Download or read book Family Farming in the Amazon written by Anderson Borges Serra and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: Background: Family farming is a means of organizing agricultural, forestry, fisheries, pastoral and aquaculture production that is managed and operated by a family and predominantly reliant on family capital and labor, and that includes labor from both men and women. The family and the farm property are linked, co-evolve and combine economic, environmental, social and cultural functions. Family farmers have the potential to contribute to rural development through food production and job creation, socio-environmental stabilization of rural landscapes, endogenous local development and rural poverty reduction. However, global transformation processes such as modernization of productive technologies, demand for increased productivity, the need to comply with new standards of agricultural markets, competition for land and water, land speculation, and rising prices of fuels and fertilizers directly affect family farmers and impose challenges to the continuation of agricultural activities and permanence of these families in the rural landscape. Against this background, there are doubts about the capability of family farmers to develop successful trajectories amid the transformations of the rural world, and about their ability to remain in the rural landscape in the future. Furthermore, it is unclear if these family farmers are the best option to solve society's current and future challenges. Aims: Initial aim of this research was to generate knowledge to promote an eventually existing potential of family farmers to contribute to sustainable rural development for the benefit of local and global societies. To that end, the types of farmers were identified, and the socioeconomic reproduction trajectories of the farmers present in the rural landscape were described and analyzed as factors of the rural context and as characteristics of the farmers' influence on their respective trajectories. The socioeconomic and environmental impacts of different types of farmers in the rural landscape were assessed, and the requirements of how to promote trajectories of small-scale farmers that contribute to a sustainable rural development were identified. Study area and methodology approach: The research was conducted in the Brazilian Amazon, in the southwest of the state of Pará, in a region known as the Trans-Amazon highway. The methodological approach was mixed, with qualitative and quantitative procedures for data collection, processing and analysis. Interviews were conducted with key informants, including farmers, social leaders and public agents. Secondary sources were consulted through literature reviews, official documents and statistics, and field trips were made to collect quantitative and qualitative primary data. The field data were collected in five municipalities, with one representative sampling area in each municipality. In each sampling area, a survey was carried out about the history of the farmers' occupation of the communities, from the beginning of the occupation of the rural landscape in the 1970s until 2014. Overall, the research considered a total of777 rural properties on 148,000 hectares of occupied area, and 1,458 farmers. A typology of farmers was done based on five criteria: (i.) family labor; (ii.) poverty; (iii.) origin of income; (iv.) income composition; and (v.) composition of the production system. Trajectories of the farmer families were elaborated concerning the following criteria: (i.) mobility in the landscape; (ii.) size of rural property; (iii.) composition of the production system; (iv.) socioeconomic status; and (v.) origin of family income. Aspects that influenced farmers' trajectories were(i.) accessibility; (ii.) soil fertility; (iii.) land tenure; (iv.) rural credit; and (v.) agricultural markets; as well as, from a family sphere perspective, (vi.) family labor. To assess the farmers' role regarding sustainable rural development, the following aspects were considered: (i.) food security, (ii.) generation of employment, and (iii.) social inclusion, from asocial perspective; (iv.) growth of the economy, (v.) generation of taxes, and (vi.) stimulation of local economy, from an economic perspective; and, from an environmental perspective, (vii.) forest conservation. Results: The farmers along the Transamazon highway show a large diversity regarding their socioeconomic, productive and environmental characteristics, reflecting the ecological, institutional and infrastructural diversity of the region as well as their individual histories. This large and ever-14 changing universe of farmers can be grouped into 11 types based on the criteria of labor, family income, income origin, production system and share of non-agricultural and urban activity to the family income. This categorization includes the eight small-scale farmer types: Subsistence; Vegetable; Commodities; Cattle; Cattle & Agriculture; Diversified; Off-farm Dependent; and Urban Residence; and the three types of medium and large-scale farmers: Cattle; Diversified; and Urban Investors. Each farmer type relates to specific social, economic and environmental features with relevance to the issue of sustainable rural development. Small-scale farmers and farmers with more diversified production systems show a more positive contribution than farmers exclusively engaged in cattle, particularly at a large-scale, as well as subsistence farmers. In accordance with this result, the Diversification, as well as, to a lesser degree, the Crop Specialization trajectories positively contribute to sustainable rural development considering all analysed aspects, whereas the trajectories Cattle Specialization and Stagnation demonstrate very negative impacts. In general, small-scale farmers, with the exception of subsistence and specialized cattle farmers, from a societal perspective, show a better performance than medium and large-scale farmers, with the exception of strongly diversified farmers. However, over time, the vast majority of the settled land have been occupied by only some few types of farmers, namely those engaged in cattle specialization (Small Cattle, Small Cattle & Agriculture and Large Cattle), and Urban Investors. In the future, this land concentration trend is expected to continue. Accordingly, it is an expansive and standardized model of agriculture showing the least favourable performance with regard to the aspect of sustainable rural development that increasingly dominates the region. Simultaneously however, alternative modes of farming show a positive performance of consolidation, whenever on small portions of the rural landscape. This includes mainly farmers engaged in the trajectories of Crop Specialization and Diversification, particularly the latter also including medium and large-scale farmers. In addition, there is a trend of Urbanization where farmers manage their fields from their urban residences and in which they increasingly depend on off-farm sources of income. In this sense, the study also shows that a significant share of family famers has the capacity to adapt to emerging opportunities, so that family farming will continue being a central component of the rural Amazon. But the degree of success of family farmers in the highly competitive contexts of the Amazon depends on favourable conditions. The probability of success of family farming increases with good accessibility of the farms, the availability of fertile soils, and titled rural properties. Additionally, attractive agricultural markets and effective logistics are needed as well as access to adequate finance. Conclusions: The findings suggest that family farming could play an essential role for the future of the region. The promotion of diversification and specialization trajectories of small-scale farmers is an excellent option to foster sustainable rural development in the post-frontier areas of the Amazon. However, in view of the continuous expansion of cattle ranching and large-scale agriculture, more accentuated policies are needed to support family farmers. This may include: (i.) limit agrarian reform settlement projects to favourable contexts regarding accessibility and soil fertility providing small properties manageable with family labor; (ii.) concentrate support to small-scale farmers engaged in diversification and specialization trajectories; (iii.) allow and foster non-agricultural activities of beneficiaries of agrarian reform actions as a means to diversify and stabilize their livelihood basis; (iv.) adjust rural credit programs to better respond to the existing diversity of farmer's activities; (v.) improve the accessibility and quality of public services provided in rural settings regarding markets, finance, administration, but also in the area of education and health; (vi.) effectively protect rural spaces from cattle ranchers and urban investors
Download or read book Family Farming and the Worlds to Come written by Jean-Michel Sourisseau and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-11-05 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is family farming? How can it help meet the challenges confronting the world? How can it contribute to a sustainable and more equitable development? Not only is family farming the predominant form of agriculture around the world, especially so in developing countries, it is also the agriculture of the future. By declaring 2014 the “International Year of Family Farming,” the United Nations has placed this form of production at the center of debates on agricultural development. These debates are often reduced to two opposing positions. The first advocates the development of industrial or company agriculture, supposedly efficient because it follows industrial processes for market-oriented mass production. The second promotes the preservation of family farming with its close links between family and farm. The authors of this book wish to enrich the debates by helping overcome stereotypes – which often manifest through the use of terms such as “small-scale farming, subsistence farming, peasant, etc.” Research work has emphatically demonstrated the great adaptability of family farming systems and their ability to meet the major challenges of tomorrow but it has also not overlooked their limitations. The authors explore the choices facing society and possible development trajectories at national and international levels, and the contribution that agriculture will have to make. They call for a recommitment of public policies in favor of family farming in developing countries and stress the importance of planning actions targeted at and tailored to the family character of agricultural models. But, above all, they highlight the need to overcome strictly sectoral rationales, by placing family farming at the core of a broader economic and social project. This book is the result of a collaborative effort led by CIRAD and encapsulates three decades of research on family farming. It will interest researchers, teachers and students, and all those involved in national and international efforts for the development of countries in the South.
Download or read book Frontier Making in the Amazon written by Antonio Augusto Rossotto Ioris and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-01-21 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses the outcomes of more than ten years of research in the southern tracts of the Amazon region, and addresses the expansion of the agricultural frontier, consolidation of the agribusiness-based economy, and expansion of regional infrastructure (roads, dams, urban centres, etc). It combines extensive empirical evidence with the international literature on frontier-making and regional Amazonian development, and adopts a critical politico-geographical perspective that will benefit scholars in various other disciplines. This book is intended to push the current theoretical and methodological boundaries regarding the controversies and impacts of agribusiness in the region. A new international scientific network, led by the author, is investigating the broader context of the themes analysed here.
Download or read book Frontier Making in the Amazon written by Antonio Augusto Rossotto Ioris and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-01-21 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses the outcomes of more than ten years of research in the southern tracts of the Amazon region, and addresses the expansion of the agricultural frontier, consolidation of the agribusiness-based economy, and expansion of regional infrastructure (roads, dams, urban centres, etc). It combines extensive empirical evidence with the international literature on frontier-making and regional Amazonian development, and adopts a critical politico-geographical perspective that will benefit scholars in various other disciplines. This book is intended to push the current theoretical and methodological boundaries regarding the controversies and impacts of agribusiness in the region. A new international scientific network, led by the author, is investigating the broader context of the themes analysed here.
Download or read book The Colonization of the Amazon written by Anna Luiza Ozorio de Almeida and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-07-22 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deforestation in the Amazon, one of today's top environmental concerns, began during a period of rapid colonization in the 1970s. Throughout that decade, Anna Luiza Ozorio de Almeida, a Stanford-trained economist, conducted a complex and massive economic study of what was going on in the Amazon, who was investing what, what was gained, and what it cost in all its aspects. The Colonization of the Amazon, the resulting work, brings together information on the physical, demographic, institutional, and economic dimensions of directed settlement in the Amazon Basin and raises significant questions about the gains and losses of the settlers, the reasons for these outcomes, and the economic rationale behind the devastation of the rainforest. Particularly illuminating is Almeida's exploration of the role of the frontier in Brazil and her distinction between types of migrants and migrations. She concludes that the political costs avoided by not undertaking agrarian reform are being paid by devastating the Amazon, with the conflict between distribution and conservation steadily worsening. Today, it can no longer be circumvented.
Download or read book Building the future we want written by Rajendra K. Pachauri and published by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). This book was released on 2014-08-01 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2015 edition of A Planet for Life reaches bookshelves in a landmark year for the world. A new development cooperation framework is being crafted while sustainable development goals (SDGs) are being laid out to address the 21st centurys most urgent sustainable development issues. A Planet for Life provides first hand analysis and narrative of ongoing transformation and sustainable development challenges in key countries. It tours five continents to shed light on what countries and regions are actually doing to achieve sustainable development, tackling their own local and global problems, and exploring different pathways towards sustainability. It explores implementation issues and financing for development options more specifically, with an overview of key propositions for making sustainable development financing a lever to transform economies and societies. Cities: steering towards sustainability (ISBN: 9788179931318) Innovation for Sustainable Development (ISBN: 9788179935569) Reducing Inequalities: a sustainable development challenge (ISBN: 9788179935309) Towards Agricultural Change? (ISBN: 9788179934432) Oceans: the new frontier (ISBN: 9788179934029)
Download or read book The Economics of Deforestation in the Amazon written by João S. Campari and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This provocative new book presents the results of twenty years of research on deforestation in the Amazon. By carefully observing the changing character of human settlements and their association with deforestation over such a prolonged period, the author is able to reject much of the 'perceived wisdom'.
Download or read book Changing Season written by David Mas Masumoto and published by Heyday.ORIM. This book was released on 2018-01-20 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a series of personal essays, the organic farmer and author of Epitaph for a Peach prepares to hand his family’s eighty-acre farm to his daughter. How do you become a farmer? The real questions are: What kind of person do you want to be? Are you willing to change? How do you learn? What is your vision for the future? In this poignant collection of essays, David Mas Masumoto prepares for one of life’s greatest transitions. After four decades of working the land, he will pass down his beloved peach farm to his daughter, Nikiko. Echoing Nikiko’s words that “all of the gifts I have received from this life are not only worthy of sharing, but must be shared,” Mas reflects on topics as far ranging as the art of pruning, climate change, and the prejudice his family faced during and after World War II: essays that, whether humorous or heartbreaking, explore what it means to pass something on. Nikiko’s voice is present too, as she relates the myriad lessons she has learned from her father in preparation for running the farm as a queer mixed-race woman. Both farmers feel less than totally set for the future that lies ahead; indeed, Changing Season addresses the uncertain future of small-scale agriculture in California. What is unquestionable, though, is the family’s love for their vocation—and for each other.
Download or read book Governing the Rainforest written by Eve Z. Bratman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sustainable development is often thought of as a product that can be obtained by following a prescribed course of interventions. Rather than conceptualizing it as a sweet spot of economic, ecological, and social balance, sustainable development is an ongoing process of embroilments requiring constant negotiation of often-competing aims. Sustainable development politics yield highly uneven results among different members of society and different geographic areas. As this book argues, such imbalances mean that sustainable development processes often prioritize economic over environmental goals, perpetuating and reinforcing economic and political inequalities. Governing the Rainforest looks at development and conservation efforts in the Brazilian Amazon, where the government and corporate interests bump up against those of environmentalists and local populations. This book asks why sustainable development continues to be such a powerful and influential idea in the region, and what impact it has had on various political and economic interests and geographic areas. In other words, as Eve Z. Bratman argues, sustainable development is a political practice in itself. This book offers detailed case study analysis, including of the creation of vast conservation corridors, the construction of one of the largest hydroelectric plants in the world, and new forms of land settlement projects. Based on a decade of Bratman's ethnographic fieldwork throughout Brazil, and particularly along the Trans-Amazonian Highway, Governing the Rainforest offers a fresh take on sustainable development within a multi-level analysis of actors, discourses, and practices.
Download or read book A Balancing Act for Brazil s Amazonian States written by The World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2023-01-11 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social deprivations coincide with vast deforestation in Brazil's Legal Amazon, or Amazônia. Poverty reduction and sustainable development require renewed efforts to protect the region's exceptional natural wealth, coupled with a shift from an extractive to a productivity-oriented growth model.
Download or read book Soil Health and Sustainable Agriculture in Brazil written by Ieda Mendes and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2024-04-02 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soil Health and Sustainable Agriculture in Brazil A far-reaching survey showcasing the improvements made to soil health in Brazil The maintenance of healthy soil resources provides the foundations for an array of global efforts and initiatives that affect humanity. Researchers, consultants, and farmers must be able to correctly examine and understand the complex nature of this essential, fragile resource. Soil Health and Sustainable Agriculture in Brazil provides a highly readable overview of the major cropping systems and management practices adopted in Brazil to improve soil health and sustain agricultural/forest production systems. Key Features Evolution of soil health concepts applied to modern agricultural systems in Brazil. Overview of the major cropping systems and management practices adopted in Brazil to improve soil health (SH) and sustainability of agricultural production. Challenges to manage soil health in new agricultural frontiers. Presentation of SoilBio Technology: inclusion of soil enzymes as part of routine soil analyses (SoilBio Technology) and calculation of Soil Quality Indexes (SQI) Public policies and initiatives to promote SH and carbon sequestration in Brazil. Soil Health and Sustainable Agriculture in Brazil is ideal for soil scientists, agronomists, and any other researchers in both academia and industry interested in building a sustainable future.
Download or read book Sustainability Challenges of Brazilian Agriculture written by Niels Søndergaard and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-05-24 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With contributions from a wide range of thematic areas, this book provides a diverse perspective on the contemporary environmental challenges of Brazilian agriculture. Assessing existing experiences of governance interventions, implementation of inclusive and sustainable production practices, as well as technical innovations, this edited volume presents the reader with a nuanced perspective on sustainable future pathways for Brazilian agriculture. In many cases, actors within the agricultural sector stand in a key position to address environmental concerns, which often has generated important breakthroughs and improvement of production practices. Drawing on contributions from authors within a variety of fields, this contribution presents a trans-disciplinary perspective on the problems and pathways through which multi-level interventions can lead to sustainable solutions within the Brazilian agricultural and livestock sector. This book hereby constitutes an informed and timely contribution to the important debates about Brazil’s potential role in confronting environmental problems. More broadly, this volume also sheds light on the process of agricultural transitions in the Global South, and how food security concerns may be reconciled with sustainable production.
Download or read book Amazon Ecosystem Past Discoveries and Future Prospects written by Heimo Mikkola and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2024-03-06 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Amazon region is the largest river basin and rainforest ecosystem in the world. It contains billions of trees, which are a vital carbon store to slow down global warming. Amazonia is home to one million indigenous people and some three million species of plants and animals. The future of the world’s largest forest is critical to South America and the planet. However, nine owner nations—Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela—have encouraged agriculture, logging, and mining activities, causing a dangerous setback in the effort to protect “the lungs of the world." Due to global importance, the protection of Amazonia is vital. This book includes six chapters that describe the past and present situation of the Amazon region and present positive examples of sustainable development possibilities.
Download or read book Managing oil palm landscapes written by Lesley Potter and published by CIFOR. This book was released on 2015-05-26 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study comprises a review of oil palm development and management across landscapes in the tropics. Seven countries have been selected for detailed analysis using surveys of the current literature, mainly spanning the last fifteen years. Indonesia and Malaysia are the obvious leaders in terms of area planted and levels of production and export, but also in literature generated on social and environmental challenges. In Latin America, Colombia is the dominant producer with oil palm expanding in disparate landscapes with a strong focus on palm oil-based biodiesel; and small-scale growers and companies in Peru and Brazil offer contrasting ways of inserting oil palm into the Amazon. Nigeria and Cameroon represent African nations with traditional groves and old plantations in which foreign land grabs to establish new oil palm have recently occurred.
Download or read book Farm and Other F Words written by Sarah K Mock and published by . This book was released on 2021-04-26 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We love The American Farmer. We trust them to grow our food, to be part of children's nursery rhymes, to provide the economic backbone of rural communities, and to embody a version of the American dream. At the same time, we know that "corporate farms" are disrupting the agrarian way of life that we so admire, and that we've got to do something to stop it. So what's our plan for saving the farms we love? In Farm (and Other F Words), Sarah K Mock dismantles misconceptions about American farms and discovers what makes small family farms work, or why they don't. While exploring the intersection of farming and wealth, Mock offers an alternative perspective on American agricultural history, and outlines a path to a more equitable food system moving forward. Calling for change, Farm (and Other F Words) tackles questions like: Do farmers really get paid not to farm? Are "big corporate farms" the future? How much good has the food movement done for small family farmers? Ultimately, Mock suggests a solution without putting the onus for change on struggling consumers and reminds us that, "the future of American agriculture is not yet decided."
Download or read book Gaining Ground written by Forrest Pritchard and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013-05-21 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With humor and pathos, Forrest Pritchard recounts his ambitious and often hilarious endeavors to save his family’s seventh-generation farm in the Shenandoah Valley. Through many a trial and error, he not only saves Smith Meadows from insolvency but turns it into a leading light in the sustainable, grass-fed, organic farm-to-market community. There is nothing young Farmer Pritchard won’t try. Whether he’s selling firewood and straw, raising free-range chickens and hogs, or acquiring a flock of Barbados Blackbelly sheep, his learning curve is steep and always entertaining. Pritchard’s world crackles with colorful local characters—farm hands, butchers, market managers, customers, fellow vendors, pet goats, policemen—bringing the story to warm, communal life. His most important ally, however, is his renegade father, who initially questions his son's career choice and eschews organic foods for the generic kinds that wreak havoc on his health. Soon after his father’s death, the farm becomes a recognized success and Pritchard must make a vital decision: to continue serving the local community or answer the exploding demand for his wares with lucrative Internet sales and shipping deals. More than a charming story of honest food cultivation and farmers’ markets, Gaining Ground tugs on the heartstrings, reconnecting us to the land and the many lives that feed us.
Download or read book The 21st Century Fight for the Amazon written by Mark Ungar and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-10-13 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the most updated and comprehensive look at efforts to protect the Amazon, home to half of the world’s remaining tropical forests. In the past five years, the Basin’s countries have become the cutting edge of environmental enforcement through formation of constitutional protections, military operations, stringent laws, police forces, judicial procedures and societal efforts that together break through barriers that have long restrained decisive action. Even such advances, though, struggle to curb devastation by oil extraction, mining, logging, dams, pollution, and other forms of ecocide. In every country, environmental protection is crippled by politics, bureaucracy, unclear laws, untrained officials, small budgets, regional rivalries, inter-ministerial competition, collusion with criminals, and the global demand for oils and minerals. Countries are better at creating environmental agencies, that is, than making sure that they work. This book explains why, with country studies written by those on the front lines—from national enforcement directors to biologists and activists.
