jennifer blesh assistant professor, school of natural resources and environment
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Resilience of Smallholder Farms in the Brazilian Cerrado: An Interdisciplinary and Participatory Assessment Framework. Jennifer Blesh Assistant Professor, School of Natural Resources and Environment University of Michigan 5 May 2014. Agrarian Reform in the Cerrado. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Resilience of Smallholder Farms in the Brazilian Cerrado:
An Interdisciplinary and Participatory Assessment Framework
Jennifer BleshAssistant Professor, School of Natural Resources
and EnvironmentUniversity of Michigan
5 May 2014
Agrarian Reform in the Cerrado
Socioecological Research in MT
Food System Resilience• Capacity to produce and access nutritious food in the face
of uncertainty, without diminishing other vital ecosystem services
• Ecologists have asked: Resilience of what to what? Can we manage for resilience?
• We are also asking: How? Resilience for whom? Who decides?
Participatory assessment of the resilience of food sovereignty practices Resilience includes adaptive capacity, transformative potential and human agency
Food Sovereignty• Transnational agrarian social movement that emerged in
mid-1990s (in response to inequity)• Calls for rights of farmers, fishers, and consumer-citizens
to determine food and agricultural policy and practice, respecting cultural and productive diversity
• Landless rural workers movement (MST)
The MST Promotes Agroecology• Food producing, biodiverse • Mixtures of perennials and annuals, including
horticulture, agroforestry, rotational grazing, etc.• Low external input• Target diverse markets: local market development,
social economy, emphasize social equity
Research Questions
What does the MST’s ideal model (agroecology and food sovereignty) look like in practice?
How do agroecological practices emerge in the Cerrado, and how are they sustained?To what effect?
Study Sites• Mato Grosso—42 MST-organized settlements, with a
total of 4,254 families
• Settlements sampled: Tangará da Serra and Mirassol D’Oeste/Araputanga (ARPA)
Mixed-methods Assessment• focus groups (n = 6)• participant observation • in-person farmer survey (n=60)• qualitative interviews (n = 30)
farm families networks that support family farming
• analysis of soil samples (n = 52 fields): particulate OM, C, N, and P
• quantification of indicators from sample and survey data
Indicators of ResilienceIndicator What was measuredIncome • Desired household income level
• Achieve desired income level through agriculture (Y/N)?
Food self-sufficiency • Household consumption levels of common foods• Source of foods (own production, settlement, market)
Agrobiodiversity • # of crops sold/season
Cropping Systems Management
• Characterizing crop rotations and cropping systems• Crop rotation, fertility amendments, reliance on legume N
Soil fertility/soil phosphorous (P)
• Basic characterization (pH, Total N, C, P, texture, etc.)• Particulate OM pools and C and N content
Political participation • Marketing structure• Cooperative or Individual
Technical Assistance • Access to technical assistance• Level of expertise/involvement
Milk Production • Pasture area (l/ha/year)• # cows (l/cow/year)
Descriptive Statistics: Farmer Survey Median Mean SEFarmer/Household CharacteristicsYears of formal schooling 5 6.2 0.53Adults working on farm (#) 2 2.6 0.2Distance to nearest city (km) 39 39.5 3Labor (hours/week/household) 72 77.90 5.2
Land Use CharacteristicsSize of lot (ha) 25 30.5 1.8Annual crops (ha) 2 2.9 0.4Perennial crops (ha) 0.5 1.6 0.4Pasture (ha) 14.4 13.6 1.2Native forest or reserve (ha) 4.3 7.4 1.3Secondary forest or brush (ha) 2.9 5.2 0.9Certified organic (%) 35.6Dairy (%) 65.6Cows (#) 18 21 2.4Chickens (#) 35 57.9 16.8Pigs (#) 2 5.1 1.8
Marketing StrategiesTangará da Serra ARPA
Brazil: Fome Zero Programs• Agricultural Credit
New settlers, women, value-added and processing
• School Lunch Program: PNAE30% must be procured from small-scale farmers~2000 municipalities are participating
• Public Procurement: PAAGuaranteed markets for small scale productionDonated to schools, hospitals, food banks
Agrobiodiversity and Soil P
**
PAA Improves Several FS IndicatorsIndividualPAA participant
0 20 40 60 80 100
Food self-sufficiency
HH income
Technical assistance
Political participation
Milk production
CS management
Agrobiodiversity
Soil P
PAA Participation: 2010-2012
Source: CONAB contracts, 2010-2012
Tangará da Serra ARPA
# % small farmers*
% all farmers
# % small farmers
*% all
farmers2010 159 5.2 3.3 201 4.7 3.42011 182 6.0 3.8 244 5.8 4.22012 119 3.9 2.5 357 8.4 6.1
* small-scale farms ≤ 50ha
Challenges: PAA
• Labor for horticultural production• Lack of infrastructure/machinery
Distance from urban marketsPoor road and transportation conditionsLack of internet/phone service
• Lack of technical assistancePrior agricultural experience not in horticulture or marketingNew to regional/ecological knowledge
Concluding Thoughts• Learn from existing innovation
Agroecological production for local markets, especially through government purchasing programs (PAA)
• Multidimensional analysisIdentify successes, trade-offs, leverage points for food system transformation
• Cerrado is a challenging setting for the MST’s effortsBiophysical: climate change, dry season, soilsSocial: Regional socio-technical infrastructure supports commodity production (markets, roads, infrastructure)Knowledge systems and resources for agroecological production are weak in the Cerrado
Concluding Thoughts• Place-based resilience in Brazilian Cerrado:
Bottom up and top downPressure from agrarian movement intersecting with state policy changeStill missing infrastructure and knowledge “in the middle”
Thank You
• Hannah Wittman• José Fernando Scaramuzza• Wendy Wolford• Laurie Drinkwater• Farmer participants• Field and lab assistants• NSF IRFP (Project #: 1064807)
Mato Grosso Crop Production (ha)
Year1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
Thou
sand
hec
tare
s
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000cottonricesugar canesoybeanscorn
Data from IGBE, 2013
Indicator Units Raw Scale How optimum determined Min Max Opt. Household income Proportion of farmers achieving ideal
income through farming0 1 1 Farmer survey and focus group
questions about ideal income (Reais/month)
Food self-sufficiency Survey score based on whether none, some, most or all household food comes from the farm or community
0 39 39 Selected 100% of food from farm or neighbors (community)
Soil P % of sampled fields that have recommended soil P (Mehlich I mg kg-1)
0 100 100 Regional extension recommendations for clayey and sandy soils*
Agrobiodiversity Total number of crops sold/year 0 22 15 Selected 75% quartile of survey distribution
Cropping systems management
Survey score based on crop rotation, fertility inputs, and use of legume N sources
0 4 4 Highest possible score from suvey questions
Milk production liters/ha/year 85 3086 1200 Selected 75% quartile of distribution
Political participation Survey score based on type of markets 0 2 2 Highest possible score from survey question
Technical assistance Survey score based on access to assistance (frequency and quality)
0 2 2 Highest possible score from survey question
*Optimum concentration of Mehlich-I extractable P ranged from 6 - 25 mg kg-1 based on textural analysis (citation)
Indicators and Scale
Management Characteristics
Fertility inputs All PAA Non-PAAfertilizer (%) 18.6 10.5 33.3manure (%) 72.9 86.8 47.6legume (%) 42.4 39.5 33.3none (%) 15.3 10.5 23.8
Use of pesticides (%) 27.1 21 38.1
• Only seven of the sampled fields were in legume-based management
Food Self-Sufficiency%
of f
amili
es
0
20
40
60
80
100 all from farmall from settlement all from supermarket
Beans
RiceMilk
Beef
ChickenCorn
CassavaPork
EggsPasta
VegetablesFruit
Conceptual Model
Food Sovereignty
Ecological Resilience
Global
National/Regional
State/Landscape
Community/HH
WTO, climate variation
Govn’t subsidies and programs; conservation policies
soil quality, slope; infrastructure, roads
Land tenure, education, farm/field mgmt.
National PAA Trends
2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014
Tota
l Res
ourc
es (R
$)
700,000,000
600,000,000
500,000,000
400,000,000
300,000,000
200,000,000
100,000,000
0
Brazil: Institutionalizing Food Sovereignty
• The realization of the human right to adequate food and to food and nutritional security requires respect for sovereignty, that confers on countries the primacy of their decisions around the production and consumption of food. Law No. 11.346. September 15, 2006
• [through] promoting sustainable agro-ecological systems for producing and distributing food, that respect biodiversity and strengthen family agriculture, indigenous peoples, and traditional communities that ensure the consumption and access to adequate and healthy food, respecting the diversity of national food cultures . . . incorporating into State policy respect for food sovereignty and the human right to adequate food. Decree No. 7.272. August 25, 2010
Mato Grosso Crop Production (ha)
Year1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
Thou
sand
hec
tare
s
0
200
400
600
800 cottonricesugar cane
• Soil has OM pools with differing turnover times• Some pools are more responsive to management:
potential to manage pools with year to decadal turnover for internal nutrient cycling capacity
• POM is related to the mineralizable N pool• Size and density fractionation (Marriot and Wander,
2006) to separate free and occluded POMfPOM: macro + 250 – 500 μmoPOM: 53 – 250 μm
POM N: Indicator of soil fertility
Density and Size Fractionation
fields sampled%
cla
y0
20
40
60
80
100
Variability in Study Site Soils
fields sampled
% s
and
0
20
40
60
80
100
Antonio Conselheiro14 de AgostoFlorestan FernandesRoseli Nunes
Occluded POM and % Clay
soil % clay0 20 40 60 80 100
oPO
M (k
g ha
-1)
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
35000
40000
R2=0.26p=0.001y=221.4x + 7196
Increased N in organic matter