Ola T Westengen
Biographic Data
| ID | 88450 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ola T Westengen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ola T |
| FAMILY NAME | Westengen |
| SIGNATURE | WESTENGEN O T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Norwegian University of Life Sciences |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6481-5178 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 60 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
The dynamics of crop diversity and seed use in the context of recurrent climate shocks and poverty: Seasonal panel data evidence from rural Uganda
Contribution of Community Seed Banks to farmer seed systems and food security in Northern and Central Malawi
From the Wild to the Market: The Trade of Edible Plants in Guinea-Bissau
Wild edible plants are important for the livelihoods of both rural and urban people in West Africa, but little is known about their trade networks. This study identifies, quantifies, and characterizes the local trade of wild edible plants in northern Guinea-Bissau to better understand the linkages between wild edible plants, local markets, and livelihoods, and to evaluate the sector’s ecological and economic sustainability. Interviews with 331 ma…
“People Gathered by Sorghum”: Cultural Practices and sorghum Diversity in Northern Ethiopia
Sorghum is an important crop in the livelihoods of Kunama and Tigrayan farmers in Northern Ethiopia and we present here a study of what factors have shaped the genetic diversity of the varieties cultivated in neighboring communities of the two ethnolinguistic groups. Using a combination of methods from crop science and cultural anthropology, we investigate patterns of historical and contemporary relationships between crop genetic diversity and cu…
The history of hunger: Counting calories to make global food security legible
The Prevalence of Undernourishment (PoU) is one of the most central indicators informing the international development agenda. Reported annually by the Rome-based UN agencies in their flagship report The State of Food Insecurity in the World, it is generally considered an authoritative statistic on world hunger. Based on archival research, this article chronicles and analyzes the development of its statistical model and the political and historic…
Evolution of farm-level crop diversification and response to rainfall shocks in smallholder farming: Evidence from Malawi and Tanzania
This study investigates how exposure to short and long-term measures of rainfall shocks and past crop diversification decisions influence subsequent diversification in Malawi and Tanzania. We use balanced household panel data combined with corresponding historical monthly weather data to achieve our aim. Crop diversification is studied as a state-contingent risky investment decision that households make before the state of nature is revealed. We …
Measuring the end of hunger: Knowledge politics in the selection of SDG food security indicators
Ending world hunger remains one of the central global challenges, but the question of how to measure and define the problem is politically charged. This article chronicles and analyses the indicator selection process for SDG 2.1, focusing in particular on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) indicator. Despite alleged efforts to separate political and technical aspects in the indicator selection process we find that they were entangled fro…
Whose demand?” The co-construction of markets, demand and gender in development-oriented crop breeding
Advancing women’s empowerment and gender equality in agriculture is a recognised development goal, also within crop breeding. Increasingly, breeding teams are expected to use ‘market-based’ approaches to design more ‘demand-led’ and ‘gender-responsive’ crop varieties. Based on an institutional ethnography that includes high-profile development-oriented breeding initiatives, we unpack these terms using perspectives from political agronomy and femi…
Crops in crises: Shocks shape smallholders' diversification in rural Ethiopia
Crop diversity plays a central role in smallholder farmers' ability to cope with and adapt to shocks. Shifting crop varieties and diversifying the crop portfolio are common risk reduction strategies. This paper addresses the influence of covariate climate shocks and idiosyncratic socioeconomic shocks on crop variety use and crop species diversification by smallholder farmers using nationwide balanced panel data (2011/12, 2013/14, & 2015/16) from …
Cultural Effects on Sorghum Varieties Grown, Traits Preferred, and Seed Management Practices in Northern Ethiopia
Cultural Effects on Sorghum Varieties Grown, Traits Preferred, and Seed Management Practices in Northern Ethiopia. Agrobiodiversity is fundamentally shaped by farmers’ preferences and management practices, and these are again shaped by the farmers’ social and cultural background. This study investigates variety preferences and seed management practices in the crop sorghum ( Sorghum bicolor ) among the Kunama and the Tigrayan ethnolinguistic group…
The imperial maize assemblage: Maize dialectics in Malawi and India
The 'grain hypothesis', postulated by James Scott, suggests that cereals are 'political crops' intrinsic to state formation. Drawing the classical agrarian political economy of maize into dialogue with recent more-than-human political ecology, we explore the grain hypothesis with empirical material from present day Malawi and India. The evolution and ecology of the maize plant, we argue, has made it a strong agent of history, one that has enabled…
The political ecology of crops: From seed to state and capital
Taking measure of an escape crop: Cassava relationality in a contemporary quilombo-remnant community
Cassava (Manihot esculenta) is among the most important crops in Brazil, not only due to its widespread cultivation and consumption, but also its history in the country. This root has been important both to the colonial project and the resistance to it, particularly in the quilombo-communities. Such sites of resistance have served as paradigmatic examples of ‘escape agriculture’ in the work of James Scott (2009), who highlights the role roots pla…
A climate for commerce: The political agronomy of conservation agriculture in Zambia
The State of Food Security: From Availability, Access and Rights to Food Systems Approaches
Food security is a concept that features high on the development agenda. The meaning of the concept has evolved considerably over its 40 years' history in policy, practice and scholarly debate. Our focus in this essay is on three sets of interrelated issues. First, we critically examine the academic food security discourse from a historical perspective – from an initial focus on resource scarcity and availability to a multifaceted social framing …
Taking measure of an escape crop: Cassava relationality in a contemporary quilombo-remnant community
Cassava (Manihot esculenta) is among the most important crops in Brazil, not only due to its widespread cultivation and consumption, but also its history in the country. This root has been important both to the colonial project and the resistance to it, particularly in the quilombo-communities. Such sites of resistance have served as paradigmatic examples of ‘escape agriculture’ in the work of James Scott (2009), who highlights the role roots pla…
Evolution of farm-level crop diversification and response to rainfall shocks in smallholder farming: Evidence from Malawi and Tanzania
This study investigates how exposure to short and long-term measures of rainfall shocks and past crop diversification decisions influence subsequent diversification in Malawi and Tanzania. We use balanced household panel data combined with corresponding historical monthly weather data to achieve our aim. Crop diversification is studied as a state-contingent risky investment decision that households make before the state of nature is revealed. We …
Crops in crises: Shocks shape smallholders' diversification in rural Ethiopia
Crop diversity plays a central role in smallholder farmers' ability to cope with and adapt to shocks. Shifting crop varieties and diversifying the crop portfolio are common risk reduction strategies. This paper addresses the influence of covariate climate shocks and idiosyncratic socioeconomic shocks on crop variety use and crop species diversification by smallholder farmers using nationwide balanced panel data (2011/12, 2013/14, & 2015/16) from …
The imperial maize assemblage: Maize dialectics in Malawi and India
The 'grain hypothesis', postulated by James Scott, suggests that cereals are 'political crops' intrinsic to state formation. Drawing the classical agrarian political economy of maize into dialogue with recent more-than-human political ecology, we explore the grain hypothesis with empirical material from present day Malawi and India. The evolution and ecology of the maize plant, we argue, has made it a strong agent of history, one that has enabled…
The political ecology of crops: From seed to state and capital
The State of Food Security: From Availability, Access and Rights to Food Systems Approaches
Food security is a concept that features high on the development agenda. The meaning of the concept has evolved considerably over its 40 years' history in policy, practice and scholarly debate. Our focus in this essay is on three sets of interrelated issues. First, we critically examine the academic food security discourse from a historical perspective – from an initial focus on resource scarcity and availability to a multifaceted social framing …
A climate for commerce: The political agronomy of conservation agriculture in Zambia
Measuring the end of hunger: Knowledge politics in the selection of SDG food security indicators
Ending world hunger remains one of the central global challenges, but the question of how to measure and define the problem is politically charged. This article chronicles and analyses the indicator selection process for SDG 2.1, focusing in particular on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) indicator. Despite alleged efforts to separate political and technical aspects in the indicator selection process we find that they were entangled fro…
From the Wild to the Market: The Trade of Edible Plants in Guinea-Bissau
Wild edible plants are important for the livelihoods of both rural and urban people in West Africa, but little is known about their trade networks. This study identifies, quantifies, and characterizes the local trade of wild edible plants in northern Guinea-Bissau to better understand the linkages between wild edible plants, local markets, and livelihoods, and to evaluate the sector’s ecological and economic sustainability. Interviews with 331 ma…
Cultural Effects on Sorghum Varieties Grown, Traits Preferred, and Seed Management Practices in Northern Ethiopia
Cultural Effects on Sorghum Varieties Grown, Traits Preferred, and Seed Management Practices in Northern Ethiopia. Agrobiodiversity is fundamentally shaped by farmers’ preferences and management practices, and these are again shaped by the farmers’ social and cultural background. This study investigates variety preferences and seed management practices in the crop sorghum ( Sorghum bicolor ) among the Kunama and the Tigrayan ethnolinguistic group…
The State of Food Security: From Availability, Access and Rights to Food Systems Approaches
Food security is a concept that features high on the development agenda. The meaning of the concept has evolved considerably over its 40 years' history in policy, practice and scholarly debate. Our focus in this essay is on three sets of interrelated issues. First, we critically examine the academic food security discourse from a historical perspective – from an initial focus on resource scarcity and availability to a multifaceted social framing …
A climate for commerce: The political agronomy of conservation agriculture in Zambia
The political ecology of crops: From seed to state and capital
Taking measure of an escape crop: Cassava relationality in a contemporary quilombo-remnant community
Cassava (Manihot esculenta) is among the most important crops in Brazil, not only due to its widespread cultivation and consumption, but also its history in the country. This root has been important both to the colonial project and the resistance to it, particularly in the quilombo-communities. Such sites of resistance have served as paradigmatic examples of ‘escape agriculture’ in the work of James Scott (2009), who highlights the role roots pla…
Whose demand?” The co-construction of markets, demand and gender in development-oriented crop breeding
Advancing women’s empowerment and gender equality in agriculture is a recognised development goal, also within crop breeding. Increasingly, breeding teams are expected to use ‘market-based’ approaches to design more ‘demand-led’ and ‘gender-responsive’ crop varieties. Based on an institutional ethnography that includes high-profile development-oriented breeding initiatives, we unpack these terms using perspectives from political agronomy and femi…
Crops in crises: Shocks shape smallholders' diversification in rural Ethiopia
Crop diversity plays a central role in smallholder farmers' ability to cope with and adapt to shocks. Shifting crop varieties and diversifying the crop portfolio are common risk reduction strategies. This paper addresses the influence of covariate climate shocks and idiosyncratic socioeconomic shocks on crop variety use and crop species diversification by smallholder farmers using nationwide balanced panel data (2011/12, 2013/14, & 2015/16) from …
Cultural Effects on Sorghum Varieties Grown, Traits Preferred, and Seed Management Practices in Northern Ethiopia
Cultural Effects on Sorghum Varieties Grown, Traits Preferred, and Seed Management Practices in Northern Ethiopia. Agrobiodiversity is fundamentally shaped by farmers’ preferences and management practices, and these are again shaped by the farmers’ social and cultural background. This study investigates variety preferences and seed management practices in the crop sorghum ( Sorghum bicolor ) among the Kunama and the Tigrayan ethnolinguistic group…
The imperial maize assemblage: Maize dialectics in Malawi and India
The 'grain hypothesis', postulated by James Scott, suggests that cereals are 'political crops' intrinsic to state formation. Drawing the classical agrarian political economy of maize into dialogue with recent more-than-human political ecology, we explore the grain hypothesis with empirical material from present day Malawi and India. The evolution and ecology of the maize plant, we argue, has made it a strong agent of history, one that has enabled…
“People Gathered by Sorghum”: Cultural Practices and sorghum Diversity in Northern Ethiopia
Sorghum is an important crop in the livelihoods of Kunama and Tigrayan farmers in Northern Ethiopia and we present here a study of what factors have shaped the genetic diversity of the varieties cultivated in neighboring communities of the two ethnolinguistic groups. Using a combination of methods from crop science and cultural anthropology, we investigate patterns of historical and contemporary relationships between crop genetic diversity and cu…
The history of hunger: Counting calories to make global food security legible
The Prevalence of Undernourishment (PoU) is one of the most central indicators informing the international development agenda. Reported annually by the Rome-based UN agencies in their flagship report The State of Food Insecurity in the World, it is generally considered an authoritative statistic on world hunger. Based on archival research, this article chronicles and analyzes the development of its statistical model and the political and historic…
Evolution of farm-level crop diversification and response to rainfall shocks in smallholder farming: Evidence from Malawi and Tanzania
This study investigates how exposure to short and long-term measures of rainfall shocks and past crop diversification decisions influence subsequent diversification in Malawi and Tanzania. We use balanced household panel data combined with corresponding historical monthly weather data to achieve our aim. Crop diversification is studied as a state-contingent risky investment decision that households make before the state of nature is revealed. We …
Measuring the end of hunger: Knowledge politics in the selection of SDG food security indicators
Ending world hunger remains one of the central global challenges, but the question of how to measure and define the problem is politically charged. This article chronicles and analyses the indicator selection process for SDG 2.1, focusing in particular on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) indicator. Despite alleged efforts to separate political and technical aspects in the indicator selection process we find that they were entangled fro…
From the Wild to the Market: The Trade of Edible Plants in Guinea-Bissau
Wild edible plants are important for the livelihoods of both rural and urban people in West Africa, but little is known about their trade networks. This study identifies, quantifies, and characterizes the local trade of wild edible plants in northern Guinea-Bissau to better understand the linkages between wild edible plants, local markets, and livelihoods, and to evaluate the sector’s ecological and economic sustainability. Interviews with 331 ma…
The dynamics of crop diversity and seed use in the context of recurrent climate shocks and poverty: Seasonal panel data evidence from rural Uganda
Contribution of Community Seed Banks to farmer seed systems and food security in Northern and Central Malawi
Geography (12 works) · Agriculture (11 works) · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development (10 works) · Ecology (10 works) · Economics (10 works) · Biology (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Agricultural Innovations and Practices (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Sociology (6 works)