| 1. |
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| 2. |
- Darnhofer, Ika, et al.
(författare)
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Adaptiveness to enhance the sustainability of farming systems : A review
- 2010
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Ingår i: Agronomy for Sustainable Development. - : Springer. - 1774-0746 .- 1773-0155. ; 30, s. 545-555
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- During the last decade the context in which farmers must manage their farm has changed rapidly, and often with little warning. Dramatic price swings for agricultural commodities, more stringent quality requirements, new environmental regulations, the debates surrounding genetically modified crops, extreme climatic events, the demand for energy crops, the revision of the Common Agricultural Policy and the consequences of the financial crisis all create uncertainty regarding future threats and potentials. During such turbulent times, a one-sided focus on efficient production is no longer enough. Farmers also need to be able to cope with unexpected events and to adapt to new developments. Based on a literature review, we identify three strategies that strengthen the adaptive capacity of a farm: learning through experimenting and monitoring its outcomes, ensuring a flexible farm organisation to increase the options for new activities by the farm family, and diversifying to spread risks and create buffers. Implementing these strategies enlarges the farmer's room to manoeuvre and allows identifying transition options. These options do not depend only on the farm itself, but also on the farmer's ability to mobilise external resources and to engage in collective action. Change is then no longer seen as a disturbance, but as a trigger for the reorganisation of resources, and for the renewal of the farm organisation and activities. Implementing these strategies comes at a cost, so that farmers need to tackle the inevitable trade-offs between efficiency and adaptability. However, unless farmers master this challenge they cannot ensure the sustainability of their farms.
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| 3. |
- Kummer, Susanne, et al.
(författare)
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Building Resilience through Farmers’ Experiments in Organic Agriculture : Examples from Eastern Austria
- 2012
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Ingår i: Sustainable Agriculture Research. - : Canadian Center of Science and Education. - 1927-050X .- 1927-0518. ; 1:2, s. 308-321
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Farmers have always lived in changing environments where uncertainty and disturbances are inevitable. Therefore, farmers need the ability to adapt to change in order to be able to maintain their farms. Experimentation is one way for farmers to learn and adapt, and may be a tool to build farm resilience. Farmers’ experiments as defined in this paper are activities where something totally or partially new is introduced at the farm and the feasibility of this introduction is evaluated. The theoretical framework applied to study farmers’ experiments is the concept of resilience. Resilience is the capacity of social-ecological systems to cope with change, and is a framework used to assess complex systems of interactions between humans and ecosystems.This paper explores to which extent farmers’ experimentation can help build farm resilience. In addition to arguments found in the literature, five organic farms in Eastern Austria are used to illustrate this potential. The farmers were interviewed in 2007 and 2008. The respective farmers all worked fulltime on their farms, were between 34 and 55 years old, and owned farms between 15 and 76 ha. These farmers experimented in ways that enhance resilience – at the farm and in the region. The outcome of experiments can be management changes, new insights, or technology that can be passed on and potentially be built into education and advisory institutions. To encourage farmers’ experiments, it is important to develop conditions that support farmers in their experimenting role.
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| 4. |
- Marquardt, Kristina, et al.
(författare)
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Farmers' Perspectives on Vital Soil-related Ecosystem Services in Intensive Swidden Farming Systems in the Peruvian Amazon
- 2013
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Ingår i: Human Ecology. - : Springer. - 0300-7839 .- 1572-9915. ; 41:1, s. 139-151
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A growing dilemma is how to conserve Amazonian forest while allowing local people to secure their livelihoods. Small-scale swidden farming in Amazonia is entirely dependent on the continued provision of ecosystem services (ES) that generate the conditions for agriculture. This study identified soil-related ES needed for, and enhanced by, productive swidden systems from the farmer's perspective. Workshops in six farming communities in northeastern Peru discussed various land uses, swidden systems that continue to be productive, and swidden systems on degraded land. The participating farmers noted changes in their production systems and described the ES (or lack thereof) in terms of soil quality, crop production quantity and quality, burning practices, forest regeneration, and farming skill. The central elements described in farmers' own strategies for managing soil-related ES were fallow management for biomass production and crop diversity, factors identified as central to future ES management work in established agricultural areas in Amazonia.
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| 5. |
- Marquardt, Kristina, et al.
(författare)
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Improved fallows : A case study of an adaptive response in Amazonian swidden farming systems
- 2013
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Ingår i: Agriculture and Human Values. - : Springer. - 0889-048X .- 1572-8366. ; 30:3, s. 417-428
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Many smallholders in the Amazon employ swidden (slash-and-burn) farming systems in which forest or forest fallows are the primary source of natural soil enrichment. With decreasing opportunities to claim natural forests for agriculture and shrinking landholdings, rotational agriculture on smaller holdings allows insufficient time for fallow to regenerate naturally into secondary forest. This case study examines how Peruvian farmers use "improved fallows" as an adaptive response to a situation of decreasing soil fertility and how the farmers describe the rationale underlying the various actions taken in these modified fallow systems. The results indicate that farmers establish improved fallows using contextual ecological knowledge and various techniques to introduce a large diversity of tree species. This practice is also used to restore degraded land to agricultural production. The tasks of maintaining productivity on agricultural land and reforesting degraded areas is becoming increasingly urgent in the Amazon, making agricultural practices that involve reforestation and tree management highly relevant. Since swidden farming systems are the basis for the livelihoods of most Amazon smallholders, good farming practices elaborated by swidden farmers are important for sustainable small-scale family farming systems in the Amazon.
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| 6. |
- Milestad, Rebecka, et al.
(författare)
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Being close : the quality of social relationships in a local organic cereal and bread network in Lower Austria
- 2010
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Ingår i: Journal of Rural Studies. - : Elsevier BV. - 0743-0167 .- 1873-1392. ; 26:3, s. 228-240
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Experience of the drawbacks of a globalised and industrialised food system has generated interest in localised food systems. Local food networks are regarded as more sustainable food provision systems since they are assumed to have high levels of social embeddedness and relations of regard. This paper explores the social relations between food actors and how 'local' and 'organic' are expressed by detailing how actors describe qualities of their intra-network relationships, how they understand 'local' and how they are connected within the food system. A study from the province of Lower Austria in Austria, where organic cereals and bread are produced and marketed, serves to illuminate these issues. Actors agreed that geographical closeness contributed to the social closeness they experienced and that social relationships were a strong reason for being in the network. However, the meaning of 'local' was elastic depending on where inputs and consumers could be found. Furthermore, despite strong commitment to organic production methods and the local market, actors faced constraints that made them hybrids between organic and conventional, and between locally focused and globally dependent. Thus, the binary thinking along the local-global and organic-conventional divide does not hold. While it is important to not make a causal link between high quality of social relationships and local food networks, the case described here indicates the possibility of such a link.
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| 7. |
- Milestad, Rebecka, et al.
(författare)
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Building farm resilience through farmers´ experimentation
- 2010
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the 9th European IFSA Symposium. ; , s. 770-778
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper discusses how farmers’ experimentation can be a building block for resilience at theirfarms. A core challenge in natural resource management is to enhance resource users’ learning and capabilitiesso that they can make informed decisions and adaptively manage the land. In other words, resource users, suchas farmers, need to develop their capacity to manage for resilience of agro‐ecosystems so that the ecosystemservices from agriculture (like food, fibres, cultural values, etc) can be sustained and enhanced. One way todevelop this capacity may be through experimentation on the farm. Experimentation is one way for farmers tolearn about and manage their environment. Farmers’ experiments can be described as the activity ofintroducing something totally or partially new at the farm and to evaluate the feasibility of this introduction.We use literature about farmers’ experiments and resilience theory to build the arguments of this paper. Theoutcome of experiments can be management changes, new insights, or technology. These can be passed on toothers in the farmers’ social network and potentially be built into institutional memory at higher scales. Wecontend that farmers’ experiments have a strong relation to learning and resilience building in farming systems.
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| 8. |
- Milestad, Rebecka, et al.
(författare)
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Developing integrated explorative and normative scenarios : The case of future land use in a climate-neutral Sweden
- 2014
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Ingår i: Futures. - : Elsevier BV. - 0016-3287 .- 1873-6378. ; 60, s. 59-71
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Transition from the current oil-based world economy to an economy based on renewable resources can become a strong driving force for land use change. This paper describes the development of integrated explorative and normative scenarios for the analysis of future land use in a climate-neutral Sweden. The aim is to show how backcasting scenarios fulfilling far-reaching greenhouse gas reduction targets can be related to assumptions on possible external developments, in order to contribute to the discussion on future sustainable land use. A target-fulfilling scenario element was combined with an external scenario element, i.e. developments that cannot be influenced by the targeted actors. The scenarios were developed and analysed in collaboration with local actors. Four scenarios were used to describe how land in Sweden could be used when Sweden has achieved zero emissions of greenhouse gases in 2060. The explorative dimension stretched from a situation where there is no international climate agreement to one where there is an international agreement on reducing greenhouse gases. The backcasting dimension illustrated different strategies to achieve the target and stretches from a very influential municipal level to one where the national/EU level is most influential.
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| 9. |
- Milestad, Rebecka, et al.
(författare)
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Enhancing Adaptive Capacity in Food Systems : Learning at Farmers' Markets in Sweden
- 2010
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 15:3, s. 29-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article examines how local food systems in the form of farmers' markets can enhance adaptive capacity and build social-ecological resilience. It does this by exploring the learning potential among farmers and customers. Learning can enable actors to adapt successfully and thus build adaptive capacity. Three forms of learning are investigated: instrumental, communicative, and emancipatory. These forms of learning constitute the foundation for lasting changes of behaviors. Local food systems are characterized by close links and opportunities for face-to-face interactions between consumers and producers of food, and are also institutions where farmers and customers can express and act upon their ethical values concerning food. However, local food systems are still a marginal phenomenon and cannot be accessed by all consumers. Interviews were held with customers and farmers, and the interactions between farmers and customers were observed at two farmers' markets in Sweden. Customers and farmers were found to learn and adapt to each other due to the opportunities offered by the farmers' markets. We found that farmers and customers learned in the instrumental and communicative domains, but could not confirm emancipatory learning. We concluded that the feedback between customers and farmers offers the potential for learning, which in turn contributes to adaptive capacity. This can be a driving force for building resilience in the food system.
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| 10. |
- Milestad, Rebecka, et al.
(författare)
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Essential multiple functions of farms in rural communities and landscapes
- 2011
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Ingår i: Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems. - 1742-1705 .- 1742-1713. ; 26:2, s. 137-148
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- As farms are consolidated into larger operations and small farms close down for economic reasons, rural areas lose ecological, social and economic functions related to farming. Biodiversity and scenic, open-vista landscapes are lost as fields are left unmanaged. Social and economic benefits such as local job opportunities and meeting places disappear. Four Swedish rural communities were examined to increase our understanding of the functions that a diverse agriculture provides and which of these are lost as farms cease operation and overall rural social capital is depleted. Workshops and interviews with village action groups and with farmers were carried out. Both groups identified key functions from farming that are important to the rural community, such as production of food and fiber, businesses and jobs, human services, local security, ecosystem services such as nutrient cycling and biodiversity, and functions pertaining to quality of life. Several ways in which village action groups can support agriculture were identified that current industrial agriculture and even agri-environmental schemes fail to achieve. These include organizing local meeting places, encouraging local processing and consumption and supporting farmers in their work. We conclude that agriculture and village action groups match well in community development and that policies supporting this match would be useful.
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