Marianna Siegmund-Schultze

• PhD
• Group Leader at Wageningen University & Research

There is an urgent need to change the current extractive and resource-intensive agricultural practices. Adopting circular practices within the agricultural system could provide multiple benefits of slowing global climate change, reducing extractive practices and helping farmers to adapt to a changing climate. However, there are still many barriers...

The government of Ecuador intends to meet the projected renewable energy needs of the Galapagos Islands with oil from Jatropha. However, the yield of dry seeds from the existing Jatropha plantations appears to be too low to meet this demand. We hypothesize that the local Jatropha production system is not yet sufficiently understood. Knowledge of th...

Brackish water is formed when freshwater mixes with saltwater resulting in differential NaCl concentrations. To identify safe and effective ways of using brackish water in the VMD, we assessed its impact on soil salinity, and on productivity of beetroot, maize and peanut cultivated on loam-clayey soil under greenhouse conditions at Tra Vinh Univers...

Rights and access to land are major pressing issues among mainly first-generation agroecological farmers in the Netherlands. Due to short-term tenure contracts and high land prices, these farmers face an insecure future. Because of this, they are often unable to make long-term ecological investments, such as planting trees and taking measures to im...

This report documents the activities carried out in the case study Mekong River Delta as part of the Deltas under Pressure project. At the overall project level, we developed guidelines to facilitate food system transition. At the case study level, we described the situation of food system transition in the Mekong Delta and how our project contribu...

REFOOTRURE Project white paper

CONTEXT: In Ethiopia, many agricultural interventions have been introduced for mixed farm types in different biophysical and socioeconomic conditions. The contribution of such interventions to multi-objectives at farm level and beyond remains unclear. OBJECTIVE: To derive insights into interaction of multi-objectives on economic profit-, nutrition...

The São Francisco River Basin in Brazil’s Northeast region suffered from a serious multi-year drought, which started in 2012. This drought was characterized by long periods of water stress, variability and unpredictability of levels and flows of rivers and reservoirs, decreases in hydropower generation, and rising of conflicts between agricultural...

Semiarid regions are often secondary on the national to global (scientific) agenda, especially if abundant vegetation elsewhere draws attention and the local population is considered backwards thinking and poverty-stricken. The Caatinga, our case study, is such a region, home to millions of Brazilians and a vast biodiversity. Unfortunately, a widel...

Transdisciplinary research is a well-recognised approach to address complex real-world problems. However, the literature on a central aspect of transdisciplinarity, namely stakeholder involvement, largely lacks a reflection on its objectives. In response, we present a framework defining four general rationales for stakeholder involvement: normative...

Jatropha seed is a biomass suitable for bioenergy production that can be produced by smallholders, even on marginal lands. However, the current oilseed production is too low to meet the needs of the planned renewable electricity system in the Galapagos Islands. Pruning and fertilization are management options that can be used to increase the dry se...

Balsa trees are native to neotropical forests and frequently grow on fallow, degraded land. Balsa can be used for economic and ecological rehabilitation of farmland with the aim of restoring native forest ecosystems. Although Ecuador is the world’s largest producer of balsa, there is a lack of knowledge about production indicators for management of...

Land management needs to cope with persistent environmental and societal changes. This requires functional governance systems. The purpose of this research is to develop a good governance framework for the implementation of sustainable land management. Good governance theory is extensive, although its operationalization remains difficult. We derive...

RESUMO O Brasil introduziu, desde o marco constitucional de 1988, uma série de avanços no envolvimento potencial da sociedade em tomadas de decisões. A participação pública é um conceito abrangente que se realiza em diferentes escalas e com diversos atores envolvidos. Analisou-se neste estudo se a imprecisão conceitual do que é participação pública...

First paragraphs: Jahi Chappell continuously begs the question: “Who benefits?” He shares his thoughts about hunger and our food systems in his book Beginning to End Hunger: Food and the Environment in Belo Hori­zonte, Brazil, and Beyond. In six chapters, he outlines his analytical background and tells the story about an extraordinary effort to en...

Jatropha is promoted as a pro-poor bioenergy plant, while basic information about its productivity, age of maximum production, and oil content are missing. This study aims to determine the seed yield (dry weight) for three INIAP elite jatropha accessions, and to evaluate the changes in physical and chemical seed traits at the different fruit ripeni...

For decades, large reservoirs have been built for hydropower plants in Brazil’s São Francisco River Basin. Rural development has been a simultaneous goal with a primary focus on irrigation. Irrigated agriculture, however, has suffered from poor soils, insufficient water management strategies, and a disregard for integrating grazing-based smallholdi...

Currently, artisanal fisheries in fresh water reservoirs have been losing ground to commercial fish farming and a great deal of fishery resources are being threatened by human interventions, such as reservoir management and increasing net-cage aquaculture. This study aims to understand the impacts of environmental changes on fishery resources and a...

In Brazil’s semi-arid Northeast, most rural dwellers derive income from the dry Caatinga forest through livestock farming, fruit collection, and firewood extraction. However, recurring droughts and inadequate land use practices jeopardize farmers’ livelihoods. The drought-resistant, endemic Umbuzeiro tree provides fruit for direct consumption and a...

Ecosystems around the world generate a wide range of services. Often, there are trade-offs in ecosystem service provision. Managing such trade-offs requires governance of interdependent action situations. We distinguished between (1) enhancing action situations where beneficiaries create, maintain, or improve an ESS and (2) appropriation action sit...

Water management is important for delivering water for different users and uses. Reservoirs are built to overcome the stochastic nature of river flows and to increase the reliability of water supply. Reservoir operation affects the ecology of downstream river sections and there has been a discussion of a more ecologically oriented flow regime, whil...

A atual governança Hídrica no Brasil contribui para o aumento dos problemas oriundos da escassez hídrica na bacia do São Francisco, majorando os conflitos pelo uso da água. Este artigo tem o objetivo de avaliar alguns desafios e oportunidades da governança hídrica na bacia do São Francisco com base numa robusta coleta e análise de dados nos mais di...

Ecosystems all around the world generate a wide range of provisioning, regulating and cultural services. Often there are trade-offs where optimizing one ecosystem service (ESS) provision reduces other ESS. Managing such trade-offs requires adapted and effective governance. Our work contributes to finding appropriate institutional mechanisms by iden...

Agricultural landscapes safeguard ecosystem services (ES) and biodiversity upon which human well-being depends. However, only a fraction of these services are generally considered in land management decisions, resulting in trade-offs and societally inefficient solutions. The TEEB Study (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) spearheaded the...

(This is a coordinated multi-author chapter with a number of sub-chapters written by further authors.)

In many countries, governmental systems and their areas still mirror vanished historical logics rather than contemporary active citizenship based on environmental units. The Brazilian Water Act from 1997 institutionalizes the watershed as the planning unit and the creation of participatory watershed committees. What is the state of this radical shi...

Water management plays a major role in delivering water required for different users and uses. Reservoirs are built to overcome the stochastic nature of river flows and to make water supply more reliable. With the construction and operation of dams a discussion on the benefits and environmental and social costs emerged. The flow regime manipulated...

Assessments of ecosystem services (ES), that aim at informing decisions on land management, are increasing in number around the globe. Despite selected success stories, evidence for ES information being used in decision making is weak, partly because ES assessments are found to fall short in targeting information needs by decision makers. To improv...

A Política Nacional de Recursos Hídricos prescreve um modelo descentralizado e participativo, donde os comitês se destacam com importantes contribuições na governança em escala de bacias. A posição do comitê nas decisões regionais da água é às vezes contraditória à das demais instituições. A presente pesquisa vincula perspectivas inter/transdiscipl...

The INNOVATE project, a comprehensive Brazilian-German research collaboration, addresses sustainable land management in the São Francisco watershed and its Itaparica reservoir. The project studies management options, which promote sustainable ecosystem services and economic viability in climate change conditions. At basin scale, questions of water...

Large hydropower projects constitute major environmental and social concerns and can cause serious resettlements. In Brazil, mitigation and compensation programs have comprehensively been planned and set up, whilst its actual implementation and effectiveness are controversially debated. In the São Francisco river basin, the success of such reservoi...

Even two decades after independence in 1991, the agricultural sector of Uzbekistan remains regulated by the government, prescribing the number of cattle head per agricultural area or imposing mandatory cash crops. The policy makers are insufficiently informed about the bottlenecks in the different livestock production units and base their policies...

Game harvesting in South Africa generally leaves behind edible by-products, which could be a low-cost source of protein for poor people in rural areas. Seven professional and nine recreational hunters were interviewed, a game harvest and trophy hunt attended and literature reviewed, in order to describe the food value chain for game and ways in whi...

Compared to the total water use in livestock production systems, water for livestock drinking is small in amount but is an important requirement for health and productivity of animals. This study was carried out to assess constraints and challenges of meeting drinking water requirements of livestock in rural mixed smallholder crop-livestock farming...

This paper takes up the case of two market-sheds in the southern Ethiopian highlands (namely Adilo and Kofele) to examine the factors affecting the adoption of small ruminant related technologies in mixed-farming systems. A survey was conducted using semi-structured questionnaires with 155 randomly selected small ruminant keepers between May and Ju...

An analytical process has been initiated for a profound understanding of land management processes in the region of the Itaparica hydropower reservoir within the São Francisco River Basin. It focuses on the heterogeneous constellations of land management in the municipality of Petrolândia. As an inter- and transdisciplinary bridging concept, a Cons...

The construction of the Itaparica dam and reservoir induced changes concerning the agricultural production systems in the micro-region Itaparica, Sao Francisco river basin. Traditional systems – mainly a combination of dryland farming in the river flood plains and livestock farming in the adjacent dryer areas – were replaced by irrigation agricultu...

Heavy grazing of communal rangeland appears to be in conflict with the societal aim of conserving biodiversity. Understanding the grazing system in context is essential for intervention. One mixed and one pastoral system along a rainfall gradient on communal lands in Namibia were studied. Data on 224 calves were gathered from the life history data...

Producing a local sheep meat product under a geographical certification label may enhance market competitiveness of smallholder farmers. This study focused on sheep farms in Ceara (Northeast Brazil); we explored their potential for adopting such a strategy, described the production chain of the salted, dried sheep meat product, and evaluated its po...

Where the main purpose of cattle keeping is not for meat and milk production, their valuation should be based on other functions, which may be deduced from the origin and meaning of the term 'live stock'. By way of example, the monetary value was calculated of the market and non-market functions of cattle kept on Amazonian smallholdings. These cows...

Social farming uses farm activities as a means of promoting human mental and physical health. As organized social farming became more professional, some European countries introduced support centres to assist in its development. This paper reports on a study that examined the experience of such support centres in the Netherlands, Norway and Flander...

Rural livelihoods in West Africa depend largely on livestock. The sub-humid and humid zones of the region, however, are highly affected by the tsetse flies, vector of trypanosomosis, by severely limiting livestock production and livelihood options. Endemic ruminant livestock breeds are trypanotolerant, but perceived as inferior compared to other br...

This study evaluates the household income contribution and the profitability of traditional small ruminant enterprises in two mixed-farming systems of southern Ethiopia (viz. Adilo and Kofele). Small ruminant production is an integral part of mixed systems in the Ethiopian highlands. The assessment of the current economic performance of small rumin...

Endemic ruminants in The Gambia, represented by the N’Dama cattle and Djallonké breeds of sheep and goats, are well adapted and productive in areas infected with trypanosomiasis. Despite these favourable attributes their contribution to farmers’ livelihoods remains not well recognized. The present study characterizes the specific functions they ful...

In Northeastern Pará, smallholder agriculturalists have established small pastures and manage small herds, mainly with the objective of investing profits in their crops, as a form of savings to meet the family's and property's future needs. There are indications of pasture and herd problems that limit production and sustainability, and threaten the...

Cattle on smallholder farms are kept for socio-economic reasons, rather than physical production, which explains why farmers favour low input and discontinuous management. To find out how this form of livestock husbandry relates to the other main farming sub-systems, cattle-keeping was compared with cassava and black pepper production. Data was col...

Bolivia accounts for approximately 63% of the South American llama population. Llamas keep playing an important role in the subsistence of smallholdings in the Andean regions fulfilling various functions in the productive, social and cultural life of the people. The present study evaluates functions of llama keeping as a prerequisite to the formula...

The prevalence of mastitis and brucellosis in urban and peri-urban settings was studied in Awassa and two smaller nearby towns in southern Ethiopia, because milk-born diseases are causing a risk for human health, besides direct impacts on animal production. Mastitis was investigated by examining 80 cows (320 udder quarters) using California mastiti...

The present study describes the formation of the Anglo Nubian breed in Britain and follows up the original transfer of the founder breeds to Britain in the 19th century. An overview on the worldwide spread of the Anglo Nubian from Britain to the USA and Canada, later to Africa and Asia as well as Latin America is given. Information was compiled thr...

Under hot conditions, contemporary commercial broilers do not reach their full genetic potential for growth rate, body weight (BW), or breast meat yield because dissipation of their excessively produced internal (metabolic) heat is hindered by the feathers. Therefore, it was hypothesized that heat stress can be alleviated by using the naked-neck ge...

Over the course of one year, 155 households with small ruminants were monitored and the life histories of adult ewes were recorded at two sites of southern Ethiopia, in order to compare reproductive and growth performance and identify entry points for future improvement. A more scrupulous health care, particularly of lambs, and strategic feeding to...

c1 Corresponding author: getahun@uni-hohenheim.de; getahunleg@yahoo.com

The presence of cattle in the Amazon region is controversial in terms of their ecological suitability and profitability compared with crops. Nevertheless, they are widely distributed in the study area in north-eastern Pará and, contrary to the common image of cattle on large ranches, a high proportion of them are kept on smallholder farms. To expla...

A study was conducted to assess the breast meat yield and quality of featherless broilers as compared to their feathered sibs fed with varying diets under hot conditions. The experimental set up involved 200 featherless chicks and 200 feathered sibs reared under hot conditions in two rooms (average temperature from 29-33°C) divided into pens by gen...

Traditional smallholder livestock production is expected to correspond widely with principles of organic livestock farming. Though, the real magnitude of livestock under organic and alike management is unknown. From stakeholder analysis and structured interviews with key persons in Bolivia it is deduced that similarities are widely given, whereas i...

Bolivia accounts for approximately 63% of the South American llama population. Llamas keep playing an important role in the sustenance of smallholdings in the Andean regions fulfilling various functions in the productive, social and cultural life of the people. However, these functions have not yet been valued scientifically. This study therefore e...

Rapid urbanization in Africa leads to a spatial concentration of people with different cultural origins and socioeconomic backgrounds resulting in a great diversity of life styles and livelihood strategies. One common strategy in Maroua/Cameroon and Bobo-Dioulasso/Burkina Faso is urban sheep keeping. Cluster analyses identified distinct socioeconom...

Urban sheep production is widespread in Bobo-Dioulasso despite its formal illegality. This study was aimed at the identification of socioeconomic characteristics influencing the decisions of households to take up this activity. One hundred and thirty-six households (half of them keeping sheep, half not keeping small ruminants) were interviewed to c...

Heat stress due to high ambient temperature hampers broiler production in the tropics and subtropics. This leads to depression in feed consumption and growth rates of birds and high mortality while at the same time reducing breast meat yield and quality. Adapting the environment to the demands of fast-growing broilers by means of high-cost cooling...

While the organic movement is growing, its contribution to small-scale livestock farm- ing in Latin America is contentious. Secondary literature and available statistics were used for this study. Farms and area under certified organic agriculture are rising, but small-scale livestock farming is little represented. The latter is yet to be found in n...

In communal areas little information exists about the quality and quantity of grazing and browsing resources. Livestock farmers have to cope with the spatial and temporal rainfall variability, which influences the net biomass production of the Namibian dry lands. The aim of this study was to compare the availability of forage resources from communa...

Dairy production in and around cities is a means to provide consumers with fresh products, especially in the absence of cool chain management from rural regions. However, limited hygiene of urban settings has often been cited as threatening the product quality. As a case study, 80 cows were examined for mastitis and 177 for brucellosis in the town...