Journal of Tropical Agriculture 51 (1-2) : 121-125, 2013 121
Short communication Concept mapping and analysis of farmer perspectives on utilization of a wetland agro ecosystem
Jayasree Krishnankutty*, V. Lakshmy Shilpa, S. Krishnan and Meera V.Menon College of Horticulture, Kerala Agricultural University, Thrissur, Kerala 680 656, India
Received 14 March 2013; received in revised form 27 April 2013; accepted 16 July 2013.
Abstract
The kole wetlands, covering an area of 13,632 ha, are a unique rice production ecosystem spread over Thrissur and Malappuram districts of Kerala. They are known for the bumper yields, but are now one of the most threatened wetlands in the State. Development policies so far lack provisions for sustainable agriculture along with ecosystem protection of the wetlands. Primary interests of farmers mostly give way to that of the stronger players who have better access to administrators and policy makers. It is imperative to understand the socio economic preferences of the most direct stakeholders of wetlands, namely the farmers, regarding utilization of their agroecosystem. This study tried to map, cluster and analyse the farmer perspectives through concept mapping. Multidimensional scaling and clustering were used for prioritizing the socio economic concepts. The better income concept, along with heredity – social status concept were found to be the most pronounced. The environmental perspective also stood strong, contrary to what is believed. The study comes up with the policy suggestions to uphold the income motives of the farmers equally with the status motive. Urgent attention should be paid to effective mechanisation, risk alleviating mechanisms, better production technology and climate change mitigating strategies. A holistic approach incorporating production, ecosystem and livelihood concerns should be evolved for sustainable development of the kole wetland ecosystem.
Key words : Kole wetlands, Agro ecosystem, Livelihood provider, Socio economic perspectives, Policy suggestions
The kole wetlands are a unique rice production sustainable agriculture and ecosystem protection ecosystem. They are one of the largest and most NASA has reported extensive destruction of productive wetlands and also one of the most Kerala’s wetlands and has warned of serious threatened wetlands in Kerala State (Jayson and repercussions in the future, in addition to what is Sivaperumal, 2005). The name’kole’ refers to the already being felt now. Conflicting interests of peculiar type of paddy cultivation done from stakeholders mostly result in the stronger players December to May and this Malayalam word being heeded by administrators and policy makers, indicates bumper yield of high returns (Johnkutty pushing the marginalised stakeholders backstage. and Venugopal, 1993). The ecosystem significance Schemes have been put forward for the of the area is evidenced by its inclusion as a Ramsar enhancement of agricultural/ fishery production, site, and recently, it has been considered as a productivity, infrastructure development and farmer separate high value biodiversity area. incentives but none with the combined focus on conserving the natural resources of the wetlands and The current wetland development policies do not sustaining them as areas for food production, water uphold the provisions for the dual focus of storage and recreation.
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With indicators of social development comparable address the focus. A wide variety of methods can to that of many developed countries (Parayil, 2000), be used to accomplish this including traditional creating a public consciousness and promoting brainstorming, brainwriting, nominal group participation of the society of Kerala in sustainable techniques, focus groups, qualitative text analysis, wetland management should be within reach of the and so on. The group can generate up to 200 administrators of the state. For this, the socio statements in a concept mapping project. In the economic considerations governing the most direct Structuring Step statements are sorted into piles. stakeholders of wetlands, namely the farmers, Then, the statements are rated on some scale. The should be understood. This study tries to come out Representation Step is where the analysis is done with the socio economic concepts that the farmers — this is the process of taking the sort and rating have about their agro ecosystem. An analysis of input and “representing” it in map form. There are these concepts will serve as a pointer towards two major statistical analyses that are used. The first matters of concern for sustainable wetland — multidimensional scaling —develops the basic development in the state and will serve as an map where each statement is a point on the map. indicator of wetlands elsewhere in the tropical The second analysis — cluster analysis — takes regions too. the output of the multidimensional scaling (the point map) and partitions the map into groups of Kole wetlands of Thrissur District was the study statements or ideas, into clusters. If the statements area. Kole lands in Thrissur are spread over eight describe activities of a programme, the clusters show blocks. Of these, four blocks were randomly how these can be grouped into logical groups of selected for the study, namely, Anthikkad, Cherpu, activities. If the statements are specific outcomes, Puzhakkal and Mullassery. From each of these the clusters might be viewed as outcome constructs blocks, a panchayat with the most extensive kole or concepts. In the fifth step — the Interpretation area was chosen. 45 kole farmers from each of these Step — the facilitator works with the stakeholder panchayats were randomly selected for response group to help them develop their own labels and collection making the total sample size 180. interpretations for the various maps. Finally, Responses were collected through conducting focus the Utilization Step involves using the maps to help group interviews wherein the farmers freely address the original focus. On the programme side, expressed their concepts about different aspects of the maps can be used as a visual framework for the kole lands. These were subjected to concept operationalizing the programme. On the outcome mapping, to better arrive at policy suggestions based side, they can be used as the basis for developing on the major socio economic concerns of the direct measures and displaying results. (William stakeholders of kole lands. and James, 2006)
A concept mapping process involves six steps. The The viewpoints expressed by farmers were first step is the Preparation Step. The facilitator of documented as such, and later converted into the mapping process works with the initiator to coherent statements, making no alteration to the idea identify who the participants will be. A mapping expressed. 104 statements were thus arrived at. process can have hundreds or even thousands of These statements were rank ordered according to stakeholders participating. Second, the stakeholders the frequency of expression by respondents. develop the focus for the project. For instance, the Statements expressed by majority (above 50%) were group might decide to focus on defining a shortlisted which came to 25 statements. From them programme or treatment. Or, they might choose to by piling similar ideas and eliminating statements map all of the outcomes. In the Generation Step the of repetitive nature 15 perspectives were developed, stakeholders develop a large set of statements that on socio economic aspects. The perspectives were Jayasree Krishnankutty, V. Lakshmy Shilpa, S. Krishnan and Meera V.Menon 123 presented to 15 judges who were experts in wetland agricultural produce, profitability orientation of farming. Each judge was asked to assign a rank of farmers, kole lands as a livelihood provider, 1-15 to each statement. increasing cost of cultivation and the need for effective crop insurance were the most important Thus a matrix was formed. The matrix was analysed socio economic concepts as far as the kole land using multidimensional scaling and a concept agroecosystem is concerned. diagram of proximities was obtained (Christopher and Alexander, 1983). From the proximities, socio V6 and V11 were the least important as revealed economic concept clusters were also identified. The from the matrix. They are negative viewpoints analysis was done using SPSS package, version expressing that social order in doing operations is 11.1. not good and that joint cultivation is not advantageous. The important point to note here is The 15 socio economic perspectives developed are that there are some farmers who feel that these do presented as Table 1. more harm than good to the sustainability of kole based livelihoods. These were rank ordered by 15 judges and a matrix was formulated using the ranks assigned by each The concept diagram evolved is given as Figure 1. judge on each variable.
Variables V1, V4,V5,V7,V8 and V12 evolve as the most important as felt by judges. Thus the need for good agricultural machinery, competent price for
Table 1. Socio economic perspectives by farmers about kole agroecosystem (n=180)
Sl. No. Perspectives 1. Need for affordable agricultural machinery. 2. Hereditary and social value. 3. Need for respectability and social status. 4. Need for competent price for farmers produce. 5. Profitability orientation. 6. Social order in doing operations discriminatory. Figure 1. Concept diagram formulated as per multi- 7. Kole lands, livelihood provider of farmers for dimensional scaling. generations. 8. Increasing cost of cultivation due to increasing The concept diagram shows cluster groups among cost of inputs. the concepts. Variables V5,V7,V9,V14 and V15 9. Exploitation of farmers by big processing form a central cluster indicating profitability companies and other intermediaries. orientation, view of kole as their livelihood provider, 10. Need for timely support price. 11. The practice of joint cultivation is not good. apprehension about exploitation by business firms, 12. Need for proper crop insurance schemes. need for alternative farming methods for steady 13. Climate change telling on production and income and need for market orientation and better productivity. marketing efficiency having less of dissimilarities. 14. Alternative farming options critically necessary. They can together be called as the better-income 15. Farmers lack proper market orientation and concept. This means getting a better income out of marketing efficiency. the agricultural enterprise from kole lands is an Concept mapping and analysis of farmer perspectives on utilization of a wetland agro ecosystem 124
Table 2. Rank matrix of preferences as given by judges
Rank V1 V2 V3 V 4 V5 V6 V7 V8 V9 V10 V11 V12 V13 V14 V15 1410520200000100 2101210140101102 3001320121004001 4200310120400012 5200020202102112 6101001200203220 7311020120004001 8001011202200601 9011110003101042 101210 001 1 20 1 0 1 1 2 110120 200 1 24 1 0 0 1 1 120331 131 0 10 0 0 0 1 1 131310 051 3 00 0 0 1 1 0 140020 030 0 10 6 0 1 2 0 150300 020 0 10 7 0 0 1 0 important socio economic concern of the farmers. For arriving at policy suggestions based on these No development plan can be chalked out without perspectives expressed by farmers, they are considering this. Variables V2 and V3 form another classified as those requiring administrative, cluster, which stand for hereditary and social value technological, financial and social interventions, as and need for better social status by farmers. This is shown in Table 3. concept, which is removed from the better income concept, still stands strong. It can be named as pride It is imperative that measures to enhance the income and status notion. It is in contrast to the income of primary producers are taken. By promoting notion, but still very important as far as the kole inclusive value chains, by exerting control over farmers are concerned. All the other concepts show created market imbalances and price fluctuations sizeable dissimilarities among themselves and can the administrative set up can help the process. be considered as independent concepts. Technological interventions like efficient agro
Table 3. Classification of perspectives according to type of interventions needed
# Type of intervention Expressed perspective 1 Administrative Better income Need for competent price 2 Technological Need for affordable agricultural machinery Increasing cost of cultivation Climate change telling on production and productivity 3 Financial Timely support price Need for proper crop insurance 4 Social Pride and status notion Joint cultivation disadvantageous Social order in doing operations discriminatory Jayasree Krishnankutty, V. Lakshmy Shilpa, S. Krishnan and Meera V.Menon 125 machinery, climate change mitigation strategies etc. they are conscious of the livelihood and hereditary will help remove uncertainties in the crop value of the precious ecosystem in which they hold production situation. Income protection through a stake. A holistic approach, incorporating the major insurance, and timely provision of support prices socio economic considerations of the farmers, will be financial measures that help farmers combat reaching all categories and catering to the livelihood risk in agriculture. New insights have to be instilled interests will be essential for the sustainable in society so as to see farming as an enterprise, and development of the kole land agro ecosystem. farmers as farm entrepreneurs. Such an educational movement will help elevate the status of farmers in References the social system. Christopher,C. and Alexander, C.J. 1983. Introduction The different types of analyses point towards to Multivariate Analysis. Chapman and Hall, administrative, technological, financial and social London. pp197–209. measures to ensure sustainability of kole agro Jayson, E.A. and Sivaperumal, C. 2005. Avifauna of ecosystem. These measures have to be thought about Thrissur District, Kerala, India. Zoos’ Print J., 20(2): 1774–1783. in conjunction, as they address parallel concerns Johnkutty, I. and Venugopal, V.K. 1993. Kole wetlands prevailing in the community. of Kerala. Kerala Agricultural University, Thrissur p. 68. Among concept clusters, the better-income cluster Govindan, P. (2000). Introduction: Is Kerala’s was the biggest followed by heredity- social status Development Experience a Model?.( In) Govindan cluster. These are dual – focussed but they should Parayil. Kerala: The Development Experience : be given equal weight in management plans for Reflections on Sustainability and Replicability. acceptance by stakeholders. The kole farmers, even London: Zed Books. 269p though better in economic status than the average William M. K. T and James P. D 2006. The Research farmer of Kerala, are an anxious community and methods knowledge base. Atomic Dog/Cengage Learning. 361p have many problems to tackle. At the same time