Abstract
Smallholder farmers are key actors in addressing the food and nutrition insecurity challenges facing the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), while also minimizing the ecological footprint of food production systems. However, fostering innovation in the region’s smallholder farming systems will require more decentralized, adaptive and heterogeneous institutional structures and approaches than presently exist. This review of the conditions that have been undermining sustainable food and nutrition security in the Caribbean focuses on issues of history, economy and innovation. It argues for a different approach to agricultural development in the CARICOM SIDS that draws primarily on social-ecological resilience and agricultural innovation systems frameworks. Research needs include a better understanding of how social capital can facilitate adaptive capacity in diverse smallholder farming contexts; how formal and informal institutions interact in domestic agriculture and food systems to affect collaboration, co-learning and collective action; how social actors might better play bridging and linking roles that can support mutual learning, collaboration and reciprocal knowledge flows; and the reasons underlying past innovation failures and successes to facilitate organizational learning.
An earlier version of this chapter was published as ‘Addressing food and nutrition insecurity in the Caribbean through domestic smallholder farming system innovation’ in Regional Environmental Change (2015), 15(7), 1325–1339.
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Acknowledgements
This work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the Canadian International Food Security Research Fund, a program of Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa, Canada, and with the financial support of the Government of Canada provided through Global Affairs Canada.
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Saint Ville, A., Phillip, L.E., Hickey, G.M. (2020). Addressing Food and Nutrition Insecurity in the Caribbean Through Domestic Smallholder Farming System Innovation. In: Connell, J., Lowitt, K. (eds) Food Security in Small Island States. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8256-7_9
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