Feeding cattle under suboptimal conditions in Kenya: From emphasising technical (non-)adoption to stimulating adaptive performance
In the climate-development interface, research for development gained a strong interest in climate-smart agriculture and sustainable forms of intensification. Moreover, the urgency to respond to climate change stimulates a strong and sometimes exclusive focus on mitigation, driven by research-based...
| Autores principales: | , , , , |
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| Formato: | Journal Article |
| Lenguaje: | Inglés |
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SAGE Publications
2024
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| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/152113 |
| _version_ | 1855543482843660288 |
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| author | Vernooij, Vera Koeijer, Jan de Vellema, Sietze Crane, Todd A. Maiyo, Nathan |
| author_browse | Crane, Todd A. Koeijer, Jan de Maiyo, Nathan Vellema, Sietze Vernooij, Vera |
| author_facet | Vernooij, Vera Koeijer, Jan de Vellema, Sietze Crane, Todd A. Maiyo, Nathan |
| author_sort | Vernooij, Vera |
| collection | Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace) |
| description | In the climate-development interface, research for development gained a strong interest in climate-smart agriculture and sustainable forms of intensification. Moreover, the urgency to respond to climate change stimulates a strong and sometimes exclusive focus on mitigation, driven by research-based agricultural practices. In the livestock sector, this materialises in strategies to lower emissions from livestock, which centralises the adoption question: what can we do to stimulate the use of best practices by smallholder farmers? This paper flags the risk that this outlook may overlook smallholder farmers' capacities to navigate sub-optimal conditions of drought or scarcity. The paper applies an alternative lens for understanding ‘agriculture-as-performance’ and highlights smallholder cattle owners’ agency and resourcefulness. It aims to create a conceptual space to examine how adaptive capacities are grounded in the rhythms of agriculture under suboptimal conditions. Empirically, the study focuses on the cattle-feeding practices of five farming households evolving through seasons and lifetimes in a sedentary agricultural system in Kenya. Our frame identifies diverse affordances, conceptualised as opportunities for actions, emerging and disappearing in the immediate material environment, and we portray cattle feeding as a networked response anchored in practices of giving, sharing, and receiving. We use our insights into the dynamics and performance of entangled socio-technical practices to sketch the contours of an alternative pathway for agriculture for development. We argue in favour of a shift from an exclusive focus on the adoption of predefined optimal solutions to a diagnostic and catalytic approach integrating situated adaptive performances through which farming households respond to action opportunities. |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | CGSpace152113 |
| institution | CGIAR Consortium |
| language | Inglés |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| publishDateRange | 2024 |
| publishDateSort | 2024 |
| publisher | SAGE Publications |
| publisherStr | SAGE Publications |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | CGSpace1521132024-09-14T18:55:52Z Feeding cattle under suboptimal conditions in Kenya: From emphasising technical (non-)adoption to stimulating adaptive performance Vernooij, Vera Koeijer, Jan de Vellema, Sietze Crane, Todd A. Maiyo, Nathan agriculture climate change livestock research farmers development climate cattle households climate-smart agriculture intensification environment drought risk strategies agricultural practices farming seasons feeding performance smallholder farmers emissions best practices dynamics smallholder research for development diagnostic In the climate-development interface, research for development gained a strong interest in climate-smart agriculture and sustainable forms of intensification. Moreover, the urgency to respond to climate change stimulates a strong and sometimes exclusive focus on mitigation, driven by research-based agricultural practices. In the livestock sector, this materialises in strategies to lower emissions from livestock, which centralises the adoption question: what can we do to stimulate the use of best practices by smallholder farmers? This paper flags the risk that this outlook may overlook smallholder farmers' capacities to navigate sub-optimal conditions of drought or scarcity. The paper applies an alternative lens for understanding ‘agriculture-as-performance’ and highlights smallholder cattle owners’ agency and resourcefulness. It aims to create a conceptual space to examine how adaptive capacities are grounded in the rhythms of agriculture under suboptimal conditions. Empirically, the study focuses on the cattle-feeding practices of five farming households evolving through seasons and lifetimes in a sedentary agricultural system in Kenya. Our frame identifies diverse affordances, conceptualised as opportunities for actions, emerging and disappearing in the immediate material environment, and we portray cattle feeding as a networked response anchored in practices of giving, sharing, and receiving. We use our insights into the dynamics and performance of entangled socio-technical practices to sketch the contours of an alternative pathway for agriculture for development. We argue in favour of a shift from an exclusive focus on the adoption of predefined optimal solutions to a diagnostic and catalytic approach integrating situated adaptive performances through which farming households respond to action opportunities. 2024-06 2024-09-11T09:26:00Z 2024-09-11T09:26:00Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/152113 en Limited Access SAGE Publications Vernooij, V., Koeijer, J. de, Vellema, S., Crane, T., & Maiyo, N. (2024). Feeding cattle under suboptimal conditions in Kenya: From emphasising technical (non-)adoption to stimulating adaptive performance. Outlook on Agriculture, 53(2), 154–163. https://doi.org/10.1177/00307270241255384 |
| spellingShingle | agriculture climate change livestock research farmers development climate cattle households climate-smart agriculture intensification environment drought risk strategies agricultural practices farming seasons feeding performance smallholder farmers emissions best practices dynamics smallholder research for development diagnostic Vernooij, Vera Koeijer, Jan de Vellema, Sietze Crane, Todd A. Maiyo, Nathan Feeding cattle under suboptimal conditions in Kenya: From emphasising technical (non-)adoption to stimulating adaptive performance |
| title | Feeding cattle under suboptimal conditions in Kenya: From emphasising technical (non-)adoption to stimulating adaptive performance |
| title_full | Feeding cattle under suboptimal conditions in Kenya: From emphasising technical (non-)adoption to stimulating adaptive performance |
| title_fullStr | Feeding cattle under suboptimal conditions in Kenya: From emphasising technical (non-)adoption to stimulating adaptive performance |
| title_full_unstemmed | Feeding cattle under suboptimal conditions in Kenya: From emphasising technical (non-)adoption to stimulating adaptive performance |
| title_short | Feeding cattle under suboptimal conditions in Kenya: From emphasising technical (non-)adoption to stimulating adaptive performance |
| title_sort | feeding cattle under suboptimal conditions in kenya from emphasising technical non adoption to stimulating adaptive performance |
| topic | agriculture climate change livestock research farmers development climate cattle households climate-smart agriculture intensification environment drought risk strategies agricultural practices farming seasons feeding performance smallholder farmers emissions best practices dynamics smallholder research for development diagnostic |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/152113 |
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