The basic requirements for small scale cropping machines are, they should be suitable for small farms, simple in design and technology and versatile for use in different farm operations. A manually operated template row planter was designed and developed to improve planting efficiency and reduce drudgery involved in manual planting method. Seed planting is also possible for different size of se...

The farm household model has played a central role in improving the understanding of small-scale agricultural households and non-farm enterprises. Under the assumptions that all current and future markets exist and that farmers treat all prices as given, the model simplifies households' simultaneous production and consumption decisions into a recursive form in which production can be treated as...

the purpose of this research was socioeconomicanalysis of farms using primary data in two villages of mymensingh sadar. a total of 60 farms including 20 small, 20 medium and 20 large were randomly selected for the study. socioeconomic analysis showed that indebtedness was higher in large farms than those of small and medium ones. large farms also engaged more in farm activities than others. all...

Research Brief #9 In the face of an increasingly consolidated, industrialized, and often faceless food system, many researchers and activists have looked to alternative food institutions (AFIs) as ways to improve the food system for both producers and consumers. AFIs include urban gardens, food policy councils, alternative education programs, farmers’ markets, and community supported agricultur...

The New Generation Cooperatives: Case Studies are made possible with support from the Illi-nois Council on Food and Agricultural Research (C-FAR) and the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs (IIRA). A collection of ten case studies with an introduction is available from IIRA in print and on the IIRA web page. Quoting from these materials for noncommercial purposes is permitted provided proper c...

This article presents the findings of research on the global economic impact of GM crops since their commercial introduction in 1996. It updates part of the findings of earlier analysis presented by the authors in AgBioForum 8(2&3), 9(3), and 11(1).1 The analysis concentrates on farm income effects because this is a primary driver of adoption amongst farmers (both large commercial and small-sca...

Sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing major changes in farm land ownership and use, which are both cause and consequence of the economic transformations that the region is now experiencing. The rapid rise of emergent investor farms in the 5 to 100 hectare category represents a revolutionary change in Africa’s farm structure since 2000. The rise of investor farmers is affecting the region in divers...

The paper investigated farm information systems use among grasscutter farmers in Ga-South and Awutu-Senya District in Ghana. Using frequency, cross tabulations and binary logit model in Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 18, the study made some findings. Grasscutter farmers in the study area are ageing. They operate on small scale with males dominating the enterprise. The ge...