scholarly journals Building Resilience: The Gendered Effect of Climate Change on Food Security and Sovereignty in Kakamega-Kenya

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3751
Author(s):  
Pauline Liru ◽  
Lindy Heinecken
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Rural Women ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Government Support ◽  
Women Farmers ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
Global Threat ◽  
Human And Social Capital

Climate change is a global threat, affecting the food security and food sovereignty of many depending on agriculture for their livelihoods. This is even more pronounced in Kenya, given their over-reliance on rain-fed crops and the frequency of floods and droughts in the country. Through qualitative interviews, this study set out to establish how climate change not only affects the food security, production and consumption of rural women farmers in Kakamega County, Kenya, but their response to climate shocks. Using resilience theory as a lens, we established that women use different pathways to mitigate the effects of climate change on their livelihoods. The study found that initially women adopt coping strategies that are reactive and not sustainable, but soon adapted their farming strategies, using their indigenous knowledge to exercise some control over both their food security and food sovereignty. Besides this, they use their human and social capital to expand their networks of support. By linking up to other organizations and gaining access to government support, they are able to challenge patriarchal relations that perpetuate poverty and inequality and bring about more transformative and sustainable responses to climate change.

scholarly journals Rural Women Farmers and Sustainable Livelihoods in Guyana

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (08) ◽  
pp. 666-682
Author(s):  
Paulette Henry
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Rural Women ◽  
Rural Economy ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Women Farmers ◽  
Community Food Security ◽  
Agricultural Labor ◽  
Rural Agriculture ◽  
National Governments ◽  
Women In Agriculture

Rural women in agriculture are legitimized women as productive stakeholders through a process that documents the various roles have played in rural agriculture, the rural economy, and food security. Accounting for 43% of the world’s agricultural labor force, women are important actors in the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 2 particularly in reducing poverty especially among women, and improving food security. This quantitative study has shown that women have combined their roles in varying fields of agriculture using their income to take care of families while contributing to the economy and food security. Their contributions however are underrecognized due to the gender disparities in the investments made to their male peers in the same business. This may be due to the feminization of rural agriculture coupled with many women not having the literacies required to negotiate the demands of land or loan acquisition and the technical skills to move beyond subsistence agriculture. Notwithstanding, rural women farmers earn income that helps to guarantee the basic livelihoods of their families and contribute to community food security. However, rural women farmers also have limited financial and technical capabilities to conserve their surpluses and increase their economic well-being.  Investments by national governments must be made to rural agriculture with specific recognition towards the advancement of women farmers.

scholarly journals Using climate analogue tools to explore and build smallholder farmer capacity for climate smart agriculture

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Phyllis Opare ◽  
Johnson O. Akintonde ◽  
Daniel Obeng-Ofori ◽  
Valerie Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Weather Forecasting ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Rainfall Variability ◽  
Transformative Change ◽  
Social Infrastructure ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Smart Agriculture

Background: The phenomenon of climate change (CC) and its attendant challenges in agriculture have been widely document. Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) focuses on sustainable agriculture intensification for food sovereignty through the adoption of mitigation and adaptation practices. Agriculture provides the livelihood for 70% of rural poor in the developing world, so building farmer capacity in CSA is imperative for food security. Studies show that transformative change must be bottom-up – integrating scientific and ethical dimensions, using participatory research approaches that employ simple comprehensive tools for building participants’ capacity to adapt. Methods: The study uses the “Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security” (CCAFS) climate analogue and weather forecasting tools. These participatory learning tools allow participants to interrogate and explore their own geographical and climatic histories and to draw conclusions on climate variability. This study examined smallholder farmers’ understanding of CC and their resilience to it. The study consisted of 5 stages – selection of tools, planning and training of teams, meetings with community leaders and community members to select participants, focus group discussions, modelling sessions and community dissemination meetings.   Results: Participants showed awareness of CC, explained in terms of rainfall variability, decreasing rainforest, increasing temperature and excessively long hot days.  Farmers illustrated gendered perception of past and present landscapes, time use, past seasonal trends, vulnerabilities and access to key resources. They also observed that natural resources were declining, while population and social infrastructure increased. Participants modelled the shift in seasons and projected possible future scenarios. Finally, participants were willing to adopt climate smart agronomic practices. Conclusions: After establishing that farmers are aware of CC, follow-on-studies addressing the impediments to adaptation and provision of necessary tools and resources to facilitate adaptation must be carried out. This study can also be replicated among a larger smallholder population for increased capacity to practice CSA.

Women Land Rights and Food Security Status of Farming Households in Oyo State, Nigeria

2020 ◽  
pp. 163-180
Author(s):  
Abimbola O. Adepoju ◽  
Rahman A. Adewole
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Rural Women ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Women Farmers ◽  
Food Security Status ◽  
Multiple Dimensions ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Food Expenditure ◽  
Ownership Rights

The dominance of men in decision-making processes and leadership positions within the communities has made land allocation, land use, and control skewed in favour of men. This study examined the effects of women's land rights on households' food security status using a sample of 300 representative farmers. Descriptive statistics, household food expenditure, logistic regression, and ordered logit models were the analytical tools used. Results revealed that about 35% of the rural women farmers had land use rights while the remaining 65% had land ownership rights. Women with ownership rights were more food secure, with the majority of the women having residual rights, while only a few had sell rights. Secure women land rights are germane to achieving and sustaining household and national food security. Strategies and instruments for protecting women rights should be developed and implemented, while efforts geared towards designing strategies, assessing multiple dimensions of women empowerment for improved food security status, and welfare of the households should be intensified.

scholarly journals Climate Change, Food Sovereignty and Ancestral Farming Technologies in the Andes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amaya Carrasco-Torrontegui ◽  
Carlos Andres Gallegos-Riofrío ◽  
Florencio Delgado-Espinoza ◽  
Mark Swanson
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Vulnerable Populations ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
The Andes ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
Health Communities

Abstract Indigenous people are among the most vulnerable populations to climate change. However, indigenous societies' potential contributions to climate change and related issues of food security are vast but poorly recognized. The objective of this report is to inform the nutrition and public health communities about the potential contributions of ancient Andean technologies to addressing these contemporary challenges. Our research examines these ancient farming technologies within the frame of climate change and dietary potential. Specifically, we focus on four technologies derived from three case studies from Ecuador. These technologies were analyzed using evidence mainly of adaptation to climage change in indigenous-based agriculture. Our examination of these technologies suggests they may be effective mechanisms for adapting to climate change and protecting food sovereignty. Thus, while highly vulnerable to climate change, indigenous peoples in the Andes should also be seen as “agents of change”.

scholarly journals Climate change and food security in Sri Lanka: towards food sovereignty

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahinda Senevi Gunaratne ◽  
R. B. Radin Firdaus ◽  
Shamila Indika Rathnasooriya
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Global Learning ◽  
Policy Reforms

AbstractThis study explored food security and climate change issues and assessed how food sovereignty contributes to addressing the climate change impacts on entire food systems. The study aimed to contextualise food security, climate change, and food sovereignty within Sri Lanka’s current development discourse by bringing global learning, experience, and scholarship together. While this paper focused on many of the most pressing issues in this regard, it also highlighted potential paths towards food sovereignty in the context of policy reforms. This study used a narrative review that relied on the extant literature to understand the underlying concepts and issues relating to climate change, food security and food sovereignty. Additionally, eight in-depth interviews were conducted to obtain experts’ views on Sri Lanka’s issues relating to the thematic areas of this study and to find ways forward. The key findings from the literature review suggest that climate change has adverse impacts on global food security, escalating poverty, hunger, and malnutrition, which adversely affect developing nations and the poor and marginalised communities disproportionately. This study argues that promoting food sovereignty could be the key to alleviating such impacts. Food sovereignty has received much attention as an alternative development path in international forums and policy dialogues while it already applies in development practice. Since the island nation has been facing many challenges in food security, poverty, climate change, and persistence of development disparities, scaling up to food sovereignty in Sri Lanka requires significant policy reforms and structural changes in governance, administrative systems, and wider society.

Averting robo-bees: why free-flying robotic bees are a bad idea

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 723-729
Author(s):  
Roslyn Gleadow ◽  
Jim Hanan ◽  
Alan Dorin
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Computer Simulation ◽  
Food Security ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Plant Interactions ◽  
Plant Insect Interactions ◽  
Native Habitat ◽  
Insect Pollinators ◽  
Insect Interactions

Food security and the sustainability of native ecosystems depends on plant-insect interactions in countless ways. Recently reported rapid and immense declines in insect numbers due to climate change, the use of pesticides and herbicides, the introduction of agricultural monocultures, and the destruction of insect native habitat, are all potential contributors to this grave situation. Some researchers are working towards a future where natural insect pollinators might be replaced with free-flying robotic bees, an ecologically problematic proposal. We argue instead that creating environments that are friendly to bees and exploring the use of other species for pollination and bio-control, particularly in non-European countries, are more ecologically sound approaches. The computer simulation of insect-plant interactions is a far more measured application of technology that may assist in managing, or averting, ‘Insect Armageddon' from both practical and ethical viewpoints.

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