Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Although, on average, income for a household was low, many of the households
had diverse sources of income, including off-farm employment. It was difficult to
assess the relative stability of these incomes, but it can be assumed that the diver-
sification observed is an attempt to minimize risk. On the other hand, there was an
oversupply of labor in most of the households, and the diversification may be simply
a consequence of this. Interestingly, communities perceived labor as one of the prod-
ucts they export. This was not seen as competing with demands for agricultural pro-
duction except in Gikabu village, where demand for casual labor in the neighboring
tea estates was seen to be in direct conflict with the needs for smallholder tea produc-
tion. Another interesting aspect was that although communities saw a direct relation-
ship between education/knowledge/skills and access to off-farm employment, they
did not appreciate the value of off-farm employment as resulting in increasing com-
munity contact with the outside world and as a source of knowledge and information.
It is likely that this is the mechanism through which the villages obtain the critical
information that has facilitated their adaptation to changing circumstances.
8.5 HealtH and sustaInabIlIty assessment
In general, the agroecosystem approach has many attractions from both the research
and development perspectives. The health paradigm used is easily understood and
conceptually facilitates the diagnosis, treatment, follow-up monitoring, and evalua-
tion of agroecosystems. Because health assessments are value laden, their establish-
ment requires community participation if they are to achieve meaningful and lasting
results. In addition, analyses at different holarchical scales are helpful for commu-
nities since development requires cooperation across households and villages and
larger levels of organization, such as government and other agencies. A key feature
of the process is that community organization—manifest as a capacity for collective
action—is both a prerequisite and an outcome of the process. While communities
with less capacity for action will realize minimal impacts in the short term, the long-
term effects will be increased organization—setting the stage for better outcomes in
the future.
There are a number of practical implications noted during the project. The first
was that this research paradigm allows for the development of an effective forum
for community and research collaboration. The second was that integrating par-
ticipatory and standard research approaches to address community concerns can
achieve tangible results. The research input helped communities to better understand
the choices to be made in developing and modifying community action plans. For
researchers, there were real benefits from communities generating research ques-
tions based on the real needs of the community. Research results, in this context,
are more likely to be adopted and sustained. Furthermore, the various processes and
steps of the framework increase community awareness, self-knowledge, and analyti-
cal skills. This, together with the enhanced capacity for action, increases their ability
to adapt and hence improve their health.
The main difficulties in the agroecosystem approach are related to its time hori-
zon and location specificity. As the process is open ended, only its initiation and early
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