General Introduction - Integrated Assessment of Health and Sustainability of Agroecosystems - page 16

significant integration of ecological, economic, and social factors. Furthermore, the
sociopolitical boundaries of the village often roughly correspond to an ecosystem at
the catchment scale. Their social organization forms a unit in which farmers' practices
are homogeneous, and economic activities are complementary. The village level pro-
vides information on external effects such as market mechanisms that operate above
the farm level (Izac and Swift, 1994). This implies that a comprehensive list of indica-
tors would be stratified into village-level and farm- or land-use unit-level indicators.
1.7 JustIfIcatIon
Is smallholder farming sustainable—and why? What are the effects of smallholder
farming on the health of the highlands agroecosystem? What management strate-
gies maintain or even enhance the health and sustainability of these agroecosys-
tems? These questions demand an answer that goes beyond economic viability and
technical feasibility. They demand systemic approaches that weigh all the costs:
sociocultural, economic, and biophysical. They draw attention to the complex inter-
relationships of factors that govern agroecosystems, which in turn govern and sus-
tain rural livelihoods. The significance of this is that “asking the right questions is
the first step in finding useful answers.”
Mixed crop-livestock smallholder farms are considered to have several advan-
tages in terms of the health of the agroecosystem. The most important of these is their
multiuse nature. Crops and livestock are integrated to create a system that is con-
sidered more efficient in the use of natural resources, requires less external input,
and is more environmentally sound. Despite these advantages, yields in these farms
are much lower compared to those obtained in experimental stations within simi-
lar agroclimatic zones. Researchers (e.g., Kilungo et al., 1994; Omore et al., 1994;
Gitau et al., 1994; Kimani and McDermott, 1994) have identified several factors as
the most important constraints to productivity, and it is widely accepted that there
is potential for increased productivity. How can we identify the most suitable of all
available strategies, and how can their implementation be managed and monitored?
Smallholdings are complex systems operating within a highly variable and
diverse environment. They are mostly subsistent in nature, with low capital outlay
and heavy dependence on environmental conditions. Many of them are managed as
part of the traditional noncash economy, while the households that depend on them
rely heavily on the growing cash-based system. This dichotomy means that the crite-
ria for optimizing both the technical and allocative efficiency are often unclear even
to the managers themselves. Furthermore, smallholders are unable to take advantage
of the opportunities and information generated by the cash-based system, such as
credit, and market data. The unwillingness or inability of smallholders to adopt and
adapt new technologies further increases their dependency on the natural resource
base. This means that many of them still rely on traditional methods of production,
and yet the resource base and the production environment have changed to an extent
that many of these methods are no longer viable. Much more critical, however, is the
lack—among the smallholders—of critical information required to successfully hus-
band the environment and resources on which their livelihoods depend. This has led
to degenerative spirals in which poor resource management results in degradation