Research Collection
Doctoral Thesis
Operationalizing resilience in the face of climate change. The case of tomato producers in Morocco and Ghana
Author(s):
Benabderrazik, Kenza Publication Date:
2021
Permanent Link:
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000477538
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In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted
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DISS. ETH NO. 26862
Operationalizing resilience in the face of climate change The case of tomato producers in Morocco and Ghana
A thesis submitted to attain the degree of DOCTOR OF SCIENCES of ETH ZURICH
(Dr. sc. ETH Zurich)
presented by
Kenza Benabderrazik
MSc. In Environmental Sciences and Engineering, EPFL born on 23.11.1988
citizen of Morocco
examined by Prof. Dr. Johan Six Prof. Dr. Birgit Kopainsky
Dr. Jonas Joerin Dr. Ariella Helfgott
2021
Table of content
TABLE OF CONTENT ... I
ABSTRACT ... VII
RÉSUMÉ ... IX
CHAPTER 1 ...2
INTRODUCTION ...2
1 DISENTANGLING THE NEEDS FOR RESILIENT FOOD SYSTEMS ...2
2 HISTORY OF RESEARCH ON CLIMATE RESILIENCE ...4
3 RESILIENCE AND FOOD SYSTEMS ...5
4 OPERATIONALIZING RESILIENCE – WHAT ARE THE QUESTIONS ? ...9
5 CASE STUDIES AND MOTIVATIONS ... 13
6 FRAMING RESILIENCE IN THE CONTEXT OF TOMATO PRODUCTION IN MOROCCO AND GHANA ... 17
7 OBJECTIVES AND STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS... 20
. ... 22
CHAPTER 2 ... 24
AGRICULTURAL INTENSIFICATION CAN NO LONGER IGNORE WATER CONSERVATION - A SYSTEMIC MODELLING APPROACH TO THE CASE OF TOMATO PRODUCERS IN MOROCCO ... 24
1 INTRODUCTION ... 27
2 WATER GOVERNANCE AND A DUAL AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM ... 30
3 MATERIAL AND METHODS ... 32
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ... 44
5 CONCLUSION ... 53
. ... 55
CHAPTER 3 ... 57
PAVING THE WAY FOR CLIMATE RESILIENCE OPERATIONALIZATION ... 57
THE CASE OF TOMATO PRODUCTION IN MOROCCO ... 57
1 INTRODUCTION ... 59
2 OPERATIONALIZING RESILIENCE ... 60
3 RESILIENCE OF WHAT TO WHAT? ... 62
4 SYSTEM DYNAMIC MODELING ... 64
5 ANALYSIS ... 67
7 CONCLUSION ... 80
. ... 81
CHAPTER 4 ... 83
ADDRESSING THE RESILIENCE OF TOMATO FARMERS IN GHANA FACING A DOUBLE EXPOSURE FROM CLIMATE AND MARKET ... 83
ABSTRACT ... 83
1 INTRODUCTION ... 84
2 MATERIAL AND METHODS ... 86
3 RESULTS ... 90
4 DISCUSSION... 102
5 CONCLUSION ... 105
CHAPTER 5 ... 108
OVERVIEW AND OUTLOOK ... 108
CRITICAL RESILIENCE FOR AN INTERCONNECTED AND TRANSFORMING WORLD ... 108
1 RESEARCH FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION ... 108
2 LIMITATIONS ... 112
3 OUTLOOK AND WAY FORWARD –TRANSFORMATION ... 115
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... 123
APPENDIX ... 126
REFERENCES ... 143
List of Tables
Table 1: Summary of the characteristics of the case studies - framing the resilience. Yield data ranges from official and measured data (Melomey et al., 2019; Payen et al., 2014) ... 18 Table 2: Overview of the survey results conducted in the Souss-Massa and Rabat-Sale- Kénitra region in spring 2018 with a sample of stakeholders selected for semi-structured interviews. Numbers indicate the number of stakeholders interviewed, m stands for male and f for female. The interviews comprised 24 persons, 15 in the Souss-Massa Region, 9 in the Rabat-Sale-Kénitra Region. ... 35 Table 3: Summary of the main findings of the survey (in %) conducted among 244 producers in Rabat-Salé-Kénitra and Souss-Massa regions. ... 37 Table 4: Parameters used to characterize the disturbance affecting the system taken from Bazza et al. (2018) ... 64 Table 5: Survey findings reporting on drought effects and reactions ... 69 Table 6: Household Characteristics ... 91 Table 7: Percentage of farmers experiencing a climate shock (drought and/or heavy rainfall) over the last 3 years and the perceived consequences. ... 94 Table 8: Farmers' response to climate shocks (i.e. drought and heavy rainfall) - % express the share of the farmers included in each region ... 95 Table 9: System interconnections justifications through interviews gathered among actor from the tomato value chain ... 100 Table 10: Result from Theil statistic test ... 134
List of Figures
Figure 1: Resilience and sustainability as complementary concepts (Adapted from (Tendall et al., 2015a) ... 7 Figure 2: Framework to assess resilience of farming system adapted from (Helfgott, 2018;
Meuwissen et al., 2019) ... 18 Figure 3: Average yield in both regions from 2011 to 2016 (in t.ha-1)- in dark blue is open- field production in Rabat-Sale-Kénitra, in light green is greenhouse production in Souss- Massa. Data provided by the Ministry of Agriculture ... 32 Figure 4: Interactions within the tomato production system – boxes in bold represent the stocks used in the model, boxes with double lines are common variables between exporters and farmers, straight arrows are the direct connections between elements and dashed arrows are the indirect connections between the elements ... 33 Figure 5: Summarized state and flow model and the causal links of an open-field farm... 39 Figure 6 : summarized state and flow model and the causal links of a greenhouse producer ... 40 Figure 7 : summarized state and flow model and the causal links for water and groundwater management dynamics ... 42 Figure 8: summarized causal links for yield dynamics ... 43 Figure 9: Relative water volume dynamics compared to the initial time in 2008 for a) the Temara groundwater in Rabat-Salé-Kénitra Region and b) the Chtouka groundwater in Souss-Massa Region. ... 45 Figure 10: Relative cash flow in % compared to the initial time in 2008 for a) Open Field farmers and b) export producers. ... 46 Figure 11:Sensitivity analysis for a) SM groundwater volume and b) RSK groundwater volume. ... 48 Figure 12: Sensitivity analysis for a) exporter cash flow and b) Farmer cash flow in MAD (Moroccan Dirhams)... 50 Figure 13: Resilience Framework – adapted from (Herrera and Kopainsky, 2020; Tendall et al., 2015b) ... 61
Figure 14: Main feedback loops of the production system - Linking yield and water uptake, to the water available and consumed in the groundwater table- Grey arrows represent the negative causal links and black arrow represent the positive causal links ... 66 Figure 15: Cash flow dynamics of open-field farmers (left) and exporters (right)– Relative cash flow in % compared to the initial value in 2008 (solid line for baseline scenario, dashed line for minimal intensity drought scenario, dotted line for maximal intensity drought scenario) ... 68 Figure 16: Temara groundwater (in Rabat Salé Kenitra Region with open-field production- left figure) and Chtouka groundwater (in Souss Massa Region with greenhouse production- right figure) dynamics. Relative change (%) in water volume compared to the initial time in 2008 (solid line for baseline scenario, dashed line for minimal intensity drought scenario, dotted line for maximal intensity drought scenario) ... 68 Figure 17: Desalinization policy effects in the SM region on producers’ cash flow (left) and Chtouka groundwater volume (right) - Relative changes in % compared to the baseline scenario for different ranges of drought frequency (in green), intensity (in blue) and
duration (in brown) – See ranges in Table 4 ... 73 Figure 18: Inter-sectorial policy scenario for the RSK region – on the left - Farmer's absolute cash flow difference (in Moroccan Dirham - MAD) and on the right - Temara groundwater volume relative changes ( in % ) compared to the baseline scenario for different ranges of drought frequency (in bleu), intensity (in green) and duration (in brown) – See ranges in Table 4 ... 76 Figure 19: Map of Ghana and its two main tomato producing regions (Ashanti and Upper East Region) ... 90 Figure 20: Average tomato yields (wet weight) per season per region ... 92 Figure 21: Percentage of tomato farmers having an easy access to various goods and service for Ashanti (in blue) and UER (in red). ... 93 Figure 22: Reported magnitude of tomato yield losses after a climate shock. ... 94 Figure 23: Water, agricultural and socio-economic management practices used in Ashanti (dark blue with dots, green with lines and orange with rhombus) and in UER (light blue, green and orange). P-value <0.001 for the comparison between regions when (*) is indicated above the columns. ... 97
Figure 24: Average % of farmers generating profitability from tomato sales between 2015 to 2017 ... 98 Figure 25: Response strategies when farmgate tomato prices are too low ... 98 Figure 26: Causal loop diagram of the tomato production system ... 100 Figure 27: Summarized CLD representing main loops in the supply and demand module 127 Figure 28: Summarized CLD representing main loops in the Soil organic carbon and
Nitrogen dynamics ... 128 Figure 29: Average yield in both regions from 2011 to 2016 (in t.ha-1)- Data from the Ministry of Agriculture... 133 Figure 30: Estimated revenue per hectare of tomato produced in both regions from 2011 to 2016(MAD/ha) ... 133 Figure 31: Evolution of total cultivated area using drip irrigation in the Chtouka-Massa area from 2001 to 2014 - source ORMVASM, 2015(Malki et al., 2017) ... 133
ABSTRACT
While food production is one the main drivers of environmental changes, such as soil and water depletion or rising greenhouse gas emissions, it is also increasingly threatened by those very changes:
increasing changing climate related shocks. Among essential nutritious food, fresh fruits and vegetable, such as tomato, are produced to meet local demand, but also to be traded internationally.
Tomatoes are high-value products that represent a significant source of income for its producers.
However, the production of such water demanding crops, is subject to vulnerability in face of climate related shocks such as drought or heavy rainfalls, threatening subsequently their producers’
livelihood. Addressing impacts of climate related shocks on producers and ways to enhance their resilience becomes central to tackle food systems challenges. Yet, ways to address agricultural producer’s resilience are disputed and trade-offs between ecological and socio-economical functions are colliding.
The overarching goal of this thesis is to contribute to ways to operationalize producer’s climate resilience, by having a special focus on tomato production in two countries: Morocco and Ghana.
These two countries have been chosen as they exemplify the diverse problematic around tomato production on the African continent.
In this thesis, we used a combination of systems dynamics modeling tools and a survey among 244 tomato producers of two major producing regions in Morocco: the Souss-Massa region, where production is under greenhouses and mainly for export and the Rabat-Salé-Kénitra, where the production is open-field and intended for the national market. We analyzed the interactions between agricultural, ecological and socio-economic dimensions of the tomato production systems, and simulated the long-term behavior of the two production systems. The results of the model simulations highlighted how overexploitation of groundwater tables affects crop production and farmers’
income. We extended the analysis with our model, to further observe the effects of various ranges of droughts on the two production systems. Our results showed that droughts are accelerating the process of groundwater depletion, increasingly impacting farmers’ income. Finally, we analysed two policies that are suggested as a set of adaptative measures for a systemic enhancement of resilience under these circumstances. We show that a more radical approach towards water resource conservation upholding the most vulnerable producers has to be adopted.
In Ghana, we conducted a survey among 344 tomato small-scale farmers in Ashanti and Upper East Region and complemented it with a system map based on evidence from tomato value chain
related shocks, which negatively affect both production activities and farmers’ revenues.
Furthermore, we identified that only few response mechanisms are in place yet to face these shocks, and we suggest that the current system is suboptimal and therefore requires transformation.
The results of the studies in both countries, showed that operationalizing resilience requires a systemic approach to address the interconnections, feedback mechanisms and long-term outcomes of shocks on tomato producers. Enhancing resilience demands an integrated approach based on engagement of value-chains stakeholders, to support appropriate structures encompassing both climate and trading aspects. We, therefore, conclude that leaning towards a sustainable and inclusive resilience requires a transformation of the existing systems in place.
RÉSUMÉ
La production alimentaire est l'un des principaux moteurs des changements environnementaux actuels, tels que l'épuisement des sols et des ressources en eaux ou l'augmentation des émissions de gaz à effet de serre. Elle est également menacée par ces changements, du fait notamment de l'augmentation des chocs liés au changement climatique. Parmi les aliments nutritifs essentiels, les fruits et légumes frais, comme la tomate, sont de plus en plus produits pour répondre à la demande locale, mais aussi pour être commercialisés au niveau international. La tomate est un produit à haute valeur qui représente une source de revenus importante pour ses producteurs. Toutefois, la production de ces cultures exigeantes en eau est vulnérable aux chocs climatiques tels que la sécheresse ou les fortes pluies, ce qui menace par conséquent les revenus des producteurs. Afin de relever les défis des systèmes alimentaires, il est essentiel de s’intéresser aux effets des chocs climatiques sur les producteurs et d'améliorer leurs résiliences. Pourtant, les moyens de mesurer et d’optimiser la résilience des producteurs agricoles sont contestés, en particulier lorsqu’il s’agit de traiter les fonctions écologiques et socio-économiques concurrentes.
L'objectif principal de cette thèse est de permettre d'opérationnaliser la résilience climatique des producteurs, en mettant l'accent sur la production de tomates dans deux pays : le Maroc et le Ghana.
Ces deux pays ont été choisis car ils illustrent la diversité des problématiques liées à la production de tomates sur le continent africain.
Au Maroc, nous avons utilisé une combinaison d'outils de modélisation des systèmes dynamiques et une enquête auprès de 244 producteurs de tomates au sein des deux principales régions productrices : la région du Souss-Massa où la production se fait sous serre et principalement destinée à l'exportation, ainsi que la région de Rabat-Salé-Kénitra où la production est en plein champ et destinée au marché national. Nous analysons les interactions entre les dimensions agricoles, écologiques et socio-économiques des systèmes de production de tomates, et nous simulons le comportement à long terme des deux systèmes. Les résultats des simulations du modèle mettent en évidence la surexploitation des nappes phréatiques qui affecte non seulement la production des cultures mais surtout les revenus des agriculteurs. Nous avons ensuite étendu l'analyse de notre modèle, afin d'observer les effets de divers types de sécheresses sur les deux systèmes de production.
Il s'avère que les sécheresses accélèrent le processus d'épuisement des nappes phréatiques, ce qui a un impact d'autant plus important sur les conditions économiques des agriculteurs. Dans ces circonstances, deux politiques sont présentées comme mesures adaptatives pour une amélioration
systémique de la résilience. Nous montrons qu'il est nécessaire d’adopter une approche plus radicale au sujet de la conservation des ressources en eau afin de soutenir les producteurs les plus vulnérables.
Au Ghana, nous avons mené une enquête auprès de 344 producteurs de tomates dans la région d’Ashanti et de l'Upper-East. Nous avons complété l’étude en cartographiant le système de production en se basant sur des entretiens avec les acteurs de la chaîne de valeur de la tomate. Les résultats montrent que les agriculteurs sont fortement exposés non seulement au climat, mais aussi aux chocs liés aux variations des prix du marché, ce qui entraîne une réduction des activités de production et des revenus. Seuls quelques mécanismes de réponse sont mis en place pour faire face à ces chocs, et nous suggérons que le système actuel est sous-optimal et nécessite donc une transformation.
Dans les deux pays, les études ont montré que l'opérationnalisation de la résilience nécessite une approche systémique pour traiter les interconnexions, les mécanismes de rétroaction et les effets à long terme de ces chocs sur les producteurs de tomates. L'amélioration de la résilience exige une intégration des acteurs des chaînes de valeur, afin de soutenir des structures appropriées englobant à la fois les attributs climatiques et commerciaux. Tendre vers une résilience durable et inclusive requiert donc la transformation des systèmes en place.
A night in Abofour while conducting some interviews – Ashanti, Ghana - May 2018
Disentangling the needs for resilient food systems
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1 Disentangling the needs for resilient food systems
Food systems have the complex and challenging role of sustainably providing a healthy diet to a growing world population (Ericksen, 2008). Not only do food systems play a central role in contributing to human livelihood while feeding them, but they are also the mainstay of employment around the world. For centuries, global trade has made food systems particularly interconnected, from input trades (such as fertilizers) to crop exports or intercontinental labor migration, the dynamics of these interconnections are particularly complex and evolving rapidly (Puma, 2019). Yet, the global food system has also been identified as a major driver of environmental impacts such as climate change, land-use change, biodiversity loss and the depletion of freshwater resources (Springmann et al., 2016).
The global food system appears as inherently contradictory, threatened by the impacts it generates itself. Accordingly, it becomes all the more necessary to focus on how food systems can fulfil their role under increasing disturbances such as climate change or globalization.
Food systems are defined by a multi-scale network of production, processing, distribution and consumption. This set of activities are determined by interactions between and within biogeophysical and human environments. Food systems are inherently complex, interconnected and characterized by feedback mechanisms and delays. In this sense, it is argued that better understanding these socio-ecological linkages and the way they interact dynamically over space and time is necessary to prevent future collapses in the global food system, especially since ecosystem management (e.g. soil or water preservation) and human services (e.g. food production) could lead to conflicting goals (Ericksen, 2008).
Disentangling the needs for resilient food systems
Within these food systems, agricultural production plays a key role. Not only does it provide food, but it contributes to sustain producers’ livelihoods. These two functions - production and income generation- are essential for billions of human beings around the world. Yet, they happen to be challenged by shocks and stresses of different nature, be they economic, environmental, political, etc. Besides, given the diversity of agroecological zones and production systems, the task of food production is largely context specific. The behavior of the system is therefore induced by a multitude of elements, from cultural dietary preferences to prevailing agronomic practices. The combination of each of those diverse elements lean the system toward a chosen or a desired goal; as food systems encompass different actors, it leads necessarily to trade-offs and thus the chosen goal is rather a result of a consensus or a power play. This goal is different from one context to another, such as maintaining biodiversity or generating the most yield productivity. In such context, adequately framing the desired outcomes is also needed to better ensure a sustainable production as well as ensure human welfare. This becomes all the more important in face of shocks and stresses.
The globalized world that emerged over the last centuries has fostered rapidity and connectivity. The exchanges of goods and services led to shape the way food is produced and where and how this food is consumed. As a result, importation and exportation of food as well as market structures and prices have been shaped around the world according to these global structures. Globalization and neoliberal economic systems have streamlined many food systems, putting agricultural producers at the center of stresses and shocks, like commodity price volatility and unfair international competition. Moreover, this economical system has also driven environmental changes, putting productivity before sustainability (e.g ecological preservation). As a result, the Anthropocene is now facing its biggest environmental challenges, with increasing climate shocks and stresses (Smith et al., 2007).
There is therefore the need to address food system resilience and find ways to operationalize this resilience so that it can be enhanced within regards to the different contexts of each food system.
In this first introduction chapter, I will first seek to clarify the origin of the resilience concept by drawing up a history of research on the emergence of the concept and setting it in the current scientific context. Then, I will highlight the main questions that remain unanswered when it comes to addressing and enhancing the resilience of food systems.
Finally, I will present the motivations that led me to choose the two case studies and the extent
History of research on climate resilience
to which my research contributes to a better understanding towards the operationalization and enhancement of resilience in food systems.
2 History of research on climate resilience 2.1 The concept of resilience
The word resilience comes from the Latin word resilire, which means “to rebound”.
The first use of this term appeared in the 19th century in the shipbuilding industry, and it has since then generally been used in civil and mechanical engineering. Only in the 1970’s did researchers in the field of ecology begin to explore the notion of resilience. At the same time, psychologists also started to study the idea of resilience, and conceptualized it as the ability to successfully live and develop positively, in a socially acceptable manner, despite stress or adversity that could involve negative outcomes (Shenggen et al., 2014). The concept of resilience in ecological systems was then first introduced by Holling (1973), with the aim of understanding the capacity of ecosystems to persist in their steady state when subjected to perturbations (Folke et al., 2010). Holling (1973) defined resilience as the ability of systems to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks. In this sense, the concept of resilience implies that ecological systems can reach alternative stable states when in a non-equilibrium (Holling, 2001). In the 2000’s, a hybrid approach emerged, mixing ecological sciences and social sciences. The concept of resilience evolved to be applied to Social-ecological systems (SESs) and was defined as the capacity of social-ecological systems (SESs) to absorb recurrent disturbances, so as to retain essential structures, processes and feedbacks (Adger et al., 2005).
2.2 Resilience thinking for socio-ecological systems
Social–ecological systems’ resilience is about people and nature as interdependent systems. SESs’ resilience has evolved and developed into different frameworks (Berkes et al., 2008; Nelson et al., 2007). In 2007, Brand et al. distinguished two meanings of resilience: (i) the first one referring to the time required for a system to return to an equilibrium following a disturbance event, (ii) the second one as the level of disturbances that a system can absorb before changing to another stable regime. Both meanings raise the question on how to operationalize resilience. This emphasizes on non-linear dynamics, thresholds, uncertainty and surprises (Folke, 2006a).
Resilience and food systems
Essentially, resilience thinking for social–ecological systems is strongly linked with three attributes: robustness, adaptability and the transformability of the system (Folke et al., 2010).
Robustness could be understood as the ability of the system to withstand disturbances (Folke, 2006b). If a SES can exhibit a robust character, it will be able to endure a certain turbulence and still maintain its function (Folke, 2006a). Adaptive capacity, as the capacity of a SES to adjust its responses to changing external drivers and internal processes, thereby allowing for development within the current stability domain, along the current trajectory. In his attempt to better understand the complexity of economic, ecological and social systems, Holling (2001) introduces hierarchies and adaptive cycles as the basis of ecosystems and social- ecological systems across scales, that together form a panarchy. Finally, transformability, as the capacity to create new stability domains for development, a new stability landscape, and cross thresholds into a new development trajectory. In the following section we will see how the development of these attributes are applied to food systems.
3 Resilience and food systems
Food systems are social–ecological systems, formed of biophysical and social factors linked through feedback mechanisms that comprise all stages of a food chain: from production to consumption (Ericksen, 2008). Still, food systems have further outcomes:
ecologic (how they impact the ecosystem services), economic (how they impact labor) and socio-cultural (food is part of our social and cultural life). In parallel to these outcomes, food systems are facing an increasing number of challenges and shifts: climate change, soil degradation, pest outbreaks, economic and political crises, and population growth are some examples of the various and major shifts that are constantly adding pressure to the global food system (Rockström et al., 2009; Godfray et al., 2010; Tendall et al., 2015). These shifts have direct and indirect effects throughout the whole value chain of each food system; while some of them happen relatively smoothly, such as demographic growth; others appear strongly and suddenly, such as natural disasters. Food systems are also particularly complex, given the interactions between their multiple stakeholders, processes and expected outcomes.
Moreover, given the complexity of food systems and the uncertainty they are facing, they still must be able to fulfill their goals, hence the need to associate resilience thinking to tackle food systems' challenges. In 2009, Naylor introduced the potential of resilience-based management to tackle the challenges of food production and security. He stressed the need to understand the dynamics of food production systems and anticipate disturbances to adjust the functions
Resilience and food systems
sustainably. However, although a resilient trajectory is promoted in his article, no precise and structured definition of what food systems resilience really means is formulated. In 2015, Tendall et al. combined resilience thinking and food system challenges, to define food system resilience as:” The capacity over time of a food system and its units at multiple levels, to provide sufficient, appropriate and accessible food to all, in the face of various and even unforeseen disturbances” (p.19). Along these lines, addressing the resilience of food systems requires to focus on the environmental dynamics as much as the social and economic drivers of changes (Naylor, 2009). Over the last decades, the resilience concepts has been widely applied to food systems at different scale. Recent reviews found that most analysis of food systems are at the household or community scale (Béné et al., 2016; Seekell et al., 2017), such as studies focusing on agricultural producers or family farming (Jones and Tanner, 2017; Perez et al., 2015). On the other hand, a plethora of studies conducted these last years, have addressed resilience at a national scale through a food security lense (Herrera and Kopainsky, 2020; Kummu et al., 2020; Shenggen et al., 2014). Furthermore, global food system resilience has also been discussed in order to highlight long-term sakes and involve designing system transformation (Oliver et al., 2018; Puma, 2019)
Overall, resilience has been increasingly popular in the literature and in policy arenas:
It has provided a new space of dialogue between scholars from different fields (natural and social sciences) with a common interest in addressing environmental change, but also between scholars and policymakers creating room for new sources of knowledges to better understand social environmental challenges (Côte, 2019; Kull et al., 2018; Redman, 2014; Turner, 2014).This is particularly the case for food systems ,where Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations (FAO) stresses the need to transform food systems into sustainable and resilient ones (Nguyen, 2018).
3.1 Sustainability and resilience
Sustainability was defined in the Bruntland report (1992) as the capacity to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainability, then, implies preserving the capacity of a system to function in the future, which is also one of the conditions of maintaining resilience (see Figure 1) (Tendall et al., 2015). Besides, resilience emphasizes on the idea that a short-term shock or a long term stressor could have an immediate effect on a system but also long-term negative consequences. In this sense, it is necessary to properly address the multi-scale and multi-level
Resilience and food systems
challenges associated with global changes for a long-term building. Sustainability and resilience appear to be inextricably linked and would require to be used jointly (Anderies, 2013). Sustainability could then be seen as a precondition to build resilience. In such a framework, these two concepts have in common that they describe systems, their states and evolution over time, and are widely used in political agendas. They differ however in their scale - sustainability often concentrating on a larger space and a longer timeframe - and their focus - resilience on processes and adaptation or transformation to new conditions, sustainability on outcomes and preservation (Marchese et al., 2018a). Literature on sustainable livelihoods offers insights into climate resilience in a development context (Feola, 2015; Ifejika Speranza et al., 2014a). Unlike socio-ecological resilience, this perspective explicitly considers the outcomes for individuals, rather than the system as a whole, and views resilience as a normative goal (Kuhl, 2018).
Figure 1: Resilience and sustainability as complementary concepts (Adapted from (Tendall et al., 2015a)
3.2 Climate resilience for agricultural producers
Resilience concepts have been widely used to characterize agricultural producers all over the world (Ifejika Speranza, 2013; Jacobi et al., 2018; Tittonell, 2014). As of today, food programs tend to adopt a production-focused approach, the attention given to producers exceeding that which is given to food value chains or food systems in a broader sense (Nguyen, 2018).
However, Tendall et al. (2015) and the FAO (Nguyen, 2018) underline the importance of taking a holistic resilience approach towards food systems in order to understand their complexities and interactions and design effective policies accordingly.
Resilience and food systems
Carpenter et al. (2005) highlight a difference between (i) specified resilience, for a specified disturbance, and (ii) general resilience, to an unknown disturbance, ranging from sudden shocks to long-term stressors. Shocks are perturbations that are characterized by a peak pressure that is beyond the normal range of variability in which the system operates (Turner et al., 2003). Tendall et al. (2015) also bind the concept of food system resilience to shocks. In this regard my approach is specific for climate resilience, with the changing climate identified as a threat to global agriculture, in terms of the gradual long-term changes as well as the increasing frequency of extreme weather events.
Agriculture is vulnerable to multiple climate risks, including temperature increases, increased droughts, increased extreme rainfall events, diseases, and pests (Smith et al., 2007).
For agricultural producers, climate variability could particularly affect the production, either directly, for example, when a drought hits a rainfed cropping system, or indirectly when other water resources (e.g. groundwater, reservoirs) are not filled by rain or overexploited to cope with increasing water needs. Not only is productivity impacted, but broader economic implications do occur, such as losses in crop revenue (Calvin and Fisher-Vanden, 2017).
Building resilience offers a pathway to reduce the vulnerability of agricultural production to climate change (Ifejika Speranza et al., 2014a). To this extent, climate resilience for agricultural producers requires a holistic and systemic approach. However, the ways in which to concretely address climate resilience for agricultural producers are subject to debate and a common consensus is yet to be found.
Interest in resilience has grown dramatically over the past decade (Baggio et al., 2015;
Xu and Marinova, 2013), which has led to an increasing demand for methods allowing to apply resilience thinking (Sellberg et al., 2017). The concept of resilience has been widely promoted and applied by environmental and development organizations. However, their application of resilience often lacks theoretical backing and evaluation (Sellberg et al., 2017).
Moreover, conceptual and operational developments of resilience has been numerous and varied, each with practical reasons for adopting a particular interpretation in a specific context (Brand and Jax, 2007). The use of resilience approaches has not led to neither a common consensus nor a global definition (Helfgott, 2018). This variety of resilience framework and assessments, highlight the appropriation of the term by all sorts of people and institutions with sometimes conflicting agendas. Within a climate emergency and the absolute necessity
Operationalizing resilience – what are the questions ?
to shift towards a sustainable food system, a clearer framework must emerge in order to clarify which questions need to be addressed in order to operationalize resilience.
In the following section I show what questions need to be tackled in order to frame the concept before diving into an assessment of a system's resilience with the aim of enhancing it.
4 Operationalizing resilience – what are the questions ?
The reason that resilience is difficult to operationalize, is because of its abstract and multi-dimensional nature (Cumming and Collier, 2005). It has been recognized that there is a lack of a deeper understanding of what building resilience means for each specific context, as well as an adequate conceptual and operational framework for resilience (Sellberg et al., 2017).
Hence, it becomes necessary to clarify how resilience is conceptualized by explicitly defining the conceptual elements that are to be addressed to know what is being measured (Carpenter et al., 2005). Operationalizing resilience first requires answering a set of questions enacting as boundary limits for the observation, the assessment and resilience enhancement of resilience.
4.1 Temporality and spatiality
Defining temporality when focusing on the resilience of a system is fundamental.
Logically, three time periods could be considered: past, present and future. Present and expected future climate events allow for a long-term overview of the driving dynamics and consequences of a climate shock. In this regard, resilience and sustainability are inextricably linked and the multi-temporality of the effects of a shock can be considered. As an example, when a drought hits a producer over a season or a year, not only could it impact on his crop production for that year, but the impacts of the disturbance will more than likely proceed over a longer timeframe. In this sense, a drought may not directly impact the farmer's livelihood nor their production in the short term, but rather deplete the natural resources (e.g. water, soil) and ultimately impact agricultural production and producers on a larger timescale.
While some argue that it is impossible to measure resilience directly, as it is future oriented (Carpenter et al., 2005), retrospective approaches have been studied for SES. Looking at past shocks (Licht et al., 2016) and their effects on producer’s resilience is also a precious tool to inform on how the system learns from the shock and to develop tools to enhance resilience (Ross and Berkes, 2014).
Furthermore, a climate shock can also generate cascading impacts on cross-scale linkages, and move the system out of its desirable state (Folke et al., 2010; Redman, 2014;
Operationalizing resilience – what are the questions ?
Walker, 2006). For example, a climate shock could have an impact on a farm, as well as on a water shed and even on a whole country, if the impacted crop is linked to food security planning. It is fundamental to thoroughly understand the dynamics of the system, its feedback mechanisms, cross-scale linkages, cascading impacts, potential trade-offs, and, to the extent possible, its alternate potential states and their implications on a human scale. This nexus is where much of the heavy lifting must be done (Redman, 2014). Setting spatial and temporal boundaries becomes all the more crucial bearing in mind that other interactions come into play. The first question to be asked when operationalizing climate resilience of producers is:
which temporal and spatial scale are ought to be addressed in order to (1) take into account the direct and indirect impacts of a shock (2) envision and enhance sustainably the resilience of a system ?
4.2 Interconnections and dynamics
An important part of taking a resilience approach is to acknowledge the interdependence and interrelatedness of “all things” (Walker et al., 2004a). Connectivity refers to the interactions between the different variables of the systems. Two type of variables are to be differentiated: fast and slow variables. Slow variables are those that underlie the structure of the system, while feedbacks represent the dynamics among variables. More specificall, slow variables, such as the amount of soil organic matter, shape how a fast variable, such as crop production, responds to variation in an external driver, such as variation in rainfall during the growing season (Walker et al., 2012). Slow variables are those that underlie the structure of the system, while feedbacks represent the dynamics among variables.
Connectivity is particularly important in enabling recovery of distributed SES components (Biggs et al. 2012). These principles emphasize the importance of considering the system qualities that foster resilience and the processes that allow systems to adjust to change (Kuhl, 2018). The second set of questions to be asked is: what are the links between the elements of the systems and at what speed the connections operate? Answering to these questions also enables to consolidate the choice of temporal and spatial scales.
Within given time and space scales, an interconnected and dynamic system will present different types of behavior for each variable. Hence, elucidating the behavior of the system will inform about potential trade-offs, thresholds, and the feedbacks between the ecological and the social subsystems (González-Quintero and Avila-Foucat, 2019). Once the variables and the structure of the system have been identified and understood, comes the
Operationalizing resilience – what are the questions ?
question of: what to measure in order to be able to grasp climate resilience for agricultural producers?
4.3 Indicators and attributes
The choice in indicators or attributes that will characterize the resilience of the system is challenging but determinant for a study. Given the connections between the elements and the dynamic behavior of a system over time, the choice of indicators is wide and context specific. As recalled by Tendall et al. (Tendall et al., 2015a), so far, there is a wide gap in the knowledge of how such indicators affect food system resilience, whether the relationship between the indicators and resilience is necessarily linear and always positive, what levels of these indicators are desirable, and how different indicators may interact to reinforce or degrade resilience. Improving resilience in food systems in practice therefore first requires the identification, validation and measurement of food system resilience attributes and indicators.
The three resilience attributes for socio-ecological system (i.e. robustness, adaptation and transformation) have been suggested and can be used as a tool to guide the choice of indicators (Folke et al., 2010; Meuwissen et al., 2019).
Cabell and Oelofse (Cabell and Oelofse, 2012) have suggested an indicator framework for assessing agroecosystem resilience. This set of 12 behavior-based indicators, when identified in an agroecosystem, suggests that it is resilient and endowed with a capacity for robustness, adaptation and transformation. These indicators range from social self- organization to ecological self-regulation or reasonable profitability. However, in this approach, the dynamic nature of the system over time is not fully covered, allowing only to capture the resilient capacity of a system at a given period.
Another approach to select indicators builds on food systems outcomes, a resilient system is expected to deliver diversified, robust and functioning outcomes such as producing and distributing food under changing conditions (Jacobi et al., 2018). Resilience indicators for agricultural producers could range from income generation to crop yield change to degree of trust in local government, to use of traditional practices in farming and agroforestry (Ifejika Speranza, 2013; Meuwissen et al., 2019; Tambo, 2016). Focusing on the system outcomes enables to address fast variables, such as crop production. However, since the outcomes are emerging from processes, it is fundamental to also have an idea on the underlying dynamics in order to prevent irretrievable damages. Focusing on processes enables to acknowledge the dynamic structure of the system and address the case of slow variables and potential delays,
Operationalizing resilience – what are the questions ?
such as groundwater volume and the delays of water availability caused by their overexploitation. In this thesis I focused on various indicators that appeared to be key for each context, such as producers ‘connectivity, the profitability of the crop, the ecological management, the diversity in sources of income and production or their autonomy.
At this stage, it is important to mention that resilience thinking grew out of a desire to be holistic. However, the problem of holism is to consider everything relevant, while it is philosophically inescapable and impracticable (Ulrich, 1993). As rightfully claimed by Ulrich, the fashionable call for “holistic” or “systems” thinking lead in practice to a worthy but un- achievable goal. The real challenge posed by systemic resilience thinking is “not that, in order to be rational, we need to be comprehensive, but rather that we must learn to deal critically with the fact that we never are” (Helfgott, 2018). Ultimately, once these indicators are identified then comes the question on: how to measure them adequately?
4.4 Measurements perspectives
Resilience measurement can improve our understanding of how people and societies respond to climate risk (Jones, 2019). Measuring resilience becomes all the more challenging with interconnections, long-term dynamics and feedback mechanisms. In order to assess resilience, a set of measurable indicators should be developed. Many studies suggested indicators, as well as tools and frameworks to measure farmers’ resilience. Despite the growing interest and impressive amount of studies, a common agreement on how to measure farmers resilience to climate change is yet to be reached (Douxchamps et al., 2017). Moreover, while providing an overview on the static outcomes of resilience, many tools cannot capture spatial and temporal system dynamics (Douxchamps et al., 2017).
In this context, Jones (Jones, 2019) suggests two measurement approaches: subjective and objective. Objective resilience measurement can be thought of as independent of judgments arising from the subjects being evaluated. Resilience is then characterized externally, by an evaluator or experts rather than the community or the system that faced the disturbance. Objective measurement dictates a large degree of understanding of the processes that shape societal responses to environmental changes (e.g climate variability). At that stage however, the evaluator and expert must be aware of their own internal bias and deconstruct the motivations that lead them to pick certain indicators rather than others in order to assess resilience. A distinction between how is resilience defined (e.g. objectively or subjectively) and how it is evaluated (e.g. objectively or subjectively). More recently established and
Case studies and motivations
recognized, subjective methods of assessing resilience take a different approach (Béné et al., 2016; Clare et al., 2017; Jones and Tanner, 2017) by placing considerable value in people's knowledge of their own resilience and the factors that contribute to it. Subjective approaches thereby actively include perspectives and judgments of the subject(s) in question.
Resilience measurements are useful to know if interventions designed to enhance the resilience of people and systems to disruptions and shocks actually work (Béné et al., 2016).
Operationalizing resilience thus requires to ask the right questions before starting to focus on a specific case study. Understanding the context is crucial to be able to define appropriate time and scale boundaries, the different interconnections and driving dynamics, the chosen indicators and how to measure them. As a matter of fact, while operationalizing climate resilience for two case studies, I will emphasize on the need to be critical in face of the concepts and tools I used. By allowing more transparency in answering the questions in this section, I aim to contribute to the debate pledging for critical resilience approach. Thus, in this thesis, I went through this set of questions to try to answer how to operationalize producer’s resilience in the face of climate shocks in Morocco and Ghana. In the following section, I will elaborate on the choice of the case studies and the insights expected from this choice.
5 Case studies and motivations
In the following section, I will elaborate on the main attributes of fresh fruit and vegetable production and value chains in Africa, and more specifically tomato. The focus will be on production on the African continent. I will then present the specific characteristics of this crop's value chains and institutional structure, in the two countries where my research was held, Morocco and Ghana.
5.1 Fresh fruits and vegetables in Africa
Fresh fruits and vegetables (FFV) are essential elements for a healthy human diet.
They provide essential nutrients, such as vitamins, fibers, minerals, and have many health benefits and even prevent sickness(e.g. night blindness, diabetes, etc.) (Willett et al., 2019).
Therefore, a large number of public health institutions encourage the consumption of fruits and vegetables (Mesbah Zekar et al., 2017). Among different food categories, life-cycle assessment studies show that grains, fruits, and vegetables have the lowest environmental effects per serving (Clune et al., 2017; Davis et al., 2016; Eyhorn et al., 2019).
Case studies and motivations
Besides the potential health and environmental benefits of the FFV diet, FFVs are high‐
value products and their exports lead to high and rather stable foreign exchange earnings (Van den Broeck and Maertens, 2016). International trade is highly regulated, through standards, such as Globalgap, and the production for export is mainly realized by agro- industrials (Feyaerts et al., 2020). In a field related to modern food supply chains, thus horticultural exports are the most important agri-food export category, constituting 32.8% of total agri-food exports from Africa. However, in the scientific debate, horticultural exports in Africa have received very little attention (Van den Broeck and Maertens, 2016).
Most studies investigating the effect of climate change on food production indicate an aggregate reduction in future agricultural productivity, particularly in low-latitude regions.
One study projected an 8% reduction in mean yield of all crops by 2050 across Africa (Knox et al., 2016). Furthermore, the effects of climate change threaten smallholder producers as fruits and vegetables are considered a high-value crop (Feyaerts et al., 2020) as horticultural production is a significant source of farmers’ income in Africa (Abdulai, 2016).
Fruits and vegetables appear to be crucial for a healthy and sustainable diet. Their lack of consumption is a main contributor to micronutrient deficiency in Africa. Moreover, the continent shows both local and global potential dynamics regarding the production, trade and consumption of these products. The following section will provide more specificities on tomato and its current role and characteristic in the African food system.
5.1.1 Tomato production
Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum, L.) belongs to the Solanaceae family also called nightshades, which include more than 3000 species (Knapp, 2002). Pepper, potato, eggplants and tobacco are among other crops from the family of the nightshade. Tomato originated from the Andean region, which is modern day Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru (Melomey et al., 2019).
Tomato is utilized as a fresh crop or processed into various forms (e.g. paste, puree and juices). Tomato is a rich source of vitamins (A and C), minerals (iron, phosphorus), lycopene, Beta-carotene, as well as containing a high amount of water and low amount of calories (Melomey et al., 2019). Arising from historical global food trade and human diasporas, tomato is considered to be the most important vegetable in the world due to increasing commercial and dietary value, widespread production as well as being a model
Case studies and motivations
plant for research (Kimura and Sinha, 2008). This generates new dynamics in local and global production, which in turn affect one another.
Moreover, like many FFVs, tomato is a high value crop that is sometimes one of the main sources of income for its producers. Finally, depending on market structures and opportunities, as well as because of the perishability of the crop, the market prices can be particularly volatile, putting the producers into a vulnerable situation (Feyaerts et al., 2020).
As with many horticultural crops, the diversity of production practices covers a wide spectrum of agricultural management methods and processes, from greenhouse fertigated to open-field rainfed production. With producers around the world recording yields from 2 t.ha-
1 (in some locations I studied in Ghana) to 600 t.ha-1 (in Dutch greenhouses) (Heuvelink, 2018).
These wide ranges of production practices and cultivar also make the crop react differently to climate shocks – the crop is sensitive to environmental changes, either lack of water or too much water can be very determinant for the growth of the crop (Guodaar and Asante, 2018).
All in all, tomato is a fascinating crop to focus on as it sheds light on some of the major challenges of food systems. As a key crop to tackle food system resilience, I will now explicit how tomatoes occupy a central place in both the Moroccan and Ghanaian agricultural systems.
5.2 African countries
Focusing on African countries is a way of understanding the diversity of challenges that producers could face on the continent. Import and export of horticultural crops has been at the center of many studies and climate variability is increasingly threatening these systems.
The aim is also to contribute to the discussion on ways to address the climate shocks and stressors by focusing on two very different situations in North Africa and West Africa, namely in Morocco and Ghana.
5.2.1 Morocco
Morocco is among the world’s leading tomato production and exportation countries (FAOStat). The demand for tomato consumption in the country is high, as tomatoes constitute an essential ingredient of Moroccan Mediterranean cuisine (Darfour-Oduro et al., 2018). The domestic market is supplied with non-export-oriented seasonal production mostly located in the northern part of the country, such as in the Rabat-Salé-Kénitra region. The production is intensive and open-field. On the other hand, Morocco also exports tomatoes in the off-season
Case studies and motivations
(early production), almost exclusively from the Souss-Massa region in the south-west. The fruit is produced in greenhouses and supplies both international and national markets. The Souss- Massa region accounts for about 60% of national tomato production and 80% of national greenhouse production (Codron et al., 2014).
Tomato plays a key role in Morocco, where tomato production and value-chain has mainly been shaped by the agricultural policies and strategies implemented by the authorities over the last decades, among them the Green Moroccan Plan (GMP) (Akesbi, 2014; Faysse, 2015; Ouraich and Tyner, 2018). The GMP was a strategy that started in 2008 and ended in 2019, aiming to modernize high added-value agriculture while upholding smallholder farmers. Hence, I distinguish in my thesis two types of producers, the exporters producing under greenhouses and the open-field national producer.
Moroccan agricultural suffers from climate variability, mostly drought, and the irrigation management strategies have led horticultural growers to rely mostly on drip irrigation, through groundwater supply. As a results climate effects are mostly indirect but play a crucial role for the tomato system. In this case, there is a strong link between groundwater management and sustainable producers’ livelihood (Ameur et al., 2017; Faysse et al., 2014; Kuper et al.). Accounting for the effects of the droughts in this case study requires to consider long timeframes and to focus on several levels of the agricultural system, from the farm to the regional level.
5.2.2 Ghana
In Ghana, horticulture plays an essential role in the population’s diet: tomatoes, onions, peppers and okra are found in nearly all dishes. A high consumer demand that is principally met by importing said crops from global and neighboring countries (Melomey et al., 2019; Van Asset et al., 2018). Tomatoes, in particular, are massively consumed, representing 35% of households’ vegetable expenditure (Van Asset et al., 2018). Moreover, about 77% of the Ghanaian consumers use tomatoes every day in their meal preparation (Osei et al., 2018) and it is estimated that around 90’000 farmers are involved in tomato production and above 300’000 persons are linked to the tomato sector nationwide (including tomato paste) (Frimpong Boamah and Sumberg, 2019; Goodman, 2016).
Besides, Ghanaians also heavily consume tomatoes in form of concentrates: Ghana is considered to be a large tomato paste consumer worldwide, where most of the paste is imported from China and Italy, due to policy failures that led to the bankruptcy of the tomato
Framing resilience in the context of tomato production in Morocco and Ghana
paste factories in the country (Baba et al., 2013; Britwum, 2013; Frimpong Boamah and Sumberg, 2019). Tomato is mostly produced in Brong-Ahafo, Ashanti and Upper East Region.
The demand for tomato is year-round, and due to differences in the rainfall patterns as well as the water availability, these regions ensure a complementary production (Ecker, 2018;
Wossen and Berger, 2015).
Finally, in recent years, droughts, heavy rains and increasing temperatures have strongly contributed to reduction of water availability (Asante and Amuakwa-Mensah, 2015;
Williams et al., 2019). Climate stresses and shocks are foreseen to increase and put pressure on the agricultural production and producers (Smith et al., 2007). Hence the need to focus on and enhance the resilience of the tomato system in face of climatic shocks. In this study, I will focus mainly on farmers in the Ashanti and Upper East region.
6 Framing resilience in the context of tomato production in Morocco and Ghana
Resilience, as a property of complex systems, describes the nature of the response of the system to a particular disturbance, of a particular magnitude, from the perspective of a particular observer over a specified timescale and cannot be easily measured (Helfgott, 2018;
Quinlan et al., 2016). With assessment approaches that tend to focus on deepening the understanding of system dynamics, resilience measurement aims to capture and quantify resilience in a rigorous and repeatable way. Any of the methods used to characterize resilience rely on a clear specification of the boundaries of the system under consideration. One must also think about what is to improve and for whom. Then, the ranges of the disturbance must be considered in a given space and time. Approaching resilience meaningfully and critically requires to ask a set of essential questions about resilience of what, to what, from whose perspective and over what time frame (See Figure 2). These key issues represent a framing cycle, since each element has the potential to iteratively reframe all of the others (Helfgott, 2018; Meuwissen et al., 2019).
Framing resilience in the context of tomato production in Morocco and Ghana
Figure 2: Framework to assess resilience of farming system adapted from (Helfgott, 2018; Meuwissen et al., 2019)
The case studies I will be focusing on in this thesis have the potential to be particularly insightful when looking at climate resilience for tomato producers. Not only do they play on distinct geographical scales, but also on different temporal scales. On the other hand, the wide diversity of production systems, links to market and producers’ typologies enable to grasp an overview of the main challenges faced by these agricultural systems. The following Table 1 summarizes the different cases studied and embeds them into resilience framing questions.
Table 1: Summary of the characteristics of the case studies - framing the resilience. Yield data ranges from official and measured data (Melomey et al., 2019; Payen et al., 2014)
Morocco Ghana
Production type Greenhouse Intensified Open-field
Basic open-field
Average official yield
(t.ha-1) 200-120 60-80 6-15 3-12
Region name Souss-Massa Rabat-Salé-
Kénitra Ashanti Upper East
Framing resilience in the context of tomato production in Morocco and Ghana
Growing season October to April March to October
June to December
December to April
Access to markets Export -
International National National National
Methods used
System dynamic modeling Survey
Experts interview
Survey
System dynamic mapping Experts interview
Resilience of what? Tomato producers
Resilience to what? Climate shocks
(Drought, Heavy rainfall) Resilience for what
purpose? Public and private Private and public
Finally, the identification of resilience capacities and ways to enhance resilience are the last two questions that I seek to answer during the research. The aim is to provide tools to navigates these questions with a critical mind.
Objectives and structure of the thesis
7 Objectives and structure of the thesis
The main objective of this thesis is to operationalise resilience of tomato producers with regard to climate shocks in Morocco and Ghana.
In chapter 2, I dive into the Moroccan context searching to understand the dynamics driving the tomato food system, and the interconnections between the multiple scales (i.e.
national regional and local) on a long-term timeframe. I also question the role of existing policies in shaping the agricultural systems and how they may affect the long-term dynamics' behaviour for each region I focus on. To carry out this project, I used system dynamics modelling tools and complemented it with a survey conducted on field with 244 tomato producers and experts’ interviews.
In chapter 3, I further extend my research on the Moroccan case studies to understand what the implication of a climate shock are and more specifically the effect of a drought on the agricultural system. I analyse how the system would react under a different range of shocks and stresses. Then I aim to answer the question regarding how to enhance this resilience and consider two policies to see their impact on the systems outcomes and how the system is challenged in the long term. I build on the system dynamic model established in Chapter 1 that I support with results from the survey.
In Chapter 4, I focus on the Ghanaian case study and I seek to understand how tomato farmers are exposed to climate shocks, like drought and heavy rainfall, and what their response mechanisms are in face of these shocks. Here I do not only look at climate shocks but I extend it to market shocks because price volatility is particularly important and price adjustment does not seem to be climate dependent. I seek to establish the links and interconnections between the various elements of the farming system using system dynamics methodology of causal loop diagrams. Finally, I aim to identify paths towards a systemic approach to enhance resilience.
The detailed results of each work package are discussed in their respective chapters.
General conclusions and recommendations for future research are provided in Chapter 5.
Taken together, these three work packages aim to approach climate resilience for a wide range of tomato producers (from corporate exporters to smallholder farmer). I have sought to go through this work with a systemic and critical lens.
Objectives and structure of the thesis
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Tomato field and drip-irrigation – Témara, Morocco - March 2018
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CHAPTER 2
AGRICULTURAL INTENSIFICATION CAN NO LONGER IGNORE WATER CONSERVATION - A SYSTEMIC MODELLING
APPROACH TO THE CASE OF TOMATO PRODUCERS IN MOROCCO
This chapter will be submitted to Agricultural water management as:
Benabderrazik K.1, Kopainsky B.2, Tazi L.3, Joerin 4, Six J.1 (2020). Agricultural intensification can no longer ignore water conservation - A Systemic modelling approach to the case of tomato producers in Morocco
Abstract
Agricultural-food production systems are facing the challenging task to provide food and socio-economic welfare while preserving natural resources in the long-term. In Morocco, the Green Moroccan Plan steered the promotion of groundwater-based drip irrigation. Over the last decade, the Plan encouraged producers to shift to cash crop production. This is how tomato became a main agri-food export commodity mostly produced in greenhouses in the Souss-Massa region and produced intensively in open-fields for local demand in the Northern
1Sustainable Agroecosystems Group Agricultural Institute Department of Environmental Systems Science ETH Zürich Universitätstrasse 2, LFH B9, 8092, Zürich, Switzerland Email:
kenza.benabderrazik@usys.ethz.ch
2 System Dynamics Group Department of Geography University of Bergen Postbox 7800, 5020 Bergen, Norway
3 Laboratoire de Biodiversité, Ecologie et Génome Centre de Biotechnologie Vegetale et Microbienne, Biodiversité et Environnement Université Mohamed V Rabat, Morocco
4 Current address: Singapore-ETH Centre, Future Resilient Systems, 1 Create Way, #06-01 Create Tower, Singapore 138602, Singapore
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part of the country. However, water resources are expected to become particularly scarce over the next decades, increasing the vulnerabilities of tomato farmers in face of unforeseen changes and shocks. The main purpose of this study is to show a) how global and local tomato value chains respond to irrigation schemes and b) what the environmental consequences are.
By means of a system dynamics model, and a survey conducted among a sample of 244 producers, we describe and outline the major interactions between agricultural, ecological and socio-economic dimensions of the tomato production systems. The results of the model simulations highlight how overexploitation of groundwater tables negatively affects crop production and farmers’ welfare. The model shows that in the near future, water scarcity will have long-lasting consequences on the producers, such as reduced productivity and losses in cash flow. Our model results highlight that measures need to be taken in the coming years in order to prevent the predicted irremediable water shortage in 2030. We conclude that the current groundwater management will, in the long-term, lead to irreversible groundwater depletion which will enhance already existing inequalities between the two types of producers. Urgent actions have to be taken in order to sustainably manage water while supporting farmers in the long-term.
Keywords: agricultural-food system, system dynamics simulation, groundwater management
