Vulnerability to drought in Mozambique

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Vulnerability to drought in Mozambique

• Siri Eriksen, Department of Sociology and Human
  Geography, University of Oslo
• International affiliate at School of
  Environmental Sciences February-August 2006
• Siri.eriksen_at_sgeo.uio.no

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Background and problem

• Term vulnerability being used for many
  different purposes
• Studies range from identification of food
  deficit, risk to life and property during flood,
  to longer term causes of vulnerability
• Vulnerability can be considered as
• Inability to cope (Chambers 1989)
• An inherent state, caused by structural processes
  (Kelly and Adger 2000 OBrien and Leichenko
  2003)
• Groups or individuals being in a state of
  inability to secure well-being in the face of
  climatic stress

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Approach

• Management of variability and flexibility/diversit
  y important in long term security in the face of
  climate stress
• Coping strategies as a starting point for
  analysing processes and interactions that shape
  vulnerability
• Patterns of vulnerability shaped by coping,
  peoples strategies to secure food and income
• People as active agents rather than passive
  recipients
• Investigate constraints and opportunities to
  accessing coping strategies and coping
  successfully
• Focus on why people engaged in particular coping
  strategies and what enabled them to do so
• Human security versus vulnerability

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• Vulnerability has many dimensions in southern
  Africa
• Time scale
• Conflict, land reform, environmental change,
  HIV/AIDS, social policies, economic
  liberalisation of agriculture
• Emerging importance of multiple stressors
• Climate change and economic liberalisation two
  important global changes affecting Southern
  Africa, but often studied separately
• How does the interaction between these two
  stressors shape differentiation in vulnerability?

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Outline of presentation

• 2001-2003 study (CICERO/Rutgers/UEM) regarding
  rural vulnerability to climatic variability and
  economic liberalisation in southern Africa
• Focus on market integration
• 2006-2008 study (Geography, Uni Oslo) Facing
  global change in marginal areas The use of
  diverse biological resources in household
  adaptation strategies
• Focus on specialisation and biodiversity

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Limpopo River Basin, Mozambique
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Method

• How does market integration affect the local
  pattern of coping and vulnerability?
• Comparative case study approach between two
  villages with differing levels of market
  integration
• What were local coping strategies during drought
  and how were they evolving?
• Who in the community did which activities, and
  what enabled them to do so?
• Which processes were affecting the emergence,
  evolution and viability of coping strategies?

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Limpopo River case study sites
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• Matidze
• In Mabalane district
• Mainly rain-fed farming, a few pump irrigated
  farms
• Mabalane nearest market (10 km)
• Train or car to Chokwe
• Crops, land and agricultural implements lost
  during 2000 floods
• Affected by the 2001-2003 drought

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• Massavasse
• In Chokwe District
• Set in irrigation scheme
• Small, medium, and large scale farmers
• 14 km from Chokwe market
• Near main road to Xai-Xai and Maputo
• Evacuated during the 2000 floods, irrigation
  scheme renovated
• Affected by the 2001-2003 drought

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Data collection

• Stage 1
• August/September 2002
• 30 household interviews in each village,
  regarding coping strategies and market
  participation
• Focus group interviews and key informant
  interviews in each village and the district
  administration
• Market survey in Mabalane and Chokwe markets

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Data collection, cont.

• Stage 2
• June 2003 drought had intensified
• Follow-up interviews with 10 households
• 5 new respondents commercial farmers
• Market survey in Mabalane and Chokwe
• Qualitative data analysis comparing coping
  strategies and drought effects during 2002 and
  2003

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Findings

• Evolution in coping strategies
• Coping strategies evolve over longer time scales
• Shifts in coping strategies between 2002 and 2003
• Widening and narrowing of activities
• Collapse of the local economy
• Accessing outside markets

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Findings, cont.

• 2. Exclusion
• Restricted/indirect access to outside markets
• Ability to engage in larger-scale enterprises
• Marked differences in vulnerability between the
  villages
• Large differences in vulnerability within
  Massavasse
• 3. Local processes affecting vulnerability
• Social networks under stress
• HIV/AIDS

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Conclusions

• People are able to evolve their coping strategies
  and access new opportunities, but mainly through
  informal mechanisms, and often at marginal
  benefit.
• The integration of activities into the formal
  market and being able to invest formally yield
  more successful coping but can be accessed by
  fewer people.
• Market integration and climate variability create
  relative differences in vulnerability
• Local market-based activities widely used when
  viable, but they were not viable when under
  severe drought stress

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Further work Buzi District, Sofala
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Background

• Global change the two pressures of climate
  change and increasing globalisation of the
  economy
• Indigenous plant resources critical for coping
  strategies in the face of variable climate
• Pressure to specialise (commercial agriculture or
  non-agricultural activities)
• Specialisation of livelihood sources within the
  household

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Aims

• Identify the effect of increasing economic
  specialisation on the role of biodiversity use in
  household flexibility
• Examine interactions and contradictions between
  the need for diverse biological resources in
  coping with climate events and variability, and
  increasing specialisation of production systems
• Identify how processes involved in globalisation
  affect environmentally marginal areas and
  peoples adaptation to global change
• Adaptation adjustments in practices, processes
  or structures aimed at moderating or offsetting
  the potential damage or take advantage of
  opportunities created by a given change in
  climate (McCarthy et al 2001).
• Discerning the political dimensions of adaptation
  in terms of the structural processes that shape
  it, and identifying how adaptation takes place
  differentially, with social differentiation
  within a community and between communities

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Globalisation of the economy

• Increased commercialization, export orientation
  and specialization of agricultural production
  form part of increasingly globalised economies
• Mozambique started a series of market reforms in
  1987 as part of IMF-led structural adjustment
  programmes
• The agricultural sector has been rapidly
  liberalizing since 1997

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Use of diverse biological resources

• The strategies that people use are often dynamic,
  constantly changing with local conditions, as
  people make use of opportunities as they emerge
  and switch rapidly between different types of
  livelihood activities
• Biological diversity
• ecological diversity found within an
  area/village, such as that created by an altitude
  gradient
• diversity in plant species found within one
  ecological zone or area.

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• Biological resources typically vary both in space
  and time with climatic and ecological variations
• example, different types of grass for grazing are
  found in different areas and at different times
  of the seasons
• Utilising this diversity is important for
• sustaining agricultural activities
• many of the diverse strategies that households
  employ in the face of drought, depend directly or
  indirectly on biological resources, such as the
  use of forest products

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Research questions

• What is the role of biodiversity, in terms of
  ecological and plant diversity, in local
  adaptation to climate stress in environmentally
  marginal areas?
• How does increasing specialisation affect farmer
  household use of biodiversity, in particular
  household differentiation?
• How can management of diversity in the face of
  global change be strengthened?

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Data collection

• informal discussions with community members
• a questionnaire survey collecting household data,
  including adaptation strategies and biodiversity
  use - (socially stratified) sample of 50
  households
• from the above sample, a total of 10 households
  (socially stratified) selected for qualitative
  semi-structured and open-ended household
  interviews
• key informant interviews, including a survey to
  observe uses of the grazing areas/forest with a
  key informant

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Data collection

• the local significance of vulnerability and
  well-being
• the way that household economies are adapted to
  climatic variability
• the role that biodiversity use plays in household
  strategies to secure well-being
• knowledge generation, social networks and access
  and use of biological resources
• local histories for two communities regarding
  important events and changes
• history of agricultural production and
  specialisation
• a checklist of coping strategies and climate
  adaptations by differently positioned individuals
  and groups
• the resources required for these coping
  strategies and adaptations and the way in which
  these are secured among different members of the
  community
• institutions and social relations that are
  important for accessing resources for different
  actors and individuals
• exchange relations/markets accesses, knowledge
  and technology generation and flows,
• geographic linkages in household economies in
  terms of remittances, urban-rural linkages, and
  linkages between family members specialised in
  different economic activities
• data collection in two stages to capture change
  over a growing season

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Changes the past ten years

• Severe floods in 2000 and 2001
• More serious droughts
• More serious cyclones
• Increasing temperatures, in 2005 reached up to 42
  degrees without raining
• Farmers used to plant when the rains came for the
  3rd time in October. Now they must plant during
  the first rains and plant a little more each time
  it rains
• Farmers have plots on high ground (for when a lot
  of rain) and low ground (when little rain)

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Commercialisation

• 10 years ago there were agricultural companies,
  but now there is no employment so they need to
  sell to get money
• Cost of living is higher, and there is less food
  aid
• No market in the village, so they carry the
  produce to Beira by chapa or to Buzi in animal
  cart or bicycle
• Sales rice, sunflower, sesame, cotton, tomatoes,
  pineapple

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2005 drought

• Harvested no rice and maize
• Harvested sweet potato and cassava (consumption
  and sale)
• Use forest products (tuber and fruits)
• Sale of goats and cattle
• Horticultural crops (beans, cabbage)
• Children went without food to school
• Nobody had seeds for planting and they were
  hoping for aid

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• Increased trade along new road to Caia
• Zimbabwean commercial farmers in Chiboio,
  increased trade with Beira
• Further work 1-2 field trips April-July 2006
• Buzi (and Chimoio?)

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• Question of scale and space
• Specialisation of agriculture in some areas, not
  in others (commercial farmers in Chiboio)
• Specialisation among some households, but not
  among others
• How does specialisation among some households
  affect the access to indigenous plant resources
  by others?