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1. Post-NAFTA Changes in Peasant Land Use—The Case of the Pátzcuaro Lake Watershed Region in the Central-West México

   https://doi.org/10.3390/land9030075  

   Astier, Marta; Orozco-Ramírez, Quetzalcóatl; Walker, Robert; Galván-Miyoshi, Yankuic; González-Esquivel, Carlos; Simmons, Cynthia S. (March 2020, Land)

   null (Ed.)

   Rural life in México has changed drastically over the past several decades in the wake of structural reforms in the 1980s and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) implemented in 1994. Researchers predicted dire consequences for smallholder farmers following trade liberalization and in certain respects the prophecies have been fulfilled. Indeed, many regions experienced significant out-migration as smallholders, unable to compete with global maize imports without price subsidies, sold or abandoned their lands, making way for the expansion of industrial agriculture into forests, secondary vegetation and primary crops. Nevertheless, many smallholders have adapted to the new economic environment with farming systems that manage risk by diversifying portfolios to incorporate commercialized maize and livestock production. This article examines the evolution of smallholder farming systems since the mid 1980s, when the impact of neoliberal reforms emerged, using data collected from field research on 130 smallholder farms in the Pátzcuaro Lake Watershed (PLW) in the State of Michoacán. Farmers in the PLW have been characterized as traditional peasant farmers, planting crops for subsistence, including a diverse array of domestic maize varieties and practicing limited animal husbandry with chickens, turkeys, pigs, an oxen and a cow or two for milk. But the results presented in this article show that the traditional peasant farming systems in the region have changed substantially to a highly diversified agriculture-cattle-forest system. Most notable changes include the use of fertilizers and pesticides; and the increase in livestock herd and reorientation to beef production. The results demonstrate the resilience of smallholder farmers, while at the same time raising potential concern that increased reliance on livestock and beef production specialization, might lead to shifts in farming systems that replace domestic maize varieties with hybrid corn used primarily for animal feed and thereby leaving vulnerable the genetic reservoir of traditional maize landraces. 

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2. Migration and fuel use in rural Zambia

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-021-00385-7  

   Wu, Yu; Entwisle, Barbara; Sinai, Cyrus; Handa, Sudhanshu (December 2021, Population and Environment)

   Abstract What is the effect of migration on fuel use in rural Zambia? Opportunities to increase income can be scarce in this setting; in response, households may pursue a migration strategy to increase resources as well as to mitigate risk. Migrant remittances may make it possible for households to shift from primary reliance on firewood to charcoal, and the loss of productive labor through migration may reinforce this shift. This paper uses four waves of panel data collected as part of the Child Grant Programme in rural Zambia to examine the connection between migration and the choice of firewood or charcoal as cooking fuel and finds evidence for both mechanisms. Importantly, this paper considers migration as a process, including out as well as return migration, embedding it in the context of household dynamics generally. Empirical results suggest that while out-migration helps move households away from firewood as a fuel source, return migration moves them back, but because the former is more common, the overall effect of migration is to shift households away from primary reliance on firewood. 

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3. Firewood and Energy Sovereignty on Navajo Nation

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-023-00411-2  

   Magargal, Kate; Yellowman, Jonah; Chee, Shaniah; Wabel, Molly; Macfarlan, Shane; Codding, Brian F. (June 2023, Human Ecology)

   Abstract Climate-induced drought jeopardizes future access to sufficient energy sources for many people reliant on firewood, especially those underrepresented in forest management decision-making. To identify where interventions might be most effective in facilitating self-determination and sustained firewood harvest, we investigate the case of Diné firewood harvesters. Using data from surveys, interviews and participant observations, we articulate who uses firewood and why, what the costs of firewood are, and who imposes those costs. Reducing both the cost and need for firewood for the Diné and others would support energy sovereignty by facilitating sustained access to firewood. 

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4. TOWARDS FOOD SOVEREIGNTY: THE ROLE OF SMALLHOLDER FARMERS’ SEED SECURITY IN IMPROVING CLIMATE CHANGE RESILIENCE IN NORTHERN MALAWI

   https://doi.org/10.1080/00167428.2024.2335395  

   Amoak, Daniel; Lupafya, Esther; Dakishoni, Laifolo; Luginaah, Isaac (April 2024, Geographical Review)

   With climate extreme events increasing in frequency and intensity in Malawi, the future of local food production faces serious threats, necessitating renewed efforts to build the adaptive capabilities of the majority poor smallholder farmers. In this context, seed security is critical to improving rural livelihoods and agrobiodiversity; however, knowledge of its role in climate change resilience is sparse. Drawing insights from vulnerability and resilience literature, this paper examines the role of seed security in enhancing climate change resilience in northern Malawi. Using a cross-sectional survey of 1,090 smallholder farmers and applying logistic regression analysis, the study found that households that are seed-secure were significantly more likely to report stronger resilience to climate change than those that were not seed-secure, even after controlling for theoretically relevant variables (OR = 1.89; p < .01). Other noteworthy predictors of climate change resilience included level of education, wealth, agroecological practice, and seed sources. Based on the findings, we advocate for promoting seed security as part of broader localized and place-specific action plans to foster resilience to climate change in agricultural regions. 

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5. Understanding How Smallholders Integrated into Pericoupled and Telecoupled Systems

   https://doi.org/10.3390/su12041596  

   Dou, Yue; da Silva, Ramon; McCord, Paul; Zaehringer, Julie; Yang, Hongbo; Furumo, Paul; Zhang, Jian; Pizarro, J.; Liu, Jianguo (February 2020, Sustainability)

   Increasing connections and influences from near to far have changed social structures, access to natural resources, and essential livelihoods of smallholders (i.e., those with incomes generated primarily from natural resources on small rural properties). However, the potential benefits and negative impacts from these connections to smallholders’ livelihoods and social-ecological effects remain understudied. In this paper, we applied the frameworks of pericoupling and telecoupling (human-nature interactions between adjacent and distant systems, respectively) to systematically investigate how the flows linking smallholder systems to other systems affect their livelihoods, and causing varying economic, social, and environmental effects from case to case. We synthesized 12 cases of smallholder systems around the world that are linked to adjacent and distant systems through flows of goods, people, resources, and/or information. In each case, we summarized smallholders’ agency, i.e., capability on the formation or operation of these flows, and the changes on livelihoods on the economic, social, and environment effects. Results suggest that strong smallholder agency is associated more with positive than negative effects. Smallholders with medium to high agency have greater overall well-being within the area of interest. Smallholders integrated in pericoupled systems often have strong agency. Being spillover systems in an intercoupled system (e.g., large-scale agricultural investments) can often cause negative outcomes unless smallholders have additional pericoupling flows. Our findings suggest one potential approach to ending poverty and increasing well-being for smallholders is creating and increasing pericoupling flows to empower smallholders for desired livelihood and social-ecological outcomes. 

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