8 pages., via online journal., The present study was conducted in Yadgir district of Karnataka to know about the perception of farmers on the ill effects of agro chemicals. One hundred and twenty farmers were interviewed personally with the help of pre-structured schedule. The results revealed that a large number of respondents had perceived delay in ripening (70.83%), less resistance to diseases (76.66 %), through emission of toxic gases (80.83%) and changes in soil organic matter decomposition (80.00%). Cent per cent respondents expressed resistance developed to pesticides by helicoverpa, spodoptera and parthenium and beneficial organisms like earth worms and predators were affected.
Killing of natural enemies by pesticides affect Trichograma (80.00%) and lady bird beetle (75.00%), while handling agro chemicals cent per cent perceived it is going poison human body. The correlation indicates attitude towards chemical fertilizers, extension participation and mass media had shown positive highly significant at 1% level. Regarding factors influencing on agro chemicals land holding and education observe 50.63 per cent of variation. On the other hand farmers were suggested to make the availability of pest resistance variety by majority (83.33%) of the respondents.
10 pages., Via online journal., Development of natural resource user typologies has been viewed as a potentially
effective means of improving the effectiveness of natural resource management engagement
strategies. Prior research on Corn Belt farmers’ perspectives on climate change employed
a latent class analysis (LCA) that created a six-class typology—the Concerned, Uneasy,
Uncertain, Unconcerned, Confident, and Detached—to develop a better understanding of
farmer perspectives on climate change and inform more effective climate adaptation and
mitigation outreach strategies. The LCA employed 34 variables that are generally unobservable—beliefs about climate change, experience with extreme weather, perceived risks of
climate change, and attitudes toward climate action—to identify types. The research reported
in this paper builds on this typology of Corn Belt farmers by exploring 33 measures of observable farm enterprise characteristics, land management practices, and farmer demographics to
assess whether variations in these observable characteristics between the six farmer classes
display systematic patterns that might be sufficiently distinctive to guide audience segmentation strategies. While analyses detected some statistically significant differences, there were
few systematic, meaningful observable patterns of difference between groups of farmers with
differing perspectives on climate change. In other words, farmers who believe that anthropogenic climate change is occurring, that it poses risks to agriculture, and that adaptive action
should be taken, may look very much like farmers who deny the existence of climate change
and do not support action. The overall implication of this finding is that climate change
engagement efforts by Extension and other agricultural advisors should use caution when
looking to observable characteristics to facilitate audience segmentation. Additional analyses
indicated that the farmer types that tended to be more concerned about climate change and
supportive of adaptive action (e.g., Concerned and Uneasy) reported that they were more
influenced by key private and public sector actors in agricultural social networks. On the
other hand, farmers who were not concerned about climate change or supportive of adaptation (e.g., the Unconcerned, Confident, and Detached groups, comprising between one-third
and one-half of respondents) were less integrated into agricultural networks. This suggests that
Extension and other agricultural advisors should expand outreach efforts to farmers who are
not already within their spheres of influence.
Mills, Jane (author), Gaskell, Peter (author), Ingram, Julie (author), Dwyer, Janet (author), Reed, Matt (author), Short, Christopher (author), and University of Gloucestershire
Format:
Online journal article
Publication Date:
2016-06-15
Published:
United Kingdom: Springer Nature
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 130 Document Number: D11282
16 pages., via online journal, The United Kingdom’s approach to encouraging environmentally positive behaviour has been three-pronged, through voluntarism, incentives and regulation, and the balance between the approaches has fluctuated over time. Whilst financial incentives and regulatory approaches have been effective in achieving some environmental management behavioural change amongst farmers, ultimately these can be viewed as transient drivers without long-term sustainability. Increasingly, there is interest in ‘nudging’ managers towards voluntary environmentally friendly actions. This approach requires a good understanding of farmers’ willingness and ability to take up environmental activities and the influences on farmer behavioural change. The paper aims to provide insights from 60 qualitative farmer interviews undertaken for a research project into farmers’ willingness and ability to undertake environmental management, particularly focusing on social psychological insights. Furthermore, it explores farmers’ level of engagement with advice and support networks that foster a genuine interest, responsibility and a sense of personal and social norm to sustain high quality environmental outcomes. Two conceptual frameworks are presented for usefully exploring the complex set of inter-relationships that can influence farmers’ willingness to undertake environmental management practices. The research findings show how an in-depth understanding of farmer’s willingness and ability to adopt environmental management practices and their existing level of engagement with advice and support are necessary to develop appropriate engagement approaches to achieve sustained and durable environmental management.
Montgomery, Stephanie C. (author), Martin, Robert J. (author), Guppy, Chris (author), Wright, Graeme C. (author), Tighe, Matthew K. (author), and Agronomy and Soil Science, School of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England
Format:
Online journal article
Publication Date:
2017-11
Published:
Australia: Science Direct
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 106 Document Number: D10937
9 pages, via online journal, Upland farming in Northwest Cambodia has developed rapidly over the last 20 years, with limitations to the plough based system now apparent, including soil degradation and reductions in yield and profitability. A survey was conducted in order to prioritise the main constraints to production, to aid in future research planning, and to identify potential beneficial modifications to the current system. Three hundred and ninety one farmers were interviewed regarding their current farming system constraints, knowledge of conservation agriculture and their future plans in the Districts of Samlout in Battambang Province and Sala Krau in Pailin Province. Perceived major problems in the farming system were extreme climate events such as droughts and heavy rain, declining crop yields, and cash flow shortages, particularly in the pre-monsoon period. This is a plough based farming system, yet 66% of farmers had heard of conservation agriculture, and 59% wanted to learn more about conservation agriculture practices. Two thirds of farmers were interested in how to grow crops in the post-monsoon dry season on residual soil moisture. The survey highlighted opportunities for farmer education and adoption of farming system modifications to improve productivity and sustainability of the farming system in Northwest Cambodia, and assist with climate change adaptation.
Hauser, Michael (author), Lindtner, Mara (author), Prehsler, Sarah (author), Probst, Lorenz (author), and University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Austria
Format:
Online journal article
Publication Date:
2016-07-30
Published:
Austria: Science Direct
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 109 Document Number: D10962
9 pages, via online journal, Farmers who engage in farmer participatory research (FPR) change their established social roles in households and communities. As such, comprehension of farmers’ role transitions is important to understand the extrinsic and intrinsic factors impeding or supporting the uptake and use of FPR by farmers. The existing FPR literature, however, does not address such role transitions. In this study, we analyzed farmers’ experiences with FPR and underlying role transitions in a commercial organic agriculture project in western Uganda. We drew on quantitative and qualitative data from interviews, group discussions, and observations involving farmers and extension workers. Our results suggest extrinsic and intrinsic factors affect farmers’ self-conception, influencing their willingness to participate in FPR. The level of alignment between the self-conception and the anticipated role determines farmers’ decision regarding participation in FPR and affects their response pattern. Farmers’ response pattern and individual set of inhibitors and facilitators lead to the experience of role insufficiency or role mastery, which is crucial for farmers’ continuation or termination of on-farm experiments. Understanding and facilitating role transitions is, therefore, essential for sustaining on-farm experiments, which complements current technical FPR training.
Prokopy, Linda S. (author), Arbuckle, J.G. (author), Barnes, Andrew P. (author), Haden, V. R. (author), Hogan, Anthony (author), Niles, Meredith T. (author), and Tyndall, John (author)
Format:
Online journal article
Publication Date:
2015
Published:
Springer
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 18 Document Number: D10507
13 pages., via online journal., Climate change has serious implications for the agricultural industry—both in terms of the need to adapt to a changing climate and to modify practices to mitigate for the impacts of climate change. In high-income countries where farming tends to be very intensive and large scale, it is important to understand farmers’ beliefs and concerns about climate change in order to develop appropriate policies and communication strategies. Looking across six study sites—Scotland, Midwestern United States, California, Australia, and two locations in New Zealand—this paper finds that over half of farmers in each location believe that climate change is occurring. However, there is a wide range of beliefs regarding the anthropogenic nature of climate change; only in Australia do a majority of farmers believe that climate change is anthropogenic. In all locations, a majority of farmers believe that climate change is not a threat to local agriculture. The different policy contexts and existing impacts from climate change are discussed as possible reasons for the variation in beliefs. This study compared varying surveys from the different locations and concludes that survey research on farmers and climate change in diverse locations should strive to include common questions to facilitate comparisons.
20 pages, via online journal, Purpose: This paper examines the factors affecting farmers’ participation in extension programs and adoption of improved seed varieties in the hills of rural Nepal.
Methodology/approach: Cross-sectional farm-level data were collected during July and August 2014. A sample of 198 farm households was selected for interviewing by using a multistage, random sampling technique. We employed a logistic regression model, frequency counts, and percentages to analyze the data.
Findings: Adoption decisions were mainly affected by extension-related variables – training, membership in a farmers’ group, and off-farm employment. Extension participation was found to be influenced by socioeconomic variables – age, education, household size, and distance to the extension office. Our findings reveal that distance to the extension office and off-farm employment limited participation in extension activities and adoption, respectively, and education, household size, and group membership stimulated participation in extension programs.
Practical implications: Recognition of the determinants of farmers’ participation in extension services and innovation adoption ensures that targeted extension approaches are used to address these factors in various stages of planning, delivering, and evaluating extension programs.
Theoretical implications: Innovation adoption follows a systematic decision-making process. Although personal characteristics are important, widespread use of new technology requires a conducive social and institutional context. Because contexts vary by country or region, extension services providers should create institutions favorable for innovation adoption within a social system.
Originality/value: This research is original and highly valuable to identify the factors associated with extension participation and innovation adoption in the rural hilly region of Nepal. This also provides a new direction to operationalize farmer-oriented policies of agricultural extension and so can be helpful for agricultural policy-makers in devising programs of extension services.
Eitzinger, Anton (author), Cock, James (author), Atzmanstorfer, Karl (author), Binder, Claudia R. (author), Läderach, Peter (author), Bonilla-Findji, Osana (author), Bartlin, Mona (author), Mwongera, Caroline (author), Zurita, Leo (author), and Jarvis, Andy (author)
Format:
Online journal article
Publication Date:
2019-03
Published:
Germany: Elsevier
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 7 Document Number: D10292
13 pages., Via online journal., Farmers can manage their crops and farms better if they can communicate their experiences, both positive and negative, with each other and with experts. Digital agriculture using internet communication technology (ICT) may facilitate the sharing of experiences between farmers themselves and with experts and others interested in agriculture. ICT approaches in agriculture are, however, still out of the reach of many farmers. The reasons are lack of connectivity, missing capacity building and poor usability of ICT applications. We decided to tackle this problem through cost-effective, easy to use ICT approaches, based on infrastructure and services currently available to small-scale producers in developing areas. Working through a participatory design approach, we developed and tested a novel technology. GeoFarmer provides near real-time, two-way data flows that support processes of co-innovation in agricultural development projects. It can be used as a cost-effective ICT-based platform to monitor agricultural production systems with interactive feedback between the users, within pre-defined geographical domains. We tested GeoFarmer in four geographic domains associated with ongoing agricultural development projects in East and West Africa and Latin America. We demonstrate that GeoFarmer is a cost-effective means of providing and sharing opportune indicators of on-farm performance. It is a potentially useful tool that farmers and agricultural practitioners can use to manage their crops and farms better, reduce risk, increase productivity and improve their livelihoods.
11 pages., via online journal., Climate change impacts will affect grassland farming in various ways in the future. Communication and knowledge transfer are crucial to implement on-farm adaptation measures required to meet these challenges in a timely way. Therefore, we need to know how grassland farmers perceive climate change and which factors influence their attitude. We hypothesized that besides direct factors such as region, farm size, age and education, farmers’ socio-cultural background and their beliefs and attitudes are most important in their reaction to climate change. To investigate this, we conducted a survey with extensive on-farm interviews (n = 82) in four distinctive regions in the North German Plain on a gradient from sub-maritime to areas with sub-continental climate. We found that with a more continental climate and less rainfall and with increasing farm size, grassland farmers were more aware of the implications of climate change. In a second step, to categorize the influence of personal beliefs on decisions concerning farming, we applied the typology approach and distinguished four farming styles. Farmers in the four groups differed in terms of climate change awareness and adaptation preferences (P < 0.05). Yield Optimizers and Modernists were more open-minded to rational and economic facts and showed a significantly greater willingness to implement adaptation measures than Idealists and Traditionalists, who need to be addressed at a more emotional level. The results of this study may contribute to the development of better‐targeted adaptation policies that will serve specific groups of farmers more effectively.
13 pages., via online journal., The study explores the impacts of Nepali farmers’ climate change perceptions on their farming practices over the last three decades (1980–2014). Results from a survey with 496 farmers show that nearly all farmers attributed changes in crop varieties and cropping patterns mainly to technological and market-related factors and not to climate change. A comparison between perceptions and meteorological data shows that while perceptions of changes in maximum temperatures did match observed trends, perceptions of changes in minimum temperature and rainfall did not. The results indicate that the climate change message in the past 30 years has not been definite enough to have a consistent impact on either farmers’ perceptions or their farming practices. This may impede farmers’ adaptive capacity in dealing with increasingly severe future climate change impacts. Because of large variations in the micro-climate of the study locations and the locations of the weather stations from which we obtained the meteorological data, the results need to be treated with caution. However, we suggest that for farmers to effectively adapt to climate change, it may be necessary for responsible state and non-state actors to improve their communication on expected climate change impacts.
