25 pages., The study adopted survey research design. The population of the study consisted 1200 respondents comprising (staff of the Zamfara State Agricultural Development Project, FADAMA III Project, IFAD, Animal rearers and Farmers). Instruments of data collection used for the study were the questionnaire, interview and discussions. One thousand two hundred questionnaires were distributed to respondents and only 988 (82.2%) were dully returned and found usable. The results of the responses were interpreted using simple percentage and frequency tables. The findings of the study include, that 95% of Zamfara State population are farmers, Maru and Gusau Local Government Areas recorded the highest farmers’ population. It was also discovered that there was a high rate of awareness of climate change information in the State with Radio, Television, extension services as major sources of climate change information in the State. It was also discovered that farmers in the State utilize climate change information like taking decisions on what and when to plant, planting improved crop varieties among others. There is also the challenges of reduction in annual rainfall, deforestation, insect-pests attack, high temperature among others. Recommendations were made for intensified awareness campaign on climate change, increased budgetary allocation to the agricultural sector for more mitigation and adaptation capacity for the farmers.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 109 Document Number: D10972
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6 pages., Electronic ISBN: 978-1-4799-8439-8, 2015 7th International Conference on Communication Systems and Networks (COMSNETS), Climate change is now more visible in the form of frequent changes in the weather patterns leading to severe drought or floods. It endangers the food security, especially shrinking of cultivable land and increasing population. Agricultural Research Institutes are working on new cropping patterns, new heat and flood tolerant varieties and cultivation practices. However in the absence of sound knowledge extension system the results of such massive and costly research do not reach its end users, in this case farmers, on time. This research paper talks about the, National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP) pilot conducted to develop strategies to enhance Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change in vulnerable regions in India. As part of this research, extensive field demonstrations and data analysis were done to demonstrate how Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can play a crucial role in establishing a two way connect between the Research Lab and the end users of research. While Agricultural research can focus on identification of current and future risks to livelihoods due to climatic variability and development or identification of regional climate specific crop varieties and crop practices, the IT and ICT can work jointly to use the outcome of such research to spread awareness and promote the use of such varieties and practices in adaptation by farmers and other stakeholders through an ICT platform.
24 pages, In this work, an exhaustive revision is given of the literature associated with advanced information and communication technologies in agriculture within a window of 25 years using bibliometric tools enabled to detect of the main actors, structure, and dynamics in the scientific papers. The main findings are a trend of growth in the dynamics of publications associated with advanced information and communication technologies in agriculture productivity. Another assertion is that countries, like the USA, China, and Brazil, stand out in many publications due to allocating more resources to research, development, and agricultural productivity. In addition, the collaboration networks between countries are frequently in regions with closer cultural and idiomatic ties; additionally, terms’ occurrence are obtained with Louvain algorithm predominating four clusters: precision agriculture, smart agriculture, remote sensing, and climate smart agriculture. Finally, the thematic-map characterization with Callon’s density and centrality is applied in three periods. The first period of thematic analysis shows a transition in detecting the variability of a nutrient, such as nitrogen, through the help of immature georeferenced techniques, towards greater remote sensing involvement. In the transition from the second to the third stage, the maturation of technologies, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, wireless sensor networks, and the machine learning area, is observed