With numerous challenges hindering smallholders’ adoption of externally developed technologies, it is often argued that farmer innovation can play an essential role in rural livelihoods. Yet a rigorous assessment of the impact of farmer innovation is lacking. We address this issue by analyzing the effect of farmer innovation on household welfare, measured by income, consumption expenditure, and...

A shrimp farmer in Taiwan practices innovation through trial-and-error for better income and a better environment, but such farmer-based innovation sometimes fails because the biological mechanism is unclear. Systematic field experimentation and laboratory research are often too costly, and simulating ground conditions is often too challenging. To solve this dilemma, we propose a decision suppo...

A critical step in the quantification of soil quality (SQ) is the selection of SQ benchmarks. The benchmarks used in this study were SQ ratings made by 32 farmer collaborators representing a range of farming systems, scales of operation and geographic locations in the Mid-Atlantic region of USA. Soils from 45 pairs of sites identified by their farmers as having good and poor SQ were sampled ove...

This study examines the impact of contract farming with Farmer Organizations on farmers’ income. Contract farming with farmer organizations is a smallholder farmer-inclusive contract farming system. Field surveys were conducted in August 2010 with 75 farmers (including 39 contract farmers) in Kampong Thom province, Cambodia. The analysis—i.e., using a treatment effects model—indicates that cont...

We’ve all been given a problem in a calculus class remarkably similar to the following one: Farmer Ted is building a chicken coop. He decides he can spare 190 square feet of his land for the coop, which will be built in the shape of a rectangle. Being a practical man, Farmer Ted wants to spend as little as possible on the chicken wire for the fence. What dimensions should he make the chicken co...

With the rapidly changing economic environments and numerous challenges hindering smallholders’ adoption of externally developed technologies, it is often argued that farmers’ innovations may be essential in the livelihoods of rural farm households and need to be promoted. Yet a rigorous assessment of the impacts of farmer innovation is lacking. Consequently, we analyse the effect of farmer inn...

Objective – To study the incidence of male factor infertility and type of semen abnormality in the farmer couple attending our infertility outpatient clinic. MethodDatabase of 3100 patients with male factor infertility were retrospectively reviewed. Patients were divided in two groups for analysis: group 1 – farmer , group 2 – non farmer. Records of semen analysis and serum FSH (Follicle stimul...