Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
13.5 STOR AGE
Communities can work together to build stores of basic food to be shared for emer-
gencies, although this more often takes place at a household level. Women's groups
within communities often take on the responsibilities for storage of emergency sup-
plies and distributing them when needed.
Water storage is often best done on a community level, as there has to be agree-
ment on provision and access to the collective water source. Water can be stored in
the soil when there is good organic matter available. Storage can occur by returning
nutrients and organic matter to the soil through such activities as using mulch and
compost (Goldman and Heldenbrand 2002), although often not at a level to improve
soil fertility.
13.6 DIVERSIFICATION
Women commonly respond to climate change by adapting what is planted to pre-
cipitation and temperature changes. This can be done collectively at the community
level, where seeds and knowledge is interchanged to increase everyone's potential
return, or it can be done individually. Unfortunately, most institutional input focuses
on monoculture, rather than diversification. There is often institutional assistance in
getting irrigation through boreholes; however, often women have difficulty accessing
these new sources of water (Vincent et al. 2010).
One of the goals of structural adjustment was to get smallholders to diversify from
farming to wage labor and craft sales, through an emphasis on commodification,
specialization, and standardization. This has led to the accumulation of resources
in high potential areas with higher and more reliable rainfall on farmers with more
resources vs. farmers with fewer resources, and on men rather than women, increas-
ing inequalities (Bernstein 1990).
13.7 COMMUNAL POOLING
Women's groups have mobilized around advocacy and sharing of the domestic tasks
of hauling water and wood (community response). However, more often, it is males
who mechanize the process and sell the water and wood, with little alleviation of the
women's tasks, turning traditional women's work into male market exchange.
13.8 MARKET EXCHANGE
Government transfers to households whose livelihood strategies have been disrupted
represent a form of market adaptation. In Limpopo Province, South African women
who live with elderly relatives with a monthly social pension manage the insecurities
of climate change with cash. Remittances from relatives in the city also help (part of
the mobility response). These are agency solutions for individuals (Vincent et al. 2010).
Sharing and transferring risk through insurance can be an adaptation, when it
does not reward behavior that ignores climate change realities. Increasingly, insur-
ance policies, some with state underwriting, are offered to individuals to reimburse
