early stages of a major economic transformation whereby rural households have been experiencing rapid change in their farming and livelihood systems. Some households have begun to engage in semi-commercial farming while others have adopted labour-oriented or migration-oriented livelihood strategies. This paper explores how rural households in six villages in the lowlands of Champasak Province in southern Laos make a living. These villages vary in their access to irrigation and to markets. Nevertheless, in all villages, long-term migration of younger household members to neighbouring Thailand has come to play a large role in household livelihood strategies. In some cases this is necessary to meet the household’s consumption requirements; in most, it is part of a diversified strategy in which rice farming still plays a significant role, though still largely for subsistence. The paper examines some of the issues involved in attempting to promote intensive, market-oriented rice farming in a context of an emerging on-farm labour shortage combined with an increasing flow of remittances from migrant family members.

56 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the spatiotemporal variations in rainfall and temperature across Ghana to identify climate-stressed locations with potential effect on the production of major staple crops.
Abstract: Climate‐dependent subsistence agriculture remains the main livelihood for most populations in Ghana. The spatiotemporal variations in rainfall and temperature have influence particularly in poorly‐developed agrarian regions with limited or no irrigation infrastructure. Therefore, a systematic understanding of climate patterns across space and time is important for mitigating against food insecurity and household poverty. Using over a century of high‐spatial resolution data, this study examines the spatiotemporal variations in rainfall and temperature across Ghana to identify climate‐stressed locations with potential effect on the production of major staple crops. The data for the analysis were drawn from the University of Delaware's Gridded Precipitation and Temperature Monthly Climatology version 4.01. The analysis was restricted to the main crop‐growing periods (March to December). The Mann‐Kendall nonparametric regression test was used to examine significant changes in rainfall variability and temperature at the district level. The results show that Ghana's climate has become progressively drier over the last century and prone to drought conditions. The most climate‐stressed districts are clustered within the three northern regions (Upper West, Upper East, and Northern) and the Western region. The most recent census in Ghana shows that the three northern regions also have the highest prevalence of subsistence agriculture. The findings from this study have implications for targeted interventions such as the Ghanaian government's recent policy initiative aimed at alleviating rural poverty by encouraging youth participation in agriculture along with efforts to intensifying crop production using modern farming techniques.

56 citations

Book
01 Oct 1981
TL;DR: Somalia is a developing country whose modern image is marked by a struggling economy, a largely nomadic population, and a history of serious conflict with neighboring states as discussed by the authors, which has been sorely tested in its efforts to achieve and maintain political stability and economic development in the strategically important and volatile Horn of Africa.
Abstract: : Known in Ancient times as the Land of Punt and renowned for is frankincense and myrrh-which it still exports-Somalia is a developing country whose modern image is marked by a struggling economy, a largely nomadic population, and a history of serious conflict with neighboring states. Beset by periodic drought and the burden of roughly 1 million refugees, the nation has been sorely tested in its efforts to achieve-and maintain-political stability and economic development in the strategically important and volatile Horn of Africa. In newly independent Somalia the land was poor, and commercially exploitable natural resources were limited. As they had for centuries, most Somalis relied for their livelihood on pastoral nomadism or seminomadism in a harsh, arid environment. Pursuing the pragmatic tradition they and their forebears had always adhered to, they followed their livestock in a seasonal search for pasture, paying little attention to national frontiers. A minority of the people along the Juba and Shabeelle rivers in the south and a smaller number in the northwest depdended for all or part of their subsistence on irrigated or rainfed cultivation. (Author)

56 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
2023534
20221,101
2021279
2020268
2019297
2018303