Intensified use of agricultural inputs, particularly fertilizer, is a possible route to improved agricultural productivity. Field trials of these technologies show substantial increases in yields, but typically are done on highly monitored experimental plots rather than by farmers themselves. Returns to a certain technology might be quite different on real-world farms than on experimental farms...

Climate changes are occurring rapidly at both regional and global scales. Farmers are faced with the challenge of developing new agricultural practices to help them to cope with unpredictable changes in environmental, social, and economic conditions. Under these conditions, adaptive management requires a farmer to learn by monitoring provisional strategies and changing conditions, and then incr...

The Government of Tanzania (GoT) has proposed the construction of feeder roads, market centers and storage facilities to improve farmers’ access to markets and increase share of value added of smalland medium-scale producers which will ultimately enhance food security and improve the socio-economic welfare of the farmers and smalland mediumscale producers through increase in household income. T...

The poultry industry in India represents a major success story. With rapidly changing lifestyles, affluent culture and a conscious need for general wellness, Indian consumers are now opting for a more protein-rich diet. From a plot scheme, it has made a quantum leap to become as a dynamic industry. The present decade promises to exploit value added products and the global trade avenue. This pap...

Since groundwater is diminishing rapidly in rural Beijing, rainwater harvesting for irrigation is being promoted. As the cost of pumping up groundwater is low, farmers have few incentives to use rainwater. To promote the consumption of rainwater, the Beijing Water Authority may in the future raise the cost of using groundwater by introducing a charge. Higher cost of groundwater will increase th...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to investigate the distribution of Shiga toxin (Stx) gene-positive stool samples from dairy farmer and slaughterhouse workers in Gyeonggi-Do province. METHODS A total of 621 samples from healthy farmers and 198 samples from slaughterhouse workers were screened by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for Shiga toxigenic Escherichia coli (STEC) infection on stool...

Insufficient and high variability in rice yield is a threat to food security in China, prompting the need for strategies to mitigate yield variability and increase productivity. This study investigates the presence of production risk and technical inefficiency for a sample of rice farms in the Xiangyang city of China using a stochastic production frontier framework. Results from the risk functi...

Participatory processes have been widely promoted within the field of natural resource management as a method of supporting efficient resource use and, within these processes, much emphasis has been placed on gendered participation. In Kyrgyzstan, participation in irrigation management is organized through water-user associations (WUAs), a decentralized system of management commonly prescribed ...

This study compared technical efficiency of mandarin fish and clown fish production in Cross River State, Nigeria. Data were obtained from 240 respondents including 120 mandarin fish farmers and 120 clown fish farmers, which were randomly selected from villages in the study area by means of structured and semi-structured questionnaire. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics a...

The objective of this study was to determine the joint effect of branding practices (BP) for fresh fruits and vegetables (FFV), farmer characteristics and operating environment on performance of commercial farmers in Kiambu County, Kenya. The study hypothesis stated that: The joint effect of branding practices for fresh fruits and vegetables, farmer characteristics and operating environment on ...