Thinking beyond pathways? Agriculture, livelihoods, dietary behaviour and health

Dr. Elizabeth Hull and Dr. Emma-Jayne Abbots

Note: Internal event not open to external attendees.

In many settings around the world, small-scale farmers and rural populations typically rely not on farming alone, but on a wide array of income sources in order to make a living and acquire food. This diversification of strategies minimises risk in often vulnerable rural settings, and is essential for maintaining household food security. The types and quantities of foods acquired by rural residents are also affected by an often diverse range of sources to which people have access. These may change over time in response to various factors, including the rise of supermarkets, complex agrarian systems, informal food trade, expanding transport infrastructure and government feeding programmes, as well as more localised practices of inter-household exchange, subsistence farming, and foraging. The shifting activities of both livelihoods and food procurement strategies contribute to a changing landscape of dietary practices that are also affected by inter- and intra- household dynamics and locally-informed ideas about food quality, taste, nutrition and health. These dietary behaviours are likely to have an impact on health and nutrition in ways that vary across geographical region, household, gender and generation. The health of individuals will also affect their ability to engage in livelihoods, food procurement activities, and their ability to eat certain foods.

The considerable range of connections that may exist between people’s productive activities and the food that they ultimately obtain and consume highlights the multifaceted nature of the relationship between agriculture, livelihoods, dietary behaviour and health. This workshop will bring together scholars from various disciplines to explore the conceptual and methodological challenges posed by these issues. How can we do research in such a way as to keep in view multiple dynamics at once? How can we move beyond thinking in terms of ‘pathways’ and ‘linkages’, to broaden the scope of empirical and analytical terrain?

The workshop aim is primarily to assist researchers in the pre-fieldwork stage, in formulating research questions and strategies. Four brief presentations will be followed with discussion and will address some of the following questions, with particular attention to the methodological approaches and tools that will be required to tackle them.

How do smallholder farmers make a living, how does this change over time, and to what extent do they rely on non-agricultural earnings to secure daily food requirements?
How does rural social differentiation and inequality shape the range of income-generating activities pursued by smallholders?
What strategies are used, by farmers and by government, to buffer against market volatility, seasonality?
How do gender, generation and intra-household practices affect how small-holders make their living, and how food is produced, acquired, prepared and consumed?
How do cultural/social values assigned to foods and local nutritional wisdom influence foodways and the manner in which incomes are spent?
How do we assess health outcomes of food intake and of these activities as a whole in different settings?
How do we account for variability within, and between, settings?
What are the wider historical determinants?