When different needs, "worlds apart", meet in the field: Reflections from a PhD student and mother.

In 2009 I was off to my first field trip in Africa. A preparation workshop introduced us, a handful of master students, to participatory methods. Since then, focus groups, participant observations, and unstructured interviews have become an important part of my data collection repertoire. In combination with structured livelihood interviews, these methods have provided me with a good insight into households in rural Niger and lately also in rural Mozambique.

My experience does not allow me to call these methods what many researchers do: rapid. All that is said in a meeting must be acknowledged as single perceptions. Assessing common perception (or maybe facts?) usually requires a great deal of time. The insights provided by one group is double checked with groups of similar composition and cross-checked with different groups.

The more time you spend with your respondents, informants, participants, the more you learn about their lives, the smaller is the distance that separates you. “They there” slowly approaches “us here”. Participatory methods, by allowing “them” to guide you, the facilitator, into their world constitute a powerful tool in this approximation.

In combination with open-ended participatory methods, I often rely on structured livelihood interviews. How much land is used by the household members? How many ruminants are owned? What are the main crops? What are the income sources? Which skills are detained by the household members? These, and a series of similar questions, are posed in attempt to estimate the various resource basis that could be drawn upon in pursue of different livelihood alternatives. I usually interview one adult household member at each time, in order to allow them to answer without interference from others. Once individual interviews have been conducted, group household groups follow and tend to enrich each other’s stories and answers.

I have relied on this set repertoire for collecting what I hold to be qualitative unstructured data and also qualitative structured data in some of the poorest regions of the world. Out of the 187 countries ranked by UNDP’s Human Development Index in 2014, Niger and Mozambique lie at the bottom, Mozambique at the 178^th position and Niger at the absolute last 187^th position. If we add into consideration the fact that my research has been in rural areas, the general urban development bias gives an idea of just how deprived my informants were.

Finding out that a single mother with five young children had nothing but a quarter of a hectare that hardly sufficed to feed them was common place. Too little rain, too much rain, sickness, crop pests, every unpredictable although not uncommon event reminded them of just how vulnerable their lives were. I listened carefully, reminded myself that I am a student, a researcher, not an aid worker, and noted their answers: male, female, elder, younger, richer, poorer, less or more vulnerable according to my classification.

Back home I processing the data, often with distressing thoughts. My informants are so generous, they share their time and so many aspects of their lives and livelihoods with me, I know that deep inside they hope I may be of some help. When we speak the same language and share the same jokes, their hopes become less implicit, and distances must be reviewed: close enough to collect good data, and far enough to remain in the researcher’s position.

The problem is, and my reason for writing this text, that I am no longer only a researcher, I am a mother. I have a little daughter who must eat, and sleep, who needs a clean and safe environment and clean water to bathe, who has received a first round of vaccination, and has been to the hospital already a couple of times. And now that I have her, I think of all the parents that I have come across, women that went through their pregnancy without any medical assistance, babies that were born to undernourished mothers, to homes without water and proper toilets, where food is scarce, and where medical care is rare. As I look at my baby sleeping, I wonder if I will be able use the same methods and listen to similar stories when I now can feel the consequences of what they are telling me. Will I be able to ask, listen, note, and move to next question? I wonder if the other researchers I have met in the field have understood the consequences of their respondents’ stories. We have all listened to them, and noted that their endurance is a proof of just how resilient they are! But I question whether the majority of us has understood them, particularly those storming through selected sites applying “rapid” methods.

I think that now I understand. And, although becoming a mother is probably not a sine qua non condition to feel empathy towards others’ sons and daughters, it is what has led me to realize that in any point of time their deprivation is incommensurably larger than my research objectives; that, when we meet, their needs are far more vital than mine! How to conciliate these “needs” so dramatically apart?

Maybe the following suggestions can help... 1) To reflect with empathy: taking the time to reflect over activities… what are the consequences of these to the respondents? How sensitive is the information we really need to know? More sensitive information should requires more time, less structure, and more empathy; 2) To allow for changes: How opened to changes in our own planning have we been? Even if these changes may not seem “productive” to our own researches, can we accept them when they derive from respondents’ initiatives and inputs? When respondents lead the activities and discussions, these are usually more meaningful to them. 3) To try to give back throughout: regardless of what the research is about (even if the plan is to publish a master piece paper explaining how to eradicate poverty!), why should we wait for our research recommendations to be implemented instead of giving back throughout the research process? A meaningful moment, new information, a new critical thought, or even a larger contact network with persons and organizations known by us can be of important value. What are we giving and what could we give that may be of value to them (without harming future research in the area?)?

Although the researcher will continue a researcher and won’t become an aid worker, we must talk more about the responsibilities that emerge once persons “worlds apart” meet. When we, after eventually obtaining a formal ethical approval, go on implementing subscribed methods without reflection, the researchers’ agenda prevail, and power relations are reinforced and perpetuated with a cynical silence. Tring to be more sensitive, opened, flexible and generous will hopefully allow me to continue doing field work. I think that, after so many years of development research and still so little change in the most vulnerable “field sites”, it is still and always time for us to engage in renewed self-critical reflection.

What are your thoughts on these issues? Are you a formal adept of “Action Research” or similar methodology? Have you reflected about your eventual responsibility towards your respondents? Are you satisfied with how you have conducted field work? Do you have suggestions or reflections to share with us who were/are (or have never been!) struggling with distressing thoughts of unfair relations in the field?

Two new methodological publications

Re-Thinking the Boundaries of the Focus Group: A Reflexive Analysis on the Use and Legitimacy of Group Methodologies in Qualitative Research

by Martina Angela Caretta and Elena Vacchelli

Stockholm University; Middlesex University
<http://www.socresonline.org.uk/20/4/13.html>
Sociological Research Online, 20 (4), 13

DOI: 10.5153/sro.3812

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Abstract

1. This article aims at problematizing the boundaries of what counts as focus group and in so doing it identifies some continuity between focus group and workshop, especially when it comes to arts informed and activity laden focus groups. The workshop[1] is often marginalized as a legitimate method for qualitative data collection outside PAR (Participatory Action Research)-based methodologies. Using examples from our research projects in East Africa and in London we argue that there are areas of overlap between these two methods, yet we tend to use concepts and definitions associated with focus groups because of the lack of visibility of workshops in qualitative research methods academic literature.

The article argues that focus groups and workshops present a series of intertwined features resulting in a blending of the two which needs further exploration. In problematizing the boundaries of focus groups and recognizing the increasing usage of art-based and activity-based processes for the production of qualitative data during focus groups, we argue that focus groups and workshop are increasingly converging. We use a specifically feminist epistemology in order to critically unveil the myth around the non-hierarchical nature of consensus and group interaction during focus group discussions and other multi-vocal qualitative methods and contend that more methodological research should be carried out on the workshop as a legitimate qualitative data collection technique situated outside the cycle of action research.

Keywords: Focus Group Discussion, Workshop, Participation, Feminist Critical Research

Member checking: A feminist participatory analysis of the use of preliminary results pamphlets in cross-cultural, cross-language research

by Martina Angela Caretta

Qualitative Research October 29, DOI: 10.1177/1468794115606495

Abstract

Participation and reflexivity have become buzzwords that are seldom discussed in terms of their practical employment. Against this backdrop, with a specific focus on geography, this article presents and analyzes the advantages and limitations of a methodological tool that seeks to enhance both reflexivity and participation. The tool was a pamphlet written in local languages that contained several pictures and summarized the data gathered in previous fieldwork sessions. This tool was used in a four-year research project on the gender division of labor in smallholder irrigation farming in Kenya and Tanzania. The pamphlet showed participants their contributions to the research process and offered them the opportunity to correct, improve and further discuss previously collected data. It not only ensured research validity but also allowed for a shift in the research power hierarchy. Finally, the pamphlet effectively created a space for inclusion, discussion and reciprocal learning, leading to collective reflexivity and catalytic validity by empowering participants and re-orienting the researcher.

Keywords: cross-cultural research, cross-language research, East Africa, feminist epistemology, member checking, pamphlets, smallholder farming

Participatory Checking and the Temporality of Landscapes

New publication

 

Participatory Checking and the Temporality of Landscapes: Increasing Trust and Relevance in Qualitative Research

Camilla Årlin, Lowe Börjeson, and Wilhelm Östberg

The Oxford Handbook of Historical Ecology and Applied Archaeology (Forthcoming)

Edited by Christian Isendahl and Daryl Stump

Online Publication Date: Nov 2015

DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199672691.013.19

Abstract and Keywords

Developmental narratives are commonly constructed through statements on directions and drivers of ongoing change. In the process, however, heterogeneous realities and historical trajectories become manicured and truncated due to temporal short-sightedness, misinformation, and the creation of clear-cut categorizations. Based on historical, geographical, and anthropological research on landscape change in East Africa from the nineteenth century to the present, this chapter examines how different types of historical data sources (maps, photographs, remote sensing data, written and oral accounts, as well as the landscape itself) can be used to both interrogate and improve the rigour of narratives that frame concerns for development and conservation. We describe methods of interaction with members of the researched communities over these various data bodies, and summarize this process as ‘participatory checking’. While the focus of this chapter is on landscape change the participatory research methods described are equally relevant to other topics and disciplines.

Keywords: Landscape change, participatory checking, member checking, participatory research methods, historical data, Tanzania 
 

PhD defense November 6th "East African Hydropatriarchies: An analysis of changing waterscapes in smallholder irrigation farming"

On November 6th in William-Olssonsalen, Geovetenskapens hus, Svante Arrhenius väg 14, Stockholm, 14:00 Martina Angela Caretta will defend her PhD thesis titled:

 

"East African Hydropatriarchies: An analysis of changing waterscapes in smallholder irrigation farming"


Opponent Zwarteveen, Margreet, Professor
Supervisor Börjeson, Lowe, Doktor

Abstract 

This thesis examines the local waterscapes of two smallholder irrigation farming systems in the dry lands of East African in a context of socio-ecological changes. It focuses on three aspects: institutional arrangements, gender relations and landscape investments. 

This thesis is based on a reflexive analysis of cross-cultural, cross-language research, particularly focusing on the role of field assistants and interpreters, and on member checking as a method to ensure validity.

Flexible irrigation infrastructure in Sibou, Kenya, and Engaruka, Tanzania, allow farmers to shift the course of water and to extend or reduce the area cultivated depending on seasonal rainfall patterns. Water conflicts are avoided through a decentralized common property management system. Water rights are continuously renegotiated depending on water supply. Water is seen as a common good the management of which is guided by mutual understanding to prevent conflicts through participation and shared information about water rights.

However, participation in water management is a privilege that is endowed mostly to men. Strict patriarchal norms regulate control over water and practically exclude women from irrigation management. The control over water usage for productive means is a manifestation of masculinity. The same gender bias has emerged in recent decades as men have increased their engagement in agriculture by cultivating crops for sale. Women, because of their subordinated position, cannot take advantage of the recent livelihood diversification. Rather, the cultivation of horticultural products for sale has increased the workload for women who already farm most food crops for family consumption. In addition, they now have to weed and harvest the commercial crops that their husbands sell for profit. This agricultural gender divide is mirrored in men´s and women´s response to increased climate variability. Women intercrop as a risk adverting strategy, while men sow more rounds of crops for sale when the rain allows for it. Additionally, while discursively underestimated by men, women´s assistance is materially fundamental to maintaining of the irrigation infrastructure and to ensuring the soil fertility that makes the cultivation of crops for sale possible.

In sum, this thesis highlights the adaptation potentials of contemporary smallholder irrigation systems through local common property regimes that, while not inclusive towards women, avoid conflicts generated by shifting water supply and increased climate variability.

To be able to assess the success and viability of irrigation systems, research must be carried out at a local level. By studying how local water management works, how conflicts are adverted through common property regimes and how these systems adapt to socio-ecological changes, this thesis provides insights that are important both for the planning of current irrigation schemes and the rehabilitation or the extension of older systems. By investigating the factors behind the consistent marginalization of women from water management and their subordinated role in agricultural production, this study also cautions against the reproduction of these discriminatory norms in the planning of irrigation projects.

This link provides access to all published papers included in this compilation thesis. 

Linking Nordic landscape geography and political ecology - Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift - Norwegian Journal of Geography - Volume 69, Issue 4

In december 2013 a meeting was held in Trondheim organised by the Norwegian network for political ecology. I contributed with a presentation on my experience and thoughts of differences and common themes between Nordic landscape geography and Political Ecology. I also drew some lines back in time to the postwar European landscape research and the strong, mainly German tradition of historical landscape research.

Here is an abstract

Three related schools of landscape and land use studies are described and analysed: European post-war landscape history, Political Ecology and Nordic landscape geography. For each of them their social and political context, their main study objects and their position towards a normative vs. value-free scholarly work is analysed. I suggest that the success of European post-war landscape history was partly based on its strive for a value-free science and against previous ideological misuse of settlement history. Political ecology on the other hand took an open normative stand and developed in the context of the Sahel crisis where it provided a radical answer to Malthusian simplifications. In contrast to that Nordic Landscape Geography grew as an intellectual reaction to emerging European landscape policies and against an Anglophone understanding of landscapes as scenery. The paper finally speculates on challenges ahead and suggests an agenda for studies of labour and landscapes.

and here the link:

Linking Nordic landscape geography and political ecology - Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift - Norwegian Journal of Geography - Volume 69, Issue 4

If you cannot access the article  please send me a mail (mats.widgren@humangeo.su.se.se) and I will send you the article

The Norwegian network will this year have its third meeting -- in Bergen. The theme this year is Power in Political Ecology.

CfP ENTITLE conference "Decolonizing methods: disseminating research results beyond academy"

Panel proposal for the International Conference of the European Network of Political Ecology (ENTITLE) : UNDISCIPLINED ENVIRONMENTS  - Stockholm, 20-23 of March 2016

Decolonizing methods: disseminating research results beyond academy

Martina Angela Caretta, Human Geography Dept., Stockholm University

Paola Minoia, Geosciences and Geography Dept., Helsinki University 

Participatory methods are increasingly used in the social sciences. Research participants are called to make contributions to the research process by engaging through participatory methods in the creation of situated knowledge.

In this panel we go one step further: how to ensure that the knowledge gathered goes to the benefit of the local participants? It has been said that participants are often deprived of the knowledge they contributed in co-producing. Researchers take the information with them back to their universities and publish it in scientific journals and reports that are not only physically inaccessible to participants, but they are often using obscure terminology.

How do we move beyond this unjust hierarchical research relationship? How do we ensure that research results are comprehensively disseminated outside the academia? Which methods do we employ to decolonize knowledge construction and translation? How do we create spaces of inclusion for participants and research assistants in the process of reporting back research results?

We welcome contributions on (but not limited to): dissemination of results, knowledge translation, participatory processes of knowledge construction and dissemination, ethical aspects and dilemmas in communicating research results, participatory feedback sessions and member checking.

Useful references:

MacKenzie et al. 2015. Advocating beyond the academy: dilemmas of communicating relevant research results. Qualitative Research 2015, Vol. 15(1) 105–121

Whittle, R, Marion Walker, and W Medd. 2011. Suitcases, Storyboards and Newsround: Exploring Impact and Dissemination in Hull. Area 43(4): 477–487.

Oldfield, Sophie. 2008. Who’s Serving Whom? Partners, Process, and Products in Service-Learning Projects in South African Urban Geography. Journal of Geography in Higher Education 32(2): 269–285.

Fitzgerald, Tanya. 2004. Powerful Voices and Powerful Stories: Reflections on the Challenges and Dynamics of Intercultural Research. Journal of Intercultural Studies 25(3): 233–245.

Blerk, Lorraine Van, and Nicola Ansell. 2007. Participatory Feedback and Dissemination with and for Children: Reflections from Research with Young Migrants in Southern Africa. Children’s Geographies 5(3): 313–324.

Send a 200 words abstract to Martina Angela Caretta martina@humangeo.su.se and Paola Minoia paola.minoia@helsinki.fi by Wednesday 7^th October at latest. 

Twenty years of water grabbing dynamics: water sharing between agribusinesses and local communities in Tanzania

Is it beneficial to development if foreign agribusinesses start cultivating in an African country? Or is it an example of resource grabbing and unfair competition over scarce land and water? Although difficult to answer, these are the questions underlying the new paper "The fluid nature of water grabbing: the on-going contestation of water distribution between peasants and agribusinesses in Nduruma, Tanzania" (now available online). 

Three distinct zones in Nduruma: upland bananas, midland greenhouses, lowland fallow

The paper describes the water struggles between local irrigation communities and horticultural companies in northern Tanzania, exploring how the larger debates on land grabbing and development play a role in this. Ultimately, it emphasises that water grabbing is not a one-time event, but rather an on-going struggle over different water resources. In addition, it shows how a perceived beneficial development of agribusinesses switching to groundwater allows them to avoid peasant-controlled institutions, avoiding further negotiation between the different actors and improving their image among neighbouring communities. This development illustrates how complex and obscured processes of water re-allocation can be without becoming illegal per se. 

Reference: de Bont, C., Veldwisch, G., Komakech, H.C. and Vos, J. 2015. The fluid nature of water grabbing: the on-going contestation of water distribution between peasants and agribusinesses in Nduruma, Tanzania. Agriculture and Human Values, DOI: 10.1007/s10460-015-9644-5.

Audioslide presentation on the latest publication on Engaruka

The paper published recently on Agricultural Water Management titled "Managing variability and scarcity.  Ananalysis of Engaruka: a Maasai smallholder irrigation farming community" is presented in the audioslide format here. Check it out if you want a quick summary of what the paper is all about!  

Field Diary, Issue 1, July 2015
Geert W van der Plas, Annemiek Pas Schrijver and Colin Courtney Mustaphi (eds)

The first issue of the Field Diary is out. The Field Diary is a compilation of stories from PhD students working all over the world sharing their field experiences.

Welcome to the first edition of Field Diary!
Many of us are out in the field and busy doing our research. Each of us lives through different experiences while we’re out there, trekking across the African landscape and elsewhere in the world. There are good times and difficult times, and sometimes we can feel a little disconnected from the rest of the world. That is why we introduce the field diary. We can all share our experiences from the field, the joys, the discoveries, but also the frustrations. And by writing and reading these stories we can share these feelings, and be a little bit more connected again.
We will try to release a field diary at least twice a year, and give each edition a different flavor by giving it a theme that relates to field work. The field diary is an initiative of the REAL project, and everyone is welcome to contribute.
From the editorial team, we hope that you enjoy these stories from the field. We wish you an amazing time in the field and don’t forget to look up from your work once in a while and realize how lucky we are to be able to do this amazing work!

The editorial team

Click on Field Diary if you want to access the full version.

First publication on contemporary smallholder irrigation farming in Engaruka, Tanzania is now available!

The article titled "Managing variability and scarcity. An analysis of Engaruka: A Maasai smallholder irrigation farming community" is now available at Agricultural Water Management online platform. 

This article examines the common-pool regime of Engaruka, a smallholder irrigation farming community in northern Tanzania. Irrigation is a complex issue due to water asymmetry. Water use is regulated in Engaruka through boundary, allocation, input and penalty rules by a users’ association that controls and negotiates water allocation to avoid conflicts among headenders and tailenders. As different crops – maize and beans, bananas and vegetables – are cultivated, different watering schemes are applied depending on the water requirements of every single crop. Farmers benefit from different irrigation schedules and from different soil characteristics through having their plots both downstream and upstream. In fact, depending on water supply, cultivation is resourcefully extended and retracted. Engaruka is an ethnically homogeneous and interdependent community where headenders and tailenders are often the same people and are hence inhibited to carry out unilateral action. Drawing on common-pool resource literature, this study argues that in a context of population pressure alongside limited and fluctuating water availability, non-equilibrium behavior, consisting in negotiating water rights and modifying irrigation area continuously through demand management, is crucial for the satisfaction of basic and productive needs and for the avoidance of water conflicts.

This link gives access for free to the fulltext until August 24th. 

Archaeobotany: a crucial key to African agrarian history

Participants at the 8th International Workshop on Africa Archaeobotany in Modena June 22rd to 25th 2015

The history of farming in pre-colonial Africa is - as yet - very poorly synthesised. As Daryl Stump has highlighted this means that all kinds of arguments for future rural development can claim to have a basis in history. Either precolonial farming was ancient and backward or it was longlived and sustainable.... Read Daryls article on this from this LINK.

This is common. When the history is little researched, little known and little popularised historical arguments can be used in many ways without critical reflection. It is now high time for African agricultural history to be better researched, better syntesised and better disseminated. When it comes to basic research to uncover the history of crops and farming methods archaeobotany does really have an important role to play. I was lucky to have a presentation of my mapping project accepted at the 8th International Workshop on African Archaeobotany in Modena last week, though I did not have any new archaeobotanical research to present.  I  was impressed by the wealth of knowledge presented there. Yes, many of the presentations were very empirical and localised. This and that crop was cultivated here and at that time. But this meticulous work of identifying crops of the past from carbonised seeds, from phytoliths, from pollen and from new methods like isotope analysis, forms the absolutely necessary basis for reconstructing agrarian history in times and places where no written history exists. We were also shown how such detailed studies can be synthesised as in Chris Stevens presentation of the fascinating history of the domestication of Sorghum - one of Africas contribution to world crops. I have always admired the work of the group in Frankfurt under Katarina Neumann and they also showed at the conference the capacity to be detailed and exact and at the same time clearly relate to the research frontier in presentations by Barbara Eichhorn (millet before vegeculture in the rainforest!), Alexa Höhn and Katharina Neumann.

Participatory action research to mitigate conflict over forest use and management in Ethiopia

A recently published paper entitled ‘Do Interventions from Participatory Action Research Improve Livelihood and Reduce Conflicts Over Forest Resources? A Case Study from South Central Ethiopia’ has reported lessons and experiences from a four years participatory action research conducted to mitigate conflict over forest use and management.

Abstract

Participatory action research was conducted in south central Ethiopia to understand in what ways conflict over forest use and management between the former Arsi Forest and Wildlife Enterprise and the surrounding communities could be managed. Through interviews, focus group discussions, negotiations and series of stakeholder meetings existing scenarios of conflict over forest use and management were assessed, and alternatives interventions were identified and implemented based on the principle of maximizing the goals of local development and forest conservation. A cooperative with three major alternative livelihood activities—cash-credit provision, and poultry and sheep production—was established. It was found that working with communities in collaboration can reduce conflicts over forest management and support local livelihoods. The intervention had reduced ‘illegal’ use of forest resource for income generation and domestic use while within a year the alternative livelihood activities had generated a modest income to 68 % of the individuals involved. The study also demonstrated that working with multiple stakeholders is a challenging and slow process that requires understanding the complex local socioeconomic structure and dynamics. It is concluded that participatory approaches are a better way of bringing about a change in a society where conflicts arise due to resources limitation, and could be avoided by sharing benefits and responsibilities.

Full text available at Small-scale Forestry journal, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11842-015-9297-7

How ancient canals can solve current water scarcity issues

I take the opportunity to share this short reportage on Al Jazeera about the ancient water canals in the outskirts of Lima, Peru. Once run-down waterways have been restored and are now adding to water security in a sprawling city faced with reduced precipitations and changing weather patterns.

While the reporting done by Al Jazeera might tend to romanticize the importance of so called traditional technologies in responding to current challenges, there is an important message in this story. Scientific predictions about climatic changes and scientific methods, coupled with local knowledge and management and indigenous materials and techniques can be instrumental in improving the efficiency and functionment of existing, but often abandoned, historic water and field systems.

A popular report of a research project on “Ecosystem services and biodiversity in tropical agricultural landscapes”

A popular report of a research project in ecology and human geography entitled Nature, people and agriculture in southwestern Ethiopia: the interaction between small scale agriculture and the diversity of organisms in mosaic landscapes (ISBN: 978-91-7540-172-0) was published.

This booklet is about ecosystem services and biodiversity in tropical agricultural landscapes (See a conceptual model of the project below). It is the final report written in a popular way from the research project Examining mismatches between management and the supply of ecosystem services in Ethiopian agroecosystems across scales in space and time. The project was financed by the Swedish government through SIDA and Formas to Prof. Kristoffer Hylander at Stockholm University in collaboration with Prof. Sileshi Nemomissa and other staff from Sweden and Ethiopia. Most work of this project has been conducted as PhD-projects.


A conceptual figure illustrating the main focus of the project. (A) The biodiversity of the landscape can act on crops by enhancing and decreasing yields. (B,C) Farmers can learn about this and (D) decide on management actions. (E, F) All of this is happening in the context of a landscape and (G) external factors could also affect the system.

The booklet was written by project leaders and members. In January 2015, the booklet was distributed to different stakeholders mostly in Southwestern Ethiopia, where the research project was conducted for over four years. The booklet was also discussed at a public lecture and meetings with staff at district adminstration and agricultural offices. The booklet was written in three languages: English, Afaan Oromo and Amharic.

Climate change realities in the Pacific

Sandra Duong is a master student at Stockholm University and has been granted a Minor Field Study scholarship from the department of Human Geography. She is writing her master thesis on climate change impacts in the low-lying atoll country Kiribati and the use of migration as an adaptation strategy.

I have spent the recent two months in Kiribati and I feel great apprehension about leaving this country and especially the amazing people that I have met. During this short period of time I have witnessed some stresses that climate-related impacts put on this least developing country.

During my second week in Kiribati I got infected with chikungya, a vector borne disease that caused an outbreak of an ongoing epidemic that started in 2014. Rising temperatures and increased precipitation can aggravate the spread of vector borne diseases and cause epidemics.

The main source of freshwater in atoll countries is well water. Sea level rise and inundation cause salinization and pollution of the well water. Eventually the water can become unsuitable to use for drinking, sanitation, and growing crops. While where I stayed you don’t drink the well water, you could still tell that the quality was not good because my eyes got irritated and dry and I developed skin irritations as well. It became too unbearable so I had to start have my showers with rainwater instead.

On February, 19 a king tide hit the capital South Tarawa. It measured up to 2,3 m and caused flooding 200 m in-shore which resulted in damages to houses and power cuts. The densely populated islet Betio was most affected and the hospital was completely flooded. Many of the staff left and relatives came to evacuate the patients. However, not everyone had the possibility to leave and many were still in great need of care. I spoke to a young mother whose four months year old baby had been admitted for pneumonia and the baby’s condition was critical. The young mother did not know what to do.

King tide washing over the sea wall

Patients at the Betio hospital waiting to be picked up by their relatives

And then, last month, Cyclone Pam occurred. For three days straight the sky was dark and we experienced constant rain and storm. Luckily, no fatalities were recorded. The biggest destruction happened to the causeway that connects Betio to the rest of South Tarawa. Large parts of the sea wall were destroyed and parts of the causeway broke apart. Due to safety no vehicles were allowed to pass the causeway for days. Betio is the port where all shipping comes in and petrol quickly ran out in rest of South Tarawa. Traffic stopped and many missed out on work and school during those days.

The aftermaths of the indirect effects from Cyclone Pam

The cyclone did not run directly across Kiribati which was fortunate. While my thoughts go out to Vanuatu, there is a frightening realization of that Kiribati is not resilient enough to survive a cyclone.

The low development in Kiribati makes it extremely vulnerable to environmental disasters. Kiribati is highly dependent on its land, imports, remittances and foreign aid. Traditionally people live a subsistence lifestyle and they rely on their land for their staple foods coconuts, breadfruit, and bwaibwai (a kind of taro) and the ocean for fish. In recent years cash income has become more important for survival due to increasing urban migration, loss of land and dying crops. Floods and damages to infrastructure have become part of daily life, even for me during this short stay, and the people of Kiribati rise up, rebuild their houses, replace their losses and take every day as it comes.

Precipitation reporting of Swedish Agroholdings

I have been studying the so-called Swedish agroholdings, and hope to have an article out this year about them. One thing – that won’t be in the paper –that I noticed and want to comment on is how they report on the impact of precipitation on crop yields. Naturally of course precipitation is one of the main factors affecting crop yields, but in dry or drought years, the companies tend to simply report that particular season’s deviation from monthly precipitation averages over a seven or ten year period. See Black Earth Farming’s Q4 Results p2, or Trigon Agri’s 1H Results from 2010, p 10, for examples. This is all fine and good, but it doesn’t address the question of how frequently such deviations from the average occur. The climate in the Eurasian steppe is quite variable, and how frequently droughts occur and how long they last would seem to be important information to know. Also, seven or ten years is simply too short a period to be talking about climate.

For this purpose, I have been looking at the Standard Precipitation Index (SPI), which is what the US government uses to asses drought conditions in the US (See the website of the US National Drought Mitigation Center). Basically the SPI is a measure of meteorological drought, only taking rainfall into account. (An important distinction: “agricultural drought,” for example, would take into account soil moisture). Here is a definition of SPI from this website: “The SPI was formulated by Tom Mckee, Nolan Doesken and John Kleist of the Colorado Climate Center in 1993. The purpose is to assign a single numeric value to the precipitation which can be compared across regions with markedly different climates. Technically, the SPI is the number of standard deviations that the observed value would deviate from the long-term mean, for a normally distributed random variable. Since precipitation is not normally distributed, a transformation is first applied so that the transformed precipitation values follow a normal distribution. The Standardized Precipitation Index was designed to explicitly express the fact that it is possible to simultaneously experience wet conditions on one or more time scales, and dry conditions at other time scales, often a difficult concept to convey in simple terms to decision-makers. Consequently, a separate SPI value is calculated for a selection of time scales, covering the last 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 18, 24, 30, 36, 48, 60, and 72 months, and ending on the last day of the latest month.”

Basically to summarize, the SPI provides a score for the rain anomaly for each user-defined period against the longer record for that period.

According to the US classification scheme, an SPI of around -1 signifies moderate drought conditions, while an SPI of -1.3 to -1.5 indicates severe drought conditions. For more on the classification of SPI values, look at this website, which compares SPI with different drought indices. I do not know the degree to which this classification scheme would be appropriate for Russian conditions. For more on how to interpret SPI values look at this site.

Here is the 3 month SPI for a weather station in Kursk, an oblast in western Russia where the Swedish listed company Black Earth Farming operates.  What this means is that for each month, the precipitation amount for the three month period ending in that month is measured against the longer climate record. Though only 2013 and 2014 are shown here, the calculations are based on a climate record going back to 1974. So you can say that the fall of 2014 in Kursk was indeed very dry in terms of the longer climate record, though late Spring (June) had favorable conditions. I say "indeed" because BEF has called the fall weather in their operational area, which includes Kursk, unusual.

(By the way, I used the SPI-app available at the web-site of the US National Drought Mitigation Center to make the SPI calculations. The Kursk weather station data comes from this web-site, which I have noticed in other contexts appears to be the same data as the climate data available on the FAO web-site, though not in the case of Kursk where the website had more data than FAO. Below I also use precipitation data from a weather station in Voronezh and that data comes from the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) Version 2. The web-site source for Kursk compiles monthly values based on daily precipitation, and in some cases some daily values were missing. In those cases I just used the provisional monthly precipitation sum. Also in some cases GHCN lacked values for Voronezh, and where possible I filled in those values using data on Voronezh from the same web-site. Sub-optimal but this is just a blog.)

This next graph shows the potential usefulness of SPI. It shows the average of the 3-month SPI for the month of August between 2007 and 2014 for a weather station in Kursk and one in Voronezh (the SPI for the two stations are averaged together) plotted against Black Earth Farming’s Corn (Maize) yield for the same years. (Voronezh is another oblast where Black Earth Farming (BEF) is active). Note that BEF also farms in the neighboring oblasts of Lipetsk and Tambov, but I could not find rain data for weather stations in those oblasts going up to 2014, so I had to make do with what I had. In any case a pretty neat correlation resulted. I have modeled the corn yield and SPI relationship using a 2nd order polynomial based on the assumption (perhaps mistaken?) that, after a certain amount, there are diminishing returns to rain. I tried the same for wheat and 3 and 6 month SPI for June. If you eliminate 2012, you also get a good result here. A case can be made for eliminating 2012 because BEF themselves, when explaining their disappointing 2012 harvest, seemed to put that blame on odd temperature dynamics, i.e. an unusually late spring, combined with sudden increases in temperature resulting in wheat going through its growth stages really fast at the same time that there were 3 weeks with no rain in May (2012) (See their 2Q report 2012, p. 2). Under such circumstances SPI will be less successful in correlating with yield.

A few words of caution here. While one would expect that there would be good correlations with precipitation anomalies and crop yield, these two tables can just be flukes. The R2s are just too good, and there are not a lot of data points. I have however gone back and double-checked various parts of the data processing I have done. I also checked how well SPI predicts corn and wheat yields for Trigon in Kharkiv and Kirovgrad, and in some cases got good results, and in some cases not so good results. With respect to wheat, you can improve the not so good results by some tinkering based on reasonable assumptions. The only thing that cannot be improved by tinkering with the data is the relationship between Trigon corn yield and SPI in Kirovgrad.

In general, I can say, for obvious reasons, sometimes 3 Month SPI is a better predictor of yield and sometimes 6 Month SPI is. This is the advantage of SPI. There can be a 3 month dry period in a 6 month period that is otherwise considered wet.

In the end, there are not enough data points to base a proper analysis on. I’m just playing around with data and this is what I get. As I’ve said before, this is just a blog. Also, I am no expert in precipitation or meteorology. You can see this as me putting up my notes on this blog for other people to react to if they feel like it.

I do however think that these companies should consider using SPI to report on precipitation in their operational areas.

Time running out for EcoEnergy?

Has the Swedish-financed ethanol/sugar project in Bagamoyo, Tanzania, finally reached its critical moment?

Sida has declared that it will withdraw its support to the project if the private company EcoEnergy is not able to find capital for its intended investments before 30 April, which should mean that the project turns bankrupt. If on the other hand EcoEnergy is able to raise private capital to finance its operations Sida guarantees bank loans of 600 million SEK.

Meanwhile the Swedish Economic Crime Authority is looking into how the predecessor of EcoEnergy, Sekab company owned by three municipal energy companies in northern Sweden, sold their subsidiary companies in Tanzania to the owner of EcoEnergy for the symbolic sum of 400 SEK.

The details of the perplexing story of how three municipalities in north Sweden came to invest 170 million SEK in growing sugar cane outside Bagamoyo, has been a serial story in newspapers in northern Sweden and also covered in documentary films. Swedish and Tanzanian researchers as well as environmental NGOs have studied the project. I visited the project site in 2008 and wrote about the discrepancy between the management’s high-soaring plans for local development and participation and the scepticism and disappointments expressed by farmers and pastoralists in the area. There were great promises but the company’s activities on the ground left lots to be desired. Corresponding documentation came from the Rufiji area where Sekab also was active.

In April 2009 four researchers from the Stockholm Geography Departments (Annika Dahlberg, Karin Holmgren, Mats Widgren and myself) together with Tor Arve Benjaminsen and Ian Bryceson of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and documentary film maker Lars Johansson wrote an opinion piece in Dagens Nyheter expressing our concerns about a number of issues regarding the environmental, social and developmental aspects. The proposed sugar cane plantations would push several thousands of small-scale farmers off their land. We used the word land-grabbing which at the time was not yet a household concept.

Over the years academics continued to rise critical questions about the project. The Swedish municipal energy companies eventually pulled out and fired the Sekab director who is the current owner of EcoEnergy. Surprisingly Sida stepped in with loan guarantees to EcoEnergy and has (until now?) retained faith in the project.

The most recent report on developments in Bagamoyo project comes from ActionAid and is available at

http://www.actionaid.org/sites/files/actionaid/take_action_-_stop_ecoenergys_land_grab_embargoed_report.pdf

ActionAid is organising an international petition in favour of the rights of the smallholders and pastoralist who will be evicted if the project is able to proceed with its plans. The petition can be signed at:

http://landfor.org/

Sekab and EcoEnergy have all along had high-level political support in Tanzania and this still continues as recently reported in Tanzanian news media:

http://www.ippmedia.com/frontend/index.php?l=78473

The prospects for EcoEnergy look bleak, as Sida now has decided to pull out if the company cannot raise capital for its investments before the end of April. But Sekab and EcoEnergy have been reported as insolvent a number of times before, and what the situation will be on 1 May remains to be seen.