Food System Resilience: Exploring Nigerien Agricultural Households Livelihoods Resilience

Food system resilience: Exploring Nigerien agricultural households livelihoods resilience to droughts

By Nourou Macki TALL

RSK4206 “Building resilience and adaptive Governance”

Maastricht University Graduate school of Governance

April, 2013

ABSTRACT

Figure on how post disaster like drought processes can affect food system and its principal policy objective food security is gaining importance with the emergence of the Resilience concept. Food system is a complex social ecological system and resilience is not directly measurable. A diachronic analysis of the food insecurity data and coping strategy index in Niger provide insights on the variability of the situation before, during and after droughts. With recurrent droughts combined with poverty, coping strategies are more and more adaptive strategies. A good year of production following a drought doesn’t allow household to bounce back to their equilibrium.

Key words: food system, food security, coping strategy, resilience

1. Introduction

Food is central to life, and food systems are intertwined with culture, politics, societies, economies, and ecosystems. Food security is a major concern of the world. Despite all the efforts made, one billion people remain food insecure.

Rural people in the Sahelian part of Africa rely mainly on crop–livestock activities and natural resources for their livelihood and food security, and to provide food for urban populations.

Approximately 65 percent of the workforce in the Sahel, among which more than half are women, are working in the agricultural sector and are thus dependent on climatic and environmental factors.
Crises characterizing the sub-region are exacerbated by the impact of climate change. Over the past 50 years, the sub-region has experienced changes in rainfall pattern, which resulted in severe droughts in the Sahel, but also especially from 2005, causing destructive flooding weakening livelihood based on agriculture.

In Niger, agriculture and livestock are the predominant economic activities in Niger. More of 80% of the population rely on crop and livestock activities for their livelihoods and food security. The last decade has been marked by three years of major losses caused by drought 2004/2005, 2009/2010 and 2011/2012. These recurrent shocks affect household resilience.

Broadly speaking, resilience measures the ability of a system to withstand shocks and stresses and to adapt and to persist in an uncertain world. The development of a resilience based approach to food insecurity looks very promising because it complements early warning systems and vulnerability based approaches by focusing on the current status of health of the food system (Ciani, 2012).

We will analyze here how nigerien agricultural household are adapting to drought through the diachronic analysis of the evolution of the food insecurity level and the coping strategy index from 2007 to 2011.

2. Food system, climate change and resilience

2.1 Food system as a complex Social Ecological System

A Social Ecological System (SES) is deﬁned as a system that includes societal (human) and ecological (biophysical) subsystems in mutual interaction (Gallopın1991, 2006), and thus the concept reﬂects the idea that human action and ecological structures are closely linked and dependent on each other, thus sharp separation of social and natural systems is arbitrary (Berkes et al. 2003).

Figure 1: Social ecological system

Source: Maastricht University RSK 4206 course (adopted from Gallopin 1994)

It’s obvious to acknowledge food systems as social ecological system. In fact, Food systems comprise a set of activities and outcomes ranging from production to consumption, through distribution and processing which involve both human and environmental dimensions (Ericksen, 2008; Alinovi et al, 2009).

The ecological functions of Agriculture[1] gain importance on the policy agenda as environmental concerns emerge. It contributes to biodiversity maintenance, water cycle enhancement, soil fertility and carbon sequestration but also Greenhouse Gaz (GHG) emissions etc.

The social functions of Agriculture are related to income generating revenues, food security, natural resource management etc.

All encompass social, economic, political, and environmental processes and dimensions. To analyze the interactions between global environmental change and food systems, as well as the tradeoffs among food security and environmental goals, a food system can be more broadly conceived as including the determinants (or drivers) and outcomes of these activities. The determinants comprise the interactions between and within biogeophysical and human environments that determine how food system activities are performed. These activities lead to a number of outcomes, some of which contribute to food security and others that relate to the environment and other societal concerns. These outcomes are also affected directly by the determinants.

Food system play a pivotal role in the food security of a given group of people and is the principal policy of a food system (Ericksen, 2008). FAO defines food security as “all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (FAO, 1996).

The multidimensionality of the food system concept derives from the fact that, whatever the scale of analysis, a food system always comprises at least two components: the resource base that ensures the food supply, and the socio-economic component that depends on this resource base (L. Alinovi et al, 2009).

The definition of a food system entails many dimensions – economic, social, institutional, technological and cultural – and scales, being global, national or local depending on the purpose of the analysis.

Figure 2: social ecological model applied to food system

Source by Nourou, Sasha et Lynn, RSK 4206 course, Maastricht University, 2013

The new model proposed includes spatial scale and time. The time scale allow to understand disaster before, during and after it occurs.

This social ecological model is made up of many different parts that interact with multiple bands of influence. In this model, no separation has been made between the human subsystem and the ecological subsystem to show their co-evolution and the necessity of a joint analyze. At the core of the model is the individual/household level, surrounded by five bands of influence representing the organizational, community, regional, national and international levels.

Individuals/households are first responsible to cope with, adapt to and recover from disaster by using their livelihoods assets and strategies notably ecosystem services.

Organizations and communities can support and promote best DRR/M (disaster risk reduction/management) practices. Communities based disaster risk management can be implemented but also organizations around a natural resource creating some kind of value chain.

Regional level plays a role in the development process, in preparation, mitigation as well as in managing effective response and recovery.

At the national level, measures are taken in order to enhance Legal, policy and institutional systems and regulatory frameworks for risk management and food security policies.

At the international level, framework and global platform are put in place.

2.2 Disasters related climate change

Rural people in the Sahelian[2] part of Africa rely mainly on crop–livestock activities and natural resources for their livelihood and food security, and to provide food for urban populations.

Agricultural production – including access to food – in many African countries and regions will be severely affected by climate change. This is particularly true for the Sahel region. The area suitable for agriculture, the length of growing seasons and yield potential, particularly along the margins of semi-arid and arid areas, are expected to decrease. This would further adversely affect food security, vulnerability to shocks and exacerbate malnutrition. In some countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture, which is important for the poorest farmers, could be reduced by up to 50 percent by 2020. Furthermore, there is evidence that freshwater resources, on which the viability of agriculture depends, are vulnerable and will be strongly impacted by climate change (Lim Li Ching, 2011)

Consequence of climate change, natural disasters have increased in frequency and intensity, especially in the case of extreme weather events such as droughts and floods. The impact of natural disasters is more severe on the poorest and vulnerable people, especially those whose livelihoods depend on agriculture. These are indeed increasingly confronted with recurrent climate risks that cause production shortfalls, livestock losses and reduced availability of fish stocks and forests. (FAO, 2011).

Concern over the current and potentially future harmful consequences of global environmental change for food systems is motivated by four narratives: i) the persistence of chronic food insecurity in parts of the world, ii) the increasing impact of natural hazards and shocks on food, income, and environmental security, iii) the ecosystem services enabling food production systems are being eroded through environmental trends such as changes in nutrient cycles, changes in hydrological cycles, changes in vegetation cover and composition, and pollution and iv) the inadequacy to substitute for ecosystem services (adapted from Ericksen, 2008).

Fig. 3. Food system vulnerability as a function of the environmental change hazard, exposure, and adaptive capacity.
Source: adapted from Ericksen, 2008

2.3 The concept of resilience, panarchy and adaptive cycle and its relation to food insecurity

Resilience is the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks (www.resalliance.org). Resilience has thus three defining characteristics:

· The amount of change the system can undergo and still retain the same controls on function and structure

· The degree to which the system is capable of self-organization

· The ability to build and increase the capacity for learning and adaptation

For the food system, resilience is the ability to prevent disasters and crises or to anticipate, absorb, accommodate or recover and adapt from shocks impacting nutrition, agriculture, food security and safety and specific related public health risks in a timely, efficient and sustainable manner (FAO, 2012).

The model of the adaptive cycle was derived from the comparative study of the dynamics of ecosystems. It focuses attention upon processes of destruction and reorganization (backloop), which are often neglected in favor of growth and conservation (foreloop). Including these processes provides a more complete view of system dynamics that links together system organization, resilience, and dynamics (www.resalliance.org).

The “Panarchy” framework proposed by Gunderson and Holling (2002) holds that all ecosystems cycle through periods of resource accumulation and collapse based on three key characteristics: the resilience of the ecosystem, the connectedness of individuals in the ecosystem, and the potential for change in the ecosystem. (Fraser, 2003).

Source: www.resalliance.org

Many of the characteristics of the agro-ecosystem in the Sahel in the decades leading up and adapting to the drought conform to the trajectory described by adaptive cycle and panarchy. Crop–livestock production systems in the Sahel have been adapting their practices and way of life for decades to various risks: climatic variability, economic risks and livestock diseases (A. Ickowicz et al, 2003). Such systems, in arid and semi-arid areas, can be composed of:

· livestock only grazing systems;

· rainfed mixed crop-livestock systems;

· rainfed and irrigated mixed crop-livestock systems.

One practical example to analyze adaptive cycles and resilience to drought is the livestock sector. Dynamics of cattle population is arid and semi arid tropical Africa are highly influenced by droughts, which can create dramatic drops in herds size as well as disturbances in sex and age structures. Regarding the Sahel context, the droughts of 1972-1973 and 1983-1984 major droughts are assumed to have decreased the cattle stock and strongly influenced the pastoral and agro-pastoral system (Lesnoff at al, 2012). We can assess the resilience of the herders with livestock diversity. Raising just one specie is more risky in face of droughts. The adaptation conducted herders to diversify their herd with small ruminants and cattle. One other issue is the importance of social network after a post disaster process to rebuild capacities. An example is the practice of habbanae is Niger. When a breeder facing drought lost his cattle, the custom of the Habbanae wants members of its community to lend for three years a pregnant cow. This tradition is not limited to a contract allowing the person to get out of a bad situation, it consolidates the community by strengthening the links between its members.

Thresholds define qualitative or quantitative points or zones that imply a possible shift or transition of the state of a system (i.e. a critical value that should not be crossed). Tipping points are the limits beyond which a system actually changes its function and organization (Glossary: Embrace project). A breakpoint between two regimes of a system (Walker et al, 2004) for herders is the minimum herd remaining after a disaster in quantity, sex and age (number of livestock tropical unit[3]) which is very determinant for their resilience in terms of probability to recover and the recovery time. After drought, the paths are very different. If some herders continue the same activity, many of them become shepherds for agriculturalists, some start practicing agriculture and some are simply out of the system (Bernard, 2012).

Regarding the reorganization phases, drought push States to put in place institutions working in the early warning side in order to “watch to safeguard” and in the response side for an effective and efficient response to crises.

3 Resilience of livelihoods to drought in post disaster situation: Niger case

3.1 Livelihood profiles in Niger

Climatic variations are pushing the republic Niger towards a chronic vulnerability to food and nutritional insecurity associated with recurrent pastoral deficits

Agriculture and livestock are the predominant economic activities in Niger. More of 80% of the population rely on crop and livestock activities for their livelihoods and food security. However, these activities are highly dependent on the spatial and temporal variability of rainfall, and pests. Since 1966, the country has experienced nine (9) years of deficit of production variable in magnitude averaging a production deficit every five years. The last decade has been marked by three years of major losses caused by drought 2004/2005 and 2009/2010 and 2011/2012. These recurrent shocks affect household resilience. With a population growth rate of 3.3% (a fertility rate of more than 7 children per woman), Niger doubles its population every 23 years (and could reach 56 million in 2050). In the current state of technology, this population growth exerts significant pressure on cultivated and cultivable land and creates a mismatch between needs and grain production.
Vulnerable populations in Niger, especially those living in pastoral and agropastoral areas use to have had a lean season (May / June to September) particularly difficult because of lack of agricultural production, decrease of livestock productivity and a significant increase in prices foodstuffs. Evaluation surveys conducted by WFP (World Food Programme) indicate a high debt ratio, which reflects the complexity of the situation of vulnerable households.
Livestock plays an important role both as a livelihood mean and as a survival strategy. Agro-pastoralists include herding as a complementary and integrated activity through the possession of a limited number of small ruminants because of limited fodder availability. Household’s small animal flocks is also a way of savings which is readily mobilized in case of necessity particularly during the lean period and in years of severe shortfall of production.