Just over 2 months ago
(April 2016) I came back from Zomba.
This was my third trip to Malawi for my ESPA Fellowship,
linked to the ESPA–ASSETS project and locally hosted by LEAD SEA. After the data collection trip among rural smallholder farmers
in 2015, it was time for follow-up: did the respondents of my survey approve of
my conclusions? Would stakeholders be interested in my results? And I was also
going to organise a scenario workshop on the question: Does climate-smart
agriculture support river basin management in Zomba District?
I left the UK with
some apprehension, not sure what I would find after the massive El
Nino-related dry spell that hit Malawi this planting
season. Farmers rely heavily on rainfed agriculture, but the rains came two
months late and were intermittent once they finally arrived. Food shortages
have led to increased
food prices, making it even less accessible to the
poorest people. Some people have received cassava and sweet potato vines,
which grow relatively fast.
My research assistant
and I were met with surprise when we came back. Apparently many
researchers fail
to report back and disseminate the results of their
studies to the very same people that were willing to participate in (yet
another!) survey. The most exciting discussions we had were on gender and youth
issues. Whilst women own the farm land and do most of the cultivation, husbands
usually make the decisions on what to plant, when to sell, and what to do with
the money – disappointing for, and disempowering, their wives… Young
people are faced with ever smaller land holdings,
disappearing forests and rivers that dry up – some are heading to South Africa
in search of greener pastures. Younger people complained about the fact that
they are usually the last to receive anything when the fertiliser coupons are
distributed, when land is distributed, when lucrative jobs are allocated…
Reframing my academic
research question (a
comparison of methodologies) into a policy relevance question (climate smart agriculture)
resulted in interesting conversations with development practitioners, forest and
agriculture specialists and policy makers. All are looking for the silver
bullet to solve the linked issue of sustainable environmental management and
poverty alleviation. My research on the suitability of financial incentives was
met with both criticism and support. Criticism – because just injecting money
into household systems without training in business skills does not lead to
development. Support – because indeed money is needed but hard to come by, and
short term benefits of agroforestry, conservation agriculture and other
techniques are often negative or minute at best, one of the reasons that their
scaling-up and adoption rates are limited.
In the last week of my
stay, together with the Forest
Research Institute Malawi, I organised a workshop on the
suitability of climate smart agriculture for river basin management under
different scenarios of climate change and economic growth. A group of more than
20 experts and practitioners from Zomba and national level participated in
debates around the trade-offs between different objectives. Poverty specialists
emphasised the need for (adult) functional education and empowerment before
introducing new techniques; agricultural experts stressed the benefits of
drought resistant seeds; foresters argued for the commercial benefits of
indigenous trees. It was obvious that the most difficult trade-offs were found
when environmental management and poverty alleviation were incompatible.
Indeed, the main issue of my research…
No comments:
Post a Comment