Whether small-time farmers across the world get swept away by globalization or ride a wave of new opportunities depends largely on how much control they can get, according to a new study that takes a new, big-picture look.
Whether small-time farmers across the world get swept away by globalization or ride a wave of new opportunities depends largely on how much control they can get, according to a new study that takes a new, big-picture look.
From soybean farmers in China to those who grow vanilla in Madagascar, trendy açaí in the Amazon or rubber in Myanmar, their place in new, fast-paced markets that can be both regional and global isn’t fully understood until examined in context with its partners and competitors near and far. Scientists at Michigan State University (MSU) and across the world take a new look in “Understanding How Smallholders Integrated into Pericoupled and Telecoupled Systems” in this week’s journal Sustainability.
The takeaway: It’s agency – the ability these farmers have to seize some control to better their position in a global market.
“Given that smallholder farmers everywhere are critical to several of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, such as ending poverty and hunger, we need to fully understand how being swept into global markets affects them, and that means not just looking at their bottom line, but how they interact across the entire market process,” said Jianguo “Jack” Liu, MSU Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability. “We found success applying the integrated framework of telecoupling – which allows us to look at both human and natural systems across distances – to reveal some surprising truths.”
Read more at Michigan State University
Image: Author Yue Dou (left) interviews a soybean farmer in Heilongjiang, China, about how he makes planting decisions. (Credit Sue Nichols, Michigan State University)
