Regional Food Security Policies for Natural Resource Management and Sustainable Economies (RESPONSE)

Scope & objectives

The RESPONSE programme perceived the following specific objectives:

1. improved integration of socio-economic and agro-ecological approaches and methods for research on sustainable land use and food security;
2. linking analytical approaches for the appraisal of production, consumption, market exchange and resource use;
3. multi-scale analysis of the effects of market and institutional development on farm household resource location decisions, land use and food security;
4. spatial analysis of the linkages and interactions among resource location decisions, exchange transactions, engagement in non-farm employment, and migration patterns.

Activities

• A total of ten PhD students were involved in the RESPONSE programme. The research subjects were grouped in four work packages.

Work package 1: Resource Management, Productivity and the Environment

• Dynamics of farm management and impacts on land quality and yields in the highlands of Tigray, Northern Ethiopia (Assefa Abegaz Yimer).
• Socio-economic interactions for agricultural intensification and resource management at community level in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia (Girmay Tesfay).
• Socio-economic interactions in land resource management at the village level in Southeast China (Feng Shuyi)

Work package 2: Livelihood Strategies, Poverty Alleviation and Food Security

• Context and internal dynamics in linking rural livelihood systems and food security in ecologically fragile areas in the Philippines (Julie Roa).
• A longitudinal perspective on livelihood, food security and vulnerability of rural households in an ecologically fragile environment in Bangladesh (Ahmed Ali).

Work package 3: Markets and Risk

• Economic Analysis of alternative policy instruments for improved market performance in Ethiopia: welfare effects and impact on sustainable land management practices (Yadeta Kenea).
• Agricultural policy and rural food security in Southeast China: the mediating role of markets (Chen Le).
• The effect of factor and product markets on the development of banana production: a case study of central and South-Western region, Uganda (Fred Bagamba).

Work package 4: Global and Regional Trade

• The textile and clothing sector in Bangladesh in a changing global economy (Nazneen Ahmed)
• International trade policies and the development of less-favoured areas: Potentials and constraints for export diversification in Central and Eastern Oromia Region, Ethiopia (Moti Jaleta Debello).

Status

The December 2005 international seminar on resource management and poverty in less-favoured areas marked the closing of the RESPONSE research programme 2001-2005. During the seminar all PhD students submitted papers about their work, and commissioned research papers by working programme leaders, a joint MG3S-CERES paper on livelihoods, and invited papers by experts in the field were presented.

The closing workshop of the RESPONSE programme provided an excellent opportunity to bring together researchers, leading experts and policy makers engaged in the debate of sustainable poverty alleviation in less-favoured areas. The main objectives of the conference were to provide a synthesis of the findings and results from the research on less-favoured areas, to discuss the implications for policy-making and development cooperation, and to identify remaining knowledge gaps and delineate strategies for further research. There was broad agreement that important progress has been made in assessing the complex interactions between farming systems integration, livelihood diversification, and the market and institutional conditions conducive for pro-poor, pro-environment strategies.

Immediately after the seminar, contacts were made with CABI to publish edited and peer-reviewed versions of he papers in a separate volume on sustainable poverty alleviation in less favoured areas.

Publications