What are farmers' information needs amid conflict?

Wars change farming. In this book chapter DIIS researcher Ian Christoplos looks at examples of changes in agricultural information systems in Bosnia Herzegovina, Afghanistan and the Ferghana Valley in Central Asia and asks whether recovery efforts have really focused on what farmers want, who farmers are and where there are market opportunities. The chapter highlights how recovery is not just about returning to what people were doing before the conflict, but rather about learning to adapt to new challenges. Difficult questions emerge about if and how poor farmers can re-establish their production and compete when traditional markets no longer exist. Nostalgia may exist for the stable markets and systems of the past, but this is rarely possible. Hard decisions need to be made about what agricultural services fragile states can provide.

New approaches are needed to ensure that they can make informed decisions about what to produce and even about whether they should try to keep farming at all, but these need to be cognizant of capacity limitations and competing public sector priorities. Agricultural information is more important than ever after a conflict, which is why efforts to rebuild institutions to provide this information should reflect the new realities that farmers and local agricultural service providers are actually facing. Aid efforts that are merely designed to temporarily back up seed distributions or provide inordinate subsidies to tiny gardens are unlikely to prove sustainable when humanitarian funding dwindles. They are in turn unlikely to help farmers respond to the challenges they face when the war ends.

Ian Christoplos explores these themes in a new book chapter, Agricultural Information Amid Conflict: For Whom and For What? In Challenging Post-conflict Environments, edited by Alpaslan Özerdem and Rebecca Roberts.