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.

On-farm biological control of the pearl millet head miner: realization of 35 years of unsteady progress in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger

Abstract: The pearl millet head miner became a major pest in the West African Sahel during the droughts of 1972–1974, and has since remained a threat to food security. Pesticide control is unrealistic for subsistence farmers. Furthermore, there are no cultural control methods or genetic sources of resistance. Biological control was a possibility, but the required ecological knowledge did not exist in the 1970s. A biological control programme could have been rapidly developed through sustained and coordinated funding using existing knowledge. Instead, it took 25 years to lay the scientific groundwork through occasional bursts of uncoordinated short-term activity using international scientists funded by large donors. There was little funding and few prominent roles for national scientists until 2000, when they were empowered by a different approach taken by the McKnight Foundation. An operational system was quickly developed and deployed in which trained farmers rear and release the parasitoid Habrobracon hebetor to ...

Keeping Food on the Table: Human Responses and Changing Coastal Fisheries in Solomon Islands

Abstract: Globally the majority of commercial fisheries have experienced dramatic declines in stock and catch. Likewise, projections for many subsistence fisheries in the tropics indicate a dramatic decline is looming in the coming decades. In the Pacific Islands coastal fisheries provide basic subsistence needs for millions of people. A decline in fish catch would therefore have profound impacts on the health and livelihoods of these coastal communities. Given the decrease in local catch rates reported for many coastal communities in the Pacific, it is important to understand if fishers have responded to ecological change (either by expanding their fishing range and/or increasing their fishing effort), and if so, to evaluate the costs or benefits of these responses. We compare data from fish catches in 1995 and 2011 from a rural coastal community in Solomon Islands to examine the potentially changing coastal reef fishery at these time points. In particular we found changes in preferred fishing locations, fishing methodology and catch composition between these data sets. The results indicate that despite changes in catch rates (catch per unit effort) between data collected in 2011 and 16 years previously, the study community was able to increase gross catches through visiting fishing sites further away, diversifying fishing methods and targeting pelagic species through trolling. Such insight into local-scale responses to changing resources and/or fisheries development will help scientists and policy makers throughout the Pacific region in managing the region’s fisheries in the future.

Managing risk and vulnerability in Asia: a (re)study from Thailand, 1982-83 and 2008.

Abstract: In the 1980s, rural settlements in the Northeast of Thailand were farming focused, and strategies of living were structured around the need to secure subsistence in the face of a capricious environment and a weak developmental state. More than half of households in the region lived below the poverty line, and the immediate prospects for 'development' were not bright. Drawing on a 25-year longitudinal study of two villages in Mahasarakham, the paper describes and reflects on how risk and vulnerability have been re-shaped during a quarter of a century of profound economic and social change. From largely environmental and local, the pattern of risk and opportunity have become increasingly economic and non-local as external events wash across the shores of rural settlements like Ban Non Tae and Ban Tha Song Korn.

Natural resources and persistent rural poverty: In search of the nexus

Abstract: A general framework relating rural poverty to natural resource extraction and production is proposed. Five natural resource use regimes, differentiated by the relationship of the national economy to local natural resources, are identified: subsistence resource use, commercially exploited open access resources, small holdings, industrial ownership of resources, and public ownership of resources. These use regimes variously affect the royalty/ground rent, employment, and social integration benefits that local residents realize from nearby natural resources. The local opportunity structures thus created differentially attract and hold the poor and the nonpoor. Uneven spatial distribution of income positions due to the occupational and ownership income structures of natural resource industries along with the attractiveness to the poor of subsistence and quasi‐subsistence resources are suggested as the primary mechanisms linking natural resources to rural poverty.

The Care Economy in Africa: Subsistence Production and Unpaid Care

Abstract: What do we know about the extent and value of the care economy in Africa, and why does this matter? This paper outlines a theoretical framework for analysing the care economy, including both the paid and unpaid work of caring for dependents and the flow of financial resources through the family, the community, the state and the market. A brief review of research on care work and economic development is followed by more specific consideration of empirical research on African countries, with a particular focus on the impact of HIV/AIDS. The paper concludes with a brief summary of policy implications and an agenda for future research.