This June, Patrice visited the Paraguayan Chaco to learn more about how people use surface water bodies, in the context of her M.Sc. thesis. Patrice has been using satellite images to understand the distribution of surface water in the Pilcomayo basin, and how the ability of smallholders to access that water has changed over time with the expansion of large ranches. With this visit, she was able to get a better feel for the context and improve her understanding of people's relation to water.

Yann spent part of May and June talking with indigenous and criollo inhabitants of the Pilcomayo basin to better understand their livelihood and land-use history, and their current outlook on the development of their region. This is an area that has experienced massive deforestation in the last decade, and people who lived there have often been forced to leave their houses or to change their livelihoods for lack of space. Yet we don't know very much both about how these changes are experienced at the local level, and about what people's lives looked like before big ranches arrived. Through his fieldwork, Yann is collecting stories of these changes.

Our new paper is out in the Journal of Rural Studies! In this study led by lab member Olivia del Giorgio, we take a look at the different dimensions of smallholder access to examine the livelihood impacts of the expansion of agricultural commodity production in the Gran Chaco. We analyze changes in livelihoods in relation to the portfolio of access mechanisms deployed by smallholders, the relational access pressures they face, and the degree to which access to space is restricted for different activities. By disaggregating the effects of these different dimensions of access to land and resources, we show that it is possible to unpack the link between access and livelihoods, allowing to capture more-nuanced impacts for smallholders that might otherwise go unnoticed. We find that changes to the dimensions of smallholders’ access differentially impact their ability to engage in activities critical to their livelihoods, productive issues which are likely enhanced by a weakening of smallholder social networks. Our results highlight the need to assess smallholders’ access to land and resources, rather than merely the availability of resources, in order to better understand the impacts of commodity agricultural and properly target policy to reduce smallholder vulnerability.

Paper link: https://t.co/wezO1GFUdE
Versión española: https://t.co/z9zkFA1Joe
Photo Credit: Olivia del Giorgio