Alomia-Hinojosa,Victoria (author), Groot, CJ (author), Andersson, Jens (author), Speelman, Erika (author), McDonald, Andrew (author), and Tittonnell, Pablo (author)
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2022-06-02
Published:
United States: Wiley Online
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 205 Document Number: D12562
13 pages, Intensified livestock production is considered as a promising pathway for smallholder farmers. Nevertheless, this pathway may entail prohibitive investment requirements of labour, capital or trade-offs at farm level that preclude sustainable intensification. We used fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) to assess farmers' perceptions of changes in the farm household system resulting from adding livestock to their mixed farms. Farmers identified trade-offs between the increased income and farmyard manure production versus increases in labour requirements for fodder imports. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis performed on the FCMs showed that an increase in milk market demand could have strong positive effects on livestock production and income. We conclude that FCM is a good tool to rapidly identify trade-offs and analyse perceptions of farmers which revealed that although they consider intensification a promising strategy, the perceived deepening of labour constraints and increasing dependency on fodder import makes a concurrent (sustainable) intensification of these farm systems unlikely.
Muhammed, Ibrahim (author), Ugochukwu Adonikam, Nnanna (author), and Farmers' willingness to take part in Sorghum-based Innovation Platform in Niger State, Nigeria
Format:
Journal Article
Publication Date:
2020
Published:
India: Extension Education Society
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 202 Document Number: D12095
7 pgs., The research examined the determinants of farmers’ willingness to partake in sorghumbased innovation platforms, ascertained the factors influencing their willingness and constraints to their participation. Structured questionnaire was used to elicit data from 350 registered respondents drawn from Niger State, Nigeria. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Probit and multiple regression. The result reveals that the farmers' mean age was 40. About 85 % of them were married with a household size of 1-5 persons. The result of probit showed that availability of active labour force, income from the sorghum, number of trainings, access to extension service and market access were the major determinants to farmers’ participation in sorghum innovation platform. Major constraints were, untimely meetings, poor means of transportation, information gap and complexity of innovation. The study concludes that farmers were willing to participate in sorghum-based innovation platform but do not have enough capital base. The study recommends that farmers should be linked up with credit institutions and timely meetings should be conducted
Preconceived notions exist about small-scale farmers in the U.S. Beyond research on new and beginning farmers, few empirical studies have learned directly from small-scale farmers in the U.S. about their perspectives and experiences. By analyzing semi-structured interviews of small-scale farmers in Indiana, this study develops an in-depth understanding of the multi-dimensional motivations and experiences of small-scale farmers and the interconnected, multi-scalar challenges they face. The lack of social infrastructure to support small-scale farmers becomes paramount as they contend with dilemmas of engaging in pluriactivity, securing reliable labor, and navigating relationship building with consumers and peers for both short-term profits and long-term social capital. This study contributes to understanding how small-scale farmers’ motivations, experiences, challenges, and strategies interact to shape their relationship to the land, their farming enterprise, and their perception of and position in the larger agro-ecological-social-economic system, and highlights the need to improve social infrastructure to support small-scale farmers.
8 pahes, The poultry sector is large and expanding in the global South, playing a central role in providing increased protein to a rapidly growing base of consumers. The sector includes small backyard farms, small commercial operations, and very large, complex enterprises. Although there is substantial literature on climate adaptation by crop farmers and large livestock farmers, such information is limited for poultry. This study focuses on the effects of higher temperatures on commercial poultry farms in southwest Nigeria and their adaptation strategies. We use a rich set of in-depth interviews to describe how poultry farmers are adapting to higher temperatures and their reasons for adopting particular practices. In general, interviewees are aware that temperatures have increased over time and that heat stress reduces poultry productivity in terms of weight gain and laying capacity. They are knowledgeable and are not passively enduring the adverse effects of higher temperatures as they have adopted a range of adaptation practices. This study identified three main adaptation strategies: (i) keeping drinking water cool, (ii) keeping the building cool and increasing ventilation, and (iii) giving birds medicines and supplements that help them cope with increased heat. Small farms tend to adopt simple and low-cost practices, and large farms tend to adopt more sophisticated and expensive approaches, in line with the nature of their respective operations. The paper’s findings can help address gaps in strategies aiming to help this critically important sector of the food system be robust to future environmental change.
9 pages, via online journal, The overall willingness of smallholder farmers to adopt new green technologies remains low, in spite of the great progress made in understanding the factors that affect their decision. The present study introduces an interdisciplinary approach combining positive psychology and sustainable development studies to show that two personal resources – self-control (a learned repertoire of goal-directed skills that enable people to act upon their aims) and cognitive goal-oriented hope (the ability to follow different routes to pursue one's goal), prompt the adoption of technologies by smallholder farmers. Both personal resources facilitate achieving future goals and changing existing circumstances. A theoretical moderation model on the adoption of agricultural technologies aimed to protect soil degradation in Nepal is proposed and empirically tested. Data were collected from 268 households in the Jhapa district by a face-to-face questionnaire. A multiple regression analysis tested and confirmed the hypothesized moderation model. Following the discovery of a significant interaction, the nature of the interaction was farther explored by calculating simple slopes. Analysis results show a significant positive connection between self-control (p-value = 0.002), hope (p-value = 0.005), information (p-value < 0.001), and technology adoption. Self-control was also found to have a significant moderating effect in enhancing a positive association between receiving information and technology adoption (p-value = 0.017). In addition to its theoretical innovation and empirical contribution, the importance of this study lies in its practical implications, given that policy, education, and communication may influence hope and self-control levels.
