In this paper is studied the case of Trentino, an Italian Alpine region where alternative food chains are quickly developing, by comparing the development of alternative markets in this context with other Italian peri-urban areas. The mountain environment makes it very difficult for farms to standardize their products according to the requirement of the large retailers. Through alternative food chains, the typicality of products and the savoir faire of the farmers – representing the two main factors of products’ added value – are endorsed and more easily communicated to the market.
La lutte contre la malnutrition constitue un enjeu majeur de développement, longtemps négligé. C’est pourquoi la France, aux côtés de nombreux autres bailleurs, a pris des engagements internationaux pour lutter contre la malnutrition. La sous-nutrition ne concerne pas seulement les situations d’urgence et la malnutrition relève d’un ensemble de facteurs multisectoriels, très liés à un territoire donné. Il paraissait donc nécessaire à l’Agence Française de Développement de bien ancrer la lutte contre la malnutrition dans la réalité opérationnelle.
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) development strategy in Chinese rural areas is an indispensable part of national development strategies. This paper reviews the ICT framework in agriculture and rural areas launched by the Department of Agriculture in China. It compares the rural ICT policies and strategies between China and the European Union (EU). The ICT development strategy framework is analyzed based on the situation in Chinese rural area and the experiences of the EU. Some lessons and suggestions are provided
One option for practically applying innovation systems thinking involves the establishment of innovation platforms (IPs). Such platforms are designed to bring together a variety of different stakeholders to exchange knowledge and resources and take action to solve common problems. Yet relatively little is known about how IPs operate in practice, particularly how power dynamics influence platform processes.This paper focuses on a research-for-development project in the Ethiopian highlands which established three IPs for improved natural resource management.
Breeding programs for local breeds kept by small farmers in developing countries are a major challenge. Animal recording of pedigree and performance under conditions of subsistence livestock farming is remain difficult or next to impossible. This means that standard genetic evaluations, as well as selection and planning of mating based on estimates of the animals' genotypes, cannot be done at any level in the population of the target breed or genetic group.
The rapid growth of mobile phones in Ghana has opened up the possibility of delivering timely and useful weather and market information to farmers at costs lower than traditional agricultural extension services. In this paper, we assess the usefulness, constraints, and factors likely to influence farmers’ decisions to patronize mobile phone-based weather and market information. The study rely on primary data from 310 farmers in the Upper West Region, an understudied part of Ghana.
This report describes the 2012 NAIS Assessment was piloted in 4 countries: Botswana, Ghana, Kenya and Zambia. Data were collected through a survey questionnaire, open-ended interview questions, and data mining of secondary sources. A team led by a national coordinator took charge of data collection from various partner organizations in each country.
Water is a vital and scarce resource in agriculture and its optimal management is emerging as a key challenge. This paper presents an automated irrigation system to reduce water utilization in agriculture by combining the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing and optimization tools. The automated irrigation system deploys low cost sensors to sense variables of interest such as soil moisture, pH, soil type, and weather conditions. The data is stored in Thingspeak cloud service for monitoring and data-storage.
The research programme URBAL (Urban-driven Innovations for Sustainable Food Systems) (2018–2020), funded by Agropolis Fondation (France), Fondation Daniel & Nina Carasso (France/Spain), and Fundazione Cariplo (Italy), and coordinated by CIRAD (France) and the Laurier Center for Sustainable Food Systems at Wilfrid Laurier University (Canada), seeks to build and test a participatory methodology to identify and map the impact pathways of urban-driven innovations on all the dimensions of food systems sustainability.
As a party to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBO), there is a need for Malaysia to implement its commitment to CBO's objectives on conserving biological diversity, sustainable utilisation of natural resources, and fair and equitable benefit sharing deriving from the use of genetic resources. Under the Ninth Malaysia Plan (RMK9), the Ministry of Natural Resources & Environment has allocated a special grant to Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM) to establish a database on forest related traditional knowledge of the Orang Asli in Peninsular Malaysia.