Extreme vulnerability of smallholder farmers to agricultural risks and climate change in Madagascar

By C. Harvey, Zo Lalaina Rakotobe, N. Rao, R. Dave, Hery Razafimahatratra, R. Rabarijohn, Haingo Rajaofara, James L. MacKinnon. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2014

677 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Across the tropics, smallholder farmers already face numerous risks to agricultural production. Climate change is expected to disproportionately affect smallholder farmers and make their livelihoods even more precarious; however, there is limited information on their overall vulnerability and adaptation needs. We conducted surveys of 600 households in Madagascar to characterize the vulnerability of smallholder farmers, identify how farmers cope with risks and explore what strategies are needed to help them adapt to climate change. Malagasy farmers are particularly vulnerable to any shocks to their agricultural system owing to their high dependence on agriculture for their livelihoods, chronic food insecurity, physical isolation and lack of access to formal safety nets. Farmers are frequently exposed to pest and disease outbreaks and extreme weather events (particularly cyclones), which cause significant crop and income losses and exacerbate food insecurity. Although farmers use a variety of risk-coping strategies, these are insufficient to prevent them from remaining food insecure. Few farmers have adjusted their farming strategies in response to climate change, owing to limited resources and capacity. Urgent technical, financial and institutional support is needed to improve the agricultural production and food security of Malagasy farmers and make their livelihoods resilient to climate change.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, General Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Soil Science

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Citations in the corpus

Bats as potential suppressors of multiple agricultural pests: A case study from Madagascar (2019, background): “Such a high dependency on rice creates problems when yields are affected by climatic events or pest outbreaks (Harvey et al., 2014).”
Prospects for Agricultural Sustainable Intensification: A Review of Research (2019, background): “Aiming at increasing agricultural productivity, measures related to external inputs include improving road infrastructure and market access, providing technical support and extension services to farmers [99].”
The Role of Smallholder Farms in a Changing World (2020, background): “Smallholder farms are particularly vulnerable to more frequent extreme weather events because of such factors as chronic food insecurity, lack of access to formal safety nets, and high reliance on climate-dependent agriculture, coupled with limited resources and capacity for mitigating and adapting ”
Climate Change and Agriculture: Subsistence Farmers’ Response to Extreme Heat (2019, result): “These results complement recent studies that examine the role of changes in crop mix as a possible way to increase food security and adapt to climate change (Harvey et al., 2014; Burke and Emerick, 2016; Colmer, 2018).”
Machine Learning in Agriculture: A Comprehensive Updated Review (2021, background): “At farm level, reports on yield losses, due to plant diseases, are very common [54].”
Rural livelihood diversification and household well-being: Insights from Humla, Nepal (2016, background): “In addition to various idiosyncratic risks, the subsistence farmers confront various structural and transitory environmental and institutional stresses and shocks that frequently make them vulnerable to falling below subsistence thresholds (Eakin, 2005; Morton, 2007; Tschakert, 2007; Harvey et al., ”
A review of types of risks in agriculture: What we know and what we need to know (2020, positive): “Farmers’ decision making evolves in a context in which multiple risks occur simultaneously, such as weather variability and price spikes or reduced market access (Holden and Shiferaw, 2004; Harvey et al., 2014; Lazzaroni and Wagner, 2016).”
Dynamic linkages among energy consumption, air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and agricultural production in Pakistan: sustainable agriculture key to policy success (2016, background): “Harvey et al. (2014) analyzed the climatic threat to the smallholder agricultural farmers and found that Malagasy farmers severely affected by extreme weather episodes that increases food insecurity in their region.”
Resilience of local food systems and links to food security – A review of some important concepts in the context of COVID-19 and other shocks (2020, background): “) and prevent most of them from operating efficiently (SabatesWheeler et al. 2008; Harvey et al. 2014).”