This paper comparatively analyzes the structure of agricultural policy development networks that connect organizations working on agricultural development, climate change and food security in fourteen smallholder farming communities across East Africa, West Africa and South Asia.
The aim of this paper is to propose an innovative operational framework that couples life cycle assessment (LCA) and a participatory approach to overcome these issues. The first step was to conduct a progressive participatory diagnosis of the socio-ecological structure of the rural territory and to characterise the main cropping systems. The results of the diagnosis and other data were progressively triangulated, validated and consolidated with the stakeholders at the territorial level. The paper discusses the quality and validity of data obtained using a participatory approach.
The framework is designed to assess resilience to specific challenges (specified resilience) as well as a farming system's capacity to deal with the unknown, uncertainty and surprise (general resilience). The framework provides a heuristic to analyze system properties, challenges (shocks, long-term stresses), indicators to measure the performance of system functions, resilience capacities and resilience-enhancing attributes. Capacities and attributes refer to adaptive cycle processes of agricultural practices, farm demographics, governance and risk management.
During May 2010 the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) hosted two events related to knowledge management (KM): The Knowledge Share Fair for Latin America and the Caribbean, funded by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and a regional meeting of the Knowledge Management for Development (KM4Dev) community. The Fair was attended by 200 professionals from more than 70 organizations and 18 countries and showcased more than 40 experiences related to KM in agriculture, development and food security.
The European small ruminants (i.e. sheep and goats) farming sector (ESRS) provides economic, social and environmental benefits to society, but is also one of the most vulnerable livestock sectors in Europe. This sector has diverse livestock species, breeds, production systems and products, which makes difficult to have a clear vision of its challenges through using conventional analyses. A multi-stakeholder and multi-step approach, including 90 surveys, was used to identify and assess the main challenges for the sustainability of the ESRS to prioritize actions.
Mountain agricultural systems (MASs) are multifunctional and multidimensional sociocultural systems. They are constantly influenced by many factors whose intensity and impacts are unpredictable. The recent Hindu Kush–Himalayan Assessment Report highlighted the need to integrate mountain perspectives into governance decisions on sustaining resources in the Hindu Kush–Himalayan region, emphasizing the importance of sustainable MASs.
Local extension agents can benefit from the simple procedures in developing irrigation calendars for other irrigated crops. This study gives important lesson for local and regional decision makers, on their endeavour to increase the productivity of small scale irrigated agriculture. This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the study area, practical irrigation schedule development method, alternative irrigation schedules and data collection and analysis methods. Section 3 presents the results.
The Colombian Ministry of Agriculture Colombia, an international research center and a national farmers’ organization developed a data-driven agricultural program that: (i) compiles information from multiple sources; (ii) interprets that data; and (iii) presents the knowledge to farmers through the local advisory services. Data was collected from multiple sources, including small-scale farmers. Machine learning algorithms combined with expert opinion defined how variation in weather, soils and management practices interact and affect maize yield of small-scale farmers.
El aceite de palma es estigmatizado en los mercados mundiales debido a problemas derivados de prácticas de establecimiento que han ocasionado la devastación de grandes extensiones de bosques tropicales en el sudeste de Asia. Este estigma es especialmente evidente en países desarrollados, en donde los consumidores exigen productos respetuosos del medio ambiente. Dicha situación impuso la necesidad de certificar si el aceite de palma que llega a los mercados de altos ingresos proviene de plantaciones que llevan a cabo prácticas sostenibles.
In light of the discussion on ‘best-fit' in pluralistic advisory systems, this article aims to present and discuss challenges for advisory services in serving various types of farmers when they seek and acquire farm business advice.The empirical basis is data derived from four workshops, five interviews with staff from advisory organizations, and interviews with 11 farmers.Emerging configurations serve different types of farmers,that is, private advisors serve different clients in different ways; these could be considered subsystems within the overall advisory system.