This series is published by ODI, an independent non-profit policy research institute, with financial support from the Department for International Development (formerly the Overseas Development Administration). Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of either ODI or DFID. Privatisation is an increasingly prominent feature of the policy advice directed at agricultural research i...

The characteristic features of Japanese agriculture are rice production and its highly mechanized small scale farming system due to the limited land space. Agricultural production system in mechanization has been currently changed from mass production system to flexible manufacturing system, which became already much popular in industrial production one. This can be explained that the target cr...

Agriculture provides economic opportunity through innovation; helps rural America to thrive; promotes agricultural production that better nourishes Americans; and aims to preserve natural resources through healthy private working lands, conservation, improved watersheds, and restored forests. From agricultural production to food supply, agriculture supports rural and urban economies across the ...

Organic farming, a low intensity system, may offer benefits for a range of taxa, but what affects the extent of those benefits is imperfectly understood. We explored the effects of organic farming and landscape on the activity density and species density of spiders and carabid beetles, using a large sample of paired organic and conventional farms in the UK. Spider activity density and species d...

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...

Organic farming has become increasingly popular in the world. This is mostly attributed toescalating consumer concerns over the impacts of pesticides and chemical fertilizers on humanhealth as well as growing concerns over environmental pollution derived from modernagricultural practices, such as rising greenhouse gas emissions and water contaminations. Butdoes organic farming actually displace...

Private sector-based seed system development remains a key intervention in Sub-Saharan Africa. Seed interventions promoting the adoption of improved varieties through private sector generally follow linear, market-oriented technological logic. A qualitative case study sorghum Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania demonstrates that this model may not be able to drive broad-scale generate significant benef...

One ecological environment monitoring system of Litopenaeus vannamei farming has been developed in order to protect and regulate the ecological environment of Litopenaeus vannamei farming, halt and reverses the situations in the ecological environment deterioration of Litopenaeus vannamei farming and the little farming success rate. The early warning information of ecological environment degrad...

this paper aims at analyzing farmers’ responses on quality of agricultural information services provided by public and private sources. the study is based on primary survey of 461 farmers in eight districts of uttar pradesh, india, using a structured questionnaire. farmers’ responses on quality of agricultural information services from public and private sources were analyzed using analysis of ...

introduction: one of the fundamental issues in the agricultural sector in iran is the absence of optimal water and soil resources utilization and lack of new agricultural science and technology adoption through major prevailing transformations in agricultural land exploitation system. the studies conducted in the history of agricultural development in iran cast light on the fact that the farmin...