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Climate and actors of agriculture production

Florencia Fossa Riglos (UBA), Eugenia Muzi (UBA), Valeria Hernandez (IRD)

SUMMARY: This work analyses the relationship among climate factors, agricultural producers productive practices and their strategies to mitigate climate impacts. We will analyze climatic vulnerabilities and mitigation
strategies of different kind of agriculture producers. The needs of expert knowledge on climate are related to the socio-productive profile and local context of each farmer. The ways in which this knowledge is integrated by
producers in their mitigation strategies are also mediated by cognitive, material and symbolic factors. The emphasis will be placed on the conditions to elaborate mitigation strategies to reduce vulnerability and climate change
adaptation plans which are able to integrate expert knowledge needs according to different kind of social actors.
INTRODUCTION: The way in which climate factor information is incorporated by farmers in their productive practices is a complex process, in which myriad factors take part on. From producers own features (place of
residence, education level, local relations network, etc.) to environmental conditions (climate variability, soils, etc.), and structural conditions (macroeconomics, agricultural social structure, etc.) and contextual factors
(infrastructure, presence/absence of public policies, articulation with local climate expert community, etc.) Due to this diversity , we have applied an anthropological approach that allows us to address this complexity from the
ethnographic practice.
Ethnographic fieldwork has been performed in two contrasting agro-ecological regions of La Plata Basin (Argentina): Junn, in Buenos Aires Province, and San Justo Department, in Santa Fe Province. These ethnographies
extended from 2009 to 2011.

METODOLOGICAL APPROACH
We have applied the ethnographic method on two case studies, which allowed us to to reveal the point of view of each of the actors involved in the territories (agriculture producers, local politic authorities, and civil society)
trough individual interviews and participant observation in local collective interaction spaces. In both cases we settled for a long stay of approximately 10 months (between 2009 and 2010) and in the main city of each
productive zone selected. Then, during the rest of 2010 and 2011, we performed visits of variable lengths The cooperative relations with local actors were the result of a permanent interaction, based on the proposal of
generating knowledge from and for the actors of these territories. We call this dynamic a Co-production of socially meaningfull knowledge, which envolves diverse genres of knowledge (scientific, productive, social,
institutional, etc.), interests (economic, political, knowledge) and actors, all convoked to participate in the interaction space opened by means of the ethnography.
Our unit of analysis was the urban zone and the adjacent agriculture zone, area which we call agrocity. The agriculture seasons of reference were mainly 2008/09 and 2009/10; and secondly 2010/11.

AGROECOLOGIAL AND CLIMATIC FEATURES OF EACH CASE STUDY:


Junn: Northwest of Buenos Aires

Junn Land Tenure (Surface) 2002-2009

Junn Land Use (Surface) 2002-2009

Surface: 226,337 hectares.


Population: 90305 inhabitants (CNPyV, 2010).
Approximately 80% of Junns land allows agricultural activity, 14% extensive livestock,
another 6% is composed of lagoons and 5% is only apt for livestock.
Climate: Template, with a range of average temperatures between 19C and 23C.
Rainfall: 900 mm. annual average with a higher incidence during the summer.

Others/No data

Crops surface 2009-10 (Junn)


3%

1%

Dairy

Soybean 1

Corn

10%

Sunflower

17%

2,74%
0,00%

16,75%

Produced by tenants

1,72%
6,61%
50,93%

TS 2009

42,80%

42,43%

100% Agriculture

Others

0,28%
0,06%

Produced in a mixed way


33,22%

100% Livestock

Wheat

54%

Others/No data

Mixed (Agriculturelivestock)

Soybean 2

15%

0,13%
0,00%

31,91%
5,27%
51,06%
51,87%

Produced by owners

62,19%

CNA 2002

TS 2009

CNA 2002

Results of the quantitative territorial scan on land use and tenure performed with local actors.
To evaluate the evolution of these variables we compared them with CNA 2002 data:

San Justo: North- center of Santa Fe Province


Surface: 557500 ha.
Population: 40.904 inhabitants (CNPyV, 2010).
Transitional space between two natural regions: the Pampas plains and lowland Chaco.
Transitional climate zone: between zones with template climate and subtropical climate.
Temperature: 19 C annual average.
Approximately 44% of the land allows agricultural activities, 38% allows livestock activity, and
18% is integrated by lands with a very low productivity (lagoons, islands, etc).
Rainfall: 1150 mm annual average, with extremes between 500 and 1800 mm/year.

San Justo Land Use (superifice) San Justo 2002-2009

Crops surface 2009-10 (San Justo)

6%

4%
Soybean

9%

Sorghum
Sunflower

9%

Corn
Wheat
72%

Others

1,1%
0,00%

Forestall

0,1%
0,00%

Dairy

1,5%
0,00%

Agriculture-Livestock

100% Agriculture

0,51%
Others 0,00%
Surface in mix exploitation
39,6%

21,62%

13,56%
11,06%

Surface produced by Tenants

19,5%

100% Livestock

San Justo Land Tenure (surface) 2002-2009

21,08%

77,11%

TS 2009

46,41%

Surface produced by Owners

38,2%

1,26%

39,52%

CNA 2002

TS 2009

67,86%

CNA 2002

The charts above allow to observe the acceleration of agriculturalization process (more surface destined to agriculture) and the productive concentration by land tenants.
Along with soybean expansion, livestock activities were abandoned or gradually displaced towards nearby departments with less aptitude for agriculture.
Rainfall and yiels by crop (San Justo)
1800

Kg/ha

8000

1200
1000

6000

800

4000

600
400

2000

200
0
1969/70
1970/71
1971/72
1972/73
1973/74
1974/75
1975/76
1976/77
1977/78
1978/79
1979/80
1980/81
1981/82
1982/83
1983/84
1984/85
1985/86
1986/87
1987/88
1988/89
1989/90
1990/91
1991/92
1992/93
1993/94
1994/95
1995/96
1996/97
1997/98
1998/99
1999/00
2000/01
2001/02
2002/03
2003/04
2004/05
2005/06
2006/07
2007/08
2008/09
2009/10
2010/11

Agricultural season

Soybean

Corn

Wheat

Sunflower

Mm r ainfall

1400

Rainfall evolution and crops yields show that the


combination of agroecological conditions and the
kind of predominant production
presents, in
general, more vulnerability on dry periods than in
events of hydric excess, though this last ones
have been more frequent on XX century and XXI.

Mm rainfall

9000

2000

8000

1800

7000

1600
1400

6000

1200

5000

1000

4000

800

3000

600

2000

400

1000

200

0
Year
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008

1600

10000

Kg/ha

12000

Mm r ainfall

Rainfall and yields by crop (Junn)

Linen

Wheat

Corn

Sunflower

Soybean

Sorghum

Mm rainfall

Climatic Events and mitigation strategies of the different socio-productive profiles:

Main climatic events perceived:


Material co-produced on focus groups.

Mitigation Strategies: ethnographic material


Climatic factor (Junn)
Climatic event
Responses
Drought
77,78%
Flood
83,33%
Hail
33,33%
Extreme temperature
33,33%
Late frost
16,67%
Rainfall out of season
5,56%
Climatic factor (San Justo)
Climatic event
Responses
Drought
100,00%
Flood
100,00%
Hail
0,00%
Extreme temperature
36,36%
Frost
0,00%
Rainfall variability
100,00%
"El Nio" efect
36,36%

Climatic Event
Agribuisness capitalized producers
Traditional practices and/or low capitalization producers
Draught (Impact according to Productive diversification relying on cattle (more
They didnt sow and waited for humidity accumulation on the ground
expensive and less profitable than soybean )
productive diversification)
Livestock: animal migration, geographic
Scarce or nule geographical diversification "nothing else to do"
Floods (Impact according to diversification
Agriculture: posibility of stocking wet grains on "grain-bags"
Little capital to manouver technological investments
land location and
Vulnerability to private channels construction and the drainage of the
geographical diversification) Private channels construction, no territorial
planification, differential appropiation of the territory water into their lands
Machinery Owner: prioritize their engament with bigger producers
Machinary
Owner:
flexibility
of
sowing
schedule
Frosts (Impact according to
over their own fileds labour schedule
farming schedule flexibility)
Machinary Contractee: priority over contractors and Machinary Contractee: conditioned by contractors schedule built
according to profit possibilities.
small producers (due to profitability)
Nio/Nia Cycles

Access to private climatic information and advice in


order to plan their agriculture season

Little availability of appropiate information in order to plan the


agriculture season. Traditional climatic indicators.

Knowledge role and new technological packages:


Direct sowing technique (stubbles maintain soil's temperature),
genetically modified seeds that adapt diverse environments, chemical
fertilization, reference of national and international forecasts, local
weather conditions monitoring through private devices , detailed
analysis of each type of soil that will be sown on each season (moisture
profile, composition, etc.), continuous monitoring of fields to prevent
diseases and weeds, modeling of the agribusiness variables involved
for each agricultural season (international price, agricultural inputs
prices, services costs, average yield for each zone, climate forecast for
the region , etc.) basing on specific software.

Impact relativity:
Agroecological, socio-structural and symbolic factors interacting within a productive unit:
Kind of farming techniques and kind of crops.
Exploitation features: tenure, size, localization, kind of soil, etc.
Capitalization on infrastructure and machinery.
Climatic information available.
Representations, habits.
Family cycle and social capital.

INTEGRATED STRATEGIES
Complexity of actor's appropriation, which is central at the moment of
designing strategies to mitigate diverse climatic events impacts.

CONCLUSIONS
Extreme climatic events highlight structural social tensions inherent to modern agriculture productive model, which are not evident in times of high yields, economic benefits and in the absence of this climactic events. If, as
forecasted, there is an accentuation on the occurrence of such events, then socio-economic gaps among the current rural world different productive profiles will express more vigorously , which will introduce a social conflict
dynamics. In this context, State, trough the design of sectorial public policies that incorporate this complex analysis, integrating climatic, agro-ecological, social, economic, political and symbolic issues, could anticipate and regulate,
these inherently controversial trend.

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