This article therefore analyses whether agricultural advisors representing companies that do not sell pesticides (independent advisors) are more likely to recommend reduced pesticide use than agricultural advisors who represent companies with an economic interest in selling pesticides (supplier-affiliated advisors). However, we would not necessarily expect a crude relationship between economic incentive and higher pesticide recommendations. After all, advisors have to justify their recommendations to their customers, the farmers.
The objective of the study was to identify a viable trade-off between low data requirements and useful household-specific prioritizations of advisory messages. At three sites in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania independently, we collected experimental preference rankings from smallholder farmers for receiving information about different agricultural and livelihood practices. At each site, was identified socio-economic household variables that improved model-based predictions of individual farmers’ information preferences.
In this paper is presented insights from a co-design process with private farm advisers and ask: What enables farm advisers to engage with digital innovation? And, how can digital innovation be supported and practiced in smart farming contexts? Digital innovation presents challenges for farmers and advisers due to the new relationships, skills, arrangements, techniques and devices required to realise value for farm production and profitability from digital tools and services.
Situate within new institutionalism literature, this paper builds a complex system model of institutional analysis for adaptive governance. This model combines Young’s institutional environmental analysis method, elements of subsequent environmental governance projects models, and ideas of multiple institutional levels and drivers. By applying the model, policy instruments are identified that build agricultural producer livelihoods improving their adaptive capacity to respond to climate change and drought.
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.
This study was part of a larger project that applied an integrated framework for combined nutritional, food safety and value chain analysis to assess the dairy value chain in two regions of Tanzania, namely Morogoro and Tanga. Here, we report on the use of participatory rural appraisals (PRAs) with producers and consumers to investigate seasonality, constraints and opportunities in cow milk production and consumption in ten villages in Tanzania and describe attitudes and practices surrounding milk quality and safety.
This article summarizes current research on public entrepreneurship and presents a detailed case study of a successful entrepreneurial change in a public sector organization. A five-step change process used to enhance entrepreneurial behaviors was implemented in a public sector organization and the qualitative and quantitative results demonstrated substantial performance improvements over 4 years (i.e., quantitative performance in some areas was more than 10 times greater).
This methodological framework is based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and multi-criteria assessment methods. It integrates CSA-related issues through the definition of Principles, Criteria and Indicators, and involves farmers in the assessment of the effects of CSA practices. To reflect the complexity of farming systems, the method proposes a dual level of analysis: the farm and the main cash crop/livestock production system. After creating a typology of the farming systems, the initial situation is compared to the situation after the introduction of a CSA practice.
This study explores the properties of innovation systems and their contribution to increased eco-efficiency in agriculture. Using aggregate data and econometric methods, the eco-efficiency of 79 countries was computed and a range of factors relating to research, extension, business and policy was examined. Despite data limitations, the analysis produced some interesting insights. For instance public research spending has a positive significant effect for emerging economies, while no statistically significant effect was found for foreign aid for research.
This study aims to explore how the Positive Deviance approach can be adapted to identify and prioritize rural development interventions for diverse farming households that pursue multiple objectives. We describe the adapted approach, consisting of three research steps, and a case study implementation in Tanzania. Based on this experience, the potential of the Positive Deviance approach for household-specific prioritization of multi-objective development opportunities is discussed