HARAMAYA UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION

FOR REGIONAL MASTER PROGRAM IN AGRICULTURAL INFORMATION AND

COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT (AICM)

MODULE ON: Farming Systems and Rural Livelihoods (AICM 643)

BY

JemalYousuf

AlemuSokora

NOVEMBER 2014

Permission is granted under a Creative Commons Attribution license to replicate,

copy, distribute, transmit or adapt this work freely, provided that attribution is
provided as illustrated in the citation below. To view a copy of this license, visit
[Link]

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Table of Contents

General Introduction to Module.................................................................................. 3

Expected Learning outcomes...................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
PART 1: Understanding System Thinking and Origin of Farming System
Research................................................................................................................... 9
Learning Unit 1: Understanding Basics of System Thinking....................................9
Learning Unit 2: Evolution of system thinking in agriculture.................................18
Learning Unit 3: Birth of Farming system Research Approach..............................24
Part 2: Reviewing Evolution of FSR and Birth of Sustainable Livelihood
Approach................................................................................................................ 28
Learning Unit 1: Early FSR constraints and Drivers for Evolution..........................29
Learning Unit 2: Understanding concept of Sustainable Rural Livelihoods............36
Learning Unit 3: Implications of SRL Framework for Development analysis and
policy practices..................................................................................................... 56
Part 3: Main Farming Systems in SSA and suggested SRL pathways out of
poverty................................................................................................................... 65
Learning Unit 1: Current meaning of Farming system in SSA context...................65
Learning Unit 2: Farming system classification in SSA..........................................70
Learning Unit 3: African Farming systems and Livelihoods strategies to facilitate
pathways out of poverty........................................................................................ 74
Marrying concept of Farming system and Sustainable Rural Livelihoods. .81
Learning Unit 4: Take-home message: Farming systems and challenges ahead. .83

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General Introduction to the Module

Background to the OER Module

A Scientific agricultural research and Development (ARD) has generated knowledge

and technologies that increased physical productivity of crops and animals in
western world in the 20th century. The successes have enabled western farmers and
firms to produce much food that eliminate hunger in the western society. The
western farmers also could supply surplus agricultural products to domestic and
international markets as means of income generation for farmers and firms or as a
means of contribution of agriculture for economic growth of a given nation. This is
to say that success in agricultural productivity growth has contributed for
transition of the western world from agrarian society to industrialized society or
modernization.

The success in western world convinced the development scholars and politicians
that increasing agricultural productivity is a shortcut path to hunger and poverty
eradication and hence transformation to industrialized society. Thus in the 1950s
and 60s transferring of technologies (ToT) of agricultural from western world to
developing worlds, where hunger and poverty is rampant, has been realized as best
policy of eliminating hunger and poverty and bringing societal transformation. The
program was also called Green Revolution (GR), which had contributed for high
productivity of agriculture in various parts of Asia and Latin America and had fewer
impacts on small scale agriculture of Sub Saharan Africa (SSA).

In the 1970s it has been recognized that simple ToT of agriculture to developing
worlds like SSA is irrelevant with small farmers’ context. Because, African farmers
make their living in very diverse and risk prone biophysical and socio-economic
contexts in which different family farms encounter context specific constraints and
opportunities across space and time. Thus in 1970s and 80s Natural and Social
science scholars, who were working in developing world in rural development
project, have called on ARD to shift from ToT approach to Systems approach known
as Farming System Research (FSR). Principles of FSR have called on partnerships

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between farmers and technical and social scientists to involve farmers in the
identification, development, and evaluation of relevant improved technologies on
small farmers’ farm field rather than research station. By using FSR principles ARD
had adapted different crops and animal technologies to small farmers’ context to
improve productivity.

In the 1990s it has been acknowledged that unless there is social equity in sharing
food and income within household and community, increasing productivity of crops
and animals cannot solve hunger and poverty of rural small farmers. Further, it has
become clear that means of living of poor small farmers does not depend only on
agriculture, rather multiple livelihood strategies and activities. Thus since mid of
1990s FSR has evolved to Sustainable Rural Livelihoods (SRL) approach. SRL
approach perceives that means of living of people is affected by multiple micro and
macro factors and people have their own reasons why they do what they do. Hence,
rural development policy should carefully understand people livelihoods before and
during intervention. These are what this module will look at in detail to familiarize
you with changes in thinking about agricultural development journey in developing
world in general and Sub Saharan African in particular.

Essence of the Module to the AICM program

Having broadly introduced you how and why concepts of “Farming systems” and
“Sustainable Rural Livelihoods” have been evolved in ARD, what is main essence of
this module to you as prospective graduate student of AICM? Or simply what you
expect from this module or what you should keep in mind while studying the
subsequent parts of the module? To be sure, as you study the module from a means
to an end, if you could thoroughly answer the following comprehensive questions,
we hope that you would have grasped core messages of the course.

 Before reading the units of module what is agricultural development mean?

What is source of agricultural knowledge? Do you think that agriculture is the
only means of living of rural smallholders?
 What kind of philosophical assumptions, scientific methods, and policy
models had been used by national and international ARD in generating and
diffusing agricultural knowledge and technologies to users (farmers/firms)
early 1950s and 60s?

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  Why FSR has called on for modification of these assumptions, methods and
policy models, especially when they are applied to developing world context
like SSA?
 What are the messages of FSR to agricultural researchers and extension
experts? Or simply from FSR perspective, what is agricultural knowledge and
why farmers’ participation becomes very important in agricultural
technologies generation and diffusion?
 Do you think that Ethiopian and other African countries’ ARD, i.e. research
institutions and universities have adopted FSR approaches or still following
approaches of early 1950 s and 60s?
 Does FSR approach useful to understand what constraints and opportunities
SSA small farmers encounter at different place and time? And how that may
help us to design evidence based development interventions based on
different context and to what extent ICT is useful in so doing?
 What is the core message of SRL approach to understand livelihoods of rural
smallholders and to make positive interventions?
 What is linkage between sustainable Development and SRL approach? Does
SRL approach helpful to bring sustainable development?
 To what extent concepts of FSR and SRL are useful to help you identify what
gaps AICM graduates may fill to bring positive change in livelihoods of rural
communities?

 Are students of AICM and RDAE at Haramaya University following positivism

and constructivism MSc thesis? This has very important implication for
contemporary sustainable agricultural development. Read the objectives and
methodologies of Previous MSc thesis and whether students adopt positivism
or constructivism or both.

Motivation Behind the development of the Module

Haramaya University has been offering MSc programs in Rural Development and
Agricultural Extension since 2005. More recently it has launched a new regional MSc
Program in Agricultural Information and Communication Management (AICM). The
development of the module is supported by the AgShare project phase II. The
objective of the sub-project is to create a comprehensive set of course modules for
selected course currently being offered by Haramaya University within its AICM
Master’s Degree program. The overall goal of the postgraduate programme is to

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enhance the competence of agricultural information professionals, agricultural
researchers and other development workers in AICM while strengthening the
capacity of universities to provide higher-level education and research services in
this field. To this end, the module ‘ Farming System and Rural Livelihoods’ will
contribute towards enhancing postgraduate teaching learning and thus enable
learners to obtain knowledge and skill that will enable them in making concrete
contributions in real life context.

Course Aims
The course Farming Systems and Rural Livelihoods aim to enable learners promote
sustainable, equitable, decentralised agro-food systems. Learners gain knowledge
and analytical skills and necessary for improving livelihoods and entitlements,
poverty reduction, and short and long-term ecological and economic sustainability
among rural farming communities.

Learning Outcomes
By the completion of this course the learner should be able to:
a. Explain innovative actions that promote sustainable agriculture and rural
livelihoods.
b. Prioritize the approaches of developing more effective and equitable
agriculture and natural resource management in line with the vision for
national development
c. Analyze the impact of global and regional trends on food and agriculture
production.
d. Plan strategies for achieving sustainable farming systems and rural
livelihoods.

How you will be assessed

In order for you to successfully complete this module/course you need to have a
minimum of 75% attendance at all classes. You will also be required to
undertake five types of assessment in the programme. The assessment types
and their contribution to the final overall assessment can be seen in the table
below.

Table 1 : Type of assessment and contribution to overall assessment

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 Type of Contribution to overall final assessment
Assessments as %

Assignments 20

Field work 20

Reflection 10

Exam 50

As you can see from the above allocation of marks, you will be assessed on a
continuous basis and in a variety of ways. All four types of assessment are
compulsory and contribute to your final assessment mark. In order to successfully
complete the course, you need to get at least 50% for each one of the four types of
assessment and also satisfy the 75% attendance requirement.

In your module there are also a number of learning tasks that you will need to
complete in class in order to gain a proper understanding of the various topics
covered. Although not all these activities carry marks, it is recommended that you
complete them. The icons seen in the table below are used to represent the
different learning and assessment tasks you are expected to complete.

Table 2: Icons and their descriptions

Icon Task to be Comments

completed

Learning These tasks are designed to help you learn and

activities understand the different topics in the module. Some may
require you to work on your own and others will involve
group work. Your instructor will help facilitate completion
of these tasks

Assignment There are assignments for this module. Note that

s assignments are compulsory and contribute to your final
assessment mark. Please start working on your
assignments well in advance of the due date and submit
them on time.

Field works Field work is an important component of your assessment

and all the associated tasks are compulsory and
contribute to your final assessment mark.

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 Case Case studies are important as they teach you to analyse
studies persons, events, decisions, periods, projects, policies,
institutions, or other systems that are studied holistically
by one or more methods. These tasks are compulsory and
contribute to your final assessment mark.

Reflection As a agricultural information communication and

management professional reflection is an important
component of your work with people as this will enable
you to reflect on your own practice and improve it as you
go along. These tasks are compulsory and contribute to
your final assessment mark.

Assessment You will be assessed end of each topic and it will be

marked

Course/Module Evaluation
In order to improve delivery and content of this course/module you are required to
make evaluation at the end of each topic and at the end of the course/module.
Detailed instructions on how to complete the evaluation are found in the Module
Assessment Document that can be obtained by clicking this link

Course parts

PART 1: Understanding System Thinking and Origin of Farming

System Research

Learning Units:

 Understanding Basics of System Thinking

 Appreciating Evolution of System Thinking In Agriculture
 Understanding Birth of Farming system Research Approach

Part 2: Reviewing Evolution of FSR and Birth of Sustainable

Livelihood Approach

Learning Units:

 Early FSR constraints and Drivers for Evolution

 Understanding concept of Sustainable Rural Livelihoods

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  Implications of SRL Framework for Development analysis and
policy practices

Part 3: Main Farming Systems in SSA and suggested SRL pathways

out of poverty

Learning Units:

 Current meaning of Farming system in SSA context

 Understanding Farming system classification in SSA
 African Farming systems and Livelihoods strategies to
facilitate pathways out of poverty
 Take-home message: Farming systems and challenges ahead

PART 1: Understanding System Thinking and Origin of

Farming System Research

Introduction

In this first part of the module, you will learn the general concept of systems
thinking, its main key concepts as new inquiry of the world around us. Then you will
understand how and why the concepts of system thinking gradually applied in
agricultural development journey. Finally, you will see the sights for birth of FSR
approach as the first and explicit method of inquiry in ARD of developing nations.

Learning Objectives
By the end of this part you should be able:

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  Understand basics concept of System thinking from and main components of
systems theory
 Understand how and why System Thinking Evolved in Agriculture
 Understand rationales of Birth of Farming system Research Approach

Learning outcomes:

By the end of this part you should be able to:

 explain the basics concept of System thinking from your academic

background perspectives and main components of systems theory
 explain how and why System Thinking Evolved in Agriculture
 explain the rationales of Birth of Farming system Research Approach

Learning Unit 1: Understanding Basics of System Thinking

The term "System" is derived from the Greek word “systema” to means “an
organized relationship among functioning units or components.” The units or
components connected together and give some purpose or outcomes as natural
process or as manmade or as mental perception. The system theory is contribution
of many philosophies and disciplines (natural and social sciences). It is also
categorized into different typologies based different disciplines. For purpose of this
course and for your in-depth understanding about system thinking, let us divide
system into two and discuss accordingly: (1) system as observable matter and
(2) system asunobservable mind image.

(1) System as observable matter

To make you appreciate what is observable system, let us start from very simple
examples, which you are familiar with in our daily life.

Example 1: our body as a system

In high school biology subject, we learned that our body is built from small
functioning units of millions of cells. The group of cells becomes tissue; the group of
tissues becomes organ; the group of organs becomes organism. This means we are

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organism of full body and our body is whole system. The cell, issue, and organ are
sub-systems of the whole body system. However, we can even take single cell as a
system. Because; there are already many sub-systems in single cell and if
understand single cell of somebody, we can infer the property of the whole body
system of the person. Or we can take tissues or organs as standalone system. From
this, we can say our body system has many levels of hierarchies of systems. This
means if someone wants to study human body, s/he can focus on cell or issue or
organ or to understand about the whole body.

We see our body as an open system, which needs inputs like oxygen, water, food
etc. from environment and provides outputs like carbon dioxide, urine, excrete
wastes etc. to survive or give functions as human being. The disturbance or damage
of our body sub-systems (e.g. some cell or issue or organ) will disturb or fully stop
the functions of the whole body. This shows that body system works due to
interdependence and interaction of all sub-systems. In the case of disturbance or
damage (due to disease, or injury), medical scientists take sample of our blood (the
cells, which is sub-system of the whole body) and check what happened to the
whole body. E.g. what types of disease or intensity of injure etc. happened on whole
body could be understood from cells, which sub-system of whole body. This means
in the case of living organisms (plants and animals), we take samples of the
organism’s sub-system (i.e. cell) and diagnosis what happened or will happen to the
whole system of the body.

Example 2: functioning computer as a whole system

Let us apply principle of our body to the computer. But, you should know that
computer is non-living thing. The computer gives functions (e.g. writing, data
processing, designing, etc.), if and only if, all spare parts/sub-parts/sub-systems
(CPU, keyboard, window, software etc.) are connected together correctly. Then, in
system expression, the computer is “whole” system when it gives function and the
function we gain only from the whole is called “emergent property” in system
theory.

Please, notice that concept of ‘emergent property’ is very important in system

theory. We only get emergent property from the whole computer. For example, if
we don’t have keyboard, which is one of sub-systems of the whole computer, we

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can’t get the function we get from the whole computer. This means due to missed
sub-systems (in this case keyboard), the left parts of the computer do not give us
the same function as before. So, we have to buy or borrow keyboard and properly
connect it to make computer the whole or to get emergent property. This means
there must be “synergies” or interconnectedness and interactions amongst sub-
parts of the computer to get emergent property.

However, if all spare parts/sub-systems of the same computer are available, but,
not connected together or let us say we disconnected sub-parts and put in carton,
the computer does not give function as before. Note that still all spare parts are
already there. Then why the computer is not giving function as before? That is
because; the simple summation of sub-parts/sub-systems of the computer cannot
give function that we get from the whole (purposively connected together)
computer.

Nonetheless, you have to understand that either the computer’s sub-parts

purposively connected (whole) or put together without connecting (sum of the
whole parts) in a carton, the weight of the computer (on beam balance) is the same
in both cases.

For computer professionals whether the computer is connected together or not, if

all sub parts of the computer is available, it is the same computer. Because,
connecting together is the matter of minutes. However, in the system theory, whole
(holistic) and the sum of the whole parts (summation) are not equal at all. The
system theory says “whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Why?

Because: from the whole we get emergent property/functions/, from the

sum of its parts we can’t. From this concept system thinkers argue that
sometimes one plus one (1+1) could be equals to three (3).But, in the case
of computer, notice that still computer experts can diagnose the non-functional
computer and identify which sub-part/sub-system is damaged or missed or
misconnected and the problem could be solved. For the case of our body medical
doctors could do the same.

What could be learned from the two examples?

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From the two examples, all bolded terms are key concepts of system thinking or
theory that we will use throughout this module. Further, you can easily notice that
our body and computer are observable systems (real system) and hence, there is
“boundary” between computer and environment; our body and environment.
According to system theory, that environment is called “supra-system.” We take
that environment as natural or man-made, but we know that it is out of control of
the systems (our body and computer). This is to mean both computer and our body
are “open systems” that get inputs from supra-system to give output. E.g.
inputs for computer is clicking the key, internet connection, etc. and inputs for our
body is food, oxygen, water etc. Both systems (computer and our body) must
process (throughput) the inputs to convert into outputs. You must also know
that since both systems have no power to control supra-system that comes from
the environment as inputs, the inputs could be harmful for the system. E.g. virus
may inter into our computer as input from supra-system (websites, external disc
etc.) and damage the whole system or parts of system or we get unexpected
output (unplanned function). Airborne diseases like common cold, TB etc. could
inter our body as input from surrounding environment and harm or disturb our body
system and/or weaken our body functions.

To conclude subjects of the two examples, we said that the computer and our body
are observable and “real” objects. This real system (living or non-living things) is
called “hard system”. And if we consider about the real objects as a system to
understand or to gain some kind of function or solve some kind of problem it is
called “hard system thinking” or “systematic” approach. The natural
scientists follow hard systems (systematic)approaches (real objects) to measure
or manipulate this world by using mathematical models and theories. E.g. you can
imagine how ICT is playing the role in world we live now; you may be surprised how
plant and animal scientists had discovered high productivity crops and animals by
following hard system thinking through genetic engineering.

(2) System as unobservable mind image

Analogous to natural (hard) scientists above, social science scholars have been
considering social issues like community, laws, politics, organization, society etc. as
a systemto understand the sub-systems and manipulate like hard systems (e.g.

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computer and our body). E.g. we say political system, legal system etc. However,
we cannot observe these systems like real (hard) systems mentioned above. Here,
the reality is in the mind of an observer and the observer should negotiate the
meaning of that mind reality with other observers to reach on some kind of
agreement to try to get purposeful emergent property. Again, the emergent
property cannot be engineered by professionals like computer and body. E.g.
ensuring justice in the world is the “emergent property” of legal systems of the
world or a given country. In system terms, Social system is also called “human
activity system” or “soft system” thinking E.g. What we exactly know is that
social system is something human beings collectively and purposefully creates in
mind to make use of natural resources (e.g. agriculture, mineral, etc.) and
manmade resources (e.g. computer, car, etc.). Let us take example;

Example: Haramaya University Management as a system

We can take Haramaya University (HU) Management as a system, which is mind

image. We are not talking about observable physicalmaterials of the university, we
are saying how to manage university’s observable resource (e.g. building, money,
farm, vehicles, human knowledge and skills, books, etc.) by creating system like
property in the minds of the people, who are working and/or studying at HU. Unlike
real systems like computer and our body; HU organizational system has no
observable boundary, rather the boundary is negotiable (e.g. what is responsibly of
each and every one, what are dos and don’ts for workers and students as rules etc.
are negotiable and always changing). The inputs for management system could
be suggestions of individuals, labor force, positive and/or negative attitudes of
workers, leadership etc. multiple inputs cannot be predefined like computer and
body parts. This means the inputs for soft systems are not measurable in standard
methods, quite qualitative and very subjective. We can assume sub-systems as
finance office, departments, colleges, transportation unit, etc. and supra-system
as national law, ministry of education, ministry of finance, market etc.

Here the outcome or emergent property of university management system is also

multiple and not as clear as computer and body’s system. E.g. some emergent
properties are better financial system, quality education, quality student
accommodation, better research, better community service etc. Further, since

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there are a lot of people with different roles, experiences, education background,
interest etc. at HU; each individual assesses emergent property of HU from their
perspectives and evaluating it in objective way is also very difficult. E.g. if you ask
each instructor in Department of RDAE about performance (emergent property) of
HU, you never get uniform answer from all instructors. Each emergent property is
very subjective and negotiable and all emergent properties are not exactly known
beforehand. The only thing we can do is to facilitate interactions and
interdependency of human minds in different sub-systems to get better emergent
property.

Further, to diagnosis or solve the problem of the HU management system, you

cannot take the sample of sub-systems like and understand or solve the problem.
This means,reductionist concept that works in hard systems never give meaning.
E.g. by taking sample of our blood cell (reductionism) a medical doctor can
understand problem of our body system. But, in case of HU management system it
is impossible. E.g. assume you select college of Agriculture and environmental
sciences, which is sub-system of HU management system, as a sample and analyze
its weakness and strength. From results of this study, you cannot understand or
generalize the weakness or strength of the whole HU management system. In the
case of soft system, you cannot understand the property of whole by studying sub-
system.

All in all, social/soft system thinking enable us to develop approaches for gaining
the grasp of and improving complex and ill-defined situation when we cannot know
what the problems are, how many they are and how they relate each other. E.g.
reducing climate change impacts at local level, reducing land degradation, bringing
sustainable agriculture, producing organic food etc. are complex natural
environment and human relations that need soft system thinking approach to
socially negotiate and contextually understand the problems and respective
solutions. Because, there is no best formula we follow to solve these kinds of
challenges like hard systems. The hard as well as the soft systems thinking cannot
solve problems alone, it needs complementarity of both. See the following exemplar
case to differentiate what is hard and soft systems in real practices.

Box 1: Difference between hard and soft systems thinking by simple

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 example
Assume that HU has 1000 desktop computers, from which 600 are functional and
400 of them are not giving appropriate functions due to some minor damages of
sub-systems. The professionals, who can amend all 400 computers, are already
present in the university. From hard system thinking, HU is very rich in terms of
number of computers and number of professionals, who maintain functionality of
the computers.
However, from soft system thinking perspective that will never be true unless the
HU has maintenance budget, administrators are willing, damaged sub-systems in
computers are brought on time, professionals are willing and be paid, and the
workers whose computers are dysfunctional are concerned as property loss etc.
what does this mean? Only the physical availability of computers (hard system) in
HU does not guarantee that HU is rich in computers, rather continuous functionality
of computers needs human interactions (soft/human system). Here both hard and
soft systems are equally important to make HU the best higher education institution
that uses its property in efficient way.

What we are lacking most in Africa is soft system (human interaction) that enables
us to utilize available resources. This is mainly because; soft system is unobservable
thing, which is less suitable to be studied and measured in traditional (positivist)
scientific methods. Practically, why we must focus on soft system is that people do
what they believe true and controlling their unobservable behavior is hardly
possible. Thus better thing could be done is interacting with people to negotiate and
to create learning environment even to make use of product of hard systems.

In order to appreciate the concepts of hard and soft systems in real world, please
complete Activity 1.1. Please, work with classmates as a team and share your views
from different disciplines.

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 Activity 1.1: Take one of these problems: forest clearing or waste dumping
off or food insecurity or adoption failures in a given location and discuss the causes
of a problem and possible solutions

a. From hard system perspective

b. From soft system perspective
c. Which perspective is often neglected in research and funding and why? Is it
possible to model soft system problem by computer?
d. Report the summary of your discussion to your instructor

Assignment: Using the knowledge from Learning Unit 1, critically review

the following three articles listed below.
 Altieri, M.A. 1989. Agroecology: A New Research and Development Paradigm
for World Agriculture. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 27: 37-46.
 Bellamy, J. A., D. H. Walker, G/ T. McDonald, and G. J. Syme. 2001. A systems
approach to the evaluation of natural resource management initiatives.
Journal of Environmental Management 63: 407-123.
 Janssen, W. and P. Glodworthy. 1996. Multidisciplinary Research for Natural
Resource Management: Conceptual and Practical Implications. Agricultural
Systems 51: 259-279.

Why do it? (Motivation for doing the assignment)

The review will enable you to develop critical thinking on soft and hard system
thinking.
How to do it? You are expected to do the assignment individually and submit
written report of maximum of 10 pages .

Reference and further reading clicking the following links;

Agricultural Systems: Agroecology and Rural Innovation for Development Editors:

Sieglinde Snapp and Barry Pound; Elsevier Press, 2008 ISBN 978-0-12-372517-2

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Packham et al (n.d.) A Farming System Research (FSR) as a Platform for RD & E
Agriculture and NRM[Link]
%20Forum07%20papers/
Packham_Petheram__Prior___A_Farming_Systems_Research_%28FSR
%29_As_a_Platform_for_RDE_in_Agriculture_and_NRM.pdf

Schiere et al (2004) System thinking in agriculture: an overview

[Link]

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Learning Unit 2: Evolution of system thinking in agriculture

In the preceding unit, we hope that you understood the two categories of systems
thinking and their properties with examples. In this unit, we will thoroughly look at
how each category of system thinking has been applied to bring agricultural
development and/or to solve agricultural problems. Let us discuss one by one!

1. Hard system thinking in agricultural development

In preceding unit, we have said that hard system or systematic thinkers study
observable things or “matters”. The concept was coined from positivist philosophies
that first defined what the science is and what is not. For positivist philosophers to
be a scientific means studying a real world out there; whose characteristics can be
observed, measured and generalized in a way that come close to truth. It is
believed that anybody can observe reality almost equally if he/she follows scientific
procedure.

This positivist scientific method is called Hard System Methodology(HSM).

Here, the observer and the object are separate. E.g. if an agronomist (researcher or
observer) studies maize (researched), the subjective interest of observer cannot
affect outcome of the research result due to scientific procedure s/he follows (i.e.
research method). In this case scientific knowledge is objective and universal (it’s
true everywhere).

To easily understanding the concept, (hard) sciences such as biology, chemistry,

and physics, which we learnt in high school, exactly follows positivist philosophy.
The hard scientists measure and manipulate real objects by using mathematical
models and probability theory. You may remember the laboratory of these subjects
in high school, which is small world that we observe simplified realities (e.g. cell,
molecule, elements, reactions etc.) by following the stated scientific procedures.
You may remember also that we measured and quantified that reality by using
mathematical formulas and models. Because of this systematic simplification of
complex things into simple explanation, positivists are sometimes called
reductionist philosophers. This means positivists perceive that by systematically
taking or observing smallest part of the system (any matter) we can understand the

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whole system and engineer it. It is the fact that positivism is the dominant
philosophy of science that contributed for advancement of technologies and
innovations in the globe. E.g. advancement of ICT, modern medicine, transportation
etc. is almost due to positivist directed scientific inquiry. However, this does not
mean that positivists have solution for every problem we face today.

For positivist scientists, agriculture is “real matter” that needs to be engineered

by applying HSM. Especially, since famous economist, Thomas Malthus, speculated
that planet earth cannot feed rapidly growing human population beyond 20 th
century, finding mechanism of increasing agricultural productivity per unit area was
the key impetus for agricultural scientists. Positivist economists also call for
agricultural product marketability to generate incomes. Thus, the publicly funded
scientific Agricultural Research and Development (ARD) in the western world (USA
and Europe) had discovered new agricultural technologies such as new crop
varieties of maize, wheat, rice, fertilizer, in 1940s and 50s and increased
agricultural productivity.

The scientists use scientific procedural experimentation in the lab and research
station. E.g. for maize scientists, maize is the system and plot of land is
environment. The scientists simply study, if what amount of inputs (e.g. amount
fertilizer) is used, the system (maize plant) give maximum output (e.g. quintal per
hectare). For e.g. see the following figure as example of reductionist system view
about a cow. In this example, animal scientists try to discovery how to achieve
maximum outputs (dependent variables-y-axis) from the cow by using different
inputs (independent variable-x-axis) and agricultural economists analyze costs (of
inputs)- benefit (of outputs) and predict profits. For problems like diseases, pests
and weeds; the scientists had discovered many agro-chemicals such pesticides and
herbicides. Further, due to advancement of genetic engineering, crops and animals
scientists could easy identify crops and animals that efficiently convert inputs into
outputs, and tolerant to drought, disease, and pest.

20
 inputs
outputs
e.g. meat, a e.g. feed,
milk, draught water, pen
etc.
.

Figure 1: example of reductionist system view: a cow is clearly observable

system that has fixed boundary and interdependent parts with well-defined
functions, which transform inputs to outputs

By support of extension services improved crop and animal technologies had been
spontaneously adopted by farming communities of western world and agricultural
production and productivity highly increased. As result, western farmers could
produce ample foods for both their consumption and market supply. That
achievement had even contributed for transition of western world from agrarian
society to industrial society.

It was against this background that positivist scientists, policy makers and
politicians in western and developing nations (Africa, Asia, and Latin America) were
convinced to transfer the western born agricultural technologies to hungry
developing nations in the 1950s. To do so, initiative of transferring the technology
known as Green Revolution (GR) was launched throughout developing nations
through support of western nations in the same decade. It is also called Transfer of
Technology (ToT) model. The ToT model operates based on the principle that
scientists (especially, crop scientists) develop a new technology on research station
and then extension workers, in turn, would transfer it to farmers. It is linear model
that straightly link researcher-extension-farmers. It is top-down approach that
considers farmers as passive recipients of what scientists recommend.

For example, as you learned in module “Perspective of Agricultural Extension (RDAE

511)” Haramaya University (the then Haile Selassie-I college of Agriculture) was
established in 1954 through US government “land grant system” to promote ToT
model in Ethiopia. The World Bank had also implemented ToT model of Training
and Visit (T & V) program as global support in the whole Africa in 1970s.

21
The fact that ToT program had increased production and productivity of targeted
crops (such as maize, wheat, rice) in developing nations, especially in Latin America
and Asia. However, the GR/ToT program did not work in context of many small
farmers of Africa and in some parts of Asia and Latin [Link] empirical studies
even shows that where GR worked, environmental degradation and social inequality
were exacerbated and the poor small farmers, who are majority and live in the
marginal and unfavorable ecosystem, were less targeted by GR programs. The
extension services biased towards large or model farmers.

The failure of ToT model in developing Nations was the reason for origin of soft
system thinking in agriculture, the first one is known as Farming system
Research (FSR) in 1970s and 80s. We will discuss FSR approach in detail in the
next sub-unit.

However, this does not mean that policy of ToT that considers only agricultural
productivity at expense of socio-economic equity and environmental sustainability
is replaced by better model. Since agricultural ToT policy has fast positive impacts
on national economic growth, it is still dominant agricultural policy in African
countries. This is mainly because; ToT policy is politically attractive since increasing
agricultural productivity displayed as mechanism of reducing hunger and poverty
and ensuring economic growth of a nation.

Despite the fact, theToT, which considers only agricultural productivity, has been
facing a lot of pressures from the world communities in developing and developed
nations. To mention some challenges brought by ToT policy:

 Loss of crops biodiversity due to mono-cropping recommended by scientists.

Local varieties of different crops that adapted the local context for thousand
years are lost and farmers are buying seeds from supermarkets every
planting season.

 Risks of agro-chemicals such as fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides on human

and environmental health; empirical studies indicate these chemicals already
killed numerous useful living things (small animals and plants), creating
water pollution, and foods produced by agro-chemicals are no as healthy as
natural one.

22
  The current Land grabbing in Ethiopia and in other Africa countries is
ToTmodelto expand input intensive agriculture for short term GDP growth
without carefully considering social and environmental impacts of the
intervention.

Nonetheless, especially highly educated people are becoming skeptical about

positivist scientists recommendation for agriculture. Currently traditional
agricultural practices like home garden and small scale farming, which are free from
agrochemicals, are seen as best option for many scholars. It is this steady rise of
these uncertainties and challenges throughout the world that have become a
reason for evolutions of alternative philosophy known as constructivism that has
been coined soft system Methodology (SSM) in agriculture and in related fields.
In the next sub-section, we will discuss soft system thinking in agriculture as
alternative to hard system thinking. However, before proceeding to the next sub-
section, please, do the following activity 1.2!

Activity 2.1

Currently, Ethiopia is implementing five year Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP).
Please, review GTP related articles and reports and discuss to what extent the GTP
has focused on ToT policy and considered its negative impacts on societal and
ecological systems. Discuss with your colleagues and submit the summary to your
instructor.

Tips for further learning: consider addressing political ecology to further explain
this topic. References for Political Ecology: Blaikie,, P. 1989. Environment and
Access to Resources in Africa. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute
59: 18-40.

2. Soft System Thinking In Agriculture

In preceding unit one, we have said that soft system thinking is human activity
system that focuses on human “mind” as a reality. This thinking was originated
from constructivist philosophies that perceive reality as socially constructed in the
mind of an observer, in contrast to positivist. According to constructivist, human
beings generate knowledge and meaning (reality) from an interaction between their

23
experiences and their ideas, which is context specific based on location and time.
Here, there is no objectivity and universality of reality. Reality is relative, and
context specific and no standardized measurement.

For example, you may assume establishment of Farmers Agricultural inputs

cooperative (FAIC) in HaramayaWoreda as a Soft system Methodology (SSM).
The FAIC exists; if and only if, people believe that its existence is useful, agree on
its goals, its boundaries (dos and don’ts), membership criteria, etc. so that people
should agree on current situation of problem definition and create the future vision
as mental “ideal” model. The main assumption is that system goals or expected
outcome are not given like hard system, but they are contestable and negotiated by
people. It is because; people have diverse interests and views about importance of
coop. This is to claim that simplistic causal-effect (x-axis and y-axis model of maths)
relationships in HSM are seemed pretending and denying complexity of realities of
the system. It needs gathering of multiple views of people and renegotiation with
them to redefine why coop is needed and how it helps them for near future.

When we view agriculture through the lens of constructivist philosophies,

agriculture is different thing for different people. This is to say for ARD
agriculture is mostly crops and animals, needs plant and animal scientists to
increase productivity. This isreductionist view i.e. it reduced agriculture to only
animals and plants, while wider social, economic, political, and environmental
factors are already parts and parcels of agricultural system.

E.g. for environmental sciences and geographers agriculture is about managing

natural landscape; for social scientists (sociology and anthropology) agriculture is
about cultural heritage; for medical scientists’ agriculture is food and medicines etc.

For ordinary citizens such as farmers and pastoralists, agriculture is much more
complex thing. E.g. for pastoralists and farmers agriculture not only about
producing food and generating income, but also about identity, cultural pride, risk
reduction, about territorial claim etc. These farmers and pastoralists perceive
agriculture from different angles (social, economic, environmental, and political)
and act accordingly in their day-to-day lives. Reductionist scientists perceive
agriculture as food and if more, as income generation. Therefore,
recommendations of reductionist scientists hardly compatible with context (angles)

24
of pastoralists and farmers and hence, many farmers and pastoralists fail to adopt
their recommendation. That is how countless development interventions had failed
in a very disappointing ways for the last a half century.

Tips for further learning

If you use constructivist philosophical/soft system/ assumption for your MSc thesis,
you need not worry about random sampling, use purposive. Just you choose people
or events that are relevant to your study objective at local arena. You should not
also worry about generalization to the whole population, rather you deeply focus on
the case you selected and display rich pictures of the case to the readers. If you
need generalization, you can make theoretical generalization. That is through
critically reviewing relevant studies in different contexts and by displaying similarity
of patterns. This kind of research is very important to sensitize policy makers and
reductionist scientists to diagnose local contexts and peoples’ behaviors before
rushing to blanket recommendation.

25
Learning Unit 3: Birth of Farming system Research Approach

In the preceding unit, we hope that you have understood how hard system and soft
thinkers perceive agriculture differently and how difference in perception also
influenced agricultural practices in the world. In this unit, we will specifically
discuss origin of Farming system Research (FSR), its early meaning, and
principles

1. Origin of Farming System Research

The FSR was developed in 1970s and 80s in response to the failure of ToT model in
developing nations especially in Africa. It was developed by collective efforts of
scholars from different disciplines (natural and social sciences), who were working
in developing nations. It was developed as alternative research method or form of
inquiry, which use systemic thinking to challenge the reductionist scientists to
consider local context and farmers’ realities. Because; during that time farmers,
who failed to adopt technologies, were seen as backward and traditional.

However, FSR scholars have empirically shown that ToT model is irrelevant for small
farmers’ contexts. They claimed most agricultural researches are conducted on
research stations mostly by plant and moderately by animal scientists. These
scientists use biological principles to study physical productivity of crops and/or
animals. These type of researches benefitted farmers, who cultivate single crop
(mono-cropping) on suitable farmland (fertile soil, enough rainfall or irrigation, large
size farm etc.), and who have access to inputs (cheap fertilizer, credit, extension
advices etc.) and who have output markets.

However, small farmers make their living in very diverse and risk prone biophysical
and socio-economic contexts in which different family farms encounter context
specific constraints and opportunities over time.

Example: if you observe farmers around Haramaya Campus, they cultivate crops
and keep animals on small size and unsuitable farmland (less soil fertility, erratic
rainfall, pests and disease etc.), limited access to inputs (expensive fertilizer, no
credit service etc.) and have limited access to efficient markets. Thus, small farmers
cannot adopt the technical recommendations derived from reductionist researchers.
Perhaps because it is unfit for the priorities and conditions of small farmers. Please,

26
refer to the following box for further understanding of why FSR was coined in
developing nations in the 1970s and 80s.

Box 2: Reasons for initiation of FSR in Developing World in 1970s and 80s
 It was realized that models of discipline-oriented research (i.e. Where
department conducts research separately) from the industrialized countries
were inappropriate as the basis for agricultural improvement in most
developing worlds. Because, developing world’s agriculture is complex farming
systems were little understood by researchers
 Few agricultural technologies proposed by reductionist researchers were being
adopted by small farmers
 In developing world, unlike developed world, the vast majority of farmers lack
influences in shaping research and development strategies. E.g. no subsidies,
strong farmer organization etc. in developing nations
 Many agricultural programs have led to benefits for larger farmers at the
expense of poorer families; like extension bias toward model farmers
 Most experimentation has been conducted on research stations, which are
largely unrepresentative of conditions on the majority of small farms;
 The FSR approach is consistent with current political notions of equity and
sustainable production;
 Research focused on components or commodities and/or productivity alone has
sometimes led to land degradation.
Source: Adopted from Petheram and Clark (1998)

Today FSR approach is not limited to developing world, it is global approach. As it is

stated on website of International Farming Systems Association

“Whether implemented in the North [western] or in the South [developing nations],

The core objective of farming systems approaches is to (1) address the complexity
of real-world phenomena (instead of using reductionist and disciplinary
simplifications) and (2) to work on problems that are relevant to
farmers (instead of focusing on issues that are primarily of academic
interest)”[Link]

2. Meaning of Farming Systems Approach

From preceding sub-section, we hope that you understood why FSR was originated.
In this sub-section, we will introduce you FSR Approach.

First of all, you may wonder the meaning of ‘approach’. The dictionary meaning of
approach is “a way of dealing with a situation or problem”. In this module context, a
situation or problem is about agriculture and allied issues like biodiversity,
community culture, sustainability etc. This means FS approach could be seen as
research approach or model of inquire. When we say ‘A farming systems Research

27
Approach (FSA)’ it is ‘school of thought’ that subsumes different theories and
methods from multitudes of discipline to respond to complex problem of agriculture
and allied issues.

The FSRA entails a broad view that concentrates on interactions among

components and on emergent properties of farming system that are relevant to
problematic situations we intended to study or solve. What you should know is that
the boundary is negotiable here, not like living organisms or computer modeling.
We can exclude the elements from the system based on objective of the system or
based on problem to be solved. For example, if you (as a team of researchers) want
to study or understand farming system of Eastern Ethiopia, it is up to the team to
discuss where and what to be focused or included and why.

Let say you may exclude HaramayaWoreda perceiving that is better of area or
exclude remote area due to inaccessibility of means of transport. You may focus
only on crops or on livestock based on farmers’ priority. However, this does not
mean that you totally neglect the excluded parts; rather the excluded parts on
study could be seen still as connected sub-part or the environment of the system.
As Dillon (1976) has put it ‘System performance must…be judged not simply in
terms of how each part works separately, but in terms of how the parts fit together
and relate to each other, and in terms of how the system relates to its environment
and to other systems in that environment’.

For the above example, although your focus is crops, you must not neglect
interaction between crops and livestock and even if you excluded some Woredas
from focus you must consider interaction between Woredas focused and
neighboring woredas excluded from study. This is entirely different from
reductionist/hard system approach. E.g. when traditional economists study
something they measure almost everything in terms of money, but, farmers or
human beings as a whole do not measure everything terms of money. For instance,
we assess things in terms of security (we prefer less risky), culture or religion (e.g.
most people in Ethiopia don’t eat pork) etc. FSRA consider all these elements, i.e. is
holistic approach. The scholars describe the three common elements of FSR
Approach (Darnhofer et al, 2012)

28
 1. Interdisciplinary: FSA combines one or more academic discipline (natural
and social sciences) in an activity. For example, combining agronomy,
ecology, plant breeding, livestock sciences, economics, anthropology, rural
sociology working in collaboration in project design and implementation
2. System thinking: Understand the farm and household as one system.
This implies that much attention is given to interactions, e.g. between
technical and social components, resource allocation decisions, biotechnical
and ecological processes.
3. Have a dynamic and participatory approach: with on-going changes in
public policies, society's expectations, market prices or local opportunities,
research focuses on the ability of Farming households.
4. Multidisciplinary. "A multidisciplinary approach involves drawing
appropriately from multiple disciplines to redefine problems outside of normal
boundaries and reach solutions based on a new understanding of complex
situations" (Wikipedia, 2015).

Youtube video on cassava farming system research example

[Link]

3.1 Activity

AICM students are from different education background, i.e. you are multidiscipline
classmates. Please, refer the difference between multidisciplinary research and
interdisciplinary research and which one is better for solving current problems of
agriculture in Africa? (For example, many of the farming systems in Africa are far
from their productive potential while accelerated economic growth in Africa now
offers demand-side opportunities for agriculture)

Assignment
Read the following article showing examples on how TOT approach has failed in
rural development and how a systems approach has been beneficial. Prepare your
own reflection in the articles for 10 minutes presentation to class.

29
Gebre, G.G. and Zegeye, D. M. [Link] of farmers’ innovativeness in
central zone, Tigray, Ethiopia. International Journal of Agricultural Policy and
Research 2:215-223.

Giller, K. E, E. Witter, M. Corbeels, and P. Tittonell 2009. Conservation agriculture

and smallholder farming in Africa: The heretics’ view. Field Crops Research 114:23-
34.

Abate, T., B. Shiferaw, S. Gebeyehu, B. Amsalu, K. Negash, K. Assefa, M. Eshete, S.

Aliye and J. Hagmann. 2011. Outlook on AGRICULTURE 40(3):213-220.

Fujisaka, A. 1989. The need to build upon farmer practice and knowledge:
reminders from selected upland conservation projects and policies. Agroforestry
Systems 9:141-153.

Further reading

Please, click this link [Link] for further

exploration about historical roots and current undertaking about the FSR approach.

Petheram and Clark (1998) Modified from paper in Australian Journal of

Experimental Agriculture (1998) 38, 101-115.
[Link]

Darnhofer et al (2012) F a r mi n g Systems Research: An approach to inquiry1

[Link]

30
Part 2: Reviewing Evolution of FSR and Birth of
Sustainable Livelihood Approach

Introduction

In the preceding first part of the module, we hope you understood basics concepts
of system thinking, application hard and soft systems and birth of FSR from soft
system thinking. In this second part of the module, you will be familiar with
challenges faced FSR practices and drivers for its evolution. Finally, you will look at
birth of Sustainable Rural Livelihood (SRL) Approach as complementary of FSR.

Learning objectives

By the end of this part you should be able to:

 understand main Drivers for Evolution of FSR approach as the early FSR
faced challenges

 understand the in depth concept of Sustainable Rural Livelihoods

 understand the implications of SRL Framework for Development analysis and

policy practices

Learning outcomes

By the end of this part, you should be able to:

 explain main drivers for evolution of FSR approach

 explain the in depth concept of Sustainable Rural Livelihoods

 explain the implications of SRL Framework for Development analysis and

policy practices

Learning Unit 1: Early FSR constraints and Drivers for

Evolution

The experience shows that earlier FSR approach had not gone further beyond
analyzing agricultural production and productivity like reductionist approach. The
only difference is that FSR considered small farmers context to produce relevant
agricultural technologies for better adoption. However, afterwards in 1990s it has

31
been realized that FSR approach itself has problem and it needs further thinking
about how to practice sustainable agriculture in the whole world. Such thinking from
different disciplines has reinforced evolution of FSR approach to become more
holistic in analysis to broaden understanding of farming systems. In this unit, we will
discuss main drivers of that evolution and as result birth of Sustainable
Livelihood Approach.

1. Universally dominant development model and growing dissatisfaction

Globally, the way of thinking and practicing of agriculture has been influenced by
economic development thinking. However, since some of you do not have
knowledge about development theories and models, let us discuss very simple
meaning of dominant development model and how it becomes threat to
sustainability of our planet earth.

The early 1950s definition of development was “economic growth”. The definition
was originated based on how developed nations brought development prematurely.
This means early economists used to recommend a given country should follow
footstep of developed nations. That is simply modernization theory. All countries of
the world have been following western worlds as a model. The model of developed
nations is based on increasing Gross Domestic Products (GDPs) or economic growth
or accumulation of wealth through exploiting available resources such as human
resources (labor and skills) and natural resources (renewable and nonrenewable
resources on the land).

You surely guess that all human beings in the world cannot equally work and
accumulate wealth. Thus few members of the society become richer and richer and
majority becomes poor and pooper. This is still main challenge even in developed
nations, although they have mechanism of fulfilling basic needs of their citizens.
This challenge has raised question of social justice or fairness in development in the
1980s. It is about how to reduce social inequality and bring social inclusive
development. Then definition of development polished as “evenly distributed
economic growth”.

Further, since the 1987 report of Brundtland Commission to United

Nationshasarticulatedimperative of sustainable development concept, it is globally

32
accredited that economic development is more than economic growth. This is
because capitalist model of increasing a national GDP through input intensive
agriculture has endangered natural ecosystem and instigated socio-economic
inequality among people in the world (Hawkins, 2009). This is especially, the worst
in SSA. Thus, to address challenges of sustainability and equity, creating
multifunctional agriculture that generate“a multi-outputactivity producing not
only commodities (food, feed, fibers, agrofuels, medicinal products&ornamentals),
but also non-commodity outputs such as environmental
sciences,landscapeamenities and cultural heritages” has been recommended
worldwide by International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and
Technology for Development (IAASTD) in 2002 (Hawkins, 2009).

What happened to SSA agriculture during these changes?

In Sub Saharan Africa, in the past and up until now, agriculture is main livelihoods of
majority of population and engine of economic growth. Despite of changes in
definitions of development, politicians and policy makers of developing nations like
Africa are still preoccupied by modernization model of sole GDP growth as short
term objective of gaining public votes for subsequent elections.

For example, since there has been improvement in agricultural productivity in many
African countries in the last ten years, GDP has been up for the last decade.
However, the improvement in agricultural production could not reduce hunger, food
and nutrition security in Africa relative to GDP growth. Further, production
increment was not per unit area, rather area expansion, which is very dangerous for
environmental sustainability and climate change impacts.

To conclude, Scholars argue that if agriculture is exploited for short term in name of
GDP growth and food security, the natural resource depletion will become very
worse and since GDP oriented development gives less attention to social equity the
hunger and poverty will persist for indefinite future in Africa.

2. Wackiness in conventional way of measuring human welfare

33
 Activity 1.1

Please, remember different academic and policy papers of agricultural and rural
development of Ethiopia/ any African country, which you read, and academic
seminars and policy workshops you attended! Discuss to what to extent the papers
you read and seminars and workshops attended were dominated by about
analyzing and lecturing the following three dominant thinking in achieving
agricultural and rural development. Submit the summary to your instructor!

1. Increasing agricultural Production

2. Employment creation
3. Reducing number of rural people below poverty line

Most social scientists and professionals have been measuring the above three
thinking in standard units to analyze the level of the wellbeing of rural people due to
development policy intervention. The thinking is highly dominant in social science
academics and policy arena up until today.

However, the evidences have been overwhelming that the three mode of thinking
has high values to show reality of rural people in western nations and less valuable
to show the reality of rural people of developing nations.

(1)Increasing agricultural Production: We all believe that the only way of

reducing famine, food and nutrition insecurity etc. is increasing agricultural
production and productivity. However, after the well-known seminal work of
(AmartyaSen, 1981), it is understood that food being produced is already
sufficient to feed world population; rather the main problem is entitlements.
The concept of entitlement is very broad, cannot be explained here. For purpose
of this module, it means that what make somebody hungry or starved is not that
much about absence of food, but it is about relation between food and individual
human beings.

For example, if you are hungry at Haramaya University in main Campus as

graduate student it does not necessarily mean that food is not available in the

34
Campus. Food is available at Student cafeteria, staff lounge, and supermarket
and at Bate shops and cafes. Accessing the food from student cafeteria is
possible if you or your sponsor paid for meal card, you access other foods
through buying. Access is defined as “the ability of an individual to use a
particular resource”. Here resource is money. This means if you don’t have
money or meal card (which you buy by money) you cannot access food in or
around the Campus. Still you can claim for or appeal to your friends or
university body to get food. E.g. of claims are borrowing money, that is only
possible if people trust you and you have capacity to repay. You may have right
to appeal to Student dean/service, which is only possible if there is law or rule or
regulation of the country or University that allows it.

What does this example tell us about increasing agricultural production? It tells
us that an increase in agricultural production is not necessarily meant that food
is available for all rural people or for all citizens in a given country. For example,
assume the average increment of Ethiopian agricultural production in 2014 is
40%. That increment could be made by small number of rural farmers, who have
access to means of production and due to favorable ecosystem in specific area
of the country. The rest of the farmers may not produce the food due to absence
of means of production (absence of land, labor etc.) and/or unfavorable
ecosystem (drought, disease, pest etc.) conditions. Thus the farmers access the
food either through buying or through claim; otherwise they will be starved to
death. Buying is only possible only if the farmers have other resources to sell or
exchange such as livestock, labor services, handcrafts etc. Farmers can claim for
food only if there is such opportunities in local social practices like from
relatives, kinship etc. or if there is legal procedure or policy that supports it. We
wonder why starved people sometimes forced to migrate, simply they find where
they can access (e.g. daily laborer) or can claim food (e.g. food aid, begging).

This means as an academician, research, student and policy maker we should

not only worry about simplistic analyzing and presenting about average
agricultural production change, but also about complex issues of entitlements
such as issue of ownership, access, claim, control of different resources by
individuals, or household or community.

35
(2)Employment creation: many scholars and policy makers perceive problem of
rural people as lack of employment or underemployment. Thus they suggest the
solution for rural people is to create job for everyone. However, in reality rural
people are already toiling on multiple activities day in and day out. Even in
urban area we say somebody has job if he/she is employed in formal sectors in
public or private. However, in practice, most people are already working
different activities such selling in parents shop, taking children to school, in
barber, in family farm etc. in the other words, social scientists often consider
formal employment when analyzing employment status of individuals. However,
scholars who have contributed for origin of SRL approach, argue that any activity
individuals do should be recognized for them. Because, when somebody does
some activity, we should not measure the achievement in terms of income, the
achievement could be knowledge or skills, could be creating access and claim to
other non-monitory and social resources. E.g. if you support your relatives, you
are building social network that enables you to claim. Further, although
somebody earns money from some job, it could be short term, not continuous
(sustainable) or it may harm other resource of that person. E.g. some job may
damage health (resource) of a person while s/he is earning money and that
money may not replace his/her health.

(3)Poverty-Line: poverty-line is about measurement of deprivation or

dispossession of individuals in terms of income (such as salary, wage, and
consumption) mostly measured as individual earning in number of US Dollar per
day. In national policy, for example, if Ethiopian poverty-line is one Dollar per
day, the objective of the Government of Ethiopia (GoV) is to raise incomes of
majority of citizens above the line. However, poverty or deprivation is often
relative in rural society or even in any society. All people in the world never
measure poverty in terms of daily income of a person. When we say somebody is
poor or deprived of something we do not necessarily talk or indicate amount of
money a person earn.

We can indicate deprivation of a person in many attributes such as absence of

relatives, less respect from community, lack of clothing, house, food, income etc.
e.g. the meaning or criteria of poverty in Somali pastoralist around Jigjiga Town

36
 and Farmers around Haramaya University is not the same. If it is absolute
deprivation like famine, severe malnutrition that kills people it is obvious, no
need of measuring or comparing, it needs urgent action.

You may remember what happened in Ethiopia due to famine during Haile
Selassie and Dergi Regimes. That is real absolute deprivation people did not
have means of production and favorable natural conditions and had not any
chance to access and claim food. Locally, all people were deprived and
nationally there was no policy and institution that facilitate claim or there was no
political will to do so. Thus many people were starved to death while the world
community had ample food to safe lives of those people. This is to say when it is
absolute poverty; it is already clear no need of analyzing further. When it comes
to relative deprivation each community has its own criteria of how to measure
poor or deprived person and multidimensional, not single criterion of income. We
must use community’s criteria to get more realistic data and design relevant
policy interventions in agricultural and rural development.

To conclude, the three mode of thinking are common way of analyzing human
welfare in academics as well as in policy arena. However, they are very simplistic
and straightforward that easily fit into econometrics models. In fact, they satisfy
academic criteria of publication and promotion and policy makers can easily
persuade the public that there is success in development intervention. However,
the three modes of thinking do not have capacity to explain the complex reality of
rural peoples’ means of living. Sustainable Rural Livelihood Approach has been
developed as alternative to the three mode of thinking. Let us Discussion the core
meaning of SRL in next unit. Before proceeding to next unit do the following activity
1.2.

Activity 1.2

Currently the running Ethiopian Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) is example of
expanding poor entitlement to food. But, who is entitled for it, what criteria is used

37
to select deprived beneficiaries? What kind of entitlement the beneficiaries gained
through the program?

38
Learning Unit 2: Understanding concept of Sustainable Rural
Livelihoods

Sustainable Rural Livelihood concept was conceived by Chambers and

Conway in 1992 to challenge linear thinking (like three mode of thinking
discussed in preceding unit) about agricultural and rural development
measurement in the developing nations. They have defined it as follows
Livelihoods of small farmers in Africa (video)
[Link]

'A livelihood comprises the capabilities,assets (including both material and

social resources) and activities required for a means of living. A livelihood is
sustainablewhen it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks
and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in the
future, while not undermining the natural resource base' (Chambers and
Conway, 1992).

To easily capture the conceptual and practical meaning of SL Approach let us

define each concept by practical examples and we will finally link all
concepts together to build full SRL framework in use. Let us begin from
Livelihood concept of capabilities.

1. Concept of Capabilities in SLA

The concept of capabilities is defined by AmartyaSen, who is economist and

political philosopher. He was also Nobel memorial prize winner in economics
in 1998. He is one of the influential thinkers in 20 th and early 21st centuries
about how to challenge global inequality in development. Sen defines the
concept of capabilities as

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“A person’s ability to do valuable acts or reach valuable states of being;
[that] represents the alternative combinations of things a person is able to
do or be” (Sen 1993).

From this definition capabilities are kinds of opportunities or freedoms that

an individual has reasons to value and able to achieve. We discussed already
weakness in three modes of thinking about how development outcome or
human welfare or deprivation is measured. In the same vein, Sen is the main
challenger of the three mode of thinking. He defines capabilities approach
against poverty-line/income earning or evaluation in terms of income or
commodity.

The most common mechanism that economists use to measure wellbeing or

poverty level of an individual is wealth (incomes or material gain analysis)
and the subjective individual mental reaction about his satisfaction (utility)
with wealth (welfare analysis).

Sen argues that both methods of income and welfare analyses do not directly
evaluate how well someone’s life is going. They are rather indirect and each
has limitations. Why? He says it is because; all people do not have equal
ability to convert income (money) to valuable activities or in his term
“functionings”. In terms of utility measurement, people may say we are
okay while they are suffering. The reason is that some people may adapt
suffering and take the suffering as “adaptive preference”. For example, small
farmers around Haramaya campus may say “we have good quality water”,
but the water may not be pure and it is harming their health. However, since
they adapted it they say it is okay. Or they may shy to say the water is bad
due to power unbalance between the people and the experts or politicians.

What can be learnt from this concept?

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Thus Sen’s capabilities approach (CA) is alternative measurement of human
wellbeing. The main argument is that when we evaluate wellbeing of a
person, we should not see a person as means of gaining income or economic
growth. Why?

For example, if you work as shoe shiner, worker you may earn 200 Ethiopian Birr
per day in Ethiopia. In terms of income that is best and economists measure your
wellbeing (quality of life) in terms of that income. However, from capabilities
approach’s view, what matters is not the money you earn per day or per month. The
CA evaluates whether the shoeshine work you are involved is what you freely
chosen and have reason to value or you are enforced to work as shoeshine due to
lack of freedom to choose other activities you value most than shoeshine? The
example is not to devalue shoeshine work, but, you have to consider how different
society in which we live perceives shoeshine person social status. E.g. what kind of
social status community gives to shoeshine person and how that person perceives
him/herself due to the social pressure. Do the community members let shoeshine
person to marry their daughter, do they lend money to shoeshine person, or all in
all do they respect him as other social person.

This is to say that an individual in different communities/regions/countries has a

kind of life s/he values and want to be. So, CA focuses on a person, not on material
gain. Thus CA argues that when a development policy is designed it must consider
diversity in what human beings value and prevailing complicated social relations.
E.g. Ethiopia has more 80 ethnic groups, which have diverse values and hence,
development policy must understand and appreciate that values. Appreciation does
not mean we should support harmful cultural practices of a community; rather it is
to say that we have to understand ‘why people do what they do from their point of
view’ and solve the problems accordingly without hurting their other values. For
example, read the hypothetical example in the box below and imagine what could
happen if diversity of values is not respected in a certain context.

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Assume two households from different social groups in rural areas joined
agricultural project interventions, provided improved seeds, achieved equal
annual yield (20 quintals of cereals) as an outcome. One household is from
a 'respected' social group and the other is from 'disrespected' group. In
the process of project intervention, the one from respected group freely
interacted and different people seeking for any kind of support the
household may need. The one from disrespected group was feeling
humiliated, had less interaction with people and never sought for help from
others like the respected ones. Rather, the household was feeling socially
ashamed, but, struggled and achieved equal yield with respected one.

Lesson from this example: the two households achieved equal outcome or
“functioning”. If we only evaluate this outcome or functioning, we may
conclude that the two people are equal and that is all about equality.
However, if we evaluate the story behind the outcome of two households,
they have difference in terms of real freedom they had to choose and to do
what they values. The one from respected group had real freedom and did
what s/he valued. The one from disrespected group had not freedom to
choose and do what s/he values most. If he had equal capabilities with
respected one he may achieve more what s/he achieved.

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To understand core tenet of CA, let us distinguish between capabilities and
functionings.
Functioningsis defined as what a person is able to do (activities) or be as a
result (status). (‘Beings and doings’). For example, if you are able to eat
balanced food (doing or activity), you will enjoy the functioning of being well
nourished (being or status). Some commonly valuedfunctionings by human
being are: Being able to live long [indicator in UN Human Development
Index(HDI)], being well-nourished, being healthy, being literate (indicator in
HDI), being well-clothed, being mobile, being able to take part in the life of
the community, being not to feel ashamed in community, being happy etc.
For almost all of human beings gaining combinations of the above
functionings is better or valued achievements in life. Thus capabilities
approach then inform us that to analyze quality of wellbeing of a person (1)
freedom of the person to enjoy the combinations of the functionings and
his/her ability to choose what s/he has a reason to values.

The above example of the two households from different social groups
explains the difference between the capabilities and functionings. The
functioning is the achievement or outcome (yield). The capability is the
freedom in choosing and doing that functioning or outcome. Thus if we
analyze capabilities rather than functiongs we can easily identify inequality,
marginalization and disadvantaged groups from agricultural and rural
development interventions and take corrective action for future.

Let us take another practical example to show real difference between

capabilities and functionings again:
Assume two persons (Person A and person B) did not eat enough food for 24 hours
and thus they are losing functioning of being well nourished. The person A is a
victim of drought in pastoral area of Ethiopia, while the person B is in Washington
D.C. protesting against land grabbing in Africa through 24 hours hunger strike in
front of white House.

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What we can learn from the above example is that although both persons lack the
functioning of being well nourished equally, the freedom and the ability they
had to avoid being hungry is central point. The person B has (freedom of choice
plus ability) to avoid hunger, while the person A cannot. This means for person B
has done what he valued and hence it is noted as capability for him/her. For person
A, hunger was not his/her valued choice and thus it is noted as incapability or
capability failure that needs appropriate intervention.

What capability concept implies in SRL Approach?

The most important thing in human livelihood improvement is not material

gain, but is freedom people have to choose what they are actually able to be
and do. Thus as (Chamber and Conway, 1991) have put it “the quality of life
is seen in terms of valued activities and the ability to choose and perform
those activities”. Therefore, development is here defined as expansion of
capabilities such as education service; health service, democracy, gender
and ethnic equality etc.

In the SRL capability is more about how poor rural people have freedom to
choose and pursue means of living, which they value. And their ability to
recover from different challenges such as shocks and stresses(see 3rd sub-
section vulnerability context below) and continues to live the daily life they
have reason to prefer.

Activity 2.1

The work of Sen is to challenge the global word to evaluate human wellbeing
or development outcome from the lens of capabilities approach. His work
has already become impetus for origin of Human Development Index
(HDI) and influenced 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Please,

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read meanings of HDI and MDGs reflect on to what extent Sen’s Capabilities
Approach is noticeable. Submit summary to your instructor!

2. Livelihood Assets or Capitals

The second concept in definition of SRL is Livelihood Assets or capitals. The

following figure depicts the pentagon surrounded by five livelihood assets
(see example of each asset). The pentagon can be taken as spider diagram.
Assume that the rural poor people stand in the center of the pentagon and
making their living. And the distance between each angle of pentagon and
the poor people shows the amount of an asset available and accessible to
poor to be utilized. As you may see the irregular pentagon drawn by broken
line inside the big pentagon it shows how the assets shirk toward the poor.
This means for example, broken line is almost flat to the side of physical
capitals or assets. That indicates the poor of that particular area have less
physical assets or less access to physical assets such as roads, telecom,
agricultural technologies etc. if physical assets are improved or accessed the
pentagon expand outward to show how the poor got better access to
physical assets.

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 Human Capital
Health, Nutrition, Education, Knowledge and
skills Capacity to work & Capacity to adapt etc.

Social Capital
Networks & connections
Patronage Natural Capital
Neighbourhoods kinship Land and produce
Relations of trust and mutual Water & aquatic resources
support Trees and forest products
Formal and informal roups Wildlife
Common rules and sanctions Life of the Poor
Wild foods & fibres
Collective representation
Mechanisms for participation in Biodiversity
decision-making Environmental services
Leadership etc.

Financial Capital
Physical Capital Ssavings Credit/debt
Infrastructure - transport - roads, vehicles, etc.
Secure shelter & buildings water supply & sanitation formal, informal, NGOs
Energy, communications Remittances, Pensions, Wages etc.
Tools and techology - tools and equipment for production seed,
fertiliser, pesticides traditional technology etc.

Figure 2: five Livelihood assets with examples

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For example, the following two figures show example of shrinkage and expansion of
livelihood assets among small farmers due to difference in access to irrigation. It
means that small farmers who have access to irrigation facilities cultivate their land
appropriately, sell surplus harvest to earn finance asset, rent in additional plot of
land (natural capital expanded), can hire extra labor (human capital expanded), can
develop good social relation like marriage (social capital expanded) with neighbors
and can buy house (physical capital expanded). Small farmers, who do not have
access to irrigation facilities, will face the inverse result (i.e. shrinkage of assets).

Small farmers who haven’t irrigation facilities Small farmers who have irrigation
facilities

Figure 3: shrink and expansion of Livelihood Assets

What we can understand from concept of Livelihood Assets?

What are the other assets you must understand besides these 5 tangible material
assets? Access and claims are the most important intangible assets that are
hidden in local social assets and in external policies, institutions and processes
(discussed below under sub-section 4).
As you may guess although all assets may be available in a given community or
region, all people may not have equal access and control over these assets. We
already defined meaning of access in preceding section. In social science, control
means beyond access, it is when somebody has full power over assets to decide on
and to manage the way s/he wants.

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Example: Small farmers in Ethiopia have right to access (i.e. use right) to land, but,
they cannot sell it. This means farmers do not have full control over assets.
Especially, with growing expansions/urbanization, farmers around urban areas fear
that their land may be appropriated soon. This indicates farmers have limited
access to land or have no control over the land. This makes farmers much more
insecure and disincentive them to invest in the land for long term vision. This
access and control over assets may differ based on gender, ethnicity, age, etc. of
individuals in community or region or in country that must be considered during
livelihood analysis.

Here the farmers may be compensated huge about of money or other land as
substitute. If you evaluate land snatching from farmers and compensation through
the lens of capabilities approach (CA), the CA evaluates whether the snatching is
what farmers value and whether farmers have capabilities to use what they are
compensated. This means for small farmers cultivating is what they value and able
to do. If they are given money, do they have capabilities ( do valuable acts or
reach valuable states of being) with the money? This could mean although
farmers may wish to become businessmen, they do not have ability to do
that. So, government should not only give money to farmers, whom the land
is appropriated, but also must develop their capabilities to enable them to
freely choose and do the other livelihoods they value other than farming.

The meaning of claim is when you have chance of appealing for resources
(such as food, land, animal, moral etc.) you lost due to different reasons such
as disaster, war, etc. collectively which is called vulnerability context of
assets (see next section). E.g. if a Boranapastoralist lost his cattle herd
(shock), he appeals to his relatives and get some number of cattle. That is
possible only if he is socially respected and has equal social status with other
members of community. He may also appeal to government food security
department and NGOs, which depends on available rights, powers,
obligations, moral consents etc. in country policies, institutions and

48
processes. However, these possibilities differ again based on gender, age,
ethnicity, religion etc. which is also under changes, albeit the pace of change
differ in different context. For instance, the above cited example of Borana
case we may realize that it is changing due to long term trends and
changesinsideand outsideBorana community.

From this you may understand that the livelihoods of the poor people is affected by
1. Diversity of assets: having only some assets without having the other assets
will negatively affect the livelihood.
2. Amount of assets: the more livelihood assets the better the livelihoods of the
poor
3. Balance among the assets: for sustainability there should be balance among
assets and within each asset. E.g. if there is farm land and no water, it is
challenging to cultivate land. If there is huge financial (cash) asset and less
natural asset (no land even to rent in), where to invest the money could be
challenging unless a person invest in non-farm activities.
4. Access, control and claims are very important intangible assets needs to be
considered to analyze whether members of society have equal chance to use
available resources.

All in all, A key tenet of SRLA about the assets is that these assets are not mutually
exclusive, it resultant interaction of these assets that determine people to choose
what activities they can do and what livelihood strategies they choose.

3. Vulnerability Contexts of the assets and indirecly life of the poor rural
people

Vulnerability is very wide concept, which used in diffrent disciplines. For purspe of
this course, vulnerability is defined as the degree to which a an individual, or
household or region is likely to experience harm due to livelihood assets exposure to
a hazard (shocks, seasonability, trends and changes). Vulnerability meausres about
what happened to poor peoples’ life at a given context or condition. E.g. assume
if flooding disater happens at Haramaya University, vulnerability is not only about

49
assessing level of hazard or damage occured. Rather vulnerability is much more
about undertanding people conditions or it is concerned about capabilities of
people. This means although people have equal amount of assets, they do not have
equal capabilities. E.g. although methrologiest broadcasted the probability of
flooding at HU on Radio, all people do not listen to radio or do not know language in
which the information was braodcated.

What is condition for this example? It is about analysing level of preparedness of

diffrent group of people such as stduents (male, feamle), academicians,
administrative staff, local farmers (male/female/children) etc. Level of capcity to
recover? Who is less likely to recover and hence need external assistance? This
depneds on avaiability and access to assets to an individuals. Please, see the
following figure and subsquent explanation of terms.

Vulnerability Context S

 6KRFNV Life of the Poor

 6HDVRQDOLW
\
 7UHQGV &KDQJ HV

Figure 4: velnurability contexts of livelhood assets

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SHOCKS: there are a lot ofshocks in poor livelihood due to multitude of
factor and actors. Such as illness, disaster, economic, conflict, crop /
livestock pests &diseases, Floods, droughts, cyclones, Family deaths in,
Violence or civil unrest etc.

SEASONALITY- when assets are affected due toseasonal variations. E.g.

good rain means better harvest. Then food supply is better. Small farmer
could be food insecure when rain comes late. Mostly Rainfall, climate,prices,
production, health, employment depend of season.

TRENDS AND CHANGES- therre arelong term trends and changes that
narrow livelihood assets availability and access and even degrade its
potential to be functional: best example are population growth may deplete
(quantity loss) and degrade (quality loss) natural resource base. E.g. change
in land size and soil fertility; forest depletion and degradation etc. some
common factors contributing long term trends and changes areclimate
change, inflation, currency devaluation, structural unemployment, poor
governance, Environmental change,Technology, Markets and trade,
Globalisation.

According to Robert Chambers, vulnerability has been understood from two

sides as explained below.

 From an external side of shocks and stress: This means whether there are
policies and institutions that protect and help recover people from
vulnerability. If someone is sick (human capital loss) and has health
insurance (strong formal institution), s/he easily go to hospital for
treatment by ambulance. Here, if physical capitals (hospital, ambulance,
road, and telecom) are not available, the person could not access the
service.
 From an internal side of an individual or household defenselessness due
to lack of means to cope with hazards. E.g. if somebody is sick (human
capital loss) and does have not money (no financial asset) and has no

51
 relatives (social capital) to whom s/he may appeal, s/he cannot to go to
available hospital. Thus, s/he may easily die from simple illness.

Further Reading
Best reference for further understanding of social vulnerability concept in
SRLA.

Cannon et al. (2004) social vulnerability, sustainable livelihoods and

disasters:
[Link]
%20Vulnerability-%20Sustainable%20Livelihoods%20and%[Link]
Adams, W.M. 2009. Green Development: Environment and Sustainability in a
Developing World, 3rd edition. New York: Routledge.

4. Policies, Institutions & Processes

In the second sub-section of this learning unity, we have discussed the five
Livelihood Assets. Hope you understood that it is resultant interaction and
transformation of these assets that determine the way poor rural people live.
We also touched that although these assets are available at local levels, all
people may not have equal access to and control over these assets. For E.g.
you may discuss land use policy known as “land tenure system” of Ethiopia.
Generally, any country in the world has its own policies, formal institutions
and processes that enable or disable rural people or any citizen’s access to
and control over available assets. Especially, natural asset/resources (e.g.
land, water, mines, and oils) and financial asset (e.g. credit system) are the
key assets in making or transforming living of people, if they are fairly
accessible to all citizens.

52
Likewise, if you observe local communal cultural practices on the available
assets, each community has its own informal institutions and local processes
on how to regulate community’s member’s accesses to and controls over
local assets. The local communities practice the rules and regulations
irrespective of national policies, formal institutions and processes. However,
there is always either divergence or convergence between the national
policy practice and community practices.

Example: If you go to BabileWoreda and observe some Kebeles, the

communities are settled based on tribe and share the land accordingly. This
means for instance even if Tribe-A has abundant farmland, the member of
Tribe-B may not access it. However, this is against Ethiopian land tenure
policy since it says all citizens have equal right on accessing the land.

From this you may also realize that even the members of a household
(husband, wife, sons, daughters, and grandmother/father) of a given rural
household may not get equal access to household’s resources/assets. E.g.
wife may have access to and control over animal products like milk, egg,
while husband has control over the animals. In terms of human asset
development, culturally sons may be sent to school while daughters may not
be.

From the above discussion, you may learn that when you study about
problem of rural community you must thinking beyond availability of the
assets. Because; the simple availability of assets does not guarantee that all
members of community or all citizens of nation use the assets without
difficulty. Thus, when you analyze rural livelihood, you must critically
consider impacts of local cultural practices and policies and institutional
processes on arranging access and control mechanisms on available assets
and how that mechanisms enable or disable each member of rural

53
communities to use the assets. Since some of you do know not meaning of
policy, institution and process, see the following definitions.

Policy: In social science, policy has no clear meaning, which you may learn
in other module. For the purpose of this module, policy is statements that
inform civil servants, politicians and ordinary citizens what course of action
should be taken to achieve some development objective or to solve some
problem. The policy statements are prepared by either few people, who are
responsible at top level or through participation of many actors from bottom
to top. Policy is approved by institutions. For example, there is policy for
education, land, road, mining, health etc. For your easy understanding, for
e.g. Ethiopia has education policy statements prepared by experienced
experts and approved by parliament (institution). Before approval the paper
was called policy draft, after approved is called official education policy. The
role of leading the education policy implementation is given to Ministry of
Education (MoE). However, the direction of implementation goes from MoE to
each Regional Bureaus- then to -Zonal Education Office- then to –Woreda
Education Office- finally to – schools in Kebeles/Towns. For Universities, the
command is directly from MoE to Universities. Here process of command
goes in the organizational structure or bureaucratic structure. Those who
work in the structure are called public workers or bureaucrats or civil
servants. The education policy gives mandatory responsibility of
implementation to the bureaucrats, but, the policy experts, student parents
and NGOs play the key roles. All in all, you see many policies of government
at different tiers of governances (e.g. in Ethiopia Federal-Regional-Zonal-
Woreda), of NGOs from different countries, of international agencies like
United Nations, World Bank, IMF etc. that descent from top to bottom
through unfolded organizational structures to implement what policy of a
given issue says at local arena.

54
Institution: again there is no universally agreed definition of
[Link] can be defined as a group of organizations. E.g. we
often say ‘higher education institutions’ to mean ‘group of universities’. Or
we mostly use organization and institution interchangeably. Here institution
is “rules of the game” formal laws, rules, regulations and agreements that
are formally endorsed by different official bodies or informal rules,
regulations and agreements made by communites to ease uncertainity in
human interactions when every individuals run to making living through
different activites and strategies. Scoones (1999) defines instituion as
follows;

“institutions are the social cement which link stakeholders to access to

capital of different kinds to the means of exercising power and so define the
gateways through which they pass on the route to positive or negative
[livelihood] adaptation”

Please, remeber core meaning of soft system thinking and meaning of

institution has similarity with it. E.g. HU has Legislation, which is approved by
HU senate memebers. When needed it can be amended based on change in
contexts (soft system). For instance, to make it very clear to you, there is
forest policy that states how we can conseve, manage and sustain forests as
well as there is law that states nature of punishments for whose who violate
policy statement (what policy says). E.g what is punishment for who cut
trees.

Processes: This is about how organizational structures (hard ware) and

institutions (soft ware) interact to give intended functions at different levels.
The process is concerned about whether the best policy statement and the
best law written on the papers are put into practices. This depneds on how
orgnaizational structures are designed to outreach the citizens of a county
and how institutions are enforced (acted upon). E.g. Ethiopia has been

55
conducting many structural reforms like governance decentralization, budget
decentralization, Business Process Reegineering (BPR) etc. to improve
efficiencies of public sevice deliveries. Here, the process is very complex and
coflicting where different people from experts, politicians and local people
come together to perform overlaping activities.
For example HU has been implementing BPR to improve bureacratic
performance of the university. Especially, there have been lots of structural
reforms on reshufling adminstartive wokers and changing modes of teaching
and learning deliveries. If that structural reform to bring differences, there
should be institutional changes such as workers attitudes, norms and values
etc.

5. Livelihood Strategies

A livelihood strategy is about “what do rural people do?” by combining

(a) assets accessible to them plus (b) vulnerability context plus (c)
policies, institutions and processes.
Based that Scholars divide Livelihoods strategies into four categories
defined as follows.
A. Agricultural intensification: increasing productivity per unit area
through investment (improved varieties, fertilizer, etc.) Or increases in
labour inputs (e.g. mechanization). Farmers use this if they have access
to financial capital (own money of credit), human capital (skills &
knowledge) and have access to physical capital like road and transport to
market.
B. Agricultural extensification: is expanding farmland size. This mostly
happens in more traditional farming areas where land is abundant, but
other assets like improved farm inputs and human capitals are not
efficient.
C. Diversification: is combination of different farm and non-farm activities.
E.g. some people may have plot of farmland, work as daily laborer,

56
 involve in petty trade etc. based on season. Diversification concept is
very wide; please refer to (Garrity et al, 2012 accessible online see
references of part 3 of the module).
D. Migration: people can be pushed (push factors) from where they are;
e.g. migrate due to vulnerability e.g. conflict, drought, earth quick etc. Or
people may be pulled (pull factors) by the place they are migrating to.
E.g. many Africans migrate to Europe by being pulled by better life they
hear in Europe. Rural urban migration is also mostly pull factors.
Pastoralists’ mobility is both push and pull factors.

6. Livelihoods outcomes

Finally, what people want to achieve (end result) through pursuing different
strategies? In fact this depends on contexts and hence, rural people may
choose one of the above strategies or combination of strategies. However, if
the context is better and people are successful, they want to gain the
following outcomes;
More income; more sustainable use of the Natural Resource base; increased
well-being; protected rights; Recover dignity; Reduced vulnerability;
Improved food security etc.
Moreover, what people achieve could be self-esteem, security, happiness
etc. based on the views (Scoones, 1999). Please, the following figure 5 for
full SRL Framework drawn from SRL definition.

However, when rural people have limited access to assets; vulnerable to

different shocks (e.g. drought, famine,) and no supportive policies,
institutions and processes the livelihood outcomes are miseries such
malnutrition, hunger, death, natural resource base depletion etc.

57
58
Figure 5: Sustainable Rural Livelihood Framework when definition is in displayed as framework

59
Learning Unit 3: Implications of SRL Framework for
Development analysis and policy practices

Introduction
In the preceding unit, you have acquainted with core concept of SRL. We hope you
understood that livelihoods strategies rural people choose depend on accessible
livelihood assets, vulnerability contexts and policies, institutions and processes of a
given geographiclocation at time. Then what SRL approach/framework tells us about
how to change our thinking in agricultural and rural development planning and
interventions and in analysis of livelihoods outcomes from therein? The general goal
of this learning unit is to answer these broad questions.
Learning objectives
After completion of this learning unit, you will be able to understand SRL
Approach/ Framework as tool for
 analyzing livelihoods outcomes or development outcomes
 development planning
 development interventions

Learning outcomes
After completion of this learning unit, you will be able to use SRL Approach/
Framework as tool for
 analyzing livelihoods outcomes or development outcomes
 development planning
 development interventions

1. Fundamentals of SRL: Capability, equity and sustainability

The forefathers of SRL concept, Chambers and Conway (1991), argue that the three
concepts of capability, equity and sustainability are fundamentals of SRL
approach. They states “capability, equity and sustainability combine in the concept
of sustainable livelihoods”. The three concepts are defined in SRL approach as
follows;

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 (a) Capabilities: the concept has already been discussed in detail in the last
learning unit. As a reminder livelihoods capabilities is about ability and
available of opportunities to individuals/households/regions use available
livelihood assets; ability to cope with shocks and stresses without losing basic
functionings.

(b)Equity: is about justice in distribution of available livelihoods assets,

capabilities, and opportunities irrespective of social differences of people
such as sex, age, gender, ethnicity, caste etc. By and large, it is about
abolishing discriminations against humanity based on social differences.

(c) Sustainability: concept of sustainability has different theoretical and

practical meanings for different people based on the respective discipline,
which we already touched. From SRL perspective; environmental and social
sustainability are very important. Environmental sustainability is about
human beings livelihoods strategies e.g. intensive agriculture, mining, may
lessen degradation of renewable natural resources (e.g. water, air, soil
pollutions and forest losses) and wisely use non-renewable resources (e.g.
minerals, oils) for long term visions. Social sustainability is “ability to
maintain and improve livelihoods while maintaining or enhancing local and
global assets and capabilities that livelihoods depend.”(Chambers and
Conway, 1991).

Analytically and/or practically, the three concepts can be grasped as “means or

input” to achieve some end (livelihood outcome) and can be grasped as “end or
outcome” that livelihoods try to achieve by using other means. E.g. livelihoods
strategies that someone follows may enhance him to develop his capabilities (end,
e.g. gaining skills). The capabilities (as a means, gained skills) may enhance a
person to achieve decent livelihoods outcome. In terms of equity, safeguarded
minimum equity in household or community enhance for better livelihoods for all
(end), equity in livelihoods assets access is precondition (a means) to enhance
superior livelihoods for all as well.

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To be rigorous in development practices, the above three concepts should be
mutually supportive of each other. This means any of the three concepts should not
be comprised to achieve one of them; rather all the three should be achieved in
balanced way. E.g. if all members of given communities have equal access to
natural resources that is equity, but that resources may not be sustainable unless
there is institution (informal and/or formal) that manages the sources to be used
wisely for long term.

Further, although all people have equal chance to use resources, all people may not
have equal capability to use. Thus, all three concepts should be well considered in
development planning and interventions to forge the mechanism of enhancing
mutually supportive context…to achieve sustainable Livelihoods. The analysis
should also be cognizant of the imperative of mutuality of the three concepts, while
even analyzing one of the three concepts.

3.1. SRL framework for analyzing livelihoods outcomes or development

outcomes
SRL approach or Framework is commonly used for analytical purpose in
agricultural and rural livelihoods of developing nations. According to
scholars, the SRL is holistic framework that comprises of context specific
multiple elements from different disciplines and hence, it is very challenging
to forward universal methods of livelihoods assets, strategies, and outcomes
analysis under the dynamics policies and institutional contexts. However,
when one wants to use SRL framework for analysis of sustainable livelihoods,
the first principal question must be come in the mind of investigator, as
Scoones (1999) has stated, is
Given a particular context (of policy setting, politics, history, agro-
ecology and socio-economic conditions), what combination of
livelihood resources (different types of ‘capital’) result in the ability
to follow what combination of livelihood strategies (agricultural
intensification/extensification, livelihood diversification and migration)
with what outcomes? Of particular interest in this framework are the

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 institutional processes (embedded in a matrix of formal and
informal institutions and rganizations) which mediate the ability to
carry out such strategies and achieve (or not) such outcomes.
The above statement is too long. But, if you had understood the preceding
learning unit, it will be very easy to you to comprehend its message.
However, is it possible for a researcher or researchers to analyze all
elements of framework (i.e. context, livelihood resources, strategies, and
outcomes and institutional processes) in-depth at once? The answer is not
necessarily; rather it depends on the objective of analysis. However, what is
very critical is that we must be cognizant of the situation of all elements,
when we even deeply focus on a single element. For example, you want to
conduct MSc thesis research on “Nexus of rural household food security and
livelihood strategies in Haramayaworeda”. You must measure sampled
households’ food security status and identify livelihoods strategies and
describe the results quantitatively and/or qualitatively. However, to analyze
you study or to link your result with wider locale, you should understand
context, livelihood resources, and institutional processes of study area. Why
so?
 Because, you should know the past and present “context” of study
area. Thus, you must review the “context” as background of studies
and you can link it with your result to indicate the trend
 Since households’ livelihood strategies choice depends on
livelihood assets/resource access and availability, you must know
available and access assets to households. If there is weakness in
livelihood strategies choices, you may argue in your analysis it could
be because of resource availability and/or access challenges.
 Since existing institutional processes may enable or disable the
rural households to pursue livelihood strategies and outcomes (i.e.
food security for our case) they value, understanding institutional
environment will help you link your study result with institutional
context.

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Notice that at assessing livelihoods strategies and food security the unit of
analysis even could be individuals or household or community, or region. It
depends on nature of research to choose what is relevant. From this
remember about systemic thinking approach and read the following
statement from (Hawkins, 2009).
In development thinking, livelihood refers to the way people make a
living, and analyzing livelihood systems is the analysis of the factors
involved in the way in which people make a living. We speak of
“livelihood systems”, because the livelihood provided for is an
emergent property of a coherent and interrelated set of activities that
are implemented within a broader environment.

Activity 3.1
Observe the following Pictures A, B, C and D. What kind of livelihoods strategies you
observe? To what extent the observable livelihoods strategies help you speculate
what kinds of livelihoods assets are available or accessible and what kind of
livelihood outcomes are possible? Describe possible vulnerability context of each
livelihood strategy.

64
Pictures of different Livelihoods Strategies in Ethiopia
A B

C
D

© Alemu Sokora

For further understanding about SRL framework, please, refer the following figure
and read the provided references at the end of this learning unit.

65
Figure 6: Sustabale Rural Livelihoods: A framework for Analysis (Scoones, 1999)

66
3.2. SRL framework for development planning and interventions

In the past (from 1950s to 1980s), rural development interventions in developing

nations used to focus on agricultural development through transfer of new and
improved technologies to small farmers. This means agriculture was seen as the
only means of livelihoods and all rural people were seen as farmers. However,
according to SRL framework, before any intervention we should go beyond the
simplistic categories and understand individuals or households or communities
various livelihoods assets, strategies and outcomes based on vulnerability contexts
and policies and intuitional processes dynamics. Based on different contexts, the
framework suggests multiple intervention points are possible. However, this is not
straightforward since what is sustainable livelihood means is different for different
stakeholders. Thus, during problem analysis and planning, there should be active
participation of stakeholders to debate on what sustainable livelihood is and what
should be prioritized. Please, see the following box for principles of SRL.

Box 3: Principles of SRL

1. People-centered: beginning by understanding peoples’ priorities and
livelihood strategies.
2. Responsive and participatory: responding to the expressed priorities of
poor people.
3. Multi-level: ensuring micro-level realities inform macro-level institutions and
processes.
4. Conducted in partnership: working with public, private and civil society
actors.
5. Sustainable: environmentally, economically, institutionally, and socially.
6. Dynamic: ensuring support is flexible and process-oriented, responding to
changing livelihoods.
7. Holistic: reflecting the integrated nature of people’s lives and diverse
strategies.
8. Building on strengths: while addressing vulnerabilities.
For Example, for a given community we must consider expanding capabilities,
embedding equity and enhancing sustainability in livelihoods at different scales like
at individual or household or at community or regional level. Because, we already
discussed that irrespective of availability of livelihoods resources there could be
inequalities within single household such as discrimination against women, girls and
children or disabled individuals etc.

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  Expanding livelihoods assets such as soil and water management,
reforestation, health services, education and skills training, constructing
infrastructures, financial services (loans, credits), cooperatives etc. in
equitable and sustainable manners
 Livelihoods assets may be available, the problems could be access. Then the
intervention should focus on how to change organizational structures and
institutional arrangements at top and/or bottom. E.g. flexibility in public and
private services in efficiency, effectiveness, less corruption, etc. This is
biggest challenge of Africa. We have resources, but, we could not use it due
to institutional failures to delivery services.
 Considering Non-agricultural livelihoods strategies like migration, pretty
trade, laborer etc. that could be better than agriculture in terms of improving
livelihoods outcomes.
By and large, using SRL in Planning and intervention is not simple. However, SRL
encourages development actors to analyze problems in integrative and
participatory tools that help display rich pictures of different views, conflicting
interests and possible solutions.

References and further reading to understand concept of SRL

Chamber and Conway (1991) Sustainable Rural Livelihood: Practical concept for 21 century
(most cited 2704 times until Dec. 13. 2014) [Link]

Scoones (1999) Sustainable Rural Livelihoods a Framework for Analysis (cited 2329 until
Dec. 12, 2014)
[Link]
[Link]?sequence=1

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Part 3: Main Farming Systems in SSA, suggested SRL
pathways out of poverty and future drivers of FS

In the preceding part of the module, you are already familiar with the rationales for
origin of FS and evolution of SRL Approaches. You already understood implication of
SRL framework for livelihoods analysis, planning and interventions. In this part, we
will look at the current applicability of FS and SRL concepts in SSA small farmers’
context.

After completion of this last part of module, you will be able to;

 Understand current meaning of farming systems in SSA context

 Identify the main SSA farming systems based on specified criteria and
propose relevant livelihood strategies as pathways out of poverty for each
farming systems
 analyze context specific farming systems by the aid of ICT tools like GPS and
plan relevant development interventions

Learning Unit 1: Current meaning of Farming system in SSA

context

While FS has been defined differently by different scholars for the last four decades,
the current definition of farming system(Garrity et al, 2012) is;

Population of farm households, often a mix of small and larger farms, that as
a group have broadly similar patterns of livelihood and consumption
patterns, and constraints and opportunities, and for which similar
development strategies and interventions would be appropriate. Often, such
systems share similar agro-ecological and market access conditions

69
As you may understand from definition the concepts of system thinking and
Sustainable Livelihoods are already combined and display complexity of African
farmers’ means of living. From the definition you may understand that individual
household farm system has its own unique features due to context specificity of
local institutions and policies processes and differences in livelihood assets/resource
accesses and availabilities. The following figure 7depicts diagramed illustration of
Farming System, which is determined by many internal and external factors
that in turn dictate the household to decide on what livelihood strategies and
outcomes are possible or impossible.

70
Figure 7: Graphic representation of Farming system (source: Dixon et al,
2001)

The figure displays farm household decision-making practices on resources,

production, consumption and investment in cognizance of internal and external
factors. We hope that this figure is not new for you. The external factors of FS that
are shown on the left side of the figure are almost what are presented as policies,
institutions and process on SRL framework.

71
Concerning with internal factors of FS, we have already discussed that those
resources are livelihood assets that mostly determine livelihood strategies choice of
a household. Here, crops, trees, animals, fish, household, processing and off-farm
works are livelihood activities, which are already subsumed under livelihoods
strategies in SRL framework. E.g. cropping is livelihood activity, but, livelihood
strategy is about how to produce more harvest, how to generate income from
harvest, how to reduce risk (vulnerability) of harvest to drought etc. That is when
household choose intensification/extensification or diversification or migration or
combinations of these strategies it is based on both internal and external factors.
E.g. external factors like access to technology and market outlet and information of
market prices influence the household whether to intensify or diversify crops or
diversify toward animal farming or diversify to non-farm livelihood strategies or
combinations of them etc.

The contemporary developments in the field of natural resource management also

encourage us to look into ecosystem services. The ecosystem service concept
(see definition in the box below) also show us how the socio-economic and
biophysical factors described above determine the ecosystem service obtain which
is also associated with a particular farming system. For example, communities'
interactions with forest area is mediated by prevailing institutional arrangement
affecting tangible (e.g. timber) and intangible (regulation of micro-climate) from the
forest.

Currently, the demand for ecosystem services has become a trade-offs among
services have become the rule. For example, a country can increase food supply by
converting a forest to agriculture, but in so doing it decreases the supply of services
that may be of equal or greater importance, such as clean water, timber,
ecotourism destinations, or flood regulation and drought control.

Box: Brief definition of ecosystem and ecosystem services

Ecosystem - "An ecosystem is a dynamic complex of plant, animal,

and microorganism communities and the nonliving environment
interacting as a functional unit. Humans are an integral part of
ecosystems. Ecosystems vary enormously in size; a temporary pond in
72be ecosystems".
a tree hollow and an ocean basin can both

Ecosystem services - "Ecosystem services are the benefits people

obtain from ecosystems. These include provisioning services such as
food and water; regulating services such as regulation of floods,
From the above description it is apparent that ecosystem has service or de-service
to farming system/ agriculture. This is, generally, presented in figure below

Fig. – Ecosystem services and dis-services to and from agriculture. Solid arrows
indicate services, whereas dashed arrows indicate dis-services. Source: Wei et al.
(2007)

73
To conclude, the scholars, who have analysed farming system for many years,
agree that these internal and external factors have been and will be determinants
of characteristics, performance and future evolution farming systems in
developing nations like SSA. Again, the scholars category these factors into two:
biophysical and socio-economics factors.

Biophysical factors: biological (factors that affect the health and vitality of plants
and animals and the quality of harvested products such as diseases, pests, weeds
etc.) and physical (conditions of climate, water, and land).

Socio-economics factors: social (norms and customs related to livelihood asset

ownership and use, labor division by sex and age, religious practices etc. that
influence social dos and don’ts in day-to-day life). Economics (factors are market
and market infrastructures, new technologies, wages rate, extension service etc.
that influence commercialization of farming system).

According to scholars, the biophysical factors more likely define possible farming
systems in a given geographic location of developing nations, while socio-
economics factors are real determinant of actual farming systems in practice at
particular time. What does this mean? E.g. swine and potato farming could be
possible enterprises in Haramaya Woreda in terms of biophysical suitability.
However, community never practices swine farming due to social factor (religion)
and potato production may not be economical due to cheap market price
(economic factor). So that, socio-economics factors intensely impact what
community really practices.

Activity 1.1

Read the following articles and submit a summary of maximum of 10 pages to your
instructor

Swinton, S.M., F. Lupi, G. P. Robertson and S. K. Hamilton 2007. Ecosystem services

and agricultural ecosystems for diverse benefits. Ecological Economics 64:245-252.

Power, A. G. 2010. Ecosystem services and agriculture: tradeoffs and synergies.

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal British Society 365:2959-2971.

74
Bennett, E. M., G.D. Peterson and L. J. Gordon. 2009. Understanding relationships
among multiple ecosystem services. Ecology Letters 12:1394-1404.

Learning Unit 2: Farming system classification in SSA

The SSA farming systems classification has been made by Dixon et al (2001) in
order to pinpoint best fit agricultural and rural development strategies and
interventions in accordance with incumbent farming system of given location. To do
so, Dixon et al have used the following criteria to classify and Garrity et al, (2012)
have capitalized on the former and added some details.

1. available natural resource base, including water, land, grazing areas and
forest;
climate, of which altitude is one important determinant; landscape, including
slope; farm size, tenure and organization; and
2. dominant pattern of farm activities and household livelihoods,
including field crops, livestock, trees, aquaculture, hunting and gathering,
processing and off-farm activities; and taking into account the main
technologies used, which determine the intensity of production and
integration of crops, livestock and other activities.

75
Accordingly, thirteen (13) major farming systems in Africa have been briefly described in the following box. Please,
also refer to the subsequent map-1 of African Farming systems.

1. Maize Mixed Farming Systems. In sub-humid and humid areas, dominated by maize with legumes. Located in East,
Central and Southern Africa. Livelihood derived principally from maize, tobacco, cotton, legumes, cassava, cattle, goats,
poultry and off-farm work.
2. Agro-Pastoral Farming Systems. In semi-arid areas, dominated by sorghum, millet and livestock. Located in West, East
and Southern Africa. Livelihoods derived from sorghum, some maize, pearl millet, pulses, sesame, cattle, sheep, goats,
poultry, off-farm work.
3. Cereal-Root Crop Mixed Farming Systems. In sub-humid areas, distinguished by two starchy staples alongside roots
and tubers. Located in West and Central Africa. Livelihoods derived principally from sorghum, maize, millet, cassava, yams,
legumes and cattle.
4. Root and Tuber Crop Farming Systems. In lowland areas where systems are dominated by roots and tubers without a
major tree crop. Located in West and Central Africa. Livelihoods are derived principally from yams, cassava, legumes and
off-farm work.
5. Highland Perennial Farming Systems. In moist highland areas with good market access above 1400m asl, with a
dominant perennial crop, either food or commercial. Located in East Africa. Livelihoods are derived from diverse activities
including tea, coffee, banana (or enset in Ethiopia), maize, beans, sweet potato, cassava, livestock (including dairy) and off-
farm work.
6. Highland Mixed Farming Systems. In cool highland areas above 1600 m.a.s.l. with temperate cereals and livestock.
Located in East and Southern Africa. Livelihoods are derived from wheat barley, teff, peas, lentils, broad beans, rape,
potatoes, sheep, goats, livestock, poultry and off-farm work
7. Humid Lowland Tree Crop Farming Systems. In humid lowland areas where commercial tree crops have replaced forest
and provide more than one quarter of household cash income. Located in West and Central Africa, Livelihoods are derived
from coffee, cocoa, rubber and oil palm, as well as yams, cassava and maize, and off-farm work.
8. Pastoral Farming Systems. In arid areas, dominated by livestock. Located in West, East and Southern Africa. Livelihoods
derived from cattle, camels, sheep, goats, some cereal crops and off-farm work
9. Fish-based Farming Systems. Proximity to major water bodies and fish a major source of livelihoods. Located in all parts
of Africa, predominantly along the coast and around major lakes. Livelihoods derived from fish, coconuts, cashew, banana,
yams, fruit, goats, poultry and off-farm work
[Link]-Based Farming Systems. In humid lowland heavily forested areas. Located in Central Africa. Livelihoods are
largely derived from subsistence food crops including cassava, maize, beans, cocoyam and taro, and off-farm work.
[Link] Farming Systems. Large scale contiguous irrigation schemes, with virtual absence of rain fed agriculture. (Small
scale schemes are visualized as part of the above systems). Predominantly located in low rainfall areas. Livelihoods are
largely derived from commercial crops notably rice, cotton and vegetables, as well as cattle and small ruminants.
[Link] Arid Pastoralism and Oases Farming Systems. Arid areas with average length of growing period less than 30
days. Located in West, North-east and Southern Africa. Livelihoods derived from date palms, cattle, small ruminants and off-
farm work, with some scattered irrigated crops and vegetables,
[Link] and Peri-Urban Farming Systems. In the center or the fringes of cities. Located in all parts of Africa. Livelihoods

76
are derived from diverse activities including vegetable and dairy production
Source (adapted from Garrity et al, 2012)

77
 Source: Garrity et al,
2012
Activity 2.1

Please, read Garrity et al and Dixon et al and to what extent ICT

helpedcategorization of FS? Do you think it is possible to use ICT tools to classify the
FSs for near future? Discuss and submit the summary to your instructor!

The above classification is not exhaustive; there could be hundreds of farming

systems in Africa. However, the micro-analysis is up to development planners and
policy makers of each country and region in Africa to add and/or deduct other
criteria of classification and further classify the farming systems based on context.
Thus, this classification is basics guideline for further advancement of farming

78
systems classification so as to forge best fit agricultural and rural development
intervention accordingly. For example, within crop livestock mixed farming specific
locality can be categorized as groundnut livelihood zone (for instance Babile
Gursum livelihood zone as a case in Eastern Ethiopia). In this example, it is
relatively precise showing the importance of groundnut (relative to other crops) in
the farming system of Babile and Gursum districts.

In general, the above described classification, mainly based on biophysical factors,

which less precise to inform development intervention. For example, it does not
precisely inform potential and challenges embedded in a particular farming system
associated with socio-economic and institutional determining human interaction
with natural resources (biophysical environment). In other words, we need to
understand that biophysical-based classification farming system is a necessary step
(or part of a required information component) and should not be considered as a
final means to inform development intervention. Among alternative approach to
overcome such weakness is ecosystem approach. We hope that from your reading
from previous unit's reading activity (activity 1.1), by now you have deep
understanding of ecosystem concept as it applies to farming system analysis. From
this reading, for example, you know that the goal of Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment (MA) is to establish the scientific basis for actions needed to enhance
the contribution of ecosystems to human well-being without undermining their long-
term productivity. Remember that the framework of MA also enable us to generate
rich information that enable to understand potential in particular setting as well as
required intervention for development a particular farming system with minimum
negative impact.

As you could see from the above discussion criteria of classification and names of
farming systems, the main distinctive mechanism of identifying one farming system
from the other is biophysical factors or availability of natural assets. That is
because; biophysical factors reflect a given farming system (i) potential for poverty
reduction; (ii) potential for agricultural growth. This better explained from the
perspective ecosystem approach. For example, using the Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment (MA) framework (see Box 1) the biophysical factors could be classified
in terms of ecosystem services embedded in a specific context and thus accordingly
potential opportunities and challenges can be assessed to inform intervention

79
aiming at poverty reduction through agricultural growth. This can be seen taking
simple example (see Box 2) from the framework indicated below showing how
agricultural land management to maximize provisioning service (food, fiber and
fuel) depends on support and regulating service of the ecosystem to achieve human
well being. Using such framework we may assess areas that need intervention to
improve agricultural productivity.

Box 1: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Conceptual Framework

(Source: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2003)

Changes in factors that indirectly affect ecosystems, such as population,

technology, and lifestyle (upper right corner of figure), can lead to changes in
factors directly affecting ecosystems, such as the catch of fisheries or the
application of fertilizers to increase food production (lower right corner). The
resulting changes in the ecosystem (lower left corner) cause the ecosystem
services to change and thereby affect human well-being. These interactions can
take place at more than one scale and can cross scales. For example, a global
market may lead to regional loss of forest cover, which increases flood
magnitude along a local stretch of a river. Similarly, the interactions can take
place across different time scales. Actions can be taken either to respond to
negative changes or to enhance positive changes at almost all points in this
framework (black cross bars).

80
Fig. Classification of ecosystem services from the Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment

The study premise is that Agricultural lands typically are managed to

maximize provisioning services, but demand many supporting and regulating
services to do so. Dark arrows indicate the flow of these services that are the
primary topic of this paper.
Source: Wei et al, 2007

81
Learning Unit 3: African Farming systems and Livelihoods
strategies to facilitate pathways out of poverty

As you may imagine aforesaid 13 and more farming systems of different geographic
locations have difference in policies and institutional contexts as well as availability
and accessibility of livelihood assets. Thus, farming systems of a given location has
unique constraints and opportunities, which determine a household or an individual
to choose different livelihood activities and strategies at different space and time.

For E.g. assume in Haramaya Woreda households who used to cultivate only
sorghum five years ago, may now cultivate maize or khat or diverse crops due to
change in biophysical factors or livelihood assets and/or policies and institutional
dynamics. This means you must know that there have been a lot of change in
woreda such as market access, extension service delivery, rainfall pattern, family
size, land size etc. that influence the households or individuals to change their
livelihood activities and strategies.

Based on these constraints and opportunities in farming systems categorized

above, the scholars have identified the following five main household livelihoods
strategies to improve pathways out of poverty and hunger (Dixon et al, 200; Garrity
et al, 2012).

1. Intensification of existing production patterns;

2. Diversification of production and processing;
3. Expanded farm or herd size [extensification];
4. Increased off-farm income, both agricultural and non-agricultural; and
5. A complete exit from agricultural production within a particular farming
system
As we discussed the livelihood strategies in preceding part of module, we hope that
the above livelihood strategies are not unfamiliar to you. Thus, we are not
discussing their meanings here. However, since the meaning of the strategies is
very wide and multidimensional, please, refer to (Garrityet al, 2012 page 10-11 or
Dixon et al., 2011 page 13-14) as you could be from non-agricultural education
background. Notice that these strategies are not mutually exclusive and farmers’
household may practices combinations of strategies within a given farming system

82
at specific space and time. With that in mind, we would like to further dwell on
intensification using a model that suggests how to make it sustainable.

Intensification
Intensification along with its different forms is not new as a livelihood strategy, but
the emerging concern is how to shift from conventional intensification, with
profound negative impact on the environmental and social resources, to sustainable
intensification with minimal or 'no' impact on the environmental and social
resource on which it relies. In this regard, the Montpellier Panel, 2013, has
suggested Sustainable Intensification: A Anew Paradigm for African
Agriculture. This paradigm, Sustainable Intensification, envisages using
pathway that strives to utilize the existing land to produce greater yields, better
nutrition and higher net incomes while reducing over reliance on pesticides and
fertilizers and lowering emissions of harmful greenhouse gases. It also has to do this
in a way that is both efficient and resilient and contributes to the stock of natural
environmental capital.
As the authors indicate none of the components of this paradigm are new.
They comprise techniques of ecological and genetic intensification, within
enabling environments created by processes of socio-economic
intensification. However, it is new in the way in which the components are
combined as a framework to find appropriate solutions to Africa’s food and
nutrition crisis. The following figures 8 & 9 show the theoretical model and
practical approach to Sustainable Intensification

83
Figure 8: Theoretical model of sustainable intensification (Source: Montpellier Panel,
2013 page 11)

Socioeconomic Ecological intensification Genetical intesification

intensification intercropping higher yields
integrated pest managment improving nutrition
creating enabling environment
conservation farming resilience to disease and pest
market
organic farming resilience to climate change
building social capital
creating sustainable livelihoods
building human capital
creating sustainable livlihoods

Figure: Practical approach to sustainable intensification (Source: Montpellier Panel,

2013 page 14)

84
Further, please, watch video on Sustainable Intensification of Maize-
Legume Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa
(Published online on Oct 24, 2014, CIMMYT) by clicking the following link;

[Link]

Assignment

After watching the video, read a report by The Montpellier Panel, 2013,
Sustainable Intensification: A New Paradigm for African Agriculture,
London Agriculture for Impact 15 Princes Gardens South Kensington Campus
Imperial College London SW7 1N.
[Link]
2013-Sustainable-Intensification-A-New-Paradigm-for-African-Agriculture-
[Link]

Write a criticque of maximum of 10 pages on the model whether it can be

used as a frmework to tackle the current problem faced farming system of
Africa and for decades to come.

85
 Getting the central message of this unit or this module in practice

Objective of the field work

Why do it? (Motivation for doing the field work)

As you are prospective agricultural development communication professional the
key message of this unit or the whole module is that to challenge you (1)
understand features of farming systems in a given location at given time and (2) to
identify dominant household livelihood strategies and (3) analyze potential
livelihood strategies (based on 1 and 2) for sustainable livelihood improvement and
(4) to convey the message to agricultural and rural development actors such as
policy makers, politicians, NGOs, local communities etc.

What (to do)

Make a group of three and conduct field assessment and submit a small project
document with background assessment of dominant farming system in a locality as
well as strategies for intervention

Hint (to do the field work)

For example, according to the classification we learned in this unit, most part of
Western and Eastern Haraghe Zones are categorized as maize mixed Farming
systems. This means there are some used criteria that make the Zones common in
farming systems. If you are employed as expert in this area what you should do
may include the following (please note that steps are not exhaustive list but just a
hint)

1st step is describing farming systems in very detailed way. Notice you mostly focus
on biophysical (disease, pests, climate, water, land etc. information) factors or in
SRL term “natural assets” and socio-economics factors (socio-cultural, market,
human labor, infrastructures, financial service, gender etc. information) or in SRL

86
term “the left 4 assets” and policies and institution (organization structures and the
processes herein) contexts.

2nd step is identifying livelihood strategies being practiced by households and/or

individuals in a given area.

3rd step is analyzing constraints and opportunities in practicing different livelihoods.

E.g. which strategy or combinations of livelihood strategies are better for
Households around HU main campus to improve their livelihoods in a given assets
and context (from step 1)? E.g. some household members could be exiting farming
system and forced to migrate to Towns like Haramaya, Awaday, and Cities such
Harar and Dire Dawa as livelihood strategy. However, this livelihood strategy could
be unsustainable and make individuals (especially, women and children) vulnerable
to deep rooted hunger and poverty since they may not get better job in Town/City
due to their incapability like in skills and under age children. Some livelihood
strategies could have high potential to improve livelihoods of the households, but,
face some constraints like absence of telecom or road or irrigation etc.

4th is critically conveying the constraints and opportunities of livelihoods strategies

in given location at given time and suggesting possible solutions. E.g. for migrating
household members in the above example you may recommend alternative
livelihood strategies the people value most. To do so, you may design project and
submit to NGOs or Government or you may seek change in policy intervention at
woreda or regional levels or institutional change etc.

Marrying concept of Farming system and Sustainable

Rural Livelihoods

Please, note that concept of Farming system helps you think about relevant
agricultural technologies for production and productivity of small farming and
hence, to reduce hunger and generate incomes. Or simply it is about economics
issues. The SRL framework helps you think about social and environmental
sustainability.

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You hear when people talk about sustainability of economy, environment, and
society. However, sustainability is vague concept, which is conceptualized by
different interest groups differently. E.g. in Ethiopia, companies that are getting
profit from gold mining never want to hear about harmfulness of mining on
environment and human health. DDT users’ large farmers may not worry much
about toxicity of DDT to soil and underground water and on human health etc.
Hence, it is very challenging to influence human beings to consider issues of
environment and society in economic development practices, especially where
there are no institutions that enforce laws and regulations. Because; people never
have time to think for even near future, short term productivity or income
increment is main goal. Currently, people are worrying to their daily life; how to
feed children, educate at better school, etc. thinking the far future is perceived as
luxury, while people are worrying about their daily lives.

Thus concept of SRL is people centered approach, that challenge people to

understand imperative of environment and societal sustainability in their daily life
livelihood activities and outcomes. E.g. if you discuss with rural people about 5
livelihood assets in a very participatory way, they become conscious about
imperatives of these assets for their own life survival.

That clearly indicates us why we must go beyond issues of productivity in both

analysis and development intervention. E.g. declining soil fertility and water
availability is both Natural phenomena (needs hard system rethinking), Social
practices linked with culture (needs answers through soft system thinking). For
example issues of communal water management system, family planning, closing
some areas etc. need peoples’ shared vision to improve livelihood.

Therefore, you must understand productivity as one of agricultural and (rural)

development goals. As the last, but not the least, we try to ensure sustainable
(economically, socially, and environmentally) agricultural development to tackle
hunger and poverty. However, all three dimension of Sustainability cannot be
measured in standard unit and is challenging to be achieved. Why?

(1) There is no best solution for sustainable agricultural development, rather

tradeoffs among various objectives is obvious e.g. when economic growth achieved,
environmental issues could be neglected.

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 (2) It is hardly possible to identify all parameters and variable in sustainable
agricultural development and what can be identified are still subjective and subject
to specification at different space and time

(3) In addressing sustainability issue, there is always conflicting interests in

different group members of community and there will be both winners and losers,

(4) Any given solution as an attempt of containing a given problem, could instigate
another problem,

(5) Thus no evidently correct ‘solution’ for current agricultural and rural
development problem, then the opportunity we have is to use complex concepts of
FS and SRL and understand the real world complexity from different worldviews of
stockholders and facilitate iterative ‘improvements’ through communicative action.

Learning Unit 4: Take-home message: Farming systems and

challenges ahead

In the preceding three learning units, we have discussed the current meaning of FS,
FS classification and possible livelihood strategies as pathways out of poverty. In
this unit, we will discuss that the current classification does not guarantee us that
we can use the same classification for future. This is because; everything is
changing except the word “change” itself.

In the preceding three learning units, we have discussed the current

meaning of FS, FS classification and possible livelihood strategies as
pathways out of poverty. In this unit, we will discuss that the current
classification does not guarantee us that we can use the same classification
for future. This is because; everything is changing except the word “change”
itself.
Learning objectives
After completion of this learning unit, you should be able to:
 Identify main drivers of farming systems changes in Africa and beyond
 Appreciate intractability of the drivers for change in the farming
system (i.e. with what we already discussed in the module from a
means to an end)

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  understand how to analyze the drivers based on local context and put
forward possible development intervention(S)
Learning outcomes
At the end of this learning unit you should be able to explain the dynamic
nature of key drivers of change in farming system

Introduction

The starting point of this learning unit is that as human being we are continuously
confronted with changes that are either initiated by nature or by ourselves. Not to
repeat what we already discussed, for instance, on graphic representation of
farming systems, external factors such as market, information, technologies,
policies, institutions etc. are highly dynamics. E.g. human food preference is
changing from more meat to fruits and vegetables, price fluctuates, and
supermarkets areemerging, etc. affect marketing and value chain systems of the
globe.

Here, our small farmers should struggle to penetrate international market to get
benefit. Changes in resources (five livelihood assets) are obvious. E.g. natural
assets like farmland and water are becoming scarce and it influence farmers in
what to produce and what to produce. Climate change could be severe and then
farmers should adapt animals and crops that are more tolerant to climate change or
exit farming.

By and large, there are lots of factors that have huge impact on what kind of
farming systems small farmers may adapt next years. As a result a great flexibility
is needed for both farmers and development actors to co-exist with changing
circumstances. In the other words, we are saying that what this module discusses is
not perfect information that someone should refer to forever. Rather it is just
written as steppingstone that enables you to appreciate the past and the current
concept of FS and SRL and understand what the near future FS and SRL look likes.

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In this unit, we try to understand possible drivers of change in FS and SRL by giving
you activities such as review in literatures and group discussion.

Main Drivers of Farming systems and Rural Livelihoods Strategies changes

Scholars have classified the main drivers of changes in farming systems and rural
livelihoods strategies into five categories as follows;
1. Population explosion: food security, poverty and land
2. Markets and trade
3. Natural resources and climate
4. Technology and science
5. Human capital/knowledge sharing/gender
6. Institutions and policies

Although our focus is on the broad issues of drivers of farming system, it is

important to briefly look into the drivers for agrifood system in Africa. Because
farming system is part of the agrifood system. In this regard, Reardon, et al. (2013)
indicates the rapid transformation of Africa's food system as part five interlinked
transformations: 1) urbanization; 2) diet change; 3) agrifood system transformation
(in wholesale, processing, and retail systems); 4) rural factor market transformation;
and 5) intensification of farm technology. This paper describes transformations that
are linked in mutually causal ways with the potential for the overall transformation
to be rapid and complicated. For better understanding, you may Read 7 page full
paper T. Reardon et [Link] Emerging ‘Quiet Revolution’ in African Agrifood
Systems. The paper is accessed at the following link;
[Link]
Africa%20Ag%20and%20Food%20Systems/Thomas%20Reardon%20Paper%20Quiet
%20Revolution%20African%20Agrifood%[Link]

1. Population explosion: food security, poverty and land (see Garrity et al,
2013 pp 33-37)
Under this driver you will understand how the rapid population growth in Africa
for the last 50 years has exacerbated huger and food insecurity and limited

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 farmland acquisition. E.g. African farmers used to increase their production
through farmland expansion (extensification strategy) when population density
was less. Currently, expansion of farmland is hardly practical. The best example
of extreme population density in Ethiopia is maize mixed farming systems of
Western and Eastern Hararghe, where large number of households forced to
migrate to other Zones of Oromia Regional State in the last decade. The reason
for migration was that the densest population instigated land scarcity, under
nutrition, hunger and poverty.

Activity 4.1
Please, read Garrity et al 2012 (page 33-37) and answer the following questions?
What is possible solution for population growth challenges in Africa?
Do you think that population growth will have impact on almost all farming
systems in Africa? If yes, how? From what you are observing in daily life in Africa
and from what you read, do you think that population pressure has any
advantage on choosing better livelihood strategies for small farmers? Submit to
your instructor individually!

2. Natural resources and climate

In fact the livelihoods of smallholders’ farmers heavily depend on Natural

resource bases. Mainly loss of soil fertility, depletion of trees and forests and
water scarcity, which are collectively called land resource degradation (quality
loss) and depletion (quantity loss), are the main challenges of African farmers
to choose better livelihood strategies. Climate change is also expected to be
severely impacting small holders’ farmers due to their internal defenseless and
intermittence of external institutional supports. The following diagram shows at
glance how climate change in Africa is related to three major components of
food security. Read from the source for detail at
[Link]

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 Source IPPC (as accessed on December 9, 2014)
[Link]

Climate change is also a challenge for contemporary concern of the problem

of under nutrition. You may read, for better understanding, a study in
Ethiopia by Hagos et al., 2014. Climate change, crop production and child
under nutrition in Ethiopia; a longitudinal panel study. Could be accessed at
[Link] or PDF version at
[Link]

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 Activity
Carefully read Garrity et al, 2012 (page 37-42) and Hawkins et al, 2009 (page 73-
77) and discuss how Land degradation, and soil conservation; Biodiversity, Energy
use; Pollution and sustainability are very important in past and future farming
systems. Report the summary of the discussion to your instructor by answering the
following questions

 What are suggested solutions for each problem? Do you think these
solutions are straightforward?
 What could be the role of ICT tools and communication methods to solve
problems of natural resource management challenges?
 Garrity et al conclude that the best solution for water management is
expanding irrigation outreach for small farmers. Do you think it will be
practical sooner or later in Africa?

Activity
Read the conclusion section of Farming Change, growing more food with a
changing resource base, IICA, 2012 (page 45-50)and discuss in group and
present whether the Caribbean experience suggested as alternative options to
cope with changing resource base could be adopted to context of Africa. You
may take specific locality known to you.

3. Markets and trade

Trade and market issues are broad to exhaustively cover under such topic.
However, for the purpose of our interest we will look into major issues in
relation to trade and market as drivers for change in farming system with
specific focus on the context of developing countries. In brief, we might be
interested to look into how trade and market in agriculture is changing which
potentially impact on farming system of smallholder farmers? In this regard,
if we remember what we know from system thinking that would better

94
enable us to understand how these particular factors affect the farming
system in developing courtiers. To this end, the development in agriculture
(or farming system) and food system is highly interrelated. This could easily
be seen from what food system entails. "The food systems encompass all the
people, institutions and processes by which agricultural products are produced,
processed and brought to consumers. They also include the public officials, civil
society organizations, researchers and development practitioners who design the
policies, regulations, programs and projects that shape food and agriculture" ( FAO,
2013). As a system, the food system is not a single designed entity, but rather a
partially self-organized collection of interacting parts which is also under constant
change. The development or change affecting any one of the parts of food system
has impact on agricultural development as well as the development of the food
system in different time and space. For instance, the rapid technological
advancement that cut across the agricultural production and transformation of the
food system has connected the global agricultural food system from farm to plate,
implying change in the system affected globally. The brief description and figure in
the box below shows food system transformation along the transformation from
subsistent farming to commercial agriculture.

As the food system transforms, centralized food-processing facilities develop along with large-scale
wholesale and logistics companies, supermarkets emerge in the retail sector and fast-food restaurants
become widespread. The transformation thus affects the whole system, changing the ways food is
produced, harvested, stored, traded, processed, distributed, sold and consumed

95
In subsistence farming, the food system is basically “closed“ –producers essentially consume what they
produce. With economic development, subsistence farming gives way to commercial agriculture in
which producers and consumers are increasingly separated in space and time and their interactions are
mediated via markets. In the later stages of the food system transformation, very little overlap exists
Coming back to issues of trade and market , how does market and trade affect
farming system change. This could be better analyzed from a system perspective
when farm is considered as agribusiness which is part of supra-system, the food
supply chain. This is because of the fact that farming systems of smallholder
farmers are operating under the influence of the pressure from each elements of
the supra-system such as consumers and policy change. In this regard, in the
analysis impact of trade and market we need to look into the changing trends of
food market , that is from mass market (commodity chain, example, mango trade)
to market that specifically target particular consumer (value chains, example fresh
cut mango, fresh juice mango); the opportunities of trade liberalization that open
up cross country trade; consumers concern of safety and standard; opportunities of
technologies providing information on markets information such as ICT. Such
analysis will enable to look into how to make smallholder farmers responsive to
growing market opportunities.

Initiatives to integrate smallholder farmers to market

There are a number of initiative by development intervention to enable smallholder

farmers benefit from market opportunities. Contract farming is one of the initiative
promoted by different development agencies.

Assignment

Read on article by Nicholas Minot. Contract Farming in sub-Saharan Africa:

Opportunities and Challenges.
[Link]
%28AAMP%20Kigali%[Link].

Write a five page summary of (1) conditions under which the contract farming works
to enable market integration of smallholder farmers, and (2) Why contract farming
may not necessarily be considered as a broad development strategy to integrate
smallholder farmers to market.

96
 Activity

There is a growing concern that smallholder farmers may be marginalized in the

process of globalization and trade liberalization. Read article FAO 2005 The State of
Food and Agriculture. Agricultural Trade and Poverty: Can trade work for the poor.
Answer the following questions:

What are the potential challenges and opportunities of trade liberalization for the
growth of smallholders

4. Technology and science

We have already discussed that agricultural technologies adoption by small

farmers in Africa has been very limited and thus productivity has been lower
compared to world standard. We discussed that the philosophical and
methodological approaches had flaws and FS was originated due to that reason. SRL
also the evolution of FS concept to issues of social equity and environmental
sustainability.

African governments are still vowing to advance agricultural sciences and

technologies in the continent thinking that increase in agricultural productivity
reduces hunger, poverty and brings economic development as western nations. To
what extent the governments may learn from the past and change the approach
from reductionism to adaptive holistic approaches that enable more participation of
multiple actors, including small farmers, and interdisciplinary team that integrate
biophysical and socio-economics factors to find context specific solutions for
farming systems. Especially, from socio-economics sides developing capacity of
stakeholders through using ICT, stakeholder network, and cooperatives to share
market information, disease challenges, skill advices etc. are what you are expected
to design. This because, the main challenge in Africa is failure of soft systems to
work than hard systems.

In spite of persistence of reductionist thinking inclined towards the use of

science and technology as a panacea to solve Africa's problem of agriculture,

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there is progressive move towards system approach. In this regard, the
science agenda for agriculture in Africa (see the box below) presents a
balanced framework as defined by Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa
(FARA, 2014). [If you are not aware of FARA ([Link] it isthe
lead agency in the implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture
Development Program (CAADP) Pillar 4]. The fourth pillar of CAAPD (CAADP is
discussed below) focuses on agricultural research, technology generation
and adoption.

Box: Definition of Africa's science Agenda

The Science Agenda for Agriculture in Africa (S3A) refers to the science,
technology, extension, innovations, policy and social learning Africa
needs to apply in order to meet its evolvingagricultural development
goals.

It identifies the key strategic issues that will impact on scienceand

agriculture and presents a suite of high-level actions/options for
increasing and deepeningthecontributions of science to the
development of agriculture at the local, national, regionaland
continental levels in [Link] Agenda’s perspective encompasses the
breadth of science, the meaningful engagements between
disciplines and the effective transfer to end users, theoutcomes of
science that is necessary to unlock the potential of agriculture in Africa.

The Science Agenda recognizes that advances in agricultural sciences

alone are notsufficientin resolving all the challenges faced by the
agricultural sector in [Link], it is essentialthat a wide array
of scientific disciplines be utilized to address the challenges that
hinderagricultural transformation in Africa. This is why the present
document is a Science Agenda forAgriculture and not just an
Agricultural Science Agenda.

The Science Agenda is a long-term strategic framework that consists

mainly of the range ofscience and technology opportunities available to
bring about agriculturaltransformation inAfrica. The Agenda also
embraces the policy, financial, organizational and related
institutionalcapacity strengthening measures that need to be put in
place to realize a science-rootedagricultural transformation on the
continent. These are undergirded by a vision aimed atenhancing the
wealth creation potential of agriculture on the continent and
strengtheningAfrica’s capacity to feed itself and the rest of the world
98
through embarking on world-classresearch and technology generation.
 Activity

Read the science agenda themes (page 38-58) inFARA, 2014. Science
agenda for agriculture in Africa (S3A): “Connecting Science” to
transform agriculture in Africa. Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa
(FARA), Accra, Ghana

Why do it? (Motivation for doing the reading)

There is a need to have understanding of the continental initiative that
aimed towards agricultural transformation
How to do it?
Form a group of three in round table and read for about 30 minutes and
discuss key points you understood for about 30 minutes.

5. Human capital, knowledge sharing and gender

This about progress in education of African farmers and their capability to use the
modern information technologies like mobile phone, internet, and mobile banking
etc. if successful this is expected to tackle information gaps on accessing
agricultural technologies and market information, banking services, etc. than
before. Further, it is envisaged this reduces gender gaps in information access.
However, how emerging technologies equalize gender still needs further research.

6. Policy and institutions

Policy and institutions are broad to cover here and thus we limit ourselves to
key issues.

The influence of policy and institutions cut across the entire farming system
and or agri-food system. They influence the process of production through
processing and marketing and consumption. Policy in relation to production
may include input and output pricing policy (example, policy that subsidies
input and consumer price, seed sector regulation, payment for

99
environmental services, agricultural investment policy); in relation to
processing (investment in infrastructure); in relation to marketing (E.g., trade
liberalization, food price subsidizing policy, food safety); in relation to
consumption (policy that sanction advertisement of certain food such high
fat food)

The influence of institutions could also be seen in relation to institutions

affecting access to key resources and those that affect function of product
markets, including value chains. Institution affecting access to key resource
(such as land, finance/credit) may affect the pace with which the
smallholders join the competitive agribusiness that operate within supra
system.

Let us take simple example, on the need for agricultural marketing

institutions and value chain. In order for smallholder farmers to make
use of the opportunities of the growing food marketing, there should be
institutional setup that offers opportunities for smallholder farmers by
broadening their choice of input suppliers and of outlets for produce, as well
as increasing their access to finance/credit and skill development they may
need such as training on value additions and producing under required
safety standard. However, access to both input and output markets has
proved problematic for many smallholders, who remain at the margins of the
new agricultural economy. This implies the need for favorable policy and
institutional environment that enable smallholder farmers to join the
competitive agribusiness market.

For example, how smallholders fit into a specific agricultural value chain
depends largely on the underlying cost structures of the chain and of their
farm production processes. The primary cost advantage of smallholders is
their ability to supply low-cost labor for labor-intensive crops. When
smallholders have no apparent comparative advantage, agribusinesses may

100
seek alternative structures for organizing production, such as vertical
integration or buying directly from large holders. In those cases, the
challenge is to create comparative advantages for smallholders or to reduce
the transaction costs associated with purchasing from large numbers of
farmers producing small quantities. To forge links to high-value markets,
small farmers need to be organized in institutions that reduce transaction
costs, and given access to information on market requirement. In connection
to how the condition of policy environment that encourage farmers
organization would enable the pace with which the farmers respond to
changing market standards (such as meeting safety standard, time of
delivery of product on the market at required size or volume). It is in light of
such challenges the policy change towards public and private partnership
engagement has been encouraged in the development policy framework in
the context of Africa. For example, small farmer access to markets can be
improved through better organization and greater cooperation, which may
involve not only farmers but also a larger number of stakeholders, including
agricultural support service providers, NGOs, researchers, universities, local
government and international donors ( FAO, 2011).

Activity: Read Chapter 7: Policies and institutions (page 77-94) in

FAO (2011). Save and Grow: A policy maker's guide to the sustainable
intensification smallholder farmers crop production.
[Link]

Regional level initiative to transform policy and institutions

Let us see the broader Africa home grown initiative to bring policy and
institutional reform: the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development
program (CAADP). Since Maputo declaration in 2003, CAADP was established
under the impulse of the African Union (AU) and new partnership for
agricultural development (NEPAD). CAADP is a continental framework to
bring about the required institutional and policy reform that will respond to

101
the Africa's critical need for positive and sustainable growth in agriculture,
food security, and rural development in Africa. This is the first regional plan
in history of Africa to drive agricultural development in the continent. The
thrust in CAADP is that the African countries to draw corresponding policy
and strategies based on the broader guiding principles and guidelines of
CAADP.

CAADP’s goals are to in-crease public investment in agriculture to at least

10% of national budgets and to raise agricultural productivity by at least 6%
by 2015. It seeks to accelerate progress by actions in four focus areas, or
pillars:
i) sustainable land and water management;
ii) improved market access for farmers and businesses through
improved trade and infrastructure;
iii) improved food supply and hunger reduction;
iv) agricultural research to facilitate technology adoption.
The following figure shows the result framework of CAADP envisaged during
the 10th anniversary of CAADP in November, 2013 for the next decade,
2014-2024

102
Source: presentation of Boaz Keizire-Blackie of the African Union Commission
(November, 2013) [Link]
%20Food%20Systems/Presentation%20-%20Boaz%20AUC%2026%[Link]

Activity read detail on CAADP and try to answer the following

questions
 Critically assess how strong are the CAADP frameworks in bringing the
urgency need to improve production, and bring food and nutritional
security. These are: (1) CAADP Framework for African Food Security
(FAFS); and (2)the Framework for African Agricultural Productivity
(FAAP)

References for Further reading

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Dixon et al, (2001) Farming SystemsandPoverty:IMPROVING FARMERS’
LIVELIHOODSIN A CHANGING
WORLD[Link]
FARA, 2014. Science agenda for agriculture in Africa (S3A): “Connecting Science”
to transform agriculture in Africa. Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA),
Accra, Ghana.

Garrity, D., Dixon, J., Boffa, J. (2012). Understanding African Farming Systems:
Science and Policy Implications prepared for Food Security in Africa, Bringing
research into Practice, Sydney 29-30 November 2012

[Link]
understanding_african_farming_systems_report_for_aifsc_conference.pdf

Hawkins et al (2009). Agricultural Research for Development (ARD)A Resource Book

[Link]

International Food Policy Research Institute. 2015. 2014–2015 Global Food Policy
Report. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.
[Link]

Innovation Gaps and Smallholder Farmers: Opportunities for Action. A Report on

Interviews with Global Thought Leaders and Practitioners. A paper for Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation. Meridian Institute. May 2013
[Link]

Inter Academy Council (IAC) (2014) Realizing the promise and potential of African
agriculture [Link]

Flora, C. [Link] between Agroecosystems and Rural

[Link] in Agroecology. CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL.

Reijntjes, C., B. Haverkort, and A. Waters-Bayer. 1992. Farming for the Future: An
Introduction to Low-External-Input and Sustainable Agriculture. McMillan Press
Limited: London.

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