Number Of Small-scale Farmers Research Articles

How do large-scale agricultural investments affect land use and the environment on the western slopes of Mount Kenya? Empirical evidence based on small-scale farmers' perceptions and remote sensing

Africa has been heavily targeted by large-scale agricultural investments (LAIs) throughout the last decade, with scarcely known impacts on local social-ecological systems. In Kenya, a large number of LAIs were made in the region northwest of Mount Kenya. These large-scale farms produce vegetables and flowers mainly for European markets. However, land use in the region remains dominated by small-scale crop and livestock farms with less than 1 ha of land each, who produce both for their own subsistence and for the local markets. We interviewed 100 small-scale farmers living near five different LAIs to elicit their perceptions of the impacts that these LAIs have on their land use and the overall environment. Furthermore, we analyzed remotely sensed land cover and land use data to assess land use change in the vicinity of the five LAIs. While land use change did not follow a clear trend, a number of small-scale farmers did adapt their crop management to environmental changes such as a reduced river water flows and increased pests, which they attributed to the presence of LAIs. Despite the high number of open conflicts between small-scale land users and LAIs around the issue of river water abstraction, the main environmental impact, felt by almost half of the interviewed land users, was air pollution with agrochemicals sprayed on the LAIs' land. Even though only a low percentage of local land users and their household members were directly involved with LAIs, a large majority of respondents favored the presence of LAIs nearby, as they are believed to contribute to the region's overall economic development.

A Success Story of Organizing Small Scale Farmers in Kenya: It’s Possible Replication for the Payment of Environmental services?

The hypothesis of this article is that managing agricultural landscapes for reducing greenhouse gas emissions as a Payment for Environmental Services mechanism (PES) will be of major significance after the 2012 Kyoto Protocol era. The large number of small scale farmers in developing countries, and not least in Africa South of Sahara (SSA), will through this system get an opportunity for a triple win situation: contributing to national development, environmental protection and enhancing their own livelihoods. The big problem of relying on small scale farmers is organizing them to ensure service provisions that live up to the requirements of endurance, additionality and reliability. The Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) for over almost 50 years has been successful in integrating 600,000 smallholders in tea production making tea number one income earner in Kenya, and enhancing the livelihoods of the involved contract growers. This article argues that lessons should be learned from the success of KTDA when trying to replicate the organizational model for other crops, but not least in PES schemes. The article emphasizes vertical integration and production diversification, enabling market conditions, and democratization as the main factors in KTDA's success. This could possibly be replicated when promoting small scale farmers participating in the post-Kyoto carbon trade and other PES schemes.

A history of black farm operators in Maryland

Since the turn of the century, the number of small-scale farmers in the U.S. and farmlands they owned have declined very sharply (structural change). Although the decrease in number is generally true for both white and Black farm operators, it has been more significant for Blackfarm operators than whites. The declining trend in the number of Blackfarm operators in the country is derived from individual state experiences that resulted from a combination of various political and economic factors. Using the census of agriculture data from 1900 to 1987, this paper gives a brief historical overview of Black farm operators in Maryland. The census data for the study period shows that at their peak number in 1910, there were 6,382 Blackfarmers in the state of Maryland. However, by 1987, only 371 of that number remained, representing a loss of 94 percent since 1910. According to the 1987 census data almost all Black operated farms in Maryland were not only small-scale but also in the lower sales class, less than $20,000 a year. Their household net family income is below that of non-metropolitan median household income. This concentration of Blacks in the lower economic class of farm operators in the state, for the most part, is closely related to their resource endowments, patterns of tenure, type of farm enterprises, and government farm programs and policies. On the average, Blackfarmers in Maryland have less land, capital and management skills than their white counterparts. Government policies and programs had, and continue to have, a devastating effect on Maryland Black farmers because they were tied to productive resources rather than farm income needs. Under conditions of low income, years of neglect by federal and state programs and policies, and limited resources Blackfarmers were unable to adopt capital intensive production practices and expand their farm operations. This resulted in most of them leaving agriculture, in the past and today, at a faster rate than whites. To avert or at least lessen the unfortunate situation of Black farm operators, projections and possible solutions are offered. This includes how the 1890 Land-Grant institutions because of their tradition, expertise and experience of research, teaching and outreach can take the leadership role in shaping the future direction of these farmers and their operations.