This paper reports on a study to answer the research question; why do dairy farmers adopt (or not adopt as the case may be) centre pivot irrigation (CPI) in the Central Goulburn Irrigation District (CGID) of southeastern Australia? Twenty-two dairy farmers were interviewed. Ten of these farmers had adopted CPI, four were considering adopting, and eight of the farmers were not planning to adopt ...

General knowledge of the small, invisible, or hidden organisms that make soil one of the most biodiverse habitats on Earth is thought to be scarce, despite their importance in food systems and agricultural production. We provide the first worldwide review of high-quality research that reports on farmers’ knowledge of soil organisms in agriculture. The depth of farmers’ knowledge varied; some fa...

Climate change is increasing water scarcity in Sri Lanka. Whether these changes will undermine national-level food security depends upon the ability of the small-scale farmers that dominate rice production and the institutions that support them to overcome the challenges presented by changing water availability. Analyzing household survey data, this research identifies household, institutional,...

Production and area of chickpea are reducing every year in India due tocompetition with horticulture and other cash crops in irrigated areas. There is a greatscope for expanding chickpea production with or without limited irrigation in rainfedrice fallow lands (RRFL) in the states of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. Nineteenchickpea genotypes were tested using participatory varietal selection (...

Industry and mainstream research and policy institutions often suggest that transgenic crop varieties can raise the productivity of poor third world farmers, feed the hungry, and reduce poverty. These claims are critically evaluated by examining global-hunger data, the constraints that affect the productivity of small farmers in the third world, and the factors that explain their poverty. No si...

The root cause of agricultural land degradation and decreasing productivity – as seen in terms of loss of soil health -is our low soil-carbon farming paradigm of intensive tillage which disrupts and debilitates many important soil-mediated ecosystem functions. For the most part agricultural soils in tillage-based farming without organic surface residue protection are becoming de-structured and ...

The proposed conceptual framework explores how small-scale farms can combine agricultural products and tourism into an eco-innovation strategy. This paper presents a case study conducted on a family-run farm within the territory of the Paiwan tribal community of the North Dawu Mountain situated in the Central Mountain Range of Taiwan. The area has become an important coffee-farming region since...

A study was conducted in two southern coastal districts of Bangladesh (Noakhali and Lakshmipur) to assess the potentiality of the existing duck rearing system of the regions in summer and rainy season. One upazila from each district and three villages from each upazila were selected randomly. Fifty farmers were selected from each village having at least 5 ducks throughout the year. Thus, a tota...

Small-scale subsistence farmers in South Africa have been introduced to genetically modified (GM) crops for more than a decade. Little is known about i) the extent of transgene introgression into locally recycled seed, ii) what short and long-term ecological and socioeconomic impacts such mixing of seeds might have, iii) how the farmers perceive GM crops, and iv) to what degree approval conditi...