scholarly journals Farmers’ Perspective on Sociological and Environmental Issues of Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture: A Case Study from Western and Southern Regions of Sierra Leone

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 186
Author(s):  
Osman Nabay ◽  
Abdul R. Conteh ◽  
Alusaine E. Samura ◽  
Emmanuel S. Hinckley ◽  
Mohamed S. Kamara

The paper examined and brought to the fore the typical characteristic of urban and peri-urban farmers in Freetown and Bo communities which serves as major source of supply of agricultural products into the cities’ markets. The social and environmental aspect and perception of producers involved in urban and peri-urban agriculture was examined. Descriptive statistics and pictograms were used to analyze and present the data. Results indicate that 56.34% never went to formal school and mostly dominated by women, showing that farming became the alternative means of livelihood support for those groups. Crops grown are purely influenced by market orientation—demand and cost, as is evident in Gloucester (lettuce, cabbage and spring onions). Potato leaves were commonly grown in almost all communities, reason being that it serves as common/major sauce/vegetable cooked in every household in Sierra Leone. Maize and rice were featured in Ogoo farm—government supervised land set aside purposely for growing crops to supply the city. Findings also revealed that majority of the farmers are resource poor, judging from calculation about their monthly income earning and available household assets and amenities. About 70.4% of the lands the farmers grow their crops on is leased for production. Except for Gloucester community, when costs of production will be summed, minimal benefit seem to be realized from the farming activities. Even though some of these farmers are engaged in organization, many have limited access to micro financial organization that would probably loan them money to upscale production.

Author(s):  
Paul Richards

Shifting cultivation is a type of farming without fixed boundaries. It obeys an ecological logic but requires constant improvisation and adaptation to fluid circumstances. The character of improvisation in shifting cultivation is explored with reference to an African case study (rice farming by the Mende people of Sierra Leone). Two elements are emphasized in particular—the management of fire (by men) and rice seeds (by women). A contrast, applicable not only to farming, but also to other activities such as military conflict and musical performance, is drawn between strategic planning and tactical improvisation. The relevance of Mary Douglas’s grid-group theory to the framing of the social skill sets required for improvisation is discussed.


Urban Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 004209802097265
Author(s):  
Matthew Thompson ◽  
Alan Southern ◽  
Helen Heap

This article revisits debates on the contribution of the social economy to urban economic development, specifically focusing on the scale of the city region. It presents a novel tripartite definition – empirical, essentialist, holistic – as a useful frame for future research into urban social economies. Findings from an in-depth case study of the scale, scope and value of the Liverpool City Region’s social economy are presented through this framing. This research suggests that the social economy has the potential to build a workable alternative to neoliberal economic development if given sufficient tailored institutional support and if seen as a holistic integrated city-regional system, with anchor institutions and community anchor organisations playing key roles.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Syed Waqas Shabbir ◽  
Nazia Malik ◽  
Muhammad Rizwan ◽  
Muhammad Hashim

The world is facing gender related problems in which women’s are discriminated against in almost all walks of life. The present research is focusing on the issues of women. i.e, exchange marriages, women property rights and their maintenance after divorce in South Punjab. The objective of this study is to unveil the structural constraints in the society which have hamperedthe freedom and the autonomy of women. These constraints are operational in the domain of legal-judicial and administration-policing social system of the state that has made the access of women difficult to get the redress and relief against the violation of their rights. In this research, an interpretative mode of research is being used to unfold the relationship of different variables. Some of the variables have their connections on the bases of their influence on the nature of the women’s right in the social setup of South Punjab. Among these variables, independent ones are customary practices prevailing religious doctrines and the sources of materials means. The particular nature of the study and scientific approach of the research, it seemed appropriate to apply quota sampling technique for the selection of court cases. The especially court cases has been segregated to project women image of this region. In this study categories of the cases on the basis of different variables collected from targeted three districts as judgments pronounced and established under family and session court under districts Multan, Muzaffargarh and Dera Ghazi Khan during the period from (2007 to 2014).This study includes ten cases, all related to the rights of women and customary practises. This study had also tried to show the how far judicial decisions were in favor of women to make them capable to empower in the emerging challenges of the time. The study in its analysis tried to show the effectiveness of prevailing family laws to enhance status of women.


2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan Weissman

AbstractThroughout the USA, urban agriculture is expanding as a manifestation of an emerging American food politics. Through a case study of Brooklyn, New York, I used mixed qualitative research methods to investigate the political possibilities of urban agriculture for fostering food justice. My findings build on the existing alternative food network (AFN) literature by indicating that problematic contradictions rooted in the neoliberalization of urban agriculture limit the transformative possibilities of farming the city as currently practiced in Brooklyn. I suggest that longstanding agrarian questions—concerns over the relationship between agriculture and capitalism and the politics of small-scale producers—are informative for critical interrogation of urban agriculture as a politicization of food.


2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-15
Author(s):  
Yu Xiaohui ◽  
Yang Ruhui ◽  
Liu Bo

Urban spatial form influences the social, economic, and ecological development modes of the city. The spatial form during the urbanization of Hanjiang River Basin in Southern Shaanxi needs to be studied. In this study, research methodologies on urban spatial form in China and abroad were summarized. The concept of ecology background was applied, and the research framework for urban spatial form, which integrated the background, framework, core, axis, cluster, and skin, was established. Valley cities in the Hanjiang River Basin in Southern Shaanxi were classified into wide valley, narrow valley, and canyon cities. The spatial form characteristics of these three types of valley cities were discussed. A case study based on a typical city-Yang County-was conducted to discuss the characteristics of the aforementioned six elements of urban spatial form. Finally, spatial form characteristics were summarized. These characteristics provide a basis for the study of the small valley urban spatial form in the Hanjiang River Basin in Southern Shaanxi.


Author(s):  
Annie Crane

The purpose of this study was to analyze guerrilla gardening’s relationship to urban space and contemporary notions of sustainability. To achieve this two case studies of urban agriculture, one of guerrilla gardening and one of community gardening were developed. Through this comparison, guerrilla gardening was framed as a method of spatial intervention, drawing in notions of spatial justice and the right to the city as initially theorized by Henri Lefebvre. The guerrilla gardening case study focuses on Dig Kingston, a project started by the researcher in June of 2010, and the community gardening case study will use the Oak Street Garden, the longest standing community garden in Kingston. The community gardening case study used content analysis and semi-structured long format interviews with relevant actors. The guerrilla gardening case study consisted primarily of action based research as well as content analysis and semi-structured long format interviews. By contributing to the small, but growing, number of accounts and research on guerrilla gardening this study can be used as a starting point to look into other forms of spatial intervention and how they relate to urban space and social relations. Furthermore, through the discussion of guerrilla gardening in an academic manner more legitimacy and weight will be given to it as a method of urban agriculture and interventionist tactic. On a wider scale, perhaps it could even contribute to answering the question of how we (as a society) can transform our cities and reengage in urban space.


TERRITORIO ◽  
2012 ◽  
pp. 39-43
Author(s):  
Chiara Tornaghi

This paper presents an English case of urban agriculture, the Edible Public Space Project in Leeds, contextualised in a context of urban agriculture initiatives committed to social-environmental justice, to the reproduction of common goods and the promotion of an urban planning which promotes the right to food and to the construction of urban space from the bottom up. The case study emerged as the result of action-research at the crossroads between urban planning policies, community work and critical geography. As opposed to many similar initiatives, the Edible Public Space Project is not intended merely as a temporary initiative hidden within the tiny folds of the city, but rather as an experiment which imagines and implements alternatives to current forms of urban planning within those folds and it contextualises them in the light of the ecological, fi nancial and social crisis of the last decade.


1978 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 236-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael B. Whiteford

It is the contention of this author that, for women in particular the process of migration is a liberating, or freeing process. Specifically, this paper examines the changes which take place in the social environment of women as a result of rural-urban migrations. The focus of the investigation is female migrants who have moved to the city of Popayán, Columbia. The discussion is based on data gathered in Barrio Tulcán.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 3501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Mozumder ◽  
Md. Wahab ◽  
Simo Sarkki ◽  
Petra Schneider ◽  
Mohammad Islam

Social resilience is an essential aspect of sustainability in environmental management, especially in poor resource-dependent communities. To better understand the dynamics of social resilience, we have conducted a primarily qualitative study of communities dependent on hilsa fishing in two coastal villages in southern Bangladesh. This study applies concepts of social-ecological system (SES), social resilience and co-management in outlining our qualitative data and framing its interpretation. Our findings show that while the establishment of hilsa sanctuary areas has enhanced the previously low ecological sustainability of local small-scale fishing, the management of this program has challenged the social resilience of hilsa fishers by creating new inequalities in the distribution of power and privilege, in terms of the ways in which seasonal fishing bans are enforced and compensation for income loss during the ban periods is distributed. Based on our findings, we suggest specific measures for strengthening social resilience at the local level, including building community networks, developing community infrastructures, updating existing rules and regulations, providing alternative means of generating income for fishers during the crisis periods (e.g. natural disasters and fishing ban periods) and more active sharing of responsibility between stakeholders and government for management of the hilsa fishery. These findings are also applicable to understanding the issues beyond rules and regulations that co-management arrangements need to address in order to be successful and to enhancing the function of co-management arrangements in improving social resilience within resource-dependent communities.


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