How will the COVID-19 pandemic affect the agriculture sector in Southeast Asia? Clearly, any disruptions in the agricultural food systems would create supply and demand shocks that would impact on the agriculture sector's immediate and long-term economic performance and food security contribution. Overall, the COVID-19 pandemic during the first quarter of year 2020 is estimated to result in 3.11 percent or 17.03 million tons reduction in aggregate volume of agricultural production in Southeast Asia due to decline in agricultural farm labor affecting 100.77 million individuals. This crisis could translate to 1.4 percent decrease in GDP of the Southeast Asian region, which is equivalent to USD 3.76 billion. Ensuring a systemic transformation of the agricultural systems into resilient, sustainable, productive, and inclusive food systems would be crucial for the future of Southeast Asia.
The emergence of microfinance has been justified as a measure to occupy the empty space that was created with the retreat of formal banking as part of structural and neoliberal reforms for rural India in post-1990s. Worldwide, although the microfinance institution (MFI) has been flouted to provide credit to unbanked areas with the broader objectives of empowering people and eventually eradicating poverty, there is much disagreement among scholars regarding its actual achievements toward these goals. While some scholars are of the opinion that MFIs are currently in a phase of “mission drift”, based on their increasing commercialization, others argue that these institutions have been always driven by the neoliberal principles of maximizing profit. In view of the globally demonstrated changes in the features and operations of MFIs, this paper uses evidence from secondary data sources to flag the changing trends in credit market with particular reference to MFIs in India. We argue that these changes provide evidence of a mission drift in microfinance that must be critically examined against the backdrop of a chronic and persistent credit crisis in rural India, which may get further exacerbated by the increasing dominance of private credit players. At this juncture, instead of taking lessons and rectifying the existing lapses in enabling rural credit, the reorientation of the MFI’s credit-delivery operation toward commercialization must be seen as a perilous step that could close the door of affordable credit to poor and petty borrowers. Chronic bottlenecks in credit delivery must be addressed through more permanent and holistic solutions.
Smallholder farmers will continue to play a critical role in meeting the growing demand for food and non-food farm products in the next 30 years. Challenges in meeting this demand include climate change; deficiencies in enabling environments, resources, and capacities; and inappropriate institutional models of RD&E and development. Smallholders must improve productivity, volume, quality, and consistency of supply, but their downstream customers must also be competitive. Most smallholder supply chains lack the capacity for this. Therefore, new, vibrant agricultural innovation systems, or AIS, and improved enabling environments are vital. This paper outlines a transdisciplinary framework for investigating and facilitating these changes. It is based on the literature, projects, and experiences working in a range of developed and developing countries. A dualistic agribusiness systems model can help identify the complexity of problems, and the constraints to improving the productivity of smallholders and their value chains. It combines participatory and pluralistic action research and action learning processes to provide relevant solutions to improving the competitiveness of these chains. Key extension
functions of rural advisory services to accelerate scaling out are integrated and discussed. The focus is at the program level, but it could be scaled to the macro level. Nevertheless, incorporating such approaches requires changes in philosophy, practice, and commitment of those involved in developing the agribusiness sector.
The Chinese pilot target-price-based subsidy program (TSP) on the cotton market in Xinjiang region started in 2014 and is regarded as an effective policy, motivating cotton farmers and reducing cotton imports. This paper develops and applies a partial equilibrium model of the cotton market with regional details and linkages to the rest of the world to quantify the market and welfare impacts of a nationwide TSP. The results show a significant increase in domestic output and decrease in imports without significantly reducing current national welfare as long as the target price does not go below 120 percent of market price. In addition, measures that restrict the release of cotton stock to the domestic market would help the government in reaching its objective of supporting cotton farmers and reducing import.
Combine harvesters have become widely used in recent years in rice farming in Cambodia on a custom-hiring basis. This study examines factors promoting investment in combine harvesters and the effects of the surge in new entrants in the custom-harvesting business. Analysis of 30 custom harvesters’ data collected by the researcher in Takeo province indicates that the high profitability of the business, decrease in interest rate, and increasing price of land used as collateral prompted land-rich households to enter the custom-harvesting business by taking large loans from financial institutions. The secondhand combine harvesters’ market in Vietnam has helped custom harvesters to sell their used machines to buy new ones. The surge in new entrants to the business, however, has driven down custom-harvesting service fees and has, thus, made the business unprofitable. This has partly been caused by financial institutions that have continued to provide funds to new entrants without anticipating excessive entry into the custom-harvesting business.
Agroforestry landscapes in the Philippines provide benefits or ecosystem services that have traditionally and sustainably supported food production for rural communities and the protection of natural resources. However, the very continuity and sustainability of agroforestry is in question because of the rise of new generations of landscape users that can ascribe different values toward these benefits. Thus, this study highlights age-based local ecological knowledge (LEK) on these agroforestry-based ecosystem services to understand differences in the generational persistence and sources of their LEK. A structured survey was conducted with 36 youth, 36 middle-aged, and 36 elderly users of an agroforestry landscape in Libungan-Alamada Watershed in Mindanao, Philippines. This survey focused on the presence of LEK on seven provisioning and five regulating ecosystem services previously identified through multiple participatory exercises in the agroforestry landscape. Results indicated high LEK (more than 50% of knowledgeable respondents in all age groups) across all the ecosystem services, highlighting strong socialecological interdependence on the agroforestry landscape. While generational persistence of local knowledge was observed, the knowledge sources varied depending on the age group or the ecosystem service. Intergenerational transfer of knowledge was prominent for provisioning ecosystem services. However, institution-based learning was essential for regulating services (e.g., climate change mitigation), especially for the youth. Experiential learning was the primary mode of knowledge acquisition for regulating services (e.g., biodiversity conservation) for the older generations. These results provide strong evidence to help guide policy actors, decision makers, and program managers as they promote, conserve, and restore agroforestry practices, especially in production-protection landscapes such as the Libungan-Alamada Watershed. The revised policy should be based on age-targeted interventions and proper learning entry points that have been found effective in this study.
Farmers’ adoption behavior of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is a big factor in the sustainability of agricultural growth in the areas of economic, environmental, and social development. This study explores the antecedents of adoption behavior of multiple CSA, including soil and water management, yield management, and weather risk management, among farmers in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. The study adopts a primary data sample of 350 rice farmers, using a multinomial logit model. The findings indicate that the most critical antecedents of CSA adoption among farmers include perceived climate change impact, educational level, farmland size, access to credit, social capital, access to extension, secure farmland tenure, and constraint to market. The results and policy implications are discussed and proposed.
This book points to the need for finding alternative science, technology, and innovation or STI pathways to meet the new challenges from South Asian agriculture experiences. While technological, institutional, and policy innovations continue to remain important, embracing a systems approach to agricultural development will be critical, the authors argue.
Aimed at advanced students, researchers, sustainability professionals, and development practitioners, the book offers a comprehensive roadmap for assessing the utility of voluntary sustainability certification schemes. Drawing on case studies covering nine agri-food and natural resources commodities, Melissa Vogt and co-contributors assess social, cultural, and environmental outcomes for farmers in developing countries and provide a range of recommendations to further strengthen their value and sustainability impacts.
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