This project is about assessing the vulnerability of small farmers in the face of environmental change and economic transformation, with a focus on improving the resilience of rural agricultural communities. Traditional farmers in various places around the world are faced with multiple stressors arising from both environmental change and changing regional economic conditions. One of the key factors in creating and overcoming this vulnerability is the access to and use of water. Accordingly, this study will answer two primary research questions: 1) what vulnerability do farmers face as a combined result of environmental change and economic restructuring? and 2) what role do different water delivery systems have in enhancing the resilience of small-scale agriculture in the face of uncertainty and change? These questions will be examined in southwestern Jamaica, a region with extensive smallholder food production for the domestic market. The project will engage a mixed methods research design that combines the collection and analysis of environmental data with a qualitative investigation of farmer knowledge, perception, and adaptation to changing regional economic conditions. The study builds on prior research in Jamaica, which demonstrated that farmers experience stress from environmental change and market instability, a condition that has been described in the literature as 'double exposure.' This study aims to document the nature of these stresses, and also to investigate the role played by different water management strategies in building resilience. The results should add significantly to theories of vulnerability and resilience, and also contribute to a better understanding of environmental change adaptation in rural agricultural communities throughout the Caribbean and other developing regions. As such, this work addresses important questions that are of interest to scholars and policy-makers who work at the intersection of economic development and environmental change and sustainability.
This project will contribute to teaching, training, and learning in several ways. Learning opportunities for students at both the University of North Carolina at Wilmington (UNC-W) and East Carolina University (ECU) and the University of the West Indies (UWI) at Mona will be enhanced through the development of two courses. One of these will be a summer field course for UNC-W and ECU students focused on environmental change and sustainable development, which will be coordinated with the curricular offerings at UWI. The second will be a collaborative, online course on environmental change, open to students on all three campuses, and run through an innovative 'global classroom' videoconference facility. The installation of instruments for the environmental data collection will enhance the infrastructure for research in Jamaica and provide important opportunities for long-term monitoring and capacity building. Finally, the proposed project has significant potential benefits to society. Results from this work will be shared with the Jamaican research community and policy-makers, who have stressed to us the importance of developing a better understanding of regional environmental conditions. Insights from this study can help to inform assessments of vulnerability and resilience for other small island developing states in the Caribbean, and can assist in the development of adaptation strategies in a region that is expected to experience disruptions from both environmental change and global economic restructuring in the coming years.
