Dear FSN – Moderators, great job drafting this comprehensive and important report.
On discussion point 5 — drivers of inequity and actions to reduce these — I would like to bring to your attention two topical studies on understanding the unequal impacts of farming technology interventions in smallholder farming systems.
Thuijsman et al. (2022). Indifferent to difference? Understanding the unequal impacts of farming technologies among smallholders. A review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 42(3), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-022-00768-6
Bouwman et al., (2021). Herbicide induced hunger? Conservation Agriculture, ganyu labour and rural poverty in Central Malawi. The Journal of Development Studies, 57(2), 244-263. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2020.1786062
Many strategies to alleviate hunger and poverty revolve around improved farming, and mitigating social inequality is often an implicit aim (through working with resource-poor farmers). Nevertheless, the distribution of impacts of farming technology interventions among smallholders receives scant attention. We recently concluded a comprehensive, systematic literature review (Thuijsman et al. 2022), and were able to identify only 85 studies that assessed impact differentiation. Most of these were ex-ante studies; only 24 (!) studies presented empirical findings.
The selected studies confirmed an expected trend: absolute benefits were larger for the better-off farming households, and large relative benefits among the poor were mostly due to meagre baseline performance. In our paper, we collated the explanations given for differentiated impacts along a nested hierarchy: the field, the farm or household, the farming system, as well as over time. The actual drivers of impact differentiation were more often suggested and modelled, rather than measured.
Current methods for impact assessment of agricultural technology interventions are ill-equipped to capture the processes of change that such interventions set in motion. This needs to change. Bouwman et al. (2021), provide a striking example of an unintended consequence of promoting labour-saving technologies - denying food insecure households a key opportunity to work for food during hunger periods. This study shows that the econometric methods commonly used in impact assessments are unable to distinguish positive technology impacts from growing social inequality as they disregard the negative impacts on non-adopters. Furthermore, technology adoption and impact studies tend to merely record effects on individual households, rather than unpacking the social mechanisms that produce these effects. In order to better assess unequal impacts of technology interventions, Bouwman et al. (2021) argue, grounded understandings of local realities and farming systems are necessary, as well as a deliberate focus on relative ‘high impact’ areas.
Both studies highlight that it is important to consider the following in technology development and impact evaluation:
1. recognize the poorer among the poor,
2. acknowledge and investigate unequal impacts,
3. explicitly aim to avoid negative consequences, and
4. include interventions to mitigate negative consequences where they occur.
I look forward to seeing the next version of this report!
With kind regards,
Eva Thuijsman
PhD candidate at the Plant Production Systems Group, Wageningen University, the Netherlands
Eva Thuijsman