Environmental crisis, globalization and innovation capacity of the little family farmers in Sahel: an African example relevant in Brazil?

Abstract

The agricultural and food crisis which hit Niger and other neighbour countries during the last years put
once again under the limelight a certainregion of Africa, Sahel, which has been undergoing chronic
difficulties for several decades (such as rain shortages, desertification and dramatic decrease of food
production). Such a major ecological crisis, which for about forty years has been striking recurrently this
part of the African continent cannot be pulled apart from the historical trend which is currently referred
to with the generic term “internationalization” or “globalization”. This trend bears a particular violence
upon the small farming communities that remain in the periphery of the system. Under different shapping,
that is the same dynamics, in different ways, which is applied in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
This paper does not term intend to look at this question with a general view but brings the indication of
a particular case, in order to stimulate the reflection about other local realities, notably some of those
which can be found in Brazil. It shows more specifically that small family farmers who are among the
poorer and more marginalized ones in the world and who are also submitted to very severe natural
conditions, seem to be able to react, under a limited but actual efficacy or to necessities and constraints
which operate at a temporal and spatial scale that goes far beyond their structured daily habits. This
situation raises a major theoretical question: do global responses solely exist for global mechanisms of
domination? Or should a pertinent strategy also include local responses, drawing upon the small farmers’ innovation and initiative capacity?