Ensuring food security and halting biodiversity loss are two of the most pressing global sustainability challenges. Traditionally food security and biodiversity conservation were treated as mutually exclusive goals, and as a result, discourses and approaches were developed separately around each of these goals. Recently, however, sustainability science increasingly recognizes the close interdependence of food security and biodiversity and hence, pays greater emphasis to the need for integration of the two goals. Navigating pathways to ensure the successful integration of the two goals is, therefore, an important requirement. Attempts to identify pathways toward such integration have been dominated with a biophysical-technical focus that provides technical solutions to the integration of food security and biodiversity conservation. To this end, different food production techniques, and agricultural land use strategies have been widely considered as a solution to the food security-biodiversity nexus. While much scholarly attention has been given to the biophysical-technical dimensions, the social-political dimension, including equity, governance, and empowerment received little to no attention. By focusing on the poorly investigated social-political dimension, this dissertation aimed to identify governance properties that facilitate and impede the integration of food security and biodiversity conservation through an empirical case study conducted in a multi-level governance setting of southwestern Ethiopia. To address the overarching goal of this dissertation, first I examined how the existing widely discussed food security approaches and agricultural land use framework, land sparing versus land sharing unfold in the local context of southwestern Ethiopia. The finding in this dissertation indicated that the existing global framing of food security approaches as well as frameworks around agricultural land use has limited applicability in on-the-ground realities mainly because landscapes are complex systems that consist of stakeholders with multiple and (often) conflicting interests. This was evident from the finding that, unlike the binary framing of agricultural land use as land sparing and land sharing, local land use preference was not a matter of ‘either/or’, but instead involved mixed features exhibiting properties of both land sparing and land sharing. Moreover, in addition to the biophysical factors embedded in the existing food security approaches and land use frameworks, stakeholders preference involved social factors such as the compatibility of land use strategy with local values and traditions, which are mainly unaccounted in the existing global frameworks. Findings in his dissertation revealed that the existing reductionist analytical framings to the issues of food security and biodiversity conservation seldom address the complexity inherent within and between food security and biodiversity conservation sectors. Second, this dissertation identified governance structural and process related challenges that influence individual as well as integrated achievements of food security and biodiversity conservation goals. The result of the study showed that the governance of food security and biodiversity conservation was characterized by a strongly hierarchical system with mainly linear vertical linkages, lacking horizontal linkages between stakeholders that would transcend administrative boundaries. This type of governance structure, where stakeholders interaction is restricted to administrative boundaries could not fit with the nature of food security and biodiversity conservation because the two goals are complex in their own involving sub-systems transcending different policy sectors and administrative boundaries. Furthermore, with regard to the governance process, three key and interdependent categories of governance process challenges namely, institutional misfit, the problem of interplay, and policy incoherence influenced the achievement of individual and integrated goals of food security and were identified. Given the interdependence of these governance challenges, coupled with the complexity inherent in the food security and biodiversity conservation, attempts to achieve the dual goals thus needs an integrative, flexible and adaptive governance system Third, to understand how food security and biodiversity conservation unfold in the future, I explored future development trajectories for southwestern Ethiopia. Iterative scenario planning process produced four plausible future scenarios that distinctly differed with regard to dominating land use strategies and crops grown, actor constellations and governance mechanisms, and outcomes for food security and biodiversity conservation. Three out of the four scenarios focused on increasing economic gains through intensive and commercial agricultural production. The agricultural intensification and commercialization may increase food availability and income gains, but negatively affect food security through neglecting other dimensions such as dietary diversity, social justice and stability of supply. It also affects biodiversity conservation by causing habitat loss, land degradation, and water pollution, biodiversity loss. In contrast, one scenario involved features that are widely considered as beneficial to food security and biodiversity conservation, such as agroecological production, diversification practices, and increased social-ecological resilience. In smallholder landscapes such as the one studied here, such a pathway that promises benefits for both food security and biodiversity conservation may need to be given greater emphasis. In order to ensure the integration of food security and biodiversity conservation, recognizing their interdependence and addressing the challenges in a way that fits with the local dynamics is essential. In addition, addressing the food security-biodiversity nexus requires a holistic analytical lens that enables proper identification of system properties that benefit food security and biodiversity conservation. Moreover, this dissertation indicated that there is a clear need to pay attention to the governance structure that accommodates the diversity of perspectives, enable participation and strong coordination across geographical boundaries, policy domains and governance levels. Finally, this dissertation revealed opportunities to integrate food security and biodiversity through the pro-active management of social-ecological interactions that produce a win-win outcome. The win-win outcome could be achieved in a system that involve properties such as diversification and modern agroecological techniques, smallholders empowerment, emphasize adaptive governance of social-ecological systems, value local knowledge, culture and traditions, and ensure smallholders participation. While such diversification and agroecological practices may lack the rapid economic development that is inherent to the conventional intensification, it essentially create a system that is more resilient to environmental and economic shocks, thereby providing a more sustainable long-term benefit.
This dissertation examines how smallholder farming livelihoods may be more effectively leveraged to address food security. It is based on empirical research in three woredas (districts) in the Jimma Zone of southwestern Ethiopia. Findings in the chapters that follow draw on quantitative and qualitative data. In this research, I focus on local actors to investigate how they can be better supported in their roles as agents who have the ability to improve their livelihoods and achieve food security. This general aim is operationalized through three research questions that are addressed in separate chapters. The research questions are: (i) How do livelihood strategies influence food security?; (ii) What livelihood challenges are common and how do households cope with these?; and (iii) How do social institutions, in which livelihoods are embedded, influence people’s abilities to undertake livelihoods and be food secure? Using quantitative data from a survey of randomly selected households, I applied a number of multivariate statistical analysis to determine types of livelihood strategies and to establish how these strategies are associated with capital assets and food security. Here I view livelihood strategies as a portfolio of livelihood activities that households undertake to make a living. The predominant livelihood in the study area was diversified smallholder farming involving mainly the production of crops. Food crops such as maize, teff, sorghum, and in smaller quantities – barley and wheat, were primarily produced for subsistence. Cash crops namely coffee and khat were primarily produced for the market. Based on our analyses, we found five types of livelihood strategies to be present along a gradient of crop diversity. Food security generally decreased with less crops being part of the livelihood strategy. The livelihood strategies were associated with households’ capital assets. For example, the livelihood strategy with the most number of crops had more access to a wider range of capital assets. They had larger aggregate farm field size, and were more involved in learning with other farmers through informal exchange of information and knowledge. The status of food (in)security of each household during the lean season was measured using the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS). A generalized linear model established that the type of livelihood strategy a household undertook significantly influenced their food security. Other significant variables were educational attainment and gender of household head. The findings contribute evidence to the benefits of diversified livelihoods for food security, in this case, the combination of diverse food crops and cash crops. Smallholder farming in southwest Ethiopia is beset with process-related and outcome-related challenges. Here, a process-related challenge pertains to the lack of different types of capital assets that people need to be able to undertake their livelihoods, while an outcome-related challenge pertains to lack of food. The most frequently mentioned process-related challenges were associated with the natural capital either as lack in necessary ecosystem services or high levels of ecosystem disservices. Farming households typically faced the combined challenges of decreasing soil fertility, land scarcity, die-off of oxen due to diseases, and wild animal pests that raided their crops and attacked their livestock. Lack of cash was also common and this was associated with an inability to access goods and services that households needed to address other problems. For example, lack of cash prevented households from buying fertilizers or replacing the oxen they lost to diseases. Confronted with multiple and simultaneous challenges, households coped by drawing on more readily accessible capital assets in order to address a lack. This process is here referred to as capital asset substitution. The findings indicate that when households liquidate a physical asset in order to gain cash which they then use to address other challenges, the common outcome is an erosion of their capital asset base. Many households reported having to sell their livestock to buy fertilizers, as required by the government, without seeing an increase in their harvest. The same process of liquidating capital asset to purchase food particularly during the lean season, also led to erosion of capital assets. On the other hand, when households drew on their social capital to address the challenges, they tended to maintain their capital asset base. The local didaro system is one such example in which farming households with adjacent farm fields synchronize their cropping timing and pool their labor together to address the problem of wild animal pests. Human capital, for example, in the form of available labor was also important for coping. Protecting and enhancing natural capital is needed to strengthen the basis of livelihoods in the study area, and maintaining social and human capitals is important to enable farming households to cope with challenges without eroding their capital asset base. Smallholder farming in southwest Ethiopia is embedded in a social context that creates differentiated challenges and opportunities amongst people. Gender is an axis of social differentiation on which many of the differences are based. Since the coming into power of the currently ruling Ethiopian political coalition, important policy reforms have been put in place to empower women. This includes the formal requirement that wives’ names are included in land certificates. Local residents reported notable changes related to gender in the last ten years. To make sense of the changes, we adapted the leverage points concept which identifies places to intervene in a system with different depths and effectiveness for changing the trajectory of a system. Using this concept, we classified the reported changes as belonging to the domains of visible gaps, social structures, and attitudes. Importantly, changes within these domains interacted, suggesting that changes facilitate further changes. The most prominent driver of the changes observed was the government’s emphasis on empowering women and government-organized interventions including gender sensitization trainings. The changes toward more egalitarian relationships at the household level were perceived by local residents to lead to better implementation of livelihoods, and better ability to be food secure. The study offers the insight that while changing deep, underlying drivers (e. g. attitudes) of systemic inequalities is critical, other leverage points such as formal institutional change and closing of certain visible gaps can facilitate deeper changes (e. g. attitudes) through interaction between different leverage points. This can inform gender transformative approaches. While positive gender-related changes have been observed, highly unequal gender norms still persist that lead to women as well as poor men being disadvantaged. Social norms which provide the basis for collective understanding of acceptable attitudes and behaviors are entrenched in people’s ways of being and doing and can therefore significantly lag behind formal institutional changes. For instance, daughters in southwest Ethiopia continued to be excluded from land inheritance because of long-standing patrilineal inheritance practices. This impacted on women’s abilities to engage in smallholder farming in equal footing as men. Norms influenced practices around access and control of capital assets, decision-making, and allocation of activities with important implications for who gets to participate, how, and who gets to benefit. Landless men also faced distinct disadvantages in sharecropping arrangements where people involved often have unequal socioeconomic status. Processes that facilitate critical local reflections are needed to begin to change unequal social norms and transform smallholder farming to becoming more inclusive and egalitarian spheres. To more effectively leverage smallholder farming for a food secure future, this dissertation closes with four key insights namely: (1) Diversified livelihoods combining food and cash crops result in better food security; (2) Enhancing natural and social capital is a requisite for viable smallholder farming; (3) Social and gender equality are strategically important in improving livelihoods and food security; and (4) Institutions particularly social norms are key to achieving gender and social equality. Because the livelihoods-food security nexus depend on people’s agency in their livelihoods, this dissertation concludes that livelihoods should be recast as critical spheres for expanding human agency and that conceptual development as well as formulation of suitable tools of measurement be pursued.