Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

‘Because of poverty, we had to come together’: collective action for improved food security in rural Kenya and Uganda

‘Because of poverty, we had to come together’: collective action for improved food security in... Agricultural productivity in East African smallholder systems is notoriously low and food production faces multiple challenges, including soil degradation, decreasing land availability, poor market integration, disease burdens and climate change impacts. However, recent evidence from an in-depth study from two sites in Kenya and Uganda shows signs of new social dynamics as a response to these multiple stressors. This paper focuses on the emergence of local social institutions for collective action, in which particularly women farmers organize themselves. Although previous research on collective action has largely focused on common-pool resource management, we argue that collective action is one potential pathway to livelihood and sustainability improvements also in a setting of private land ownership. Trust building, awareness raising and actions to improve livelihood security through risk sharing and pooling of labour and other limited assets have given people more time and resources available for diversification, preventative activities, experimentation and resource conservation. It thereby strengthens farmers’ capacity to cope with and adapt to change, as well as contributes to the agency at the local level. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability Taylor & Francis

‘Because of poverty, we had to come together’: collective action for improved food security in rural Kenya and Uganda

Download PDF
18 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/taylor-francis/because-of-poverty-we-had-to-come-together-collective-action-for-nglHwBQv9J

References (74)

Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN
1747-762X
eISSN
1473-5903
DOI
10.1080/14735903.2012.666029
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Agricultural productivity in East African smallholder systems is notoriously low and food production faces multiple challenges, including soil degradation, decreasing land availability, poor market integration, disease burdens and climate change impacts. However, recent evidence from an in-depth study from two sites in Kenya and Uganda shows signs of new social dynamics as a response to these multiple stressors. This paper focuses on the emergence of local social institutions for collective action, in which particularly women farmers organize themselves. Although previous research on collective action has largely focused on common-pool resource management, we argue that collective action is one potential pathway to livelihood and sustainability improvements also in a setting of private land ownership. Trust building, awareness raising and actions to improve livelihood security through risk sharing and pooling of labour and other limited assets have given people more time and resources available for diversification, preventative activities, experimentation and resource conservation. It thereby strengthens farmers’ capacity to cope with and adapt to change, as well as contributes to the agency at the local level.

Journal

International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability – Taylor & Francis

Published: Aug 1, 2012

Keywords: collective action; communities of practice; food security; Kenya; smallholder farming; Uganda

There are no references for this article.