Evan Fraser’s research while affiliated with University of Guelph and other places

Africa's smallholding agriculture is susceptible to changing climate. The interaction between several biophysical, socioeconomic, cultural and political stressors increases smallholder farmers' vulnerability, thereby, limiting their adaptive capacity. Whereas changing climate is acknowledged as a significant problem with a detrimental effect on sustainable livelihoods, agriculture and food systems at large, farmers' engagement with climate-smart agriculture practices and interventions is alluded to increase the region's smallholders' adaptive capacity, reduce greenhouse gasses emission and increase agriculture productivity and yields to promote sustainable food systems outcomes. This paper examines three distinct but fundamentally interconnected schools of thought that have developed somewhat independently, i.e. (1) climate change impacts, vulnerabilities, and adaptation, (2) climate-smart agriculture practices (CSA) for sustainable food systems, and (3) sustainable rural livelihood to conceptualize a framework which illustrates the relationship between these three themes. The framework also elucidates how vulnerabilities are outcomes of multiple livelihood stressors, and adaptive capacity reflects access to assets and capital, while sustainable food system outcomes represent the livelihood outcome from engagement with CSA practices. Further, the framework shows the relationship between the supposedly sustainable food system outcomes and how they rebound to reinforce smallholders' adaptive capacity or increase vulnerabilities to multiple livelihood stressors. The framework will serve as a guide or checklist on which elements to consider when exploring the relationship between climate change impact, vulnerabilities, and adaptation with CSA practices for sustainable food systems outcomes. This framework will guide empirical studies that seek to understand the trade-offs and synergies among various dimensions and pillars of sustainable food system outcomes when farmers use CSA. In the long term, this framework will deepen our understanding of the place-based and context-specific CSA practices and policies required to make our food systems more resilient, equitable, and sustainable.

Digitalization is often claimed by agri-food actors interested in using technology and corporations to provide many socio-economic benefits for farmers. This article reports on the results of a survey of Canadian farmers (n = 852) to explore producer perceptions of whether new digital technologies 1) improve the quality of work, 2) enhance productivity, 3) increase profitability, 4) offer a reliable return on investment, and 5) are as reliable as earlier tools and technologies. Farmer respondents generally agreed that digital farm tools have certain relative advantages, but considerable skepticism and varying views persist for certain benefits. Farmers with experience using digital tools were more likely to agree to improved quality of work and reliable return on investments. Meanwhile, farmer socio-demographics (region, level of education, farm ownership ratio) partly and to varying degrees explain perceptions of some relative advantages (e.g. productivity and reliability) but not others (e.g. profitability). In the context of the findings, we note with caution that farmers’ optimism for the relative advantages of digitalization could lay the foundation for acceptance of and receptivity for these innovations. However, if the goal is to encourage producers to embrace digital innovations widely, targeted programming to increase farmers’ first-hand experiences and research-backed informational programs on the potential benefits of digitalization would be needed.

Novel agri-food technologies such as cellular agriculture present strong economic opportunities, with potential to reduce the environmental footprint of agriculture, improve animal welfare, and feed the world. A rich body of literature has emerged in the past five years that evaluates those claims, and illuminates the diverse food system futures framed by novel agri-food technology actors across the food system. To date, those characterizations of food system futures rely mainly on public data, such as technology advertisements and press releases, and have yet to engage deeply with a broader suite of social, economic, and material pathways for their emergence. The need for a robust social scientific framework through which to describe and evaluate concrete futures for novel food technologies such as cellular agriculture is needed. In this paper, we draw from a set of fifty-two interviews and 3 focus groups with key cellular agriculture stakeholders from industry, academia, investment, and research institutions. We found three key considerations for cellular agriculture futures: to understand the places and scales across which cellular agriculture ‘happens’, to balance competitive industry interests with public-private collaboration, and to navigate the extent to which cellular agriculture interfaces with traditional agriculture. From these considerations, we draw from the literature to deduce three dimensions across which to describe and evaluate concrete futures for novel agri-food technologies, broadly: centralization, access, and integration. Plotting food system futures across these three variables illuminates assumptions, preconceptions, and enabling conditions that may engender more or less desirable futures.

Research scientists predict to feed the growing population an increase in agricultural yields at a lower environmental footprint, what some call ‘sustainable intensification’, is required. Yet, some argue that sustainable intensification fails to address systemic social, economic, or environmental concerns. This chapter reviews the key research and policy goals underpinning this approach considering the novel technologies of agriculture. We highlight four ethical questions: 1) What happens to spared land? 2) What socio-economic cost should increasing protein demand be satisfied? 3) How can basic food needs be met while addressing systemic food security issues; and 4) How do we simultaneously reconcile farmer livelihoods and rural revitalization for sustainable development? We argue for a pragmatic approach to sustainable intensification that clearly articulates ethical questions, negotiates these tensions with agricultural stakeholders on a case-by-case basis, and adopts inclusive and reflexive governance processes to continuously re-evaluate sustainable intensification outcomes.

Background Digital technologies are promoted as transformational for smallholders in Africa through the potential to enhance access to knowledge, increase productivity and food security. Despite the anticipations for agricultural digitalization in Africa, smallholders' engagement with digitalization is empirically underexplored. Hence, we surveyed 1565 rural farmers in Northern Ghana to explore how farmers interact with digital tools and services, and the variations in their engagements. Results We found that despite the growing array of digital opportunities (with diverse tools and services available to farmers), farmers are mainly confined to simple devices (mobile phones, radio, and TV) as access to digital resources, including the internet remains limited. Meanwhile, the main sources of digitalization services for smallholders remain largely the highly subisidized, development-orieted. NGOs and private-sector projects, which generally leverage SMS, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), radio, or field agents to reach farmers. Nonetheless, participation in digitalization services remains limited, unimpressive at best, and often fades over time because of weak building blocks evident in low literacies, lack of digital competencies and the limited access to digital resources. Conclusions Thus, full-scale digitalization remains a distant goal, and transformation claims are disconnected from smallholders' lived realities. However, opportunities exist to create a ‘digitalization for smallholders’ that is sensitive to the current and future structural limitations of smallholder agriculture, including low literacy and limited access to digital tools, to make agriculture digitalization reach its full potential in Africa.