Bioversity International, CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas, Turrialba, Costa Rica.
Horticultural Economics, Humboldt University Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
PLoS One. 2019 Feb 25;14(2):e0212926. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0212926. eCollection 2019.
Agricultural development must integrate multiple objectives at the same time, including food security, income, and environmental sustainability. To help achieve these objectives, development practitioners need to prioritize concrete livelihood practices to promote to rural households. But trade-offs between objectives can lead to dilemmas in selecting practices. In addition, heterogeneity among farming households requires targeting different strategies to different types of households. Existing diversity of household resources and activities, however, may also bear solutions. We explored a new, empirical research method that identifies promising options for multi-objective development by focusing on existing cases of strong multi-dimensional household performance. The "Positive Deviance" approach signifies identifying locally viable livelihood practices from diverse households that achieve stronger performance than comparable households in the same area. These practices are promising for other local households in comparable resource contexts. The approach has been used in other domains, such as child nutrition, but has not yet been fully implemented for agricultural development with a focus on the simultaneous achievement of multiple objectives. To test our adapted version of the Positive Deviance approach, we used a quantitative survey of over 500 rural households in South-Eastern Tanzania. We identified 54 households with outstanding relative performance regarding five key development dimensions (food security, income, nutrition, environmental sustainability, and social equity). We found that, compared to other households with similar resource levels, these "positive deviants" performed strongest for food security, but only slightly better for social equity. We then re-visited a diverse sub-sample for qualitative interviews, and identified 14 uncommon, "deviant" practices that plausibly contributed to the households' superior outcomes. We illustrate how these practices can inform specific recommendations of practices for other local households in comparable resource contexts. The study demonstrates how, with the Positive Deviance approach, empirical observations of individual, outstanding households can inform discussions about locally viable agricultural development solutions in diverse household context.
农业发展必须同时兼顾多个目标，包括粮食安全、收入和环境可持续性。为了帮助实现这些目标，发展实践者需要优先考虑具体的生计实践，以向农村家庭推广。但是，目标之间的权衡取舍可能会导致在选择实践时陷入困境。此外，农户之间的异质性要求针对不同类型的农户采取不同的策略。然而，现有家庭资源和活动的多样性也可能提供解决方案。我们探索了一种新的实证研究方法，通过关注多维家庭表现强劲的现有案例，确定多目标发展的有前途的选择。“正向偏离”方法意味着从不同家庭中识别在同一地区具有可比家庭表现更强的地方可行生计实践。这些实践对于可比资源环境中的其他当地家庭具有很大的推广意义。该方法已在其他领域（如儿童营养）中使用，但尚未在以同时实现多个目标为重点的农业发展中得到充分实施。为了测试我们对“正向偏离”方法的适应性版本，我们对坦桑尼亚东南部的 500 多个农村家庭进行了一项定量调查。我们确定了 54 户家庭在五个关键发展维度（粮食安全、收入、营养、环境可持续性和社会公平）方面表现出色。我们发现，与资源水平相似的其他家庭相比，这些“正向偏离者”在粮食安全方面表现最强，但在社会公平方面仅略好一些。然后，我们对一个多样化的子样本进行了定性访谈，并确定了 14 种不常见的“偏离”做法，这些做法可能对家庭的卓越成果做出了贡献。我们举例说明了这些做法如何为可比资源环境中的其他当地家庭提供具体的实践建议。该研究表明，通过“正向偏离”方法，对个体突出家庭的实证观察如何为在多样化家庭背景下讨论可行的地方农业发展解决方案提供信息。
