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 Printable version |
Diversification in tropical agriculture: Between environment constraints and market strategies. I. A new context |
Cahiers Agricultures. Volume 14, Number 3, 277-81, Mai - Juin 2005, Synthèse
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 Résumé
Article gratuit
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Author(s) : Éric Malézieux, Paule Moustier |
Summary : In a context of growing constraints on natural resources as well as on international markets, diversification is a major stake for agriculture in developing countries. The paper investigates the challenge of agricultural diversification in developing regions and provides some analytical framework and tools to analyse these processes and contribute to making them more sustainable, focusing on the combination of market and environmental logics. The definition of diversification is first discussed in relation with the different possible levels considered (farm, region, and country) and the different functions assigned to agriculture (economic, social and environmental). Diversification is considered in the paper as the action of a farmer or farming community to enable the sustainable development of cropping or farming systems with a higher degree of biodiversity. Based on examples drawn from Asia, Africa and the French DOM-TOMs, this paper then classifies the different incentives resulting in diversification processes (food insecurity, market opportunities, and land insecurity) and proposes to analyse diversification inside three complementary analytical units: commodity systems, regions, and farms. |
Keywords : Farming systems, Economy and rural development. |
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