The relevance of political ecology perspectives for smallholder Climate-Smart Agriculture: a review

The relevance of political ecology perspectives for smallholder Climate-Smart Agriculture: a review

Blog Article

Abstract Climate-smart Accessories agriculture has emerged as a way of increasing food productivity, building resiliency to climate change and reducing carbon emissions.Despite rapid technical advances, research on climate-smart agriculture has arguably under-theorized the socio-political processes that continue to marginalize vulnerable groups such as smallholder farmers.This review discusses the potential usefulness of political ecology perspectives for improving climate-smart agriculture.Political ecology theory elucidates how three interrelated socio-political processes that perpetuate smallholder farmer vulnerability significantly influence climate-smart responses: inequality, unequal power relations and social injustice.

The article discusses these three inter-connected political ecology factors using a number of examples from the Green Revolution, smallholder farming communities, and indigenous farmers.In comparison to conventional technical approaches, our article argues that Climate-Smart Agriculture needs to consider political ecology perspectives at different levels to explore the vulnerability sherpa jacket of smallholder farmers to current and future climate change impacts.Interventions to support climate-smart agriculture should examine local risks, specificities and priorities of smallholder farmers.The article concludes with a renewed call for concepts of inequality, unequal power relations and social injustice to be embedded into both the policy and practice of climate smart agriculture.

Keywords: climate-smart agriculture, equality, political ecology, power, smallholder, social justice.