Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
13.3.2.1 Types of Adaptation
Adaptation has several dimensions as illustrated in Table 13.1. It can take place
at the individual level or the household level, or it can take place at a community
level. Adaptation is not only undertaken by individuals, such as agriculturalists.
State agencies and institutions either cope or adapt as well. And when they adapt,
it can be through increased assistance to individuals or through working with com-
munities to make innovative adaptation possible. Agrawal and Perrin (2008) have
identified five types of adaptation: mobility, storage, diversification, communal
pool, and market exchange. To these five, I would add a sixth: political mobiliza-
tion. Work with agricultural communities suggests that these adaptations can be
individual or collective. Furthermore, it is important to understand that outside
entities, including governments and NGOs, facilitate or impede implementing a
particular adaptation. Often such outside incentives and policy mechanisms are
focused on individual producers (generally male) and not the community (Ashwill
et al. 2011).
It is imperative that adaptation occurs at more than the individual and commu-
nity level. Possible avenues for adaptation must include dealing with drought, floods,
high temperatures, waterlogging, new and increasing incidences of plant pests and
diseases, a shorter growing season, and associated human health concerns such as
malaria and sleeping sickness in the Sahel due to wetter conditions favorable to mos-
quitoes and the tsetse fly (Jalloh et al. 2013).
13.4 MOBILITY
As in many cultures, around Lake Chad in Nigeria men migrate to the city to seek
jobs as laborers in response to climate change disruption of their livelihoods. Women
stay home because of lack of urban employment opportunities and the need to care
for their children and elders (Odigie-Emmanuel 2010a). While this occurs in the
community, these are individual decisions and no structures exist for the women who
remain to deal with the increased work caused by fewer workers, disrupted agricul-
tural cycles, and longer distances to go for wood and water. In other areas of Africa,
young single women without children migrate to nearby countries such as Sudan,
Dubai, and Saudi Arabia (Kassie et al. 2013).
Mobility is often forced by outside interventions such as land acquisition by min-
ing, oil companies, and plantation agriculture investors. Even tourism and nature
preservation can force communities to leave their ancestral lands. Although the
causes cited for migration are not directly climate related, the impacts of migra-
tion are often the same. Migration can be hugely disruptive of cultural, human, and
social capitals, even if there are short-term gains for a few in terms of financial
capital (Chansinga et al. 2013). With some FDI, land is acquired and the people are
removed, which is referred to as a new enclosure movement (McMichael 2012). In
Tanzania, Kusiluka et al. (2011) found that migration resulted in loss of land, loss of
means of livelihood, disruption of economic activities, persistent land-related con-
flicts, relocations to poorly developed areas, inadequate and late compensation, and
environmental degradation. Geographic mobility is often exacerbated by climate
change, particularly when the relocation is to arid areas.
