Author: Francisco Areal
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
ISBN: 2832541283
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309170346
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 158

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Book Description
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) requested that the Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources of the National Research Council (NRC) convene a panel of experts to examine whether publicly funded agricultural research has influenced the structure of U.S. agriculture and, if so, how. The Committee to Review the Role of Publicly Funded Agricultural Research on the Structure of U.S. Agriculture was asked to assess the role of public-sector agricultural research on changes in the size and numbers of farms, with particular emphasis on the evolution of very-large-scale operations.

Author: Abebe Shimeles
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319762222
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
What are the challenges and action points for agricultural sustainability in Sub-Saharan Africa? This open access collection of papers offers technical analyses, policy recommendations and an overview of success stories to date. Each carefully selected paper provides valuable insights for improved policy making and defines relevant strategic priorities on Africa’s sustainable transformation process, which is in line with the international development agenda. Although agriculture remains the main source of income for Africa’s population, the sector is rain-fed subjecting it to the vagaries of weather and climate change. This volume demonstrates the rationale of developing a competitive, inclusive and sustainable agribusiness sector for Africa’s food security and structural transformation. From the impact of Bioenergy crop adoption and Drought Index Insurance to Agro-Industrialization, this volume is important reading for individual researchers, academic associations and professional bodies interested in African agricultural development.

Author: Merga Challa
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3656744033
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 96

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Book Description
Master's Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Agrarian Studies, Wollega University (School of graduate studies), language: English, abstract: This study analyzed factors affecting modern agricultural technology adoption by farmers and the impact of technology adoption decision on the welfare of households in the study area. The data used for the study were obtained from 145 randomly selected sample households in the study area. Binary logit model was employed to analyze the determinants of farmers’ decisions to adopt modern technologies. Moreover, the average effect of adoption on household incomes and expenditure were estimated by using propensity score matching method. The result of the logistic regression showed that household heads’ education level, farm size, credit accessibility, perception of farmers about cost of the inputs and off-farm income positively and significantly affected the farm households’ adoption decision; while family size affected their decision negatively and significantly. The result of the propensity score matching estimation showed that the average income and consumption expenditure of adopters are greater than that of non-adopters. Based on these findings it is recommended that the zonal and the woreda leaders extension agents farm and education experts, policy makers and other development oriented organizations have to plan in such a way that the farm households in the study area will obtain sufficient education, credit accessibilities and also have to train farmers to make them understand the benefits obtained from adopting the new technologies. These bodies have also to arrange policy issues that improve farm labour participation of household members and also to arrange the ways in which farmers obtain means of income outside farming activities.

Author: Ephraim Nkonya
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319191683
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 686

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Book Description
This volume deals with land degradation, which is occurring in almost all terrestrial biomes and agro-ecologies, in both low and high income countries and is stretching to about 30% of the total global land area. About three billion people reside in these degraded lands. However, the impact of land degradation is especially severe on livelihoods of the poor who heavily depend on natural resources. The annual global cost of land degradation due to land use and cover change (LUCC) and lower cropland and rangeland productivity is estimated to be about 300 billion USD. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) accounts for the largest share (22%) of the total global cost of land degradation. Only about 38% of the cost of land degradation due to LUCC - which accounts for 78% of the US$300 billion loss – is borne by land users and the remaining share (62%) is borne by consumers of ecosystem services off the farm. The results in this volume indicate that reversing land degradation trends makes both economic sense, and has multiple social and environmental benefits. On average, one US dollar investment into restoration of degraded land returns five US dollars. The findings of the country case studies call for increased investments into the rehabilitation and restoration of degraded lands, including through such institutional and policy measures as strengthening community participation for sustainable land management, enhancing government effectiveness and rule of law, improving access to markets and rural services, and securing land tenure. The assessment in this volume has been conducted at a time when there is an elevated interest in private land investments and when global efforts to achieve sustainable development objectives have intensified. In this regard, the results of this volume can contribute significantly to the ongoing policy debate and efforts to design strategies for achieving sustainable development goals and related efforts to address land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.

Author: Nshakira-Rukundo, Emmanuel
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 74

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Book Description
Climate change and conflicts co-exist in many countries with significant welfare and socio-environmental implications. Different approaches are being promoted to adapt and build resilience to these fragilities including the adoption of sustainable farm practices that have the potential to increase agricultural productivity and maintain environmental sustainability. We undertake a systematic review and perform a meta-analysis to understand and synthesize the adoption and impacts of agricultural technologies and natural resource management practices with a special attention to fragile and conflict affected settings. We employ state of the art machine learning methods to enable process and selection of appropriate papers from a universe of over 78,000 papers from leading academic databases. We find that studies on adoption and impact of agricultural technologies and natural resource management practices are highly clustered around Ethiopia and Nigeria. We do not find any studies on Small Island States. We observe a wide array of characteristics that influence adoption of these technologies. Of the over 1400 estimates of determinants collected, majority predict input technologies while very few studies and estimates are found in relation to risk management and mechanisation technologies. Our meta-analysis shows an average effect size of 7 - 9% for the different technologies and practices. For the outcomes: land productivity, food security and household welfare, we obtain effect sizes of 6, 8 and 9% respectively. We do not observe much in terms of publication bias. Both climate and conflict vulnerability not only cause far more food insecurity, poverty, and degradation of the environment on their own but also reinforce each other through the climate change – conflict linkage. For these detrimental effects to be curtailed, utilisation of climate-smart agricultural technologies and natural resource management practices need to be encouraged. We thus lend credence to the development, dissemination and upscaling of these sustainable practices. We observe a lot of space for growth and adoption of these technologies.

Author: John V. Stafford
Publisher: Brill Wageningen Academic
ISBN: 9789086863372
Category : Precision farming
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Precision agriculture is a reality in agriculture and is playing a key role as the industry comes to terms with the environment, market forces, quality requirements, traceability, vehicle guidance and crop management. These proceedings contain reviewed papers presented at the 12th European Conference on Precision Agriculture. The papers reflect the wide range of disciplines that impinge on precision agriculture - technology, crop science, soil science, agronomy, information technology, decision support, remote sensing and others.

Author: Almas Heshmati
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811081263
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
This volume is a collection of selected empirical studies on determinants of economic growth and development in Ethiopia.The core argument for editing this book is to provide an up-to-date picture of the state and patterns of growth and development in Ethiopia. Ethiopia has been under focus in the past due to draughts, war, famine, development changes and the effects of global economic crisis in the country. A main contribution of this volume is that it helps identify selected important determinants of growth and development in Ethiopia and provides an estimation of their effects using up-to-date data, modelling and methods. Taken together the studies provide a comprehensive picture of the state of growth and development, their measurements, causal relationships and evaluation of efficient policies and practices in achieving progress in Ethiopia. The issues covered represent major challenges to the government and development organizations who are aiming at achieving higher growth and alleviating poverty in the country. The studies cover transition from rural agriculture to urban industry and the development of services.

Author: Gigi M Berardi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000305481
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Although formal social impact assessment of changing technologies in U.S. agriculture is still in its infancy, scholars have been documenting the effects of new technology throughout the twentieth century. In this collection, Prcfessors Berardi and Geisler bring together historically relevant research and a carefully chosen cross section of contemporary work. Their review of the literature is followed by an evaluation of the effects of mechanization on labor and production, written in 1904, which provides a backdrop for papers from the 1940s and 1950s examining the mechanization of agriculture in the South, in the Midwest, and in rural areas in general. Subsequent chapters offer present-day insights on such topics as the socioeconomic consequences of automated vegetable and tobacco harvesting, center-pivot irrigation, and organic and no-till cultivation. The authors also look at compensation and adjustment programs for displaced labor, the relationship between technology and agribusiness growth, and the effectiveness of university programs that prepare students to perform social impact assessments in agriculture. The edited proceedings of a spirited roundtable discussion on new directions for the study of the social impacts of farm technology and the political economy of agriculture provide the thought-provoking conclusion to this overview of the field.

Author: Hildo Meirelles de Souza Filho
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429764294
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
First published in 1997, this volume reflects concern about the environmental impact of modern agricultural practices, agriculture's increasing reliance on non-renewable resources, and the long-term productivity of high external-input agricultural systems which has prompted a number of initiatives to promote the adoption and diffusion of more sustainable technologies. For these interventions to be effective, they should be based on an understanding of what induces the producer to switch from conventional to alternative practices. This book provides a review on the determinants of adoption and diffusion of sustainable agricultural technologies, including concepts and theories related to this theme. The Green Revolution in Brazil is examined as a means of establishing the background for an empirical investigation. Data about farms in the State of Espírito Santo are analysed using duration analysis, an econometric technique which allows to assess the impact of time-varying, economic variables. Thus, adoption is explained as a dynamic process.