Small Family Farms Research Articles

Research on social data by means of cluster analysis

This paper presents a data mining study and cluster analysis of social data obtained on small producers and family farmers from six country cities in Ceará state, northeast Brazil. The analyzed data involve demographic, economic, agriculture and food insecurity information. The goal of the study is to establish profiles for the small producer families that reside in the region and to identify relevant features which differentiate these profiles. Moreover, we provide an efficient data mining methodology for analysis of social data sets which is capable of handling its natural challenges, such as mixed variables and abundance of null values. We use the Silhouette method for the estimation of the best number of natural groups within the data, along with the Partitioning Around Medoids clustering algorithm in order to compute the profiles. The Correlation-Based Feature Selection method is used to identify which social criteria are the most important to differentiate the families from each profile. Classification models based on support vector machines, multilayer perceptron and decision trees were developed aiming to predict in which of the identified clusters an arbitrary family would be best fit. We obtained a good separation of the families into two clusters, and a multilayer perceptron model with approximately 93.5% prediction accuracy.

Economies of scope: context of agriculture, small family farmers and sustainability

What does this article offers? It raises questions on the assumptions of efficiency in agriculture, traces the history of the logic of scale replacing logic of scope, analyses its impact on sustainability and offers a framework to discern technical contradictions of efficiency across different sectors and find a balance for sustainability. It delves with a few basic questions: First, what is the assumption for efficiency in agriculture and food production? Second, how efficiency criterion of dominant players in one leading sector decimates the efficiency wisdom of another sector?Tracing the evolution of theory and practice of ‘economies of scale’ during the last three centuries of industrial revolution, the article shows the irony of adopting economies of scale time and again only to face greater economic recession, market failures, climate changes, food crisis and growing un-sustainability of our ecosystem. Through empirical evidences from small family farmers and farmer producer organizations from across India and based on the findings of eight years of action research on designing sustainable producer organization, the article highlights that ‘economies of scope’ in agriculture is not only more efficient for nutritious food production and climate resilience but also for sustainability of agricultural ecosystems and of overall socio-economic-environment.

Feeding Children, Communities, and Souls

Feeding Children, Communities, and Souls

Especificações para o projeto de um mecanismo aplicador de calor para o combate de plantas espontâneas dirigido à agricultura familiar

ABSTRACT: One of the difficulties faced by organic food farming families is weed management without the application of chemical products. Thus, this study aimed to establish the design specifications for the development of a heat applicator device for small organic family farms. The implemented methodology allowed the division of the project to phases composed by different tasks. This paper addresses the informational phase, which identifies client needs, according to the lifecycle of the product, in order to establish the design specifications. The declared needs of 40 customers were identified and converted to the requirements of 24 clients. This resulted in 26 design specifications, displayed in order of importance, and distributed along the product’s entire life cycle. Nine requirements were considered to be the most important; namely working speed, target applied temperature, application height variables, weed elimination, production costs, operation costs, energy consumption, weight, and main crop damage.

Ekonomski efekti proizvodnje sušene borovnice

This paper analyses various aspects of the cost-effectiveness of dried blueberry production. The drying performed was convective using straw as the main source of heat. A medium capacity dryer was used with a capacity of 400 kg of fresh blueberries per day, which is suitable for small family farms. The dryer would presumably be in operation for 135 days a year, of which a total of 15 days would be allocated for the drying of US blueberries. In the cost-price structure of dried blueberry production, fresh blueberries predominate as the basic raw material (77.03 %), followed by packaging costs (12.93 %), labour costs (6.13 %) and energy consumption costs (1.44 %). Supplanting straw with natural gas, as a much more favourable energy source, does not impede the cost-effectiveness of this production. The analysis performed shows that a total of 15 days of effective blueberry drying yields a net profit of €4.040, which is a very good financial result. Furthermore, the efficiency ratio is 1.28 and the rate of capital accumulation is 22.05 %. The investment costs of dryer construction are not high (about €31,000) and can be covered in less than two years.

Senzitivnost bruto marže u proizvodnji mleka na porodičnim farmama

Milk production in Serbia is characterized by small surface of production and a large number of small family farms. For rural areas where this production is mostly carried out economic profitability of production contributes to becoming a family business. Research in this article relates to milk family farms of smaller and medium economic and production capacity, was applied the economic analysis in the period of three years and was calculated production results. Applying the calculation method computed total revenues and total costs, contribution margins, per cow and per liter of produced milk. By comparing the results obtained on farms A and B, conclusions was drawn, and the sensitivity of contribution margins determined by sensitivity analysis to change the given parameters (purchase prices of milk and milk produced per cow). Achievement higher contribution margins with satisfactory milk yield per cow and quality milk, as well acceptable purchase prices of milk, stability in production is realize.

Modern trends in the world food security

The article is concerned with the international food safety from the point of view of steady human provision with food commodities. The article reveals the trend of food safety decline in the world, based on the analysis of the world exports / imports of agricultural crops and livestock products. The tasks for mitigation of the world food security are determined, the main one of which is the creation of small family farms. It is revealed, that the meat industry of Muslim countries is attractive, which is due to the high effective demand of the population in these countries.

Structural factors of labour allocation for farm diversification activities

While the share of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries in rural economies has declined, the importance of diversification activities has increased. The aim of this study is to investigate how structural factors affect both the decision of diversification into on-farm non-agricultural activities and the total labour assigned to them, measured in terms of the workdays allocated to producing diversification activities. Using Tuscany, a region in central Italy, as a case study, a negative binomial hurdle model has been applied to represent the two steps involved in farmers’ behaviour. Farmers first decide whether to diversify and then decide the amount of farm resources to devote to diversification. The results have revealed that farms located in regions more distant from urban areas are more likely to diversify, but that distance is not an influential factor in predicting the number of workdays dedicated to diversification. In addition, small family farms are less likely to diversify than large farms, and those that do so dedicate fewer workdays to diversification activities. A possible explanation for this evidence is that structural and endowment constraints are entrance barriers for involvement in on-farm non-agricultural production.

Planning, Exercising, and Training for the Unimaginable: Goss Gets People Prepped [Amperes: Current Affairs from Around the World

Kay Goss grew up on a small family farm in Arkansas. Her father was a retired engineer, and from a young age, Goss was his assistant. She grew up driving the tractor, operating the plow, hauling hay, and riding horses. A spring and a creek, both prone to flooding, converged on the family property, which also happened to sit in the southern swath of the United States where enough tornados rip through the area to earn it the name Tornado Alley. With neighbors' homes being damaged, she saw firsthand the need to be prepared for natural emergencies.

Searching for family farming in Argentina: chronicles of a technological innovation between two worlds

This paper proposes a contribution to the analysis of the processes that accompany the increasing fragmentation of agricultural worlds between contrasting models of development. To this end, we examine an area that has until now attracted little attention in this respect, that of the scientific and technological actors involved; we also look at original mechanisms which aim to create intersections between models of development. The paper is based on research carried out in Argentina, a country where there are two major contrasting models of development, embodied by the notions of agribusiness and family farming. We analyse the trajectory of a technological innovation in the field of machinery, based on the determination of agronomists and manufacturers to adapt agribusiness technologies to the needs of small family farmers. We study the attempts at problematisation and interessement that they make in relation to this public and its accompanying scientific and technical actors. These dynamics reveal contrasting approaches to innovation, technology and agricultural development. They also demonstrate the profound misunderstanding that exists between these two heterogeneous worlds.

Prepoznatljivost i korištenje oznaka kvalitete i izvornosti u svakodnevnoj uporabi

Proces globalizacije u velikoj je mjeri utjecao na tržište poljoprivrednih i prehrambenih proizvoda učinivši ga zasićenim novim proizvodima koji međusobno konkuriraju cijenom i kvalitetom. U takvim globalnim okolnostima autohtoni proizvodi ne se mogu nositi s oštrom konkurencijom, a kupci ne mogu biti sigurni u kvalitetu onoga što kupuju zbog čega se javila potreba zaštite autohtonih proizvoda. Svrha ovoga rada je upozoriti na važnost formiranja oznake i zaštite proizvoda kao intelektualnog vlasništva. U radu su definirane i prikazane oznake izvornosti i kvalitete u Republici Hrvatskoj i na području Europske unije te su dani hrvatski primjeri zaštite izvornosti. Za potrebe rada, o prepoznatljivosti oznaka kvalitete i izvornosti u svakodnevnoj uporabi, provedena je anketa među šezdeset osam ispitanika, koji su odabrali za svoju kupnju trgovački lanac, trideset jednim ispitanikom koji je odabrao OPG tržnicu te među dvadeset dva mala obiteljska poljoprivredna gospodarstva. Istraživanje je pokazalo kako postoje razlike između pojedinih dobnih skupina i njihovim preferencijama pri kupnji u trgovačkim lancima ili na OPG tržnicama. Osim toga, kupci stavljaju naglasak na kvalitetu i cijenu pri kupnji proizvoda, ali slabo prepoznaju tu kvalitetu gledano kroz oznake izvornosti i kvalitete.

Entrepreneurship in agriculture

The modern development of industrial associations is characterized by the use of such legal forms, which preserve the main characteristics of the family farm and at the same time create favorable conditions for the organization of production structures, adequate to large enterprises, family transfer farms. It is these trends in the formation of entrepreneurial activity in agriculture taking into account domestic realities should be taken into account in developments on the restructuring and transformation of domestic agricultural production. Typical farmer, even when he has a small family farm, combines investor, manager and manager in it. In somewhat larger structures, such as family farms, maybe also an accountant, an organizer of work, a specialist in the care of plants and animals, a mechanic, etc. On a successful business, in our view, we can say if: the enterprise has income to pay all necessary expenses; the company has additional income necessary to pay the loans that may be invested; the productive capacity of the enterprise and its potential are not diminished, but desirable – they are developing. Compliance with these conditions can be one of the important reasons for the successful development of entrepreneurial activity. Despite certain advantages or disadvantages of individual forms of entrepreneurial activity, it is necessary to develop various organizational and legal forms in agriculture in market competitive conditions. But it should be borne in mind that social changes affect the system of organizational-economic and legal relations in agriculture. Subjects of entrepreneurial activity who are managing today in agriculture, functioning on the basis of different forms of ownership, not only have the right to exist, but also, competing with each other, create conditions for the development of market relations, profitable agricultural production.

Soja: mercantilização e externalização no sudoeste paranaense

Segundo estabelece a teoria microeconômica o tamanho ótimo para produção de soja está situado em grandes áreas, nas quais, devido aos ganhos de escala, a eficiência no uso dos recursos e a produtividade por unidade de área chegam a seu ponto máximo. Daí a associação comumente aceita entre sojicultura e grandes produtores, em função da qual os pequenos produtores, devido à sua suposta inviabilidade econômica não deveriam se dedicar a essa atividade. No entanto, esse pressuposto não dá conta da persistência desses agricultores na sojicultura por gerações, o que requer explicações formuladas num campo mais amplo que o cálculo econômico. Tendo isso como desafio, este artigo tem o objetivo de explorar como o processo de mercantilização e externalização contribuem para explicar a permanência dos agricultores familiares nessa atividade. A base empírica para esta análise é a região Sudoeste Paranaense, caracterizada por ampla diversidade produtiva, acesso a políticas públicas e pela predominância da agricultura familiar.

The Importance of Improving Incentives and Employment Opportunities for Farm Households in Poland

Poland is experiencing the first stages of a period where its active labour force will decline steadily over time. This has raised important concerns with how well labour markets in Poland function, especially those in rural areas where there are still large numbers of households on small farms that have only limited engagement with formal work, and whose farm income is too low to provide an acceptable family income. The result is a high level of rural under-employment that imposes a growing burden on the economy and society, both in terms of unproductive labour and in high transfer payments to these families. There is a clear understanding that reducing the number of small full-time family farms in Poland is desirable as a way to: improve household incomes, address the need for more workers in other sectors, and further enhance the competitiveness of farming. Achieving this goal has been problematic, largely because to date there have been few incentives for these farm families to alter their behaviour. Simply put, the vast majority of small farm households do not perceive that they would be better off by engaging in formal employment. This largely reflects limited job opportunities in rural areas and a significant skill mismatch in local labour markets. But, it also reflects the continued existence of a variety of Polish policies that provide considerable financial benefits to these farm households, including a highly subsidized medical and retirement plan and exemption from income taxes, that significantly reduce the incentive to change behaviour. With a shrinking work force the cost of holding these potential workers in their current situation will only increase over time, but changing these longstanding policies remains a major challenge for the government.

The Modernization of the Peasant Economy: In Search of the Socialist Path (小农经济现代化的社会主义道路)

Past studies have discussed the “socialist” nature of agricultural development in China in terms of equality in distribution since the introduction of the Household Responsibility System (hrs) and its institutional necessities. This article instead addresses the issue of the modernization of the peasant economy by exploring the various practices in agricultural production that led to a socialist path since 1980. The peasant economy under thehrstakes the form of a dual-layer management, and the collective economy is under the unified management by the collective. The collective economy propels the modernization of the peasant economy by the means of integration of funding, integration of land rights, and land concentration, respectively, in response to the different phases in the development of the forces of production. What is emerging in China is the fourth path to agricultural modernization characteristic of China, after the existing three paths, namely capitalist agriculture of large private farms, socialist agriculture of large collective farms, and the capitalist agriculture of small family farms. This new path, or socialist agriculture of small family farms, is characterized by the enlargement of the management unit on the basis of the collective economy that overcomes the constraints of the peasant economy. However, while institutional possibilities do exist for a socialist path in agricultural development in China, the policies pursued by the Chinese government are turning Chinese agriculture into capitalist agriculture of small family farms.学界从均等分配角度揭示了家庭承包经营制后农业发展的“社会主义”性质及其制度合理性，本文尝试从农业生产角度揭示1980年以来中国社会主义道路实践，探究小农经济现代化问题。家庭承包经营制改革后的小农经济采取双层经营体制，集体经济以集体统一经营的方式存在。在不同生产力阶段，集体经济分别以资金整合、地权整合和土地集中的方式，促进小农经济现代化。从集体经济扩大农业经营单位，克服小农经济局限性的角度，中国在资本主式私人大农场农业、社会主义式集体大农场农业、资本主义式小农家庭农业之外，探索出具有中国特色的第四种农业现代化道路，即社会主义式小农家庭农业。中国农业发展有走向社会主义道路的制度空间，但中国政府的政策选择使得中国农业发展正在走向资本主义式小农家庭农业。(This article is in Chinese.)

Advocacy for identifying certain animal diseases as "neglected".

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) affect almost 1,000,000,000 people in 149 countries (http://www.who.int/neglected_diseases/diseases/en/). Most are small family farmers living in the least-developed countries where health systems are often inadequate, and climate conditions are favourable to infectious and parasitic diseases. These diseases hinder socioeconomic development, maintain poverty, and impede the achievement of UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) [1]. Economic analyses have shown that their control, elimination, or eradication would lead to net economic benefits [2]. Rapid progress can be achieved when organised health systems, whether public, private, or mixed, are in place to provide diagnostic methods and facilities, treatments, and vaccines. Of the 18 diseases on WHO's list of NTDs, only 5 are zoonoses: Taenia solium cysticercosis, echinococcosis, leishmaniasis, rabies, and human African trypanosomiasis (HAT). Some authors consider this list incomplete and believe that at least 3 other major zoonoses—anthrax, bovine tuberculosis, and brucellosis—should be included [3]. Moreover, while some public–private partnerships—e.g., the Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines, GALVmed (https://www.galvmed.org/)—now target major livestock diseases impacting smallholders by connecting academia, public research institutes, and the pharmaceutical sector, no strictly animal disease (i.e., nonzoonotic) has been labelled “neglected”. Nevertheless, animal diseases directly impact people's livelihoods. Furthermore, due to the multiple functions fulfilled by livestock in rural societies—as sources of food, income, and social status—animal diseases ultimately also impact human health. (Resume d'auteur)

Prosper, survive or exit: Contrasted fortunes of farmers in the groundwater economy in the Saiss plain (Morocco)

In North Africa, the development of groundwater-based irrigation enabled agricultural intensification and market-oriented production. Groundwater use was also often said to alleviate smallholder poverty. However, there is growing evidence linking the expansion of groundwater-based agriculture with increasing socioeconomic inequalities in a context of declining water tables and rapid agrarian change. This paper analyzes the contrasted fortunes of different categories of farmers participating in the groundwater economy, depending on access to other resources including land, capital and labor. The study was conducted in a 3910ha area in the Saiss plain (Morocco), where rapid agrarian transformations took place with the arrival of investors attracted by state subsidies and the possibility to carry out intensive groundwater-based agriculture. The study began with interviews with key informants to determine the role of groundwater use in farm trajectories. Then, an inventory was undertaken of all farms and of all wells and tube-wells in the study area. Next, the groundwater use per farm type was determined on a sample of 24 farms. Finally, the socioeconomic differentiation of farms was determined, based on the inequalities in access to groundwater, land, labor and financial capital. The results revealed contrasted fortunes of farmers involved in the groundwater economy. The boom in the groundwater economy benefitted entrepreneurial and well-endowed farmers who made intensive use of groundwater, while the effects of their overexploitation of groundwater fed the marginalization of family farmers. The results show that capital has replaced landownership as the dominant production factor, thereby re-qualifying what is a ‘small’ farmer. Capital is not only required to obtain access to groundwater, but also to deal with the more risky agriculture frequently conducted in the groundwater economy. This leads to the exclusion of small family farmers who may quit the groundwater economy poorer than they entered it. The urgent need to control access to and use of groundwater in the face of declining water tables has little chance of producing results if socioeconomic inequalities remain unaddressed.

Evasion of CO2 and dissolved carbon in river waters of three small catchments in an area occupied by small family farms in the eastern Amazon

CO2 effluxes from streams and rivers has been hypothesized to be a critical pathway of carbon flow from the biosphere back to the atmosphere. This study was conducted in three Amazonian small catchments to evaluate carbon evasion and dynamics, where land-use change has occurred on small family-farms. Monthly field campaigns were conducted from June 2006 to May 2007 in the Cumaru (CM), Pachibá (PB) and São João (SJ) streams. Electrical conductivity, pH, temperature, and dissolved oxygen measurements were done in situ, while water samples were collected to determine dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) concentrations, as well as carbon dioxide partial pressures (pCO2) and CO2 evasion fluxes. Instantaneous discharge measured by a current meter was used to calculate DOC fluxes. The sites’ DOC, DIC, pCO2, and CO2 flux measurements ranged as follows, respectively: 0.27 - 12.13 mg L-1; 3.5 - 38.9 mg L-1; 2,265 - 26,974 ppm; and 3.39 - 75.35 μmol m-2 s-1. DOC annual flux estimates for CM, SJ and PB were, respectively, 281, 245, and 169 kg C ha-1. CO2 evasion fluxes ranged from 3.39 to 75.35 μmol m-2 s-1, with an average of 22.70 ± 1.67 μmol m-2 s-1. These CO2 evasion fluxes per unit area were similar to those measured for major Amazonian rivers, thus confirming our hypothesis that small streams can evade substantial quantities of CO2. As secondary vegetation is abundant as a result of family farming management in the region, we conclude that this vegetation can be a major driver of an abundant carbon cycle.

Back to the city: urban agriculture and the reimagining of agrarianism in Novella Carpenter’s Farm City

In this essay, I examine how Novella Carpenter, while paying dutiful homage to the American agrarian ideal, diverges from dominant agrarian discourse’s rural-centricity when she (trans)plants both the practice and the art of cultivation to an inner-city abandoned lot. In her memoir Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer (2009), Carpenter’s story of small family farming, indeed, evokes what Eric T. Freyfogle describes as an agrarian mode of life in which humans, as members of the land community, are “just as dependent as other life on the land’s fertility and just as shaped by its mysteries and possibilities” (Freyfogle, in: Freyfogle (ed) The new agrarianism: land, culture, and the community of life, Island Press, Washington, DC, 2001, p. xiii). Carpenter’s return to the city, however, marks a critical break from traditional understandings of agrarianism, challenging the city-country binary that has long been employed in the imagining of agrarianism. Farming in the city, like traditional agrarians she is attentive to the agencies of nonhuman entities and matters; unlike them, she moves beyond their rurality to reconfigure cities as agential bodies constantly in dynamic processes of becoming. In Farm City, her return from the land shifts the emphasis from the countryside to the city, evoking a “new agrarianism” that foregrounds both environmental stewardship and community-citizenship. The urban strain of Carpenter’s farming experience, I argue, not only brings to the fore the agronomic and spiritual potentialities of inner cities but forges a new ethical relation embracing humanity and history as active agents of the agrarian community.

English

Integration of crop and livestock production systems constitutes an important engine for agricultural development and enhancement of smallholder farmers' livelihoods in the least developed countries. For the last forty years, the Malian cotton sub-sector has recorded mixed growth trends, having been initially successful before declining and then catching up. The growth dynamics in the cotton sub-sector has permitted smallholder farmers to endow and improve their living condition. The purpose of this study was to establish smallholder farmers' dynamics of integrating crop and livestock production systems as well as classification of the systems and their trajectories. The study was carried out in different agro-ecological zones in Southern Mali. A multistage sampling technique was used to select the area of study. Stratified random sampling technique was then used to select 134 smallholder farming households from three villages. A panel datasets was used from the Malian Company of Textile Development (CMDT) from 1961 to 2014 and 1974 to 2014. Based on explanatory structure variables, principal component analysis (PCA) and ascending hierarchical classification (AHC) were used to distinguish smallholder farmers’ dynamics as well as classify them into different classes or groups. Five types of smallholder were distinguished. Type 1 was super large families representing 14% of the total smallholder farmers. Type 2 consists of large families, and constituted of 28% of the smallholder farmers. Type 3 consists of medium-sized families which represented 28% of the total smallholder farmers. Type 4 and type 5 were small and young families with 19 and 11% of smallholder farmers respectively. Notably, small family farming was low in Southern Mali, and so some agricultural options can be developed such as the milk and meat value chains among others. Key words: Dynamics, agricultural farming family, integrated crops and livestock, multivariate analysis, Southern-Mali.