This article examines whether the use of stablecoins as instruments for financing agribusiness produces civil-liability imputation gaps that are incompatible with traditional dogmatic assumptions. Through a hypothetical-deductive method and a dogmatic-functional approach, the study analyzes stablecoins, tokenized agribusiness financing, decentralized finance, and comparative regulatory frameworks in the European Union, the United States, and Brazil. It argues that the operational decentralization promoted by stablecoins fragments the poles of liability, weakens linear causation, and renders the classical fault paradigm insufficient. The article proposes an interpretive model based on three pillars: layered proportional liability, duties of governance and due diligence, and accountability as an autonomous criterion of imputation. It concludes that civil liability has the dogmatic resources necessary to respond to the tokenized economy, provided that causation, fault, and risk are reconstructed in light of the structural complexity of blockchain-based arrangements.
While hybridity has been extensively studied within bounded organizations, hybrid forms of organizing beyond formal organizational structures remain undertheorized. Hybrid organizationality, the concept introduced in this article, refers to a mode of organizing in which multiple institutional logics are sustained through coordinated action without crystallizing into a formal organization. The concept is developed through a qualitative case study of the Large-scale Agrifood Communal Trade Network (LACTN), a large-scale direct-to-consumer agricultural network linking farmers, volunteer-run distribution hubs, and consumers in Israel during successive periods of crisis. We show how LACTN loosely couples commercial and communal logics while preserving the autonomy of its constituent actors. Hybrid organizationality, we argue, becomes possible through the convergence of three conditions: the coexistence of autonomous commercial and communal actors, shared moral commitments that bridge these domains, and digitally mediated infrastructures that enable decentralized coordination at scale. The analysis further demonstrates how socio-economic sustainability may emerge in practice through large-scale, socially embedded market coordination, even in the absence of an explicit ideological sustainability agenda. By examining a network built largely upon conventional agricultural production and market logics, yet organized through volunteer mediation, communal coordination, and morally inflected exchange, the article complicates the conventional distinction between “alternative” and “conventional” food systems that has long structured scholarship on alternative agri-food networks. More broadly, the case illustrates how sustainability-oriented organizing can emerge through loosely coupled alignments among markets, communities, and digital infrastructures beyond the boundaries of formal organizations.
Amar Razaq, Muhammad Asad ur Rehman Naseer, Muhammad Naseer, Saher Jabeen
Decentralization has become one of the main governance reforms through which developing economies try to make food security policy more responsive to local conditions. The reform promise is straightforward: subnational governments and community institutions may know local agroecological conditions, household vulnerability, market constraints, and social exclusion better than central ministries. Yet decentralization can also reproduce weak service delivery when authority is transferred without finance, staff, data systems, accountability, or coordination. This chapter argues that local food governance should be assessed as a design problem rather than as a general reform ideal. Effective devolution links clear functional assignments, predictable finance, capable local administration, public participation, and national standards. The chapter develops a multilevel framework for food governance, compares fiscal and institutional patterns in selected developing economies, and uses case boxes from Pakistan, India, Brazil, Kenya, Indonesia, and Ethiopia. It concludes that decentralized governance can strengthen inclusion and responsiveness, but only when local discretion is embedded in transparent institutions and coherent intergovernmental systems.
Abstract Since their 1994 uprising, Zapatista communities have built social, political, and economic alternatives within autonomous territories, setting an example for multiple Transformation Initiatives and social movements globally. Focusing on economic solidarity through coffee distribution, this article investigates how the boundaries between being inside, beyond, or against the state and the market are relationally conceived and performed by autonomous peasants and European activist networks. The study is based on multiple fieldworks between Europe and Chiapas and years of engaged research. Beyond dual rationalizations between silent and loud resistance, I argue that anticapitalist worlds surrounding Zapatismo connect everyday forms of struggle with broader, structural hopes for change through transnational alliances. It is the existence of an organized infrastructure that allows this form of trade to reproduce its own antagonism, in constant tension against the state, reified as the ultimate perpetrator of the neoliberal order. Revisiting informality through the lenses of anti-systemic movements allows us to decentralize resistance, encompassing non-hegemonic processes from below (and to the left) that cannot be reduced to Western categories nor trivialized as the sole weapons in the hands of voiceless and powerless societies. Articulating Marxist anthropology with decolonial thought through the framework of Zapatista autonomy suggests that it is not enough to categorize resistance as visible or invisible, formal or informal. The study of economic solidarity surrounding the Zapatista experience provides an understanding of the complex realities of anticapitalist resistances today, where collective organization is as much about survival as it is about reimagining power and economy.
The study addresses the intersection of indigenous food sovereignty and data sovereignty in the digital era by exploring community-governed digital infrastructures for indigenous bushfood systems. It explores the use of blockchain networks as a digital commons to safeguard transparent, tamper-proof records and ethical access to indigenosu data or knowledge. Through a participatory design approach embedded in cultural protocols and practices within the Australian bushfood sector, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) were designed to uphold indigenous sovereignty and collective benefit from the research, commerclisation and trade of bushfood species and derived products. This study presented a blockchain-enabled NFT infrastructure incorporating traditional owner tokens (TOTokens) for representing resource and cultural custodianship and enabling usage tracking, and authentic provenance tokens (APTokens) for tracing bushfood provenance and associated traditional ownership. This dual NFT infrastructure design enables the unique digital representation of bushfood and associated traditional ownership, while also provides a socio-economic mechanism to monetise traditional ownership across bushfood research and commerce scenarios. This dual NFT infrastructure is underpinned by smart contracts that enable the tradability and/or transferability of TOTokens and APTokens to automate governance rules, ethical access and collective benefit sharing, without reliance on external authorities. A proof-of-concept was piloted and tested on Polygon a public blockchain demonstrating its technical feasibility. The blockchain-based NFT infrastructure aligns with indigenous data sovereignty principles, CARE and FAIR data frameworks, and can integrate with Internet of things (IoTs), AI, machine learning and data analytics to conduct culturally grounded and ethics-controlled deep eResearch for business innovation and industry practice.
This article presents research on emerging global techno-libertarian networks for the establishment of venture-capital, crypto, and Web3-based jurisdictions and the new territorial and state projects they produce, including free private cities, charter cities, seasteads, and network states. Rooted in a self-professed anarcho-capitalist ideology, many of these projects paradoxically claim to eliminate “the state” in favor of decentralized and self-organized societies, while simultaneously proposing or producing different forms of centralized power. The article provides a critical analysis of techno-libertarian statecraft by examining the visual and discursive representations used to convey and obscure ideas of state, governance, and power. To do so, I look primarily at the use of metaphor (Semino 2008) and spectacle (Tsing, 2005) in techno-libertarian representations of territory. Finally, the article uses the Próspera Zone for Economic Development and Employment (ZEDE) located on the Honduran island of Roatán and in the Satuyé Port, La Ceiba as a case study in private statecraft. In addition to analyzing the structures created by Honduras Próspera Inc to govern the highly autonomous jurisdiction and the longevity biotech “network state” that it hosts, the article explores the visual representations that accompany actual structures of governance and state power.
Objectives: This study aimed to analyze the tenurial system of customary land in Java, its deficiency, the accompanying consequences on land access, and the identification of modes of improvement in order to accelerate rural development. Theoretical framework: This study was based on theories of rural development and decentralization, with a specific focus on landless farmers. Method: This study employed qualitative method to analyze the tenurial system of customary land in Java. Data were collected through two steps, first, observations, interviews, and documentaries were conducted to understand the realities of customary land tenure from the descriptive statistics and narratives of local officers. Second, a focus group discussion involving local officers and villagers was held to present the initial findings, formulate a new tenancy system, and analyze the possibilities of its application in village administration. Results and conclusion: Based on the villages in the Grobogan District of Central Java Province, this study showed that land use causes unequal access to landless farmers. The land management methods to finance village development programs are currently irrelevant in the framework of recent decentralization. A system that can benefit landless farmers is contract farming. Implications of research: This study provided evidence-based information for policymakers to improve the use of customary land for landless farmers and an additional reference for rural development in the world. Originality/value: Studies on Indonesian rural development have shown the strategic position of customary lands in Indonesia, especially in Java. However, little is known about the potential of customary lands to achieve sustainable rural development, as this issue is still inadequately addressed in the literature. This led to the implementation of this study, with the objectives of analyzing the tenurial system of customary land in Java, its deficiency, and accompanying consequences on land access, alongside identifying improvement approaches in order to accelerate rural development.
Abstract In coming decades, Africa's urban populations will expand, and the effects of climate change be more keenly felt. Land policies and institutions will be key for urban dwellers to be able access productive jobs, breathe clean air, and live in decent housing; for entrepreneurs, especially women, to leverage land for productive investment; and for farmers to diversify, insure against shocks, and accumulate capital. Yet, many African land registries perform poorly, command little trust, and have failed to capitalize on opportunities to improve quality, relevance, and outreach via digital interoperability, use of earth observation, and connectivity. Literature highlights scope for regulatory and institutional reforms to (a) expand property taxation and land value capture and to improve urban service delivery, planning, and land use regulations; (b) increase quality and affordability of land services and access to land price and ownership data; (c) guide issuance of rural land use rights to reduce barriers to rural factor markets, including by spatially enabling farmer registries to improve subsidy targeting and effectiveness; and (d) demarcation and transparent decentralized management of public land to attract investment, including in climate finance, without fueling corruption, and to manage disputes before they escalate into ethnic violence.
Agriculture is leaving a profound footprint on the Earth. With field surveys and modeling techniques, researchers are exploring how to make agricultural landscapes less threatening to biodiversity. In Bokito, Cameroon, a forest transitions to farmland. Photograph: Mokhamad Edliadi/CIFOR. In Andhra Pradesh, India, Iris Berger removes her shoes before wading into a rice paddy. As water sloshes around her knees, she keeps a wary eye out for the occasional cobra. But mostly, Berger's eyes and ears are fixed on other creatures: birds. Andhra Pradesh, a state in the country's southeast, is in the middle of a major agricultural shift to using locally sourced inputs rather than chemical pesticides and fertilizers. The hope is that the practice, known as zero budget natural farming (ZBNF), will be easier on the farmers' budgets and also on the region's natural resources and wildlife. Berger, a conservation scientist working on her PhD at the University of Cambridge, is surveying birds on farms and natural areas to learn whether ZBNF could prove one solution to a problem researchers and farmers are contending with the world over: how to increase food production without losing biodiversity. The Earth's biodiversity is in steep decline. Between 1970 and 2016, populations of bird, reptile, mammal, fish, and amphibian species fell an average of 68%, according to the World Wildlife Fund's Living Planet Report 2020. The biggest driver threatening endangered species is often habitat loss, says Christopher Crawford, a PhD candidate in the Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy Program in Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs. “Usually, the biggest driver of habitat loss is land-use change. And usually, that is coming from agriculture.” But the need for food grows. Accounting for changes in climate, global food demand could increase between 30% and 62% from 2010 to 2050, according to a meta-analysis by Michiel van Dijk, of Wageningen Economic Research in the Netherlands, and colleagues in a July 2021 Nature Food issue. Faced with this challenge, Crawford, Berger, and others are using on-the-ground surveys and sophisticated models to strategize about where it is best to farm and where it is best to let nature be. The work points to ways forward” for example, focusing on which uncultivated regions are species poor but could yield good crops and which crops, with improved farming strategies, could produce enough on existing farms. But the work also raises questions, from how to engage policymakers to what the definition of biodiversity really is. Agriculture has left a profound imprint. Around 38% of the Earth's land surface is now covered by cropland or livestock grazing areas, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). In Brazil, a smallholder farmer harvests oil palm. Photograph: Miguel Pinheiro/CIFOR. In a May 2021 study in Nature Communications, Karina Winkler, of Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands, and colleagues estimated that the global agricultural land area increased by around 2 million square kilometers between 1960 and 2019 alone. A January 2022 study in Nature Food by the University of Maryland's Peter Potapov and others found that the annual rate of global cropland expansion has nearly doubled over the past two decades. As farms expand, wilderness retreats. Nearly 90% of global deforestation between 2000 and 2018 occurred because of the expansion of cropland and livestock grazing areas, according to the FAO. In a December 2020 report in Nature Sustainability, David Williams, of the University of Leeds, in the United Kingdom, and colleagues identified 1280 vertebrate species projected to lose a quarter or more of their habitat to agricultural expansion by the year 2050 if policy changes fail to make food production less costly to biodiversity. This biodiversity loss presents an issue, not only for the environment but for farming, because many crops depend on ecosystem services that require biodiversity. Agricultural intensification reduces the abundance and diversity of pollinators and the natural enemies of agricultural pests, explains ecologist Matteo Dainese, of Eurac Research's Institute for Alpine Environment, in Italy. In 2019, Dainese, then at the University of Würzburg in Germany, and colleagues published a study in Science Advances that compiled data on pollinator and pest control species, as well as evidence of pollination and pest control services, from 89 previously published studies covering 1475 agricultural fields across the globe. They found that, as agricultural area around a particular field increased, species richness” the numbers of species providing pollination and pest control services to the field” declined. Successful pollination and pest control depended not only on a species's overall abundance but also on this species's richness. In fact, greater agricultural expansion around a field indirectly resulted in lower yields because of the decrease in the number of species. “It is important to maintain biodiversity,” says Dainese. To protect biodiversity, it helps to know which land is likely to be cleared next” and for what cause. Maybe a new soybean field is an isolated development. Or maybe it is the start of a farming trend that could sweep into neighboring forests. “We wanted to look at the specific crops to identify those crops that pose the most threat in which regions,” says conservation economist Roman Carrasco, of the National University of Singapore. Carrasco and colleagues developed a model based on the von Thünen model, which predicts that land will be allocated to whatever use generates the highest net revenue. The team compiled published data related to potential earnings across the globe for 17 important crops, including wheat, soybean, and coffee. They entered that data into the model to predict which crops were likely to spread where by 2050. “We divide the world into cells,” explains Carrasco. “And then we say, in this cell, what is the potential for production for each crop? What are the [crop] prices? How far away from the cities [is the cell], and how much would it cost to bring [the harvest] to the city?” The team also included data on the distance to the nearest farm growing the same crop. “It's hard to have a completely new crop in a new place,” explains Carrasco, because there is not the know-how for growing it. The model predicted that 260 million hectares of land has high potential to be converted into cropland by 2050. Roughly 80% of this land is forested. In Borneo, natural habitat is being logged to make way for oil palm. Photographs: L. Roman Carrasco/National University of Singapore. By incorporating political stability and governing style into the model, the team also learned that conflict within countries appears to be a major factor limiting agriculture's advance into some of the planet's most biodiverse habitats. Coconut, for example, is poised to expand in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Carrasco and colleagues posit that the main factor holding this and other crops back there is political conflict, which discourages foreign investment. The same is true for other countries facing political instability, such as Venezuela and Angola. Some growers in Andhra Pradesh, India, use conventional farming techniques to raise maize but with patches of natural habitat throughout. Photograph: Iris Berger/University of Cambridge. “What we think is that, when that political instability is resolved, these areas will be under big threat of conversion from crops,” says Carrasco. He hopes that, by identifying this risk now, conservation organizations can engage with governments in these regions to develop careful plans for where to expand agriculture and where to protect wildlife. The study also showed that, if growers could reach the greatest possible yields for their regions, the need for additional farmland by 2050 would drop by 27%. Closing this yield gap, Carrasco estimates, would prevent 20% of species extinctions for birds and 6% for mammals. Encouraging farming practices that raise the productivity of three crops in particular” rice, soybean, and wheat” would be especially impactful, says Carrasco. “The demand is massive for those three, and they are in areas that have a lot of biodiversity.” This potential to save natural landscapes by increasing production on existing farmland is at the heart of many debates about reconciling food demand and biodiversity. Since the early 2000s, conservation scientist Andrew Balmford, of the University of Cambridge, in the United Kingdom, has explored the effects of what he calls land sharing versus land sparing. Land sharing makes agricultural land more hospitable to wildlife through practices such as incorporating hedgerows and ponds and limiting the use of chemicals. But land sharing can produce lower yields, requiring more farmland, explains Balmford. “You make the farm friendlier for wildlife; that's great. But you're reducing your production, and that simply means the problem is going to leak somewhere else.” Alternatively, land sparing aims to increase yield even at a cost to biodiversity within agricultural areas, which can free up space for natural habitats elsewhere. Balmford's team first explored the impact of these two approaches using data on the population densities of bird and tree species sampled across Ghana and India. The sampling sites spanned high-producing monoculture to more low-yielding fields of diverse crops interspersed with forest. For each species in each country, the researchers studied the relationship between the abundance of individual species and crop yield. They then used those relationships to project whether each species would be better off if food demands were met through land sparing, land sharing, or some intermediate. The research, reported in Science in 2011, suggests that most bird and tree species are negatively affected by agriculture, and the majority of these species are sensitive to even low-yield farming. Land sparing, then, would allow for greater population sizes for most bird and tree species across the landscape as a whole. Balmford and colleagues continued this research in other regions with additional species, looking to see if the findings held. “We had people looking at grasses and sedges and daisies and dung beetles, and we were still getting the same broad pattern,” says Balmford, noting that the pattern held for the majority of species in each taxon and in every location. In a 2021 review in the Journal of Zoology, which includes work from his own group and others, Balmford reports that, of over 2500 species studied, over three-quarters survive better without agriculture, and of those, the large majority maintain greater population sizes under land sparing. Balmford says that his findings have been criticized by those who equate higher yields under land sparing with unsustainable farming inputs, including chemical fertilizers and pesticides. “We don't think it needs to be that at all,” says Balmford, noting that the yield could also increase through additional labor or farming knowledge and under certain traditional farming practices. Berger was struck by Balmford's findings and wondered whether” if land sparing really is better for biodiversity” there could be ways to ramp up the yield sustainably. “There's no use in increasing the yield, and then, in 10 years' time, the soil is degraded,” says Berger. She wondered whether the ZBNF movement gaining momentum in Andhra Pradesh could be part of the answer. ZBNF began taking hold in Andhra Pradesh as early as 2016, says agricultural scientist Zakir Hussain, who leads science and research for the Farmer Empowerment Organisation (RySS), the government-supported non profit responsible for helping farmers in Andhra Pradesh transition to ZBNF. In 2018, the government of Andhra Pradesh announced a push to transition all of the state's farms to ZBNF in a bid to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and to restore the region's biodiversity and ecosystem services. Growers began eschewing synthetic pesticides and fertilizers in favor of more cost-effective and sustainable options, such as managing pests with botanical extracts or creating perches for insect-eating birds. Today, Hussain says that about 800,000 farmers in Andhra Pradesh practice ZBNF, which the government now refers to as community managed natural farming. Anecdotal evidence that ZBNF can match or even surpass conventional farm yields is mounting, and the practice is spreading quickly. ZBNF farmers become “ambassadors,” says Hussain. “They spread natural farming practices to other farmers.” Scientific research exploring ZBNF practices is just beginning to emerge. In a February 2022 issue of the journal Sustainability, Hussain and colleagues described a field experiment at study sites across Andhra Pradesh in which they found no difference in yield between plots managed with conventional and those managed with ZBNF practices for a variety of crops. Berger wants to know how ZBNF affects birds. She wonders whether the practice may make farms more habitable for birds while also increasing yields so that more wild habitats can be spared. She surveys the density and diversity of avian species on ZBNF and conventional farms, as well as in forests untouched by agriculture. She also records the proportions of natural habitat nested within the farmland. Ultimately, Berger, who counts Balmford as one of her dissertation advisors, will enter this data into a mathematical model that will optimize the agricultural landscape to meet food production goals while maximizing the density for each bird species. She will learn the ideal amount of spared habitat versus farmed land, the optimum proportion of ZBNF versus conventional farms, and the most effective proportion of natural habitat patches within farmland. The results, she says, could suggest a combination of different approaches in different areas. Maybe in some places, for example, ZBNF produces lower yields, so some proportion of conventional farms are required to spare the natural habitat that specific bird species require. But perhaps these conventional farms need to include some optimum number of habitat patches to maintain pollinators and other ecosystem services critical for their yield. “It's very complex and probably very case specific,” says Berger. Researchers are also using models to pinpoint where, in an ideal world, farming could expand at the least cost to biodiversity. But the work hinges on estimating one variable that is especially difficult to pin down: biodiversity itself. Biodiversity is the variety of life on Earth. This variety exists at different scales, such as whole ecosystems, species, or genes within species. Researchers recording biodiversity simply cannot count everything. So they make choices. Some may tally all vertebrate or plant species or give higher weight to endangered species or use only birds or another representative group. Many combine several of these measures into a single biodiversity index. When Crawford began reading land prioritization studies, he recognized that researchers often measure biodiversity in different ways. “All valid and defensible methods,” he says. But he wanted to understand how seemingly small differences between methods ultimately influence land-planning recommendations. Crawford began with a land-use model called agroEcoTradeoff, previously developed by colleagues at Princeton and elsewhere. He used this model to project where to convert land to farmland in Zambia to minimize biodiversity loss while meeting crop production needs in this country with a rapidly growing population and economy. Lilac-breasted roller (Coracias caudatus) at South Luangwa National Park, Zambia (l). Researchers are using models to determine where in Zambia the land could be farmed with minimal biodiversity loss. Photograph: Hans Hillewaert, CC BY-SA 4.0. Two male Phyllomedusa rohdei frogs in the Atlantic Forest in Bahia, Brazil. Some 85% of this forest has been cleared for agriculture, pasture, timber plantations, and cities. It remains home to 2200 species of fauna and 20,000 species of plants. Photograph: Renato Augusto Martins, CC BY-SA 4.0. Crawford ran the model with four previously published biodiversity indices and, each time, received different recommendations for where to expand agriculture. An index focused on vertebrate species richness with additional consideration given to species' range sizes, for example, suggested that agricultural expansion would be best placed in the southwestern portion of the country. Meanwhile, an index focused on how rare, intact, and well-protected different vegetation types are instead suggested that farmland should expand along the eastern portion of the country. Indeed, when comparing recommendations for where to expand agriculture between pairs of indices, the average overlap was only around 2%. The team then developed a series of their own indices so that they could systematically vary different components to understand what exactly causes biodiversity indices to return such divergent recommendations. They found that focusing on different groups of animals could change the recommendations dramatically. Bird diversity in for example, was least by agriculture in the would be better off if agriculture into the and affected the recommendations such as the of the data included and how much weight was given to range when species richness. the of whether to combine different biodiversity measures by taking the versus the could the recommendations in ways. for these of prioritization to be in about land-use and land-use researchers need to be very careful and about how they are biodiversity and about the that they are says As researchers for the best possible between farmland and biodiversity they also the of this ideal landscape into yields the space that farmland says Balmford. “It will to if look at global over for most in most But it The as Balmford explains in his 2021 Journal of is that a in yield could lower and so requiring more yields could also increase which that into more land Land sparing, then, best when increased yields are by policy measures at biodiversity, such as land-use and to the area covered by agriculture. such as this field in biodiversity, including the biodiversity of species to farming. Photograph: Some growers use such as this one on a to and increase biodiversity. Photograph: of Agriculture But these policy changes require to the of biodiversity and the of potential issue is that the research in this field is focused on biodiversity across the but the researchers are often based in and are for research to be by people who the these says this research to have an says Carrasco, should be from the So when are your research, should with the of the country and to understand the they to also need measures of biodiversity and between biodiversity and of the World in Cambridge, in the United Kingdom, and colleagues in a 2021 in Nature that countries need a biodiversity index the is a measure of and colleagues say, the would be a measure of a biodiversity The would be using a that of biodiversity, as well as that biodiversity to from to the of including and The is still in a says scientist and landscape ecologist of the National for and of Biodiversity in a on the is an for while researchers in South and develop their has been biodiversity data to government and organizations for over two now, says But as a single the of biodiversity in the country, it is really difficult to because have to use all of these of says The hope is that an will a for biodiversity over that a policy change will work also “We need evidence for the governments to and bring policy says Hussain. And the same for livelihoods depend on these had farmers that growing crops out of the year could increase production and also protect the So the says Hussain, farmers are the Balmford spreading how to meet needs at least cost to Journal of Crawford of in biodiversity indices used for land-use A global for crop Science Advances Carrasco of conversion risk from crop
Open access
Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy
Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
The Cuban government has implemented a series of agricultural transformations since 2007 to increase the country’s agricultural self-sufficiency and reduce its dependence on food imports. These include the transfer in usufruct, i.e. use rights only, of State-owned land to non-State producers (i.e. cooperatives and private farmers), moderate price reforms, the decentralization of decision making, and the gradual relaxation of existing forms of agricultural commercialization. As a result of these measures, the area planted, as well as physical output and agricultural yields (in selected non-sugar crop categories) have shown mixed results, and still remain below desired levels. There are three fundamental unresolved issues that have prevented Cuba’s agricultural sector from achieving desired levels: (1) the need to achieve the “realization of property”; (2) recognition and acceptance of the market as a complementary economy in coordination with a planning mechanism; and (3) absence of a systemic focus to achieve the successful completion of the agricultural production cycle (i.e. the value chain). These unresolved issues should be addressed through: (1) consolidating markets for inputs, where producers can obtain essential inputs at prices that correspond to the prices they can obtain for their output; (2) granting greater autonomy to agricultural producers to allow them to decide when, where, and to whom they can sell their output, after social contracts have been fulfilled; (3) diversifying types of agricultural commercialization to permit greater participation by non-State economic actors; (4) allowing agricultural producers to freely hire the labor necessary to sustain and increase production; and (5) providing agricultural producers with needed financing and technical assistance. Please refer to Supplementary Materials, Full text Spanish version of this article, for a full text Spanish version of this article.
Taking into account the limitations of official approaches for addressing agri-food research, as well as their associated policies to tackle the problems of hunger and vulnerability of agri-food systems to global change, it becomes necessary to consider new frameworks and alternative policies for research and management of agri-food systems. With this thesis we contribute to the advances of agri-food research by rethinking the way of conceptualizing the agri-food system and by designing and testing analysis tools capable to link the research process with the management dynamics found in the local territory. We focus our attention on those linked to the political paradigm of food sovereignty. To achieve this objective we adopted a deductive and inductive method of research, organized in three phases. During the first phase, and under the wider umbrella of Sociology of Agriculture and Food, we developed a conceptual and theoretical framework which integrates systemic thinking and development studies capable to analyze the political paradigm of food sovereignty. For this purpose, we linked the approach focused in the analysis of socio-ecological systems (SES) with the vulnerability approach focused in the analysis of actors¿ dynamics. As a result, we have obtained an integrate framework that address the ecological and social dimensions of agri-food systems. During the second phase, we tested the framework developed in an empirical case study of a local agri-food system of the canton of Loja, located at the Southern Ecuadorian Andean region. The case is of particular interest due to the recent consideration of comunas and barrios as basic units for citizen participation within decentralized autonomous governments; and, the parallel process of creation of new collective action organizations, such as the recently conformed Agroecological Network of Loja (RAL). Using empirical data obtained from a survey conducted between December 2013 and March 2014 based on questionnaires to households (N = 116) and interviews to key informants (N = 14). We analyzed the role of social and institutional factors on the local agri-food system configuration taking into account the pillars of food sovereignty within the analysis. The results showed the significant, but differentiated, role of institutions (Agroecological Network of Loja), social groups (Saraguro indigenous culture) and income generation strategies on the agri-food system configuration. During the third phase, we assessed the future vulnerability vs resilience of local agri-food system through a participatory scenario development process. Using data obtained from semi-structured interviews (N = 14 and N = 25) and two workshops we analyzed the future trajectories of transformation for the local agri-food system under multiple ecological, socio-economic and political drivers of change. Four scenarios were envisioned by local actors. This assessment showed how drivers of change can affect different components of the local agri-food system when it is conceptualized as SES; and, how different perspectives contribute to build different future trajectories of active transformation. Overall, the results of the research process emphasize the role played by actors (understood as an intersectional group where gender takes meaning from its intersection with ethnicity and class) and novel institutional arrangements action to star the active transformation of agri-food systems in the marginal Andes. These findings have implications in agri-food systems policy design at local level, where the local peasant initiatives of social innovation have to be seen as potential mean to achieve the materialization of the political paradigm of food sovereignty within Andean agri-food system. Frente a las limitaciones tanto de los enfoques oficiales para la investigación agroalimentaria como de las políticas asociadas para abordar el problema del hambre y la vulnerabilidad de los sistemas agroalimentarios al cambio global, se hace necesario considerar nuevos marcos de análisis y políticas alternativas para el estudio y la gestión de los sistemas agroalimentarios. Con este trabajo de tesis nos proponemos contribuir al avance de la investigación agroalimentaria repensado la forma de conceptualizar el sistema agroalimentario y diseñando herramientas de análisis que vinculen el proceso de investigación con las dinámicas de gestión encontradas en el territorio local, enfocándonos en aquellas vinculadas con la soberanía alimentaria. Para alcanzar este objetivo hemos realizado un proceso (inductivo y deductivo) bajo el paraguas de la sociología de la agricultura y la alimentación, que hemos llevado a cabo en tres fases de investigación. Durante la primera fase, hemos desarrollado un marco teórico y metodológico que integra el pensamiento sistémico y estudios del desarrollo bajo el paradigma político de la soberanía alimentaria. Con este fin hemos vinculado el enfoque centrado en el análisis de los sistemas socio-ecológicos (SES) con el enfoque de vulnerabilidad centrado en el análisis de la dinámica de los actores. Como resultado hemos obtenido un marco integrado que aborda las dimensiones ecológica y social de los sistemas agroalimentarios, tal y como lo requiere el paradigma político de la soberanía alimentaria. Durante la segunda fase, hemos aplicado empíricamente el marco desarrollado en el sistema agroalimentario del cantón Loja, ubicado en los Andes del sur de Ecuador. Este caso de estudio es de particular interés debido a la reciente consideración de las comunas y barrios como unidades básicas para la participación ciudadana dentro de los gobiernos autónomos descentralizados; y, paralelamente, a la creación de nuevos procesos de acción colectiva, como la Red Agroecológica Loja (RAL). Usando datos empíricos obtenidos de cuestionarios a hogares campesino (N = 116) y entrevistas en profundidad a informantes clave (N = 14), realizada entre diciembre de 2013 y marzo de 2014, analizamos el rol de los factores sociales e institucionales sobre la configuración del sistema agroalimentario integrando dentro del análisis los pilares de la soberanía alimentaria. Este análisis mostró el rol significativo, pero diferenciado, de las instituciones (Red Agroecológica Loja), grupos sociales (cultura indígena Saraguro) y las estrategias de generación de ingresos para dar lugar a la configuración del sistema agroalimentario local. Durante la tercera fase, evaluamos la vulnerabilidad vs resiliencia del sistema agroalimentario local mediante un proceso de análisis de escenarios participativos. Hemos analizado las futuras trayectorias de transformación del sistema agroalimentario local bajo múltiples conductores de cambio (de tipo ecológico, socio-económico y político) mediante el análisis de datos obtenidos a partir de entrevistas semi-estructuradas (N = 14 y N = 25) y dos talleres. Los actores locales visionaron cuatro posibles futuros escenarios. Nuestra evaluación muestra cómo los conductores de cambio afectan los diferentes componentes del sistema agroalimentario local cuando se lo conceptualiza como SES; y, cómo las diferentes perspectivas de los actores construyen diferentes trayectorias para la transformación activa del sistema. En general, los resultados del proceso de investigación enfatizan el rol que desempeñan los actores (entendido como un grupo interseccional donde el género se concibe a partir de su intersección con la etnicidad y la clase) y los nuevos arreglos de acción institucional para iniciar la transformación activa del sistema agroalimentario en los sectores marginales andinos.
The Cuban government has implemented a series of agricultural transformations since 2007 to increase the country’s agricultural self-sufficiency and reduce its dependency on food imports. These include the transfer (in usufruct) of State-owned land to non-State producers (e.g. cooperatives and private farmers), moderate price reforms, the decentralization of decision making, and the gradual relaxation of existing forms of agricultural commercialization. As a result of these measures, the area planted, as well as physical output and agricultural yields (in selected non-sugar crop categories) have shown mixed results, but still remain below desired levels. There are three (3) fundamental unresolved aspects that have prevented Cuba’s agricultural sector from achieving the desired outcomes: (1) the need to achieve the “realization of property,” (2) the recognition and acceptance of the market as a complementary economic coordination mechanism, and (3) the absence of a systemic focus to achieve the successful completion of the agricultural production cycle. These unresolved aspects should be addressed through: (1) the consolidation of input markets, where producers can obtain essential inputs at prices that correspond to the prices they can obtain for their output, (2) greater autonomy to allow agricultural producers to freely decide when, where, and to whom they could sell their output, after social contracts have been fulfilled, (3) the diversification of the forms of agricultural commercialization to permit greater participation by non-State economic actors, (4) allowing agricultural producers to freely hire the labor necessary to sustain and increase production, and (5) providing agricultural producers with the financing and technical assistance necessary.
This book is based upon research and reflection supported by BALTA during its initial research program from 2006-2012. It explored many of the themes that became central to BALTA’s work in its Scaling Innovation for Sustainability Project. With our communities confronted by major sustainability challenges, many linked to the impact of climate change, it argues for replacing the paradigm of limitless economic growth with a more decentralized, co-operative, steady-state economy. It examines case studies of success in energy sufficiency, local food systems, low-cost community based financing, affordable housing and land reform. Specific chapters and the book as a whole redefine the development paradigm within a sustainability and steady-state economic framework.
R. Lilian E. Painter, Alejandra Alfonso Durán, E. MIRO
One of the central conservation debates over the last quarter of a century has been the effect of conservation initiatives on local livelihoods. Most recently, numerous negative evaluations have been made of both coercive top-down approaches to management of protected areas, which were dominant before the 1980s and focused on enforcement of protection, and efforts to decentralize governance and increase local participation in resource-management initiatives linked to markets. These critiques are subsets of the general criticism of neoliberal conservation, which is characterized by a lesser role for the public sector, privatization of natural resources, and a greater role for market forces (McCarthy & Prudham 2004; Igoe & Brockington 2007). When natural resources are treated as commodities and state control over them is reduced, local stakeholders in remote rural areas, in particular indigenous peoples, can lose access to critical resources for their livelihoods to economic elites with greater resources to respond to economic opportunities. In this essay, we discuss what conservation means for the indigenous peoples living next to Madidi and Pilon Lajas protected areas in the Bolivian Amazon, a region of high species diversity and levels of endemism, where the state, local stakeholders, and several nongovernmental organizations have implemented numerous projects focused on maintaining biological diversity and improving local livelihoods. These conservation initiatives have strengthened management of protected areas and buffer zones, promoted sustainable natural-resource-use projects, and strengthened mechanisms for local participation in management of natural resources and protected areas. In addition, governance conditions have enabled alliances between conservation organizations and indigenous peoples. Of particular importance, a strong indigenous political movement has established partnerships with conservation practitioners. These partnerships are based on the recognition of rights of indigenous peoples to develop their own representative organizations and secure legal property rights over their ancestral lands. In 1990, before most of the protected areas in Central and South America were established (UNEP-WCMC 2010), the indigenous peoples in the Bolivian Amazon mobilized to obtain legal recognition of their territorial rights. Hence, the importance of indigenous territories for the cultural survival and livelihoods of Amazonian groups, as well as their entitlement to maintain or develop organizational and representation structures and promote traditional practices of natural resource use, has been recognized since the creation of the national protected-area system in Bolivia. The majority of protected areas in Latin America were established after constitutional reforms recognized the multiple cultural and ethnic characteristics of their countries (Van Cott 2010). The principal focus of these reforms was the design and consolidation of democratic institutions, but indigenous movements capitalized on the reforms to demand political inclusion and minimization of the negative effects of development in their traditional lands. The reforms built on the global indigenous mobilization to obtain recognition of their rights through the International Labor Organization No. 169 Convention on Indigenous and Tribal People in 1989. Bolivia is in the heart of South America where the Andes, Amazon, and Chaco come together; thus, it is one of the most species-rich countries in the world (Ibisch & Merida 2003). This high species richness is accompanied by a high cultural diversity. The 30 different indigenous groups present in the country represent 66% of the population, the highest percentage in Latin America (Del Popolo & Oyarce 2005). Forty-four indigenous lands are linked to protected areas in Bolivia, 30 are in the buffer zones; 5 are entirely within a protected area, and 9 overlap partially with a protected area (Salinas 2007). The relation between biological and cultural diversity is exemplified in northwestern Bolivia, a region of exceptional species richness resulting from topographical and climatic diversity and where the Bolivian government established three protected areas: Madidi National Park and Natural Area of Integrated Management (1895750 ha), Apolobamba Natural Area of Integrated Management (483744 ha), and Pilon Lajas Biosphere Reserve and Indigenous Territory (400000 ha). Seven indigenous lands overlap or border these protected areas: the Lecos Apolo, Lecos Larecaja, San Jose de Uchupiamonas, Mosetene, Takana I, Takana II, and Pilon Lajas (T’simane Mosetene). The meaning of conservation, as used by contemporary conservation practitioners, in relation to these seven indigenous groups has evolved as a result of threats to biological diversity that also threaten indigenous lands and livelihoods, in particular illegal timber extraction, new settlements, and, more recently, large energy and infrastructure projects. These shared threats have brought together conservation and indigenous organizations in efforts to preserve biological diversity and develop sustainable economic activities, based in natural resource extraction and ecotourism, to improve indigenous livelihoods. There has been increasing consensus among Bolivian conservation practitioners that empowering local communities through the consolidation of their territorial rights establishes a strong constituency for maintaining protected areas. The Amazonian Bolivian indigenous movement worked for land reforms to establish indigenous lands as collective property which cannot be sold or divided. This has prevented land titling from opening up these areas to private markets and has led to strengthening access by indigenous communities to their traditional indigenous lands, including those overlapping protected areas. Under this approach the Bolivian Protected Area Service (SERNAP) and Wildlife Conservation Society have worked to support effective participation of the indigenous communities and their representative organizations in the land-titling process by developing their capacity to use spatial analyses to guide internal consensus and negotiations with nonindigenous neighbors. As a result, legal titles have been obtained for over 672941 ha of Takana, Lecos Apolo, and Lecos Larecaja indigenous lands. The Bolivian government has also recognized the San Jose de Uchupiamonas and T’simane Mosetene indigenous lands, which completely overlap with Madidi and Pilon Lajas protected areas. Parallel to the process of land titling, the indigenous organizations have received support from the Bolivian government and international and Bolivian nongovernmental organizations to develop and implement indigenous territorial plans (CIPTA 2002; CRTM-SERNAP 2007; CIPLA 2010; PILCOL 2010). Indigenous communities have received support to control illegal timber extraction, wildlife hunting, and forest clearance by outside settlers. As a result, deforestation rates within the indigenous lands are similar to those in neighboring protected areas and are much lower than in unprotected areas in the region (Forrest et al. 2008). Monitoring of wild animals has shown that current hunting levels are sustainable, connectivity for movements of these animals between the protected areas and surrounding indigenous land is being maintained, and illegal hunting is being prevented (Chumacero et al. 2010; R. Wallace, private communication). Several community-based tourism, cacao, handicraft, coffee, and palm-management initiatives have been established with support from the protected-area service and nongovernmental organizations, and these provide increased family incomes and greater control of the land by indigenous peoples. For example, in 1992, no indigenous forestry-management organizations existed in this region and indigenous peoples were engaged in forestry as contract laborers under unfair terms. Today, there are over 20 indigenous, community-level forestry associations. Hence, conservation programs have favored devolution of natural resource management to the indigenous organizations and promoted both social justice and conservation. Democratization of decision making has replaced a system in which decisions were made by local nonindigenous elites. Indigenous communities have established internal consensus, developed their technical capacity, and then engaged other organizations from a position of strength. The last 25 years have marked a transition period for the valuation of indigenous culture and for indigenous peoples’ leadership in the establishment of protected areas that are integrated with indigenous lands in landscapes managed for both improved indigenous livelihoods and conservation. The support of conservation organizations has been critical to the development of indigenous capacity to manage their land and resources and has avoided the problems associated with devolution of regulatory responsibility to local organizations without the necessary skills (McCarthy & Prudham 2004). The Bolivian experience supports the hypothesis that when indigenous peoples have recognized land rights, autonomy, and establish clear regulations about access to and use of natural resources, relatively large forest areas are less likely to be intensively exploited (Chhatre & Agrawal 2009). Indigenous organizations in Bolivia have exclusive land rights, and consolidating their organizational and technical capacity is critical to ensure they continue to protect the ecological integrity of their territories from expanding extraction of natural resources. In the next quarter century, indigenous organizations need to monitor the effectiveness of their territorial management plans and develop sustainable finance strategies to implement the plans that include the contributions of community natural resource management to the collective costs of territorial defense. They also need to develop incentives for maintaining vulnerable areas without human extractive uses (e.g., valuing environmental services). The external challenge to meeting indigenous demands for greater political and administrative autonomy is state development of road, mining, and energy projects throughout the Amazon. Conflicts with gold miners, loggers, and large development projects are intensifying and conservation professionals and indigenous peoples are allied to improve practices and governance of these projects. Traditionally, Amazonian indigenous institutions base decisions on consensus and encourage widespread participation. Accordingly, strengthening their capacity for conflict resolution could also help increase transparency and broaden citizen participation during the consultation processes associated with these projects. Two aspects have facilitated the alliance between conservation organizations and indigenous organizations in Bolivia. First, the political strength of indigenous organizations established a favorable legal framework for recognition of their territorial rights. Second, human population densities within Amazonian indigenous territories are relatively low, so there is still opportunity to achieve goals for improved livelihoods through natural resource use and conservation and to reconcile these two purposes. Indigenous peoples in Amazonia use a wide range of forest products that require sustainable management of large areas. Their capacity to articulate and defend their traditional rights on the basis of these requirements will determine the future of much of the Amazon. Conservation professionals have important roles to play in identifying critical connectivity requirements between strict protection cores and the surrounding matrix; identifying the area of indirect effect of development projects by modeling land use resulting from changes in economic drivers, political and regulatory conditions, and local topography; guiding implementation of actions to achieve no net loss of biological diversity and local livelihoods, as represented in indigenous territorial plans; and documenting the importance of territorial rights over natural areas for indigenous livelihoods and cultural survival. Lilian Painter is a Bolivian wildlife ecologist who has worked with the Wildlife Conservation Society in northern La Paz since 2001. She supports Takana, Lecos, T’simane, and Mosetene indigenous communities in land-use planning. Angel Duran is a Leco indigenous leader and ex Vice-President of the Lecos Apolo organization. He has led the land-titling and land-planning processes of the Leco communities and successful negotiations with nonindigenous neighbors, local authorities, and the protected-area service. Edwin Miro is the past president of the T’simane Mosetene Regional Council and has led the land-titling and land-planning processes of the communities in the Pilon Lajas Biosphere Reserve and Indigenous Territory. As a result Pilon Lajas is jointly managed by the indigenous organization and the Bolivian protected-area service. We thank K. Redford and E. Fleishman for their valuable comments on this essay.
Open access
Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
There are three reasons why land policies in Africa are attracting greater amounts of attention. First, it is recognized that enhancing smallholder productivity is critical for sustainable and broad-based growth as well as poverty reduction (World Bank 2007). However, land-related investment, technology adoption, establishment of processing, markets, and value chains, all are unlikely to come about unless land tenure is secure. Moreover, increased productivity will be capitalized in land values and unless explicit attention is devoted to traditional land rights and land access by weaker groups, in particular women, interventions aiming to increase agricultural productivity may have negative social consequences. This is particularly relevant in contexts where current interpretations of customary systems define women's rights only through their relationship with men and women are often unable to inherit land which is considered the property of their husband's lineage. Negative implications for productivity can be severe, in particular if, as almost everywhere, women make a major contribution to agricultural production and its management.Second, demand for land, and in many cases land prices, have vastly increased with population growth, urbanization, and overall economic development. While higher land values makes land registration more rewarding, leaving land rights undefined increases the risk of having them appropriated by outsiders in a way that may neither be consistent with principles of equity nor conducive to the most productive use of this resource.Third, in a decentralized setting, land administration can not only help provide public goods and improve government finance but also that are rural areas will not develop based on agriculture alone. Nonagricultural development will imply migration of households out of agriculture that requires secure land rights so as to allow transfer of land rights, either through rental on a temporary basis or through sale, to others who are able to make more effective use of it without the fear of losing it. In many cases, this is now complemented by demand for land by investors who want to use it for food production, bio-fuels, or in anticipation of carbon payments has increased significantly in the wake of recent commodity price booms. It has highlighted that, without clear processes to process requests or assign of land rights, land acquisition by outsiders may end up fostering corruption and leading to inequality and dispossession of traditional land users rather than as a positive force for growth.This paper examines the theories identifying channels through which land rights can affect socioeconomic outcomes, points to realities which often prevent such effects from materializing, summarizes quantitative evidence on the actual impact of land registration interventions to assess the validity of theoretical arguments, and derives conclusions that can help guide applied work in this area. An example from Ethiopia is used to illustrate the potentially far-reaching impacts of ‘new' models of formalizing land rights and a number of policy conclusions are drawn.