Person: Hellin, J.
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Hellin
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Hellin, J.
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0000-0002-2686-8065 37 results
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- Mitigating agriculture's contribution to air pollution in India(Elsevier, 2021) Hellin, J.; Mcdonald, A.; Jat, M.L.; Shyamsundar, P.; Singh, A.K.
Publication - India’s Poultry Revolution: implications for its Sustenance and the Global Poultry Trade(IFAMA, 2015) Hellin, J.; Krishna, V.; Erenstein, O.; Boeber, C.
Publication - Maize landraces and adaptation to climate change in Mexico(Taylor & Francis, 2014) Hellin, J.; Bellon, M.; Hearne, S.
Publication - Climate change and food security in the developing world: potential of maize and wheat research to expand options for adaptation and mitigation(Academic Journals, 2012) Hellin, J.; Shiferaw, B.; Cairns, J.E.; Reynolds, M.P.; Ortiz-Monasterio, I.; Banziger, M.; Sonder, K.; La Rovere, R.
Publication - Knowledge management for innovation in agri-food systems: a conceptual framework(Taylor and Francis, 2023) Gardeazabal, A.; Lunt, T.; Jahn, M.; Verhulst, N.; Hellin, J.; Govaerts, B.
Publication - Trans-disciplinary responses to climate change: lessons from rice-based systems in Asia(MDPI, 2020) Hellin, J.; Balié, J.; Fisher, E.; Kohli, A.; Connor, M.; Sudhir-Yadav; Kumar, V.; Krupnik, T.J.; Sander, B.O.; Cobb, J.N.; Nelson, K.; Setiyono, T.; Puskur, R.; Chivenge, P.; Gummert, M.
Publication - A guide to scaling soil and water conservation in the Western Highlands of Guatemala(CIMMYT, 2019) Hellin, J.; Lopez-Ridaura, S.; Sonder, K.; Camacho Villa, T.C.; Gardeazabal, A.Central America has long-been recognized as a region prone to soil and land degradation (e.g., Scherr and Yadav (1996:21). The main cause of this soil degradation is twofold: much of Central America consists of steep hillsides and unequal land distribution that has forced many resource-poor farmers to farm these marginal areas (Hellin et al. 2017). The encroachment onto hillsides represents a move to an area of lower resilience (resistance to degradation) and higher sensitivity (degree to which soils degrade when subjected to degradation processes). Sloping lands are very susceptible to rapid soil degradation caused by physical, chemical and biological processes (Stocking, 1995). Central America’s mountains and heavy rainfall, as well as poor land management, make much of the region particularly vulnerable to soil degradation. In addition, the widespread conversion of forests to agriculture has created serious soil erosion problems in the region. In response, there are growing efforts directed at the promotion of soil and water conservation (SWC) technologies (Hellin and Schrader, 2003). Climate change is likely to lead to increased water scarcity in the coming decades (Lobell et al. 2008) and to changes in precipitation patterns. This will lead to more short-term crop failures and long-term production declines. Farmers have a long record of adapting to the impacts of climate variability, but predicted climate change represents an enormous challenge that will test farmers’ ability to adapt and improve their livelihoods (Adger et al. 2007). The fifth assessment report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for Central and South America concludes that farmers in Central America are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. An increasing body of scientific evidence points to the negative impacts on Central American agriculture of changing temperature and rainfall patterns. Lobell et al. (2008) looked at the combined outputs of 20 of the latest GCM models for 2030 under three different emission scenarios and reported median precipitation declines of approximately -5% for Central America in both the winter (DecemberFebruary) and summer (June-August) seasons. This is of concern due to the fact that smallholder farming in Central America is predominantly rainfed. There is a need to work with farmers to develop climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies and to increase the countries’ capacity to adapt to climate change. Thus, climate smart agricultural practices have often been promoted. These are practices that contribute to: (1) increasing global food security; (2) enhancing farmers’ ability to adapt to a changing climate; and (3) mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Many of these same practices were promoted in the 1980s and 1990s under the guise of SWC, but farmer non-adoption was far too common. Much can be learned from these past endeavors to ensure that current efforts are better designed, implemented and adopted. This manual suggests new approaches to SWC in Central America and describes tools and strategies to achieve them. The new approaches include: exploring other soil conservation options besides erosion control, examining the spatial context, examining farming systems as a whole, encouraging active farmer participation, and monitoring and evaluating the effects of the adopted technologies. The Buena Milpa project in Guatemala is presented as a case study that used these approaches, described in three separate boxes showing the scaling of soil conservation practices in the study area, its agricultural innovation system, and its monitoring and evaluation strategies.
Publication - Food security and agriculture in the Western Highlands of Guatemala(Springer, 2019) Lopez-Ridaura, S.; Barba-Escoto, L.; Reyna, C.; Hellin, J.; Gerard, B.; Wijk, M. vanFood security is a major challenge in Guatemala, one of the poorest countries in the world. Food insecurity is concentrated in the Western Highlands of Guatemala (WHG) where indigenous communities have been the main victims of social, political and economic marginalization. In this study we characterize the diversity of farming households in the WHG, identify the main sources of food for different types of farm households and assess their food security status through a simple, yet robust, potential food availability indicator. Based on a large and rich dataset of nearly 5000 farm households, our results show the diversity of farming systems in the region, dominated by maize and coffee production, as well as the large differences in their potential food availability. In our model, 52% of farm households in the WHG did not have the means to attain sufficient energy from their agricultural activities. In general, diversified maize-based, coffee-based and specialized coffee farm households had larger proportions of potentially food secure households with 60%, 83% and 74% food secure households, respectively. This contrasted with farm households specialized in maize production and resource-constrained households where there were a greater proportion of households were food insecure. The analytical framework presented here, combining a typology of farm households and their livelihoods with the analysis of their food security status, provides a useful approach for better targeting development interventions towards combating hunger, poverty and malnutrition.
Publication - Increasing social-ecological resilience within small-scale agriculture in conflict-affected Guatemala(Resilience Alliance, 2018) Hellin, J.; Ratner, B.D.; Meinzen-Dick, R.; Lopez-Ridaura, S.Climate change scenarios suggest largely detrimental impacts on agricultural production from a deterioration of renewable natural resources. Over the last 15 years, a new field of research has focused on the interactions between climate and conflict risk, particularly as it relates to competition over natural resources and livelihoods. Within this field, there has been less attention to the potential for resource competition to be managed in ways that yield greater cooperation, local adaptation capacity, social-ecological resilience, and conflict mitigation or prevention. The challenge of increasing social-ecological resilience in small-scale agriculture is particularly acute in the socioeconomically and agroecologically marginalized Western Highlands of Guatemala. Not only is climate change a threat to agriculture in this region, but adaptation strategies are challenged by the context of a society torn apart by decades of violent conflict. Indeed, the largely indigenous population in the Western Highlands has suffered widespread discrimination for centuries. The armed conflict has left a legacy of a deeply divided society, with communities often suspicious of outsider interventions and in many cases with neighbors pitted against each other. We use the example of the Buena Milpa agricultural development project to demonstrate how grassroots approaches to collective action, conflict prevention, and social-ecological resilience, linking local stakeholder dynamics to the broader institutional and governance context, can bear fruit amidst postconflict development challenges. Examples of microwatershed management and conservation of local maize varieties illustrate opportunities to foster community-level climate adaptation strategies within small-scale farming systems even in deeply divided societies.
Publication - Index insurance and climate risk management: addressing social equity(Wiley, 2019) Fisher, E.; Hellin, J.; Greatrex, H.; Jensen, N.Fair distribution of benefits from index insurance matters. Lack of attention to social equity can reinforce inequalities and undermine the potential index insurance holds as a tool for climate risk management that is also pro‐poor. The aims of this article are to: (a) examine social equity concerns raised by index insurance in the context of climate risk management, (b) consider how greater attention can be paid to social equity in index insurance initiatives, and (c) reflect on the policy challenges raised by taking social equity into account as a mechanism for climate risk reduction. The article draws on learning from the CGIAR's Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and presents the cases of the Index Based Livelihoods Insurance (IBLI) and Agriculture and Climate Risk Enterprise Ltd. (ACRE) in East Africa. It proposes a framework for unpacking social equity related to equitable access, procedures, representation and distribution within index insurance schemes. The framework facilitates identification of opportunities for building outcomes that are more equitable, with greater potential for inclusion and fairer distribution of benefits related to index insurance. The article argues that systematically addressing social equity raises hard policy choices for index insurance initiatives without straightforward solutions. Attention to how benefits and burdens of index insurance are distributed, suggests the unpalatable truth for development policy that the poorest members of rural society can be excluded. Nevertheless, a focus on social equity—facilitated by the framework—opens up opportunities to ensure index insurance is linked to more socially just climate risk management. At the very least, it may prevent index insurance from generating greater inequality. Taking social equity into account, thus, shifts the focus from agricultural systems in transition per se to systems with potential to incorporate societal transformation through distributive justice.
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