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

尽管非洲大陆约85%的农业总产出是由小农户生产的，小农户农业占肯尼亚农业总产出的75%，但一些学者，政策制定者和非政府组织仍然坚持认为非洲的农业实践是静态的，面对环境变化和人口增长，效率低下，而且天生脆弱。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一系列“新”技术投入，如机械化、化肥和农药，以及杂交和转基因作物。这一进程有着深刻的殖民主义根源，在围绕气候变化和人口增长的紧迫问题之后，最近又出现了要求开展新的非洲绿色革命的呼声。然而，这种“现代化”模式未能带来可持续的繁荣，这表明需要替代框架。通过分析东非小农户如何在日常实践中进行创新，该项目将重新考虑为什么现代化的大规模尝试往往失败，并在此过程中提供实现繁荣农村生计的替代方法。与目前活跃在粮食系统研究和交付的多部门合作伙伴合作，我们通过对肯尼亚当代农业实践的历史化和历时性探索似乎是非洲农业几个世纪以来的特征的持续创新和独创性过程来挑战“现代化”的必要性，相反，这些可能会为该地区农业实践的未来提供重要见解。非洲农业系统在历史上是多样的，具有高度适应性的前提，利用了丰富的考古和历史资料，证明了它们如何在几千年的时间里以动态的方式发展，随着它们与亚洲西南部，印度和中国的广泛洲际交流网络的融合，不断多样化。这种过程一直持续到19世纪，随着殖民化的正式化，“专业”殖民地农业官员引入了新的驯化浪潮和围绕土壤和森林保护的概念。虽然这些殖民干预中的许多人都认为非洲的农业系统是抗拒变革的（安德森，2018年; Beinhart，2000年），但我们在这里主张一种更微妙的叙述，即小农有选择地采用和传播新的思想、做法、作物和材料（摩尔，2018年）。在这种观点下，农民每天都在试验、创造知识，并有选择地采纳他人的想法。我们认为，这一历史进程的创造性创新，选择性的评价和智能（重新）组合是什么构成了经常被称为（并经常被带入反对）作为“传统”和“现代性”，这一历史的重新概念化提供了一个重要的新起点，重新评价，支持和扩大农民的能力。 我们将与不同的合作伙伴合作，与肯尼亚Elgeyo-Marakwet的小农户“数字农民”共同设计原创的实证研究。我们特别选择与来自英国和肯尼亚以及学术，非政府组织，国际和政策部门的合作伙伴合作，以分享不同的机构实践和议程，并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。通过与积极参与粮食系统研究和交付的合作伙伴合作，挑战和支持，我们的目标是对政策制定和更广泛的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.