Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
official adaptation strategies. Skinner (2011) has documented how women are not
equal partners in decision making on climate change responses.
An African example of efforts of women's groups to mitigate climate change
through controlling large polluters is found in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria
(Odigie-Emmanuel 2010b). Climate change is often related to increased political
conflict among and within communities. Adaptation itself is a political process, as
adjustments made to livelihoods have uneven outcomes (Eriksen and Lind 2009).
Power relations and their related effects on social interactions within and between
communities are often challenged by change (Allen 2003).
Collective decisions regarding local adjustments are hotly contested. In dryland
Kenya, Eriksen and Lind (2003) document how alliances are formed between dif-
ferent groups of villagers and communities of pastoralists, politicians, clan elders,
chiefs, and groups such as youth and women's community-based organizations. As
they build these alliances, they rely on the values of the other capitals to demonstrate
their spatial primacy when productive land and water is scarce due to drought. When
pastoralists and villagers peacefully negotiate drought adjustments, these are often
challenged by entrenched elites who see their control threatened by community-level
action.
13.2.6 F
iNaNCial
C
apital
Financial capital is often privileged in development schemes that are built around
increasing market participation, including export. In many communities, there are
men's crops and women's crops. And when they do grow the same crop, they have
different value chains. For example, when women gather firewood, it is generally for
domestic use. Men gather it to sell.
Because women have less access to financial capital, they are limited in the degree
to which they can take advantage of the input-responsive crop varieties and animal
species recommended by outside experts seeking to increase productivity (Uttaro
2002). Fortunately, there is research under way in Africa to enhance women's capac-
ity to increase the productivity of traditional varieties and species through mixed
cropping and fodder systems.
13.2.7 B
uilt
C
apital
Built capital refers to technology, infrastructure, tools, and machinery. While an indi-
vidual can accumulate tools and machinery, collective goods such as roads, water
systems, school buildings, and community centers are generally best generated by a
community working together. Often, built capital is biased toward the wealthy and
toward males, with little investment in infrastructure that reduces women's work for
the market or the home.
Of increasing concern are large projects such as monoculture plantations using
large machinery and specialized seed, dams, mines, and petroleum explora-
tion that drastically limit the adaptive possibilities for smallholders and herders.
Furthermore, the land uses from these types of built capital provide few positive
livelihood-strengthening impacts (De Schutter 2011).
