Participatory Causal Loop Mapping of the Adoption of Organic Farming in Nigeria.

Contrary to the expectations of promoters of organic agriculture, the adoption of the technology by smallholder farmers in Africa has been low and slow, for reasons not well understood. Existing studies on the topic mostly estimated the effect of some variables on the adoption of the technology. But adoption is characterized by complex and dynamic interactions of many interconnected factors, which existing studies overlooked. The underlying causal structures and feedback mechanisms that dynamically interact to affect the adoption of organic farming in urban and rural Africa are also not well known. To bridge these gaps, we used a system dynamics tool called participatory causal loop diagraming to map the underlying causal factors and feedback mechanisms driving the adoption of organic farming in rural and urban Nigeria. We conducted loop and network analyses of the group causal loop diagrams, which were created during the participatory system dynamics modeling workshops with the organic farmers in our study areas. Our findings underscore the importance of the knowledge of organic farming, demand- and supply-side-oriented awareness creation, and the economic viability of organic farming for widespread adoption of the technology. We suggested the potential leverages around which interventions can be built to boost the adoption rates of the technology.

Emergency Food Provision for Children and Families during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Examples from Five U.S. Cities.

As lockdown and school closure policies were implemented in response to the coronavirus, the federal government provided funding and relaxed its rules to support emergency food provision, but not guidance on best practices for effectiveness. Accordingly, cities developed a diverse patchwork of emergency feeding programs. This article uses qualitative data to provide insight into emergency food provision developed in five cities to serve children and families. Based on our qualitative analysis, we find that the effectiveness of local approaches appears to depend on: (i) cross-sector collaboration, (ii) supply chains, and (iii) addressing gaps in service to increased risk populations.

Perceptions and exposure to climate events along agricultural value chains: Evidence from Nigeria.

Africa's food systems are among the most vulnerable sectors to climate risk. Unfortunately, numerous activities along food supply chains (production, processing, storage, marketing and consumption) are also important contributors to climate change. Despite the differential effect of climate events on activities along food supply chains and vice versa, most climate change perception studies in agriculture focus on producers, particularly crop farmers. This study adopts a value chain perspective to examine climate change perceptions among economic agents all along the maize-poultry value chain in Nigeria. We find that economic agents perceive those climate events that have a direct effect on their economic activity and this is not restricted to crop farmers. We also find that very few actors along the maize-poultry value chain believe that their economic activity negatively affects the environment and contributes to climate change. Though African countries might currently not be major contributors to climate change, this indicates a need for more awareness among economic agents about the effects of various agriculture-related activities on the environment and their contributions to climate change to encourage practices and technologies that can reduce agriculture's negative effect on the environment and contribution to climate change.

Participatory Modeling of Climate Change Impacts on Public Health in Long Beach, California: Discussion from a Workshop Hosted by the RAND Frederick S. Pardee Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition.

Participatory modeling aims to incorporate stakeholders into the process of developing models for the purpose of eliciting information, appropriately reflecting stakeholder interests and concerns, and improving stakeholder understanding, and acceptance of the analysis. Participatory modeling, using causal loop diagramming (CLD), was used to explore the impact of climate change on public health in Long Beach, California. CLD, commonly used in participatory modeling, provided useful information to serve as the basis for a quantitative system dynamics model to protect the citizens of Long Beach, and potentially other cities or regions affected by climate change. Diverse stakeholders constructed CLDs depicting the impacts of climate change on public health in Long Beach. This exercise aimed to (1) identify public health issues that might be caused or exacerbated by climate change; (2) examine the systemic connections between climate change and other drivers of public health/illness and mortality; and (3) identify feedback loops to gain an understanding of how climate change could impact public health over coming decades. Six groups of five stakeholders were tasked with depicting the impacts of climate change on public health. Each group designated a key health outcome of concern on a citywide scale, including critical drivers of the outcome at higher and lower scales if necessary (for example, state laws, or household-level decisions that affect health outcomes in the aggregate). Social, environmental, political, and economic variables were all considered. After the small group diagramming exercise, groups presented diagram results to other participants, and the discussion around the diagrams was recorded.

TMDL implementation in agricultural landscapes: a communicative and systemic approach.

Increasingly, total maximum daily load (TMDL) limits are being defined for agricultural watersheds. Reductions in non-point source pollution are often needed to meet TMDL limits, and improvements in management of annual crops appear insufficient to achieve the necessary reductions. Increased adoption of perennial crops and other changes in agricultural land use also appear necessary, but face major barriers. We outline a novel strategy that aims to create new economic opportunities for land-owners and other stakeholders and thereby to attract their voluntary participation in land-use change needed to meet TMDLs. Our strategy has two key elements. First, focused efforts are needed to create new economic enterprises that capitalize on the productive potential of multifunctional agriculture (MFA). MFA seeks to produce a wide range of goods and ecosystem services by well-designed deployment of annual and perennial crops across agricultural landscapes and watersheds; new revenue from MFA may substantially finance land-use change needed to meet TMDLs. Second, efforts to capitalize on MFA should use a novel methodology, the Communicative/Systemic Approach (C/SA). C/SA uses an integrative GIS-based spatial modeling framework for systematically assessing tradeoffs and synergies in design and evaluation of multifunctional agricultural landscapes, closely linked to deliberation and design processes by which multiple stakeholders can collaboratively create appropriate and acceptable MFA landscape designs. We anticipate that application of C/SA will strongly accelerate TMDL implementation, by aligning the interests of multiple stakeholders whose active support is needed to change agricultural land use and thereby meet TMDL goals.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions for climate stabilization: framing regional options.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stated that stabilizing atmospheric CO2 concentrations will require reduction of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by as much as 80% by 2050. Subnational efforts to cut emissions will inform policy development nationally and globally. We projected GHG mitigation strategies for Minnesota, which has adopted a strategic goal of 80% emissions reduction by 2050. A portfolio of conservation strategies, including electricity conservation, increased vehicle fleet fuel efficiency, and reduced vehicle miles traveled, is likely the most cost-effective option for Minnesota and could reduce emissions by 18% below 2005 levels. An 80% GHG reduction would require complete decarbonization of the electricity and transportation sectors, combined with carbon capture and sequestration at power plants, or deep cuts in other relatively more intransigent GHG-emitting sectors. In order to achieve ambitious GHG reduction goals, policymakers should promote aggressive conservation efforts, which would probably have negative net costs, while phasing in alternative fuels to replace coal and motor gasoline over the long-term.