Acumulación de acciones y acumulación de procesos

As shown in Figure 3-3, the main elements in the conceptual framework are structured according to the capabilities approach, including the means to achieve (resources), the freedom to achieve (opportunity and agency freedom) and the achievements (opportunity and agency achievements).

The means to achieve consist of several types of resources, simplified to include personal resources (such as knowledge and skills), farm resources (such as land and farming tools) and social resources (such as links with farmer organisations and extension services). These resources have a clear connection with the capital assets in the livelihoods framework consisting of financial, natural, physical, human and social capital (Scoones, 1998).

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Figure 3-3 A conceptual framework based on the capability approach for understanding the domain in which the adoption and promotion of Conservation Agriculture and innovation take place.

Means to achieve

1. The basic structure of means, freedom and achievements, in which opportunity and agency freedom are central, is derived from the capability approach (Sen, 1999).

2. The various resources, similar to the five ‘capitals’ in the livelihoods framework (Scoones, 1998)

3. The ‘efficiency’ of making use of resources differs per person (e.g. education and gender) and also depends on the enabling/ constraining context (e.g. labour markets, land tenure security) (Robeyns, 2005).

4. In this thesis, choice is conceptualized with the Reasoned Action Approach (Fishbein and Ajzen, 2010).

5. Innovation processes taking place in dynamic innovation systems (Hall et al., 2007) at the interface between markets, institutions etc. and a farmer’s resources and achievements.

Technological innovation allows more efficient use of resources within a given context, while institutional innovation actively influences the enabling/constraining context.

Farm

Enabling/ constraining context Markets Cultural norms Climate (change) Institutions 1.

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Given a certain enabling/ constraining context (e.g. climate, access to markets), these factors determine the freedom to achieve, or capabilities. The capabilities refer to the range of possibilities or options that a farmer has. More knowledge, more land or more social links, ‘more’ being quantitative or qualitative, implies having more capabilities. The theoretical (and practical) possibility does not mean that it is actually done. What is actually done are the achievements, such as the adoption of CA or perhaps agro-forestry or conventional farming.

Technological innovation, when seen in this framework, can be defined as a new configuration of resources and the enabling/constraining context, which inclines to removing capability deprivations and increasing agency and opportunity freedom. Innovation can be situated within the various non-social resources (e.g. when a farmer experiments on his/her own land and thus learning to increase the production) or within the resources including the social capital (e.g. when a farmer gains knowledge through training). Technological innovation can both bring direct benefits, in terms of income, food security or labour requirements, and indirect benefits through effects on food prices, employment and linkages with other parts of the economy (Berdegué and Escobar, 2002).

Institutional innovation can come from action and processes that challenge the structures in the enabling/constraining context that will lead to new institutions or policies (e.g. a producer organisation negotiating better market prices). In this way, innovation can increase capabilities and create conditions that allow the feasibility of e.g. CA as a farming system. Once CA is a feasible option, a farmer can choose to adopt it, in any form. This choice depends on a combination of influencing factors such as personal psychology, history, needs, values, dreams, group decisions/pressure, habits or incentives, among others (Robeyns, 2005). At the level of achievements, these processes become tangible and measurable again: what has actually been done? Using the words of the capability approach, the achievements consist of the doing and being that is valued by the farmer.

The ‘achievements’ have an impact on the means to achieve and capabilities (e.g. changing intra-livelihood roles and responsibilities) and potentially on the enabling/ constraining context (e.g.

after regional adoption of cover crops, the market prices for produce and seeds will have changed).

This is indicated by the feedback arrows that highlight how the enabling/ constraining context is a dynamic, rather than a fixed and static environment.

3.4.1 Capabilities and smallholder farming

The capabilities approach was one of the primary inspirations for the livelihoods framework ‘as both end and means of development’ (Chambers and Conway, 1992; Scoones, 1998), and is more generally emerging as central theme in international development (Johnson and Lundvall, 2003).

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This section explores whether the capabilities framework makes sense in the sub-Saharan African context of the promotion and adoption of CA.

The adoption of Conservation Agriculture by smallholder farmers is not an end in itself. Rather, new technologies should be evaluated for their contribution to broader goals including farmers’

capabilities and environmental sustainability (Knox Mcculloch, Meinzen-dick and Hazell, 1998).

The adoption of CA can be one of the ways to ensure sustainable agriculture and contribute to sustainable livelihoods in rural environments.

Having a variety of management options is something worth pursuing in smallholder agriculture.

Giller et al. (2006) write “For a given combination of agro-ecological and socio-economic conditions, a multitude of different combinations and trajectories of response by farmers may be equally productive. Increased attention to the multiple goals and constraints of farmers when developing new varieties and/or designing new technologies is required, recognising the potential benefits of reliable production and contributions to fodder supply and soil fertility improvement, in addition to direct yields”. They reject one predetermined outcome of agricultural development, and embrace the freedom of individual farmers in their specific context. This can be identified as an agronomic expression of concern for the opportunity freedom (or well-being freedom) of smallholder farmers with respect to their farm management. It carefully rejects a vision of a predetermined, expert-identified configuration of agronomic achievements. In the case of CA’s first principle of minimum soil disturbance, Baudron, Tittonell et al. (2012, p. 127) argue that “CA and ploughing should not be seen as competing technologies, but rather as alternative technical options available to farmers, that may be deployed depending on their local circumstances”. By doing so, they argue against the apologetic pursuit of an actually achieved zero-tillage regime throughout landscapes and in favour of developing management options as opportunity-freedom.

They implicitly argue that the task of agronomists and policy makers is creating the capability for CA.

Without assuming a specific conceptual framework, Erenstein (2003) concludes in his study about the potential of mulching that “although mulching practices are no panacea, they represent a valuable addition to the basket of technological options that integrate conservation and productivity considerations” (Erenstein, 2003, emphasis added). Again, the language is one of agricultural options and the assumed role of science is one of creating capabilities. He recognizes that capabilities are created not only through the development of new technology, but also in the interaction of diverse factors. Erenstein (2003): “In the end, it is the combination of these biophysical, technological, farm level and institutional factors that determine the socio-economic viability of mulching practices. […]. Farmers typically have the final say in the decision whether to

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apply mulching”. There is the recognition of the choice of farmers, clearly distinguished from the pursuit of technology or sustainability objectives of policy or researcher.

These are just a few examples of how the language of the opportunity freedom aspect of capabilities is already used in studies about smallholder farming. Similarly, process freedom can be identified behind the concern for participation. This is exemplified elsewhere in this thesis. This section has introduced a conceptual framework on the basis of the capability approach, but adapted to fit the adoption and promotion of CA for smallholder farming. As implicitly done in the above mentioned articles, I explicitly put capabilities at the centre of development and evaluation. Seen in this perspective, innovation processes are valued by their direct and indirect contribution to creating capabilities for small scale farming. Adoption is approached as the strategic materialization of capabilities into actual functionings.

3.4.2 Some implications of the capabilities framework

There are several implications of using this capability approach for the study of promotion and adoption of CA, but also more generally for research in agriculture and development. First, it allows two types of innovation in farming systems to be distinguish. One is the more efficient use of available resources, no matter how limited they are. This is what I refer to as technological innovation. Technological innovation is only relevant if it creates new capabilities that have meaning for farmers. The other is the change of the institutional and social structures within which farmers are living, which I refer to as institutional innovation. The AIS approach contains both elements. The importance of farmer participation in the agricultural innovation system implies agency freedom to participate in discourse and communicative action. This agency can be oriented towards challenging the structural constraints that both enable and constraint it. Capabilities can be evaluated at different levels of social aggregation, as sometimes the opportunities for one person or group limit those of others. Similarly, communicative action and inter-stakeholder understanding and agreement have to operate at various levels. This is also an important feature of the AIS approach.

Another element that becomes evident from this framework is the position of choice, which draws attention to substantive and experiential aspects of what people value, including the aesthetic, economic and cultural dimension of agriculture (Burger and Christen, 2011). In the capabilities framework, choice is the transformation of the hypothetical, the potential, into the real, the actual.

Choice is a way of materializing capabilities, which is related to opportunity freedom. Applied to agriculture it is the decision to adopt agricultural practices that contribute to the farming households’ values and objectives. Given the diversity of individual and household objectives, this framework suggests that policies should aim at creating capabilities, rather than aiming at achievements. This is a fundamental implication of identifying capabilities as the goal of

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development. Applied to CA, the capabilities framework suggests that the success of a CA project should be evaluated not by how many farmers adopt CA or how many hectares are under CA, but by how many farmers have the actual opportunity to adopt CA if they wanted to. This counterfactual nature of capabilities poses challenges for measurement and evaluation, and in practice achievements will be considered to indicate capability, but this distinction remains critical.