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12. Gender, Local Knowledge, and Lessons Learnt in Documenting and Conserving Agrobiodiversity
- Author:
- Regina Laub and Yianna Lambrou
- Publication Date:
- 06-2006
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- This paper explores the linkages between gender, local knowledge systems and agrobiodiversity for food security by using the case study of LinKS, a regional FAO project in Mozambique, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Tanzania over a period of eight years and now concluded. The project aimed to raise awareness on how rural men and women use and manage agrobiodiversity, and to promote the importance of local knowledge for food security and sustainable agrobiodiversity at local, institutional and policy levels by working with a diverse range of stakeholders to strengthen their ability to recognize and value farmers' knowledge and to use gender-sensitive and participatory approaches in their work. This was done through three key activities: capacity building, research and communication. The results of the LinKS study show clearly that men and women farmers hold very specific local knowledge about the plants and animals they manage. Local knowledge, gender and agrobiodiversity are closely interrelated. If one of these elements is threatened, the risk of losing agrobiodiversity increases, having negative effects on food security. Increased productivity, economic growth and agricultural productivity are important elements in poverty reduction. The diverse and complex agroecological environment of Sub-Saharan Africa requires that future efforts be based on more localized solutions while maintaining a global outlook. Food security will have to build much more on local knowledge and agrobiodiversity with a clear understanding of gender implications while keeping in mind the continuously changing global socioeconomic and political conditions.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, and Gender Issues
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Swaziland
13. Does the WTO Agreement on Agriculture Endanger Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa?
- Author:
- Samuel K. Gayi
- Publication Date:
- 06-2006
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- The paper examines the state of food security in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), based on an analysis of a selection of indicators of food security and nutritional wellbeing during the period 1990-2002 within the context of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture. It argues that it may be advisable for those SSA countries with both static and dynamic comparative advantage in agriculture to pursue policies towards 'food self-sufficiency' as a means to attaining food security, considering their large rural farming population, at least until such time that international trade in agriculture is fully integrated into the WTO disciplines. This is particularly relevant in view of the fact that high agricultural protectionism in the north currently distorts price signals and thus the opportunity costs of allocating factors of production in these economies. The SSA countries that lack comparative advantage in agriculture may want to aim for a 'food self-reliance' strategy to attain food security.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Human Welfare, and International Trade and Finance
14. Globalization and Rural Poverty: A Perspective from a Social Observatory in the Philippines
- Author:
- Yujiro Hayami
- Publication Date:
- 04-2006
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- Using a rice village in the Philippines as a social observatory, the impacts of modernization forces under globalization on rural poverty are assessed based on data collected from recurrent household surveys over the past three decades. After cultivation frontiers closed in the early 1950s relentless population increases continued to press hard on limited land resources in this village. This pauperizing force was counteracted to some extents by the development of irrigation systems followed by the diffusion of modern high-yielding varieties of rice. However, the much more important factor that prevented poverty incidence from increasing and income inequality from worsening was identified as the expansion of non-farm employment opportunities resulting from the increased integration of this village with wide urban and foreign markets. This finding does not lend support to the popular assertion that the encroachment of markets into traditional agrarian communities tends to result in greater inequality and misery of the poor.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Globalization, and Poverty
- Political Geography:
- Southeast Asia
15. Love Thy Neighbour? Evidence from Ethnic Discrimination in Information Sharing within Villages
- Author:
- Mattia Romani
- Publication Date:
- 01-2004
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- There is increasing evidence to suggest that a fundamental source of information for farmers on how to access and use new agricultural technologies comes from interacting with neighbours. Economic research on adoption of innovations in a rural context has only partially addressed the issue of how the social structure of a village can affect adoption and the final impact on productivity of farmers. This paper investigates the role of proximity interpreted not only in geographical terms but also along the line of ethnic similarities among neighbours (what we define as 'social proximity'). We use a panel dataset collected in Côte d'Ivoire to define the probability of accessing the knowledge network. The main results indicate that farmers from ethnic minorities are less likely to access, and benefit less from, extension services. But they seem to try to re-equalize their condition by putting more effort than dominant ethnic group neighbours in sharing information among themselves.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Demographics, Economics, and Human Welfare
- Political Geography:
- Africa
16. Persistence of Underdevelopment: Does the Type of Natural Resource Endowment Matter?
- Author:
- Maiju Perälä
- Publication Date:
- 04-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- This paper examines growth successes and failures across countries and notes the latter's perplexing predominance among ex ante low-income economies. An explanation for this persistence of underdevelopment is proposed through an empirical investigation that brings forth evidence on the importance of natural resource endowment type on growth or, more appropriately, lack of it. The results show that, in the absence of social cohesion, the nature of natural resource abundance bears great significance as a natural resource endowment characterized by oil and/or mineral resources is more negatively correlated with growth than a resource endowment that is agricultural. The robustness of this result is tested across a number of growth regression specifications within the literature.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, Economics, and Poverty
17. OECD Domestic Support and Developing Countries
- Author:
- Betina Dimaranan, Thomas Hertel, and Roman Keeney
- Publication Date:
- 04-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- An AGE model with detailed farm supply and substitution relationships is used to analyze impacts of OECD domestic support reform on developing economy welfare. Stylized simulations indicate reforms best suited for reducing trade distortions with least impact on farm incomes. Comprehensive reforms result in welfare losses for LDCs and large declines in OECD farm incomes. Shifting from market price support to land-based payments designed to maintain farm incomes results in increased welfare for most developing countries. LDCs should focus on improved market access to OECD economies while permitting said economies to continue domestic support payments not linked to output/variable inputs.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
18. Trade Liberalization, Agriculture, and Poverty in Low-income Countries
- Author:
- Kym Anderson
- Publication Date:
- 03-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- This paper offers an economic assessment of the opportunities and challenges provided by the WTO's Doha Development Agenda, particularly through agricultural trade liberalization, for low-income countries seeking to trade their way out of poverty. After discussing links between poverty, economic growth and trade, it reports modelling results showing that farm product markets remain the most costly of all goods market distortions in world trade. It focuses on what such reform might mean for countries of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa in particular, both without and with their involvement in the MTN reform process. What becomes clear is that if those countries want to maximize their benefits from the Doha round, they need also to free up their own domestic product and factor markets so their farmers are better able to take advantage of new market-opening opportunities abroad. Other concerns of low-income countries about farm trade reform also are addressed: whether there would be losses associated with tariff preference erosion, whether food-importing countries would suffer from higher food prices in international markets, whether China's WTO accession will provide an example of trade reform aggravating poverty via cuts to prices received by Chinese farmers, and the impact on food security and poverty alleviation. The paper concludes with lessons of relevance for low-income countries for their own domestic and trade policies.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Economics, Emerging Markets, International Trade and Finance, and Poverty
- Political Geography:
- Africa and China
19. On the Choice of Appropriate Development Strategy: Insights from CGE Modelling of the Mozambican Economy
- Author:
- Finn Tarp and Tarp Jensen Henning
- Publication Date:
- 12-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- This paper makes use of a 1997 computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to analyse three potential strategies that Mozambique can pursue unilaterally with a view to initiating a sustainable development process. They include (i) an agriculture-first strategy, (ii) an agricultural-development led industrialization (ADLI) strategy, and (iii) a primary-sector export-oriented strategy. The ADLI strategy dominates the other development strategies since important synergy effects in aggregate welfare arise from including key agro-industry sectors into the agriculture-first development strategy. Moreover, the ADLI strategy can be designed so it has a relatively strong impact on the welfare of the poorest poverty-stricken households, and still maintain the politically sensitive factorial distribution of income.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, and Human Welfare
- Political Geography:
- Africa