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Is production intensification likely to make farm households food-adequate? A simple food availability analysis across smallholder farming systems from East and West Africa

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Title Is production intensification likely to make farm households food-adequate? A simple food availability analysis across smallholder farming systems from East and West Africa
 
Creator Ritzema, Randall S.
Frelat, Romain
Douxchamps, Sabine
Silvestri, Silvia
Rufino, Mariana C.
Herrero, Mario T.
Giller, Ken E.
López Ridaura, Santiago
Teufel, Nils
Paul, Birthe K.
Wijk, Mark T. van
 
Subject food security
food supply
households
farming systems
livestock
livelihoods
smallholdes
seguridad alimentaria
suministro de alimentos
hogares
sistemas de explotación
ganado
medios de vida
 
Description Springer Nature has provided an Open Access version of this article via following link: http://rdcu.be/oRfg
Despite considerable development investment, food insecurity remains prevalent throughout East and West Africa. The concept of ‘sustainable intensification’ of agricultural production has been promoted as a means to meet growing food needs in these regions. However, inadequate attention has been given to assessing whether benefits from intensification would be realized by farm households considering highly diverse resource endowments, household and farm characteristics, and agroecological contexts. In this study, we apply a simple energy-based index of food availability to 1800 households from research sites in 7 countries in East and West Africa to assess the food availability status of each of these households and to quantify the contribution of different on- and off-farm activities to food availability. We estimate the effects of two production intensification strategies on food availability: increased cereal crop production from crop-based options, and increased production of key livestock products from livestock-based options. These two options are contrasted with a third strategy: increased off-farm income for each household from broader socioeconomic-based options. Using sensitivity analysis, each strategy is tested against baseline values via incremental production increases. Baseline results exhibit considerable diversity within and across sites in household food availability status and livelihood strategies. Interventions represented in the crop and livestock options may primarily benefit food-adequate and marginally food-inadequate households, and have little impact on the most food-inadequate households. The analysis questions what production intensification can realistically achieve for East and West African smallholders, and how intensification strategies must be augmented with transformational strategies to reach the poorest households.
 
Date 2017-02
2017-01-31T14:27:30Z
2017-01-31T14:27:30Z
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Ritzema, R.S., Frelat, R., Douxchamps, S., Silvestri, S., Rufino, M.C., Herrero, M., Giller, K.E., López-Ridaura, S., Teufel, N., Birthe, P. and Wijk, M.T. van. 2017. Is production intensification likely to make farm households food-adequate? A simple food availability analysis across smallholder farming systems from East and West Africa. Food Security 9(1):115–131.
1876-4517
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/79455
http://rdcu.be/oRfg
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-016-0638-y
 
Language en
 
Rights Copyrighted; all rights reserved
Open Access
 
Format p. 115-131
 
Publisher Springer Science and Business Media LLC
 
Source Food Security