1 - 8 of 8
Number of results to display per page
Search Results
2. Revisiting the determinants of non-farm income in the Peruvian Andes in a context of intraseasonal climate variability and spatially widespread family networks
- Author:
- Carmen Ponce
- Publication Date:
- 07-2018
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Group for the Analysis of Development (GRADE)
- Abstract:
- Non-farm income sources are increasingly important in the developing world, representing up to 50 percent of average rural household income. Although there is a vast literature on the determinants of rural households’ strategies for income diversification, two factors associated with long-term transformations and common to many developing countries, have not yet been integrated into the analysis: (i) the role of intraseasonal climate variability (affected by climate change), and (ii) the role of family networks located in distant areas (increasingly important given population displacement due to the internal conflict and increasing connectivity via roads and communications). Whereas an increase in climate variability entails an increase in risk and vulnerability for farm activities, family networks located in distant regions(that do not share the local climate or market shocks) may become a key asset for managing risk and fostering income opportunities (as long as they convey information and opportunities that are not available through local networks). Given the market imperfections that are common in developing rural areas—especially those related to climate risk management—explicit consideration of both factors is key to understanding rural households’ diversification strategies. The study aims to contribute to this pending agenda, investigating the role of these two factors on a household’s income diversification into non-farm activities in the Peruvian Andes, a mountain region with large intraseasonal climate variability and limited but increasing spatial connectivity, where the rural population was severely affected by the internal conflict that took place in the country during the eighties and nineties.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Climate Change, Economics, Rural, Industry, Ecology, and Farming
- Political Geography:
- Latin America and Peru
3. Adaptation to climate change in the tropical mountains? Effects of intraseasonal climate variability on crop diversification strategies in the Peruvian Andes
- Author:
- Carmen Ponce
- Publication Date:
- 05-2018
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Group for the Analysis of Development (GRADE)
- Abstract:
- Crop diversification, selection of tolerant crops, and intercropping are some of the strategies that Andean farmers, as well as farmers in other mountain regions, have historically used to cope with climate-related risks and take advantage of heterogeneous agricultural land (with plots located at different altitudes, facing different environmental conditions). This study analyzes the role of climate variability —during the growing season— in the use of these strategies, in a context of climate change in the Andean region. Using agrarian census data from 1994 and 2012 (district panel), the author finds that —controlling for other climate conditions and socio-economic factors—, an increase in intraseasonal climate variability leads farmers in colder areas (<11˚C during the growing season) to concentrate their crop portfolio into more tolerant crops and reduce intercropping (a practice potentially efficient at controlling pest and disease). This effect is especially strong in the Southern region. Given that Andean farmers received little to no help to adapt to climate change during the period under analysis, this study informs about farmers’ autonomous adaptation to climate changes and some specific issues that need to be part of the public intervention agenda.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Climate Change, Rural, Economic Development, Land, Ecology, and Farming
- Political Geography:
- Latin America and Peru
4. An agriculture-focused, regionally disaggregated SAM for Mexico 2008
- Author:
- Luis Carlos Jemio, Lykke E. Andersen, Clemens Breisinger, and Manfred Wiebelt
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for Advanced Development Studies (INESAD)
- Abstract:
- This paper describes the construction of a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for the Mexican economy for year 2008. It presents the methodology and data sources used, assumptions made, criteria adopted to disaggregate the SAM’s accounts and the main results obtained. The Mexico SAM was built as the main data base for the calibration of a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Model, used to investigate the quantitative effects of climate change on the Mexican economy, with emphasis on analyzing its distributional impacts. Since the effects of climate change are mainly transmitted to the economy through the agricultural sector and since impacts on agriculture differ across regions, the Mexico SAM presents a significant disaggregation in the accounts referred to the agricultural activities and to income distribution, redistribution and income spending across households and regions. The final disaggregated SAM is quite large and is included in the accompanying spreadsheet file.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Economy, and Social Accounting
- Political Geography:
- Latin America and Mexico
5. From Maize to Haze: Agricultural Shocks and the Growth of the Mexican Drug Sector
- Author:
- Oeindrila Dube, Omar Garcia-Ponce, and Kevin Thom
- Publication Date:
- 02-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- We examine how commodity price shocks experienced by rural producers affect the drug trade in Mexico. Our analysis exploits exogenous movements in the Mexican maize price stemming from weather conditions in U.S. maize-growing regions, as well as export flows of other major maize producers. Using data on over 2,200 municipios spanning 1990-2010, we show that lower prices differentially increased the cultivation of both marijuana and opium poppies in municipios more climatically suited to growing maize. This increase was accompanied by differentially lower rural wages, suggesting that households planted more drug crops in response to the decreased income generating potential of maize farming.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Economics, Poverty, War on Drugs, and Narcotics Trafficking
- Political Geography:
- Latin America and Mexico
6. A High-Carbon Partnership? Chinese-Latin American Relations in a Carbon-Constrained World
- Author:
- Timmons Roberts and Guy Edwards
- Publication Date:
- 03-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Brookings Institution
- Abstract:
- China's rapidly increasing investment, trade and loans in Latin America may be entrenching high-carbon development pathways in the region, a trend scarcely mentioned in policy circles. High-carbon activities include the extraction of fossil fuels and other natural resources, expansion of large-scale agriculture and the energy-intensive stages of processing natural resources into intermediate goods. This paper addresses three examples, including Chinese investments in Venezuela's oil sector and a Costa Rican oil refinery, and Chinese investment in and purchases of Brazilian soybeans. We pose the question of whether there is a tie between China's role in opening up vast resources in Latin America and the way those nations make national climate policy and how they behave at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations. We focus on the period between the 2009 Copenhagen round of negotiations and the run-up to the Paris negotiations scheduled for 2015, when the UNFCCC will attempt to finalize a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, International Trade and Finance, Oil, Natural Resources, and Foreign Direct Investment
- Political Geography:
- China and Latin America
7. Effective Public Policies and Active Citizenship: Brazil's experience of building a food and nutrition security system
- Author:
- Marília Leão and Renato S. Maluf
- Publication Date:
- 02-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- Brazil has achieved promising results in the fight against hunger and poverty. This paper describes the path toward building a new governance framework for the provision of public policies that initiated a virtuous cycle for the progressive elimination of hunger and poverty. However, it is important to emphasize that the country continues to be characterized by dynamics that generate inequalities and threaten social and environmental justice.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Economics, Poverty, Food, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Brazil and Latin America
8. Who Wants to Farm? Youth Aspirations, Opportunities and Rising Food Prices
- Author:
- Jennifer Leavy and Naomi Hossain
- Publication Date:
- 03-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- Who wants to farm? In an era of land grabs and environmental uncertainty, improving smallholder productivity has become a higher priority on the poverty and food security agenda in development, focusing attention on the next generation of farmers. Yet emerging evidence about the material realities and social norms and desires of young people in developing countries indicates a reasonably widespread withdrawal from work on the land as an emerging norm. While de-agrarianisation is not new, policymakers are correct to be concerned about a withdrawal from the sector: smallholder productivity growth, and agricultural transformation more broadly, depend in part on the extent to which capable, skilled young people can be retained or attracted to farming, and on policies that support that retention. So who wants to farm, and under what conditions? Where are economic, environmental and social conditions favourable to active recruitment by educated young people into farming? What policy and programmatic conditions are creating attractive opportunities in farming or agro-food industry livelihoods?
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Economics, and Food
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Latin America