Institut für Sozialwissenschaften des Agrarbereichs

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hohpublica.uni-hohenheim.de/handle/123456789/18

Browse

Browsing Institut für Sozialwissenschaften des Agrarbereichs by Sustainable Development Goals "2"

Type the first few letters and click on the Browse button
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Coping and social cohesion mechanisms in addressing climate change and land degradation in Ghana
    (2025) Amankwah, Harry Quaye; Ndah, Hycenth Tim; Schuler, Johannes; Abdulai, Alhassan Lansah; Knierim, Andrea
    The West Africa sub-region is faced with major interlinked challenges in ensuring sustainable livelihoods in the context of climate change and land degradation. To ensure sustainable food production and resource use, agriculture needs to be resilient through the application of responsive adaptation and coping strategies. While many studies have explored coping and adaptation strategies employed by farmers, little attention has been paid to the farmers’ indigenous practices and the role of social cohesion mechanisms. Using the sustainable livelihood framework, this study addressed this gap by exploring coping strategies and social cohesion mechanisms used by smallholder farmers in northern Ghana. It made use of a mixed-method approach, including a household survey, focus group discussions, expert interviews, field observations, and key informant interviews. Data was collected from 60 households in 6 communities across 3 districts in the study region. The results showed that social assets such as membership of self-help groups were the most important source of coping, particularly for the most vulnerable households. Such membership enabled farmers to secure micro-loans and receive aid from fellow members during extreme climate events such as floods. Farmers’ tacit knowledge emerged as pivotal in coping with climate change and enhancing soil fertility, encompassing traditional weather forecasting, the making of bio-pesticides, and sustainable land management (SLM) practices such as ridge and bund creation as well as intercropping. Key coping practices reported by the study participants included reduction of food consumption, off-farm jobs, selling livestock, charcoal making and reliance on remittances. The results further revealed that social cohesion mechanisms or collective action play a key role in helping farmers cope and adapt to climate change while improving soil fertility. Social cohesion is mainly reflected in two different structures depending on gender. While diverse challenges of innovation adoption exist, socio-cultural barriers differ by gender. The study recommends the integration of farmers throughout the innovation development process and proposes the need for a concerted effort to strengthen land tenure security policies, ensuring equitable access to farmlands for all genders.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Pathways for biodiversity enhancement in German agricultural landscapes
    (2025) Sponagel, Christian; Thompson, Amibeth; Paetow, Hubertus; Mupepele, Anne‐Christine; Bieling, Claudia; Sommer, Martin; Klein, Alexandra‐Maria; Settele, Josef; Finger, Robert; Huber, Robert; Albert, Christian; Filser, Juliane; Jansen, Florian; Kleemann, Janina; Schreiner, Vera; Lakner, Sebastian; Sponagel, Christian; Department of Farm Management, University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany; Thompson, Amibeth; Nature Conservation and Landscape Ecology, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany; Paetow, Hubertus; DLG e.V.—German Agricultural Society, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Mupepele, Anne‐Christine; Department of Biology—Animal Ecology, University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany; Bieling, Claudia; Department of Societal Transition and Agriculture, University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany; Sommer, Martin; Deutscher Verband für Landschaftspflege (DVL)—Landcare Germany, Ansbach, Germany; Klein, Alexandra‐Maria; Nature Conservation and Landscape Ecology, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany; Settele, Josef; German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle‐Jena‐Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany; Finger, Robert; Agricultural Economics and Policy, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland; Huber, Robert; Agricultural Economics and Policy, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland; Albert, Christian; Institute of Environmental Planning, Leibniz University Hannover, Hannover, Germany; Filser, Juliane; Center for Environmental Research and Sustainable Technology (UFT), University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany; Jansen, Florian; Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany; Kleemann, Janina; German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle‐Jena‐Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany; Schreiner, Vera; Department of Sustainable Landscape Development, Institute for Geosciences and Geography, Martin‐Luther University Halle‐Wittenberg, Halle, Germany; Lakner, Sebastian; Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany
    Conserving biodiversity, especially in agricultural landscapes, is a major societal challenge. Broad scientific evidence exists on the impacts of single drivers on biodiversity, such as the intensification of agriculture. However, halting biodiversity decline requires a systemic understanding of the interactions between multiple drivers, which has hardly been achieved so far. Selecting Germany as a case study, the goal of our analysis is (i) to understand how various socio‐economic drivers of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes interact at the national scale, (ii) to identify plausible pathways that most likely will lead to an improvement of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes and (iii) to discuss guiding principles for policy‐making based on the pathways. We applied the expert‐based Cross‐Impact‐Balance (CIB) methodology to the German agri‐food system (target year 2030). Seven descriptors that represent the most relevant socio‐economic drivers of biodiversity (here, we focus on species richness) in agricultural landscapes in Germany were defined. In three workshops with different groups of experts, we assessed all the interactions and impacts between these descriptors. From the workshops, seven overlapping scenarios were identified and aggregated into four main future pathways for enhancing biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. These pathways are: (1) ‘Innovation and stricter legislation’, (2) ‘Major change in protein production and CAP shift’, (3) ‘Major change in protein production and national legislation’ and (4) ‘Major social changes compensate for a lack of innovation in food production’. Socio‐economic drivers interact to varying degrees. Societal values have a strong active influence on the system, e. g. agricultural policy, whereas the orientation and objectives of agriculture, e. g. focus on public goods, are rather passively determined. Conserving biodiversity thus depends upon the evolution of societal values, European and national nature conservation and agricultural policies, innovations in plant and protein production as well as on global commodity markets. A key message for policymakers is that there are generally different, complementary options for achieving the objective of improving biodiversity. This is important when specific drivers such as the CAP cannot be steered in a particular desired direction.