Search Results (13)

The adoption of innovations in rice cultivation is presumed to operate in a rational manner, wherein new technologies or practices that successfully increase productivity or resource efficiency are adopted by target farmers based on cost-benefit calculations. In contrast, this paper examines a case of a public initiative to promote the system of rice intensification (SRI), wherein farmers widely disadopted the technique despite reporting increasing yields and reduced water consumption. To explain this paradox, we use the concept of the socio-ecological niche to examine a range of social and institutional factors that shape farmers’ decision-making. These included (1) access to land and labour; (2) water management capacity; (3) the quality of networks for knowledge sharing. The research suggests that small variations in these categories among otherwise similar smallholder households can markedly shape farmers’ risk perceptions and tangible outcomes with SRI. The implication is that agricultural innovations should be judged within their wider social context rather than on narrow evaluations of agronomic efficiency. Importantly, this must involve greater feedback mechanisms from smallholders with a variety of socio-economic profiles to help shape the character of agricultural innovations and extension strategies. Full article

This study assesses the role of grazing reserves and transhumance corridor systems in enhancing sustainable transhumant pastoralism, drawing on the collaborative planning theory as its theoretical framework. This research aims to understand how these land management strategies impact the sustainability of pastoral practices from the viewpoints of various stakeholders, including farmers, herders, policymakers and local community leaders. This study adopted a mixed-method research design and an exploratory sequential mixed-method approach. Based on the research approach, this study first gathers data through key informant interviews and, subsequently, cross-sectional surveys of 254 crop farmers and 82 herders in the Sekyere Kumawu and Sekyere Afram Plains Districts of Ghana. The findings indicate mixed perceptions among stakeholders regarding delineating grazing reserves and transhumance corridor systems. While most farmers and herders recognise the potential benefits of delineating grazing reserves and corridors in reducing conflict and promoting environmental sustainability, concerns persist about land rights and the flexibility of resource use. While herders see these policies as providing secure grazing territories, farmers fear losing land for agricultural expansion. This study also notes a “paradox of pastoral land tenure”, where herders gain access to grazing resources but face mobility restrictions. Socioeconomic factors like age, education, experience, and association membership significantly influence stakeholders’ perceptions, particularly among herders directly dependent on these resources. These findings underline the complexities in policymaking for land use, emphasising the need for inclusive and well-informed approaches. Full article

Agricultural employment in advanced economies has been suggestively described as a “short and step” pyramid with only limited opportunities for workers to climb to higher positions, especially when they belong to the most vulnerable categories, such as migrants. The presence of poor jobs and living conditions for temporary agricultural workers reported by mass media, trade unions, NGOs, and international observers contrasts dramatically with the idea of a modern and thriving sector, as the Italian agricultural sector should be, and it represents a challenge for the social concerns that have been alongside environmental ones in the definition of sustainability since the Brundtland Report released in 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). Even mechanisation does not necessarily facilitate better working conditions. In fact, where the workforce is largely replaced by machineries, the remaining opportunities for paid workers are mainly for unskilled, physically demanding, and seasonal jobs. This has brought about the so-called “paradox of prosperity”, where the gap between farm and nonfarm workers in economically advanced countries has widened in terms of wages, benefits, and prospects for upward mobility. This in turn triggers a vicious circle with a structural lack of available workforce for the sector, which has been increasingly provided by migrants with very little bargaining power. On the other hand, the adoption of new technologies and digitalisation in agriculture is leading to an increasing demand for skilled workers, which often remains uncovered because of the low conditions offered. Against this background, the aim of our work is twofold. First, we characterise the role of the foreign workforce in relation to the structural changes in Italian agriculture and considering territorial differences. Second, we examine the main policy instruments to facilitate recruitment and tackle undeclared work and more specifically the Quality Agricultural Work Network (Rete del lavoro agricolo di qualità) launched in Italy in 2016 to tackle undeclared work and exploitative labour. We do so by conducting a literature review and semi-structured qualitative interviews with 16 farmers in Italy carried out in 2022 within the project Rural Social ACT funded by the Asylum, Migration, and Integration Fund (2021–2027). The results show that even though foreign workers are a key resource for agriculture in Italy, there remain severe recruitment issues and segregation in low-skilled and precarious jobs. Overall, it is necessary to improve the awareness of the key role of work in agriculture and to strengthen the effectiveness of tools to enhance the visibility of compliant farms. So far (January 2024), only 6600 farms have joined the Quality Agricultural Work Network, with an overall modest enthusiasm from the farmers interviewed about its current effectiveness. Other instruments are explored such as employee sharing contracts, and there clearly emerges a need for public support of professional training through the Common Agricultural Policy to improve both the bargaining power of foreign workers and the productivity of the sector. Full article

Excessively high levels of post-harvest loss often are a feature of agricultural systems dominated by small-holder farmers. However, this situation is something of a paradox, as technologies exist that have been shown in field demonstrations to substantially reduce post-harvest loss. What explains this paradox? Building on insights derived from the Rockefeller Foundation’s YieldWise Initiative, this article proposes that while reducing post-harvest loss generally does require technology adoption by small-holder farmers, market-driven supply chains are essential to the sustained use of those technologies. We illustrate this approach using in-depth interview data collected from the YieldWise participants belonging to the Iringa Hope Cooperative in Tanzania. Data on the benefits and challenges of such an approach are provided from the perspective of the small-holder farmer. In addition, we model the economic benefits associated with this approach. Full article

We explore the mechanisms of the attitude–behavior paradox and how multiple stakeholders strategize to compromise their attitudes and behaviors. Through an instrumental variable probit model, we examine the effect of income heterogeneity and social ties on the farmers’ attitude–behavior paradox for collective action. The empirical results demonstrate that weak and strong ties, income heterogeneity, interaction terms, education, community environment, and community rules negatively affect the paradox, whereas water stealing and water use conflicts positively affect it. After dividing the paradox into two forms, we find that weak ties, the interaction terms thereof, negatively affect the paradox for “having negative attitude but do have behavior”, while income heterogeneity negatively affects the paradox for “having positive attitude but no behavior”. We contribute to the understanding of mechanisms whereby economic incentives and social structures interplay in addressing the above paradox. We conclude by discussing the implications for policies to overcome this social dilemma. Full article

Epidemiological characteristics of human rabies in mainland China, 2005–2020 were analyzed to evaluate the effect of rabies control in China in recent years. A total of 24,319 human rabies cases were recorded in 2097 counties in 321 cities of 31 provinces in mainland China. Only 202 cases, located in 143 counties, were recorded in 2020, compared with 3305 cases in 992 counties in 2007; however, rabies was still relatively severe in Hunan Province even in 2020. Peak periods occurred in July–November; August was often the month with the most cases. Guizhou, Hunan, Guangdong, and Guangxi Provinces, in the central and southern regions, accounted for 50.0% of the cases in 2005–2020. Cases occurred almost exclusively in rural areas with 96.7% versus 3.3% in urban areas. A paradoxical relative expansion from southern, eastern, and central towards southwestern, northwestern, northern, and northeastern regions was observed along with the overall reduction of cases. Some regions witnessed complete elimination. The male-to-female ratio was 2.33:1; 66.8% of all cases were reported in the 0–10 (13.8%) and 41–70 (53.0%) age groups. Farmers (68.3%), followed by students (12.2), and diaspora children (6.5%) were most frequently involved. Our results provide objective information for the improvement of rabies prevention and control efforts. This will aid policymakers in China and elsewhere achieve the “Zero human deaths from dog-mediated rabies by 2030” global goal. Full article

Seasonal food scarcity during pre-harvest months is, widely, considered to be the principal manifestation of food insecurity, for some 600 million members of smallholder families, who rely on a variety of coping strategies. This paper analyses both the peasant-economy variables that explain the presence and intensity of seasonal food scarcity, and the coping strategies of 120 rural households in a microregion of southern Mexico. We, also, examine how supply networks for six archetypical foods of the peasant diet express robustness or vulnerability during seasons of abundance and scarcity. The method combines surveys, ethnographic fieldwork, statistical models and social network analyses. Results show that 74% of households experience at least one month of food scarcity annually, and 34% of shortages last more than six months. In total, 29% of affected households gather wild foods, and 14% use intense coping strategies, such as international migration, taking out rural loans, and parental food buffering. During scarce seasons, self-sufficiency networks for maize and beans contract, but still maintain the food supply of peasant households, while cash-consumption networks such as those of beef become accessible only to a small sector of economically differentiated households. In contrast to the vast majority of research, which simply reports the presence of seasonal food shortages and describes the coping strategies of rural households, this paper provides an in-depth analysis—based upon a novel methodological integration—of the socioeconomic, agrifood, and land tenure conditions that may determine why many peasant territories in the Global South face the “farmer–food-scarcity paradox”. Full article

The vegetable sector plays an important role in ensuring food security. Vegetable trade flows in Romania have become a major concern due to constant trade balance deficits despite the country’s agricultural potential. Taking into account the paradox between what could be considered an abundance of factor endowments and poor trade balance results, the objective of this research was to study the linkage between vegetable trade flows and chain competitiveness. Spatial panel econometric methods were used to study the impact of the international vegetable market on the demand in Romania, while the Balassa index and Porter’s diamond modelling techniques were used to study the competitiveness of the vegetable chain at both county and national levels. By applying the spatial regression method to the international trade and national production panel data, it was found that an increase in the quantity of vegetables imported into Romania would cause an even greater decrease in national vegetable production. The results show that Romanian vegetable production is highly and negatively influenced by the growing appetite for imports—therefore leading to a national dependence on the global vegetable chain. Porter’s diamond model results confirm that: (a) growing vegetables is profitable in Romania and the average profit margin is higher in this economic sector than in many others; (b) there is a lack of competitiveness caused by the post-communist excessively fragmented agrarian land structure and poor performance of the irrigation, warehousing, and transportation sectors; (c) the national production of vegetables is generally self-sufficient with the exception of three counties that resort to importing and account for more than 70% of Romania’s total vegetable imports; (d) factor endowments cannot be fully harnessed, and this contributes to the deepening of the trade balance deficits. Improvement is possible by fostering competitiveness through increasing the performance of supporting industries and the logistics infrastructure, as well as removing market access barriers for the many small farmers. Full article

This paper investigates the problem of sustainable rural supply and urban distribution of fresh food products in central Colombia. Paradoxically, while farmers in the countryside suffer from poverty due to the low profitability of the agricultural activity, inhabitants at urban centers pay high prices for fresh and nutritious foods. In this work, we propose a supply chain system and a business model based on food hubs located on existing (and often abandoned) public facilities in the central region of Colombia. There are many examples in which the hub strategy has facilitated trade and logistics in supply chains. However, few studies consider the particularities of the presented case. We study a business strategy through a mathematical model which considers both the sustainable and efficient operation of the food hubs and better trading conditions for farmers. We propose a variant of the competitive hub location problem adapted to this case study. We tested the model under different scenarios such as changes in the attractiveness parameters, operation costs, and profit margins. The results suggest that if hubs are able to attract farmers, the model can be both sustainable for the hub concessionaires and for the farmers. Full article

Ensuring adequate copper supplementation in ruminants is a challenging task due to the complexity of copper metabolism in these animals. The three-way interaction between copper, molybdenum and sulphur (Cu-Mo-S) in the rumen makes ruminants, particularly cattle, very susceptible to suffering from secondary copper deficiency. Paradoxically, excessive copper storage in the liver to prevent deficiency becomes a hazard when ruminants are fed copper-supplemented diets even slightly above requirements. While cattle were traditionally thought to be relatively tolerant of copper accumulation, and reports of copper poisoning were until recently somewhat rare, in recent years an increased number of episodes/outbreaks of copper toxicity in cattle, particularly in dairy cattle, have been reported worldwide. The growing number of lethal cases reported seems to indicate that copper intoxication is spreading silently in dairy herds, urging the development of strategies to monitor herd copper status and improve farmers’ awareness of copper toxicity. In fact, monitoring studies carried out on numerous samples collected from culled animals in slaughterhouses and/or diagnostic laboratories have demonstrated that large numbers of animals have hepatic copper concentrations well above adequate levels in many different countries. These trends are undoubtedly due to copper supplementation aimed at preventing copper deficiency, as dietary copper intake from pasture alone is unlikely to cause such high levels of accumulation in liver tissue. The reasons behind the copper overfeeding in cattle are related both to a poor understanding of copper metabolism and the theory of “if adding a little produces a response, then adding a lot will produce a better response”. Contrary to most trace elements, copper in ruminants has narrow margins of safety, which must also be formulated considering the concentrations of copper antagonists in the diet. This review paper aims to provide nutritionists/veterinary practitioners with the key points about copper metabolism in cattle to guarantee an adequate copper supply while preventing excessive hepatic copper loading, which requires à la carte copper supplementation for each herd. Full article

Based on remotely sensed imagery and socioeconomic data, this research analyzes the reasons why farmers choose one crop over another in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. This study mapped the area of the cultivated crop in 2017 with Sentinel-2 images. An accurate and new method was developed to extract the field boundaries from the evolution of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) profile throughout the season. We collected 386 GPS locations for fields that are used for crop cultivation, from which the NDVI profile was extracted. The 386 reference fields were separated into two groups: reference locations and test locations. The Euclidean distance (ED) was calculated between these two groups, and the classification was strongly correlated to the known crop type in the field (overall accuracy: 90%). Our study area cultivated wheat (32%), spring potatoes (25%), spring vegetables (27%), orchards (11%), vineyards (7%), and alfalfa (<1%). Socioeconomic surveys showed that farmers favored these crops over others on account of their profitability. Nonetheless, the surveys highlighted a paradox: despite the lack of a political frame for agriculture in Lebanon, farmers’ crop choices strongly depend on a few existing policies. Full article

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Central Asian countries have been faced with numerous development challenges in agriculture, especially those related to water use. Well-intentioned foreign donors and development agencies have stepped in to support local farmers, research centers, and public authorities in devising innovative solutions. Yet, development aid projects have borne fruit only partially. Paradoxically, innovative and apparently useful technologies proposed by foreign donors have rarely and only partially succeeded in taking root in the local institutional contexts. To explain this paradox, this paper draws on the institutional approach which shows the possibility of technological innovations being encapsulated by dysfunctional institutions. Reviewing recent studies of water-related projects in Central Asia, the paper shows this encapsulation to be at the core of the development project failures pervasive both in the Soviet period and today. If the concept of encapsulation is valid, then the current development efforts can be made more effective by detecting and counteracting the structures of vested interest on the part of all the actors involved, such as foreign donors, public authorities, research centers and local farmers. Full article

Modern weed science is at a crossroads. Born out of advances in chemistry, it has focused on minimizing weed competition with genetically uniform crops and heavy reliance on herbicides. Paradoxically, the success obtained with such an approach and the reluctance to conduct integrated and multidisciplinary research has resulted in unintended, but predictable, consequences, including the selection of herbicide resistant biotypes. Advances in eco-evolutionary biology, a relatively recent discipline that seeks to understand how local population dynamics arise from phenotypic variation resulting from natural selection, habitat distribution, and propagule dispersal across the landscape are transforming our understanding of the processes that regulate agroecosystems. Within this framework, complementary tactics to develop alternative weed management programs include the following: (1) weed scientists must recognize that evolution occurs within crop fields at ecologically-relevant time scales and is rooted in the inherent variation that exists in all populations; (2) weed management should recognize that the probability of a resistant mutant is directly related to the population size; (3) farmers need to acknowledge that herbicide resistance transcends any one farm and should coordinate local practices with regional actions; (4) incentives should be developed and implemented to help the adoption of eco-evolutionary management programs; and (5) risk analysis can help incorporate an eco-evolutionary perspective into integrated weed management programs. Full article