scaling

This report by NewForesight and Commonland presents the complex challenges we face in our current food system, and highlights opportunities to forge a path towards a more sustainable future. The authors sketch an initial outline of holistic approaches that offer long term solutions while capturing net positive business opportunities with multiple returns. The main aim of this paper is to trigger decision makers in business, government, and society to form coalitions, apply such holistic approaches and drive systemic change in our food systems at scale using an ecosystem approach. »

This article in the Agricultural Systems journal, describes a spreadsheet-based methodology that generates information about the suitability of climate-smart agriculture based on a region specific production function and ‘target yield’ approach in current and future climate scenarios. The promotion of climate-smart agriculture in different parts of the world requires a clear understanding of its relative suitability, costs and benefits, and the environmental implications of various technological interventions in a local context under current and future climates. Such data is generally difficult to obtain. »

This article, published in the Global Food Security journal, argues that if small-scale farms continue to dominate in the face of the increasing wage rate in Asia, many countries in this region will lose their comparative advantage in agriculture. If machinery and land are complementary and machines are indivisible to some extent, large-scale mechanized farms become more efficient, which tends to weaken the inverse farm size-productivity relationship. »

This booklet by the Centre of Development Innovation (CDI) is part of a series of legacy products of the CGIAR Research Program on Integrated Systems for the Humid Tropics (Humidtropics). It structures key findings from earlier research towards an approach that connects a theory of change perspective specifically to the question of ‘how scaling happens’. »

This article, published in the Environmental Research Letters journal, presents a map of mean agricultural area, classified by the amount of land per farming household, at subnational resolutions across three key global regions using a novel integration of household microdata and agricultural landscape data. These data meet a critical need, as improved understanding of the prevalence and distribution of smallholder farming is essential for effective policy development for food security, poverty reduction, and conservation agendas. »

This PhD dissertation examines the impacts of large-scale farming in Ethiopia on local economic development, household food security, incomes, employment, and the environment. The study concluded that the approach of large-scale mechanized farming contributes little to the economic and agricultural transformation of the nation. Local people generally lose out in respect of land transactions and investments, and they are expropriated from their customary land rights to the benefit of national goals. »