Prosperity and Innovation in the Past and Future of Agriculture in Eastern Africa (PIPFA)

尽管非洲大陆大约85%的农业总产量是由小农生产的，而小农农业占肯尼亚农业总产量的75%，但一些学者、政策制定者和非政府组织仍然坚持认为，面对环境变化和人口增长，非洲的农业实践是静态的、低效的、天生脆弱的。这些想法反过来又支持了一个长期存在的现代化范式，即非洲农业被认为需要大量的“新”技术投入，如机械化、化肥和农药、杂交和转基因作物。这一过程有着深刻的殖民根源，随着气候变化和人口增长等紧迫问题的出现，最近又出现了新的非洲绿色革命的呼声。然而，这种“现代化”范式未能实现可持续繁荣，这表明需要替代框架。通过分析东非小农如何在日常实践中进行创新，本项目将重新思考为什么大规模的现代化尝试经常失败，并在此过程中为繁荣的农村生计提供替代途径。我们与目前活跃在粮食系统研究和交付领域的多部门合作伙伴合作，挑战“现代化”的必要性，将肯尼亚的当代农业实践历史化，并历时性地探索正在进行的创新和创造力过程，这些过程似乎已经成为几个世纪以来非洲农业的特征，相反，我们认为这些可能为该地区农业实践的未来提供重要的见解。非洲农业系统在历史上具有多样性和高度适应性的前提，借鉴了丰富的考古和历史材料，这些材料展示了它们如何在几千年的时间里以动态的方式发展，随着它们融入与西南亚、印度和中国的广阔的洲际交流网络，不断多样化。这样的过程一直持续到19世纪，随着殖民化的正规化，“专业”殖民农业官员引入了围绕土壤和森林保护的新一波驯化和概念。虽然许多殖民干预措施将非洲农业系统理解为抗拒变革（Anderson 2018; Beinhart 2000），但我们在这里主张一种更细致入微的叙述，其中小农有选择地采用和传播新思想、做法、作物和材料（Moore 2018）。在这种观点中，农民每天都在进行实验，产生知识，并有选择地采纳他人的想法。我们认为，这种创造性创新、选择性评估和智能（重新）组合的历史过程构成了通常被称为（并经常被反对）的“传统”和“现代性”，这种历史重新概念化为重新评估、支持和扩展农民的能力提供了一个重要的新起点。我们将与不同的合作伙伴合作，与肯尼亚Elgeyo-Marakwet的小农“数字农民”共同设计原创实证研究。我们特别选择与来自英国和肯尼亚的合作伙伴以及来自学术界、非政府组织、国际和政策部门的合作伙伴合作，以便分享不同的机构实践和议程，共同设计和提供研究，以刺激机构的反应和具体的政策建议。通过与活跃在粮食系统研究和交付领域的合作伙伴合作、挑战和支持，我们的目标是在更广泛的范围内对政策制定和农业生计产生多重切实影响，从而展示艺术和人文学科主导的多学科和跨学科研究的重要价值。

Despite the fact that approximately 85% of total agricultural output across the African continent is produced by small-holder farmers, with the small-holder farming sub-sector accounting for 75% of Kenya's total agricultural output, there remains a persistent imagining amongst some academics, policy makers and NGOs that African farming practices are static, inefficient and inherently vulnerable in the face of environmental change and population growth. These ideas have in turn supported a longstanding modernising paradigm whereby African agriculture is argued to require a host of 'new' technical inputs such as mechanisation, chemical fertilisers and pesticides, and hybrid and GM crops. This process has deep colonial roots and, in the wake of pressing issues surrounding climate change and population growth, has re-emerged in recent calls for a new African Green Revolution. However, this 'modernising' paradigm has failed to deliver sustainable prosperity, suggesting that alternative frameworks are required. By analysing how small-holder farmers in Eastern Africa innovate in daily practice, this project will reconsider why wholesale attempts at modernisation have often failed and, in the process, offer alternative ways toward prosperous rural livelihoods. Working with multisectoral partners currently active in food systems research and delivery, we challenge the 'modernisation' imperative by historicising contemporary farming practices in Kenya and diachronically exploring ongoing processes of innovation and ingenuity that seem to have been characteristic of African farming for centuries, arguing instead that these may offer crucial insights into the future of farming practice in the region. The premise that African farming systems have historically been diverse and highly adaptive draws upon a wealth of archaeological and historical material that demonstrates how they have developed in dynamic ways over several thousand years, continuously diversifying as they became integrated into expansive inter-continental exchange networks with SW Asia, India and China. Such processes continued into the 19th century when, with the formalisation of colonisation, new waves of domesticates and concepts surrounding soil and forest conservation were introduced by 'professional' colonial agricultural officers. Whilst many of these colonial interventions understood African agricultural systems as resistant to change (Anderson 2018; Beinhart 2000), we argue here for a more nuanced narrative wherein small-holders selectively adopted and propagated new ideas, practices, crops and materials (Moore 2018). In this view farmers experiment, generate knowledge, and selectively adopt the ideas of others on a daily basis. We argue that this historic process of creative innovation, selective valuation and intelligent (re-)combination is what constitutes what are often referred to (and often brought into opposition) as both 'tradition' and 'modernity' and that this historical reconceptualization offers an important new starting point for revaluing, supporting and extending farmers capabilities. Working with diverse partners we will co-design original empirical research with small-holder 'digital farmers' in Elgeyo-Marakwet Kenya. We have specifically chosen to work with partners from both the UK and Kenya and from academic, NGO, international and policy sectors so as to share diverse institutional practices and agenda and to co-design and deliver research that will stimulate institutional responses and specific policy recommendations. By working with, challenging, and supporting partners active in food systems research and delivery we aim to have multiple tangible impacts on policy making and farming livelihoods more broadly, thus demonstrating the important value of arts and humanities led multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary research.