Download or read book Crop Improvement Adoption and Impact of Improved Varieties in Food Crops in Sub Saharan Africa written by Thomas S. Walker and published by CABI. This book was released on 2015-10-26 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following on from the CGIAR study by Evenson and Gollin (published by CABI in 2003), this volume provides up-to-date estimates of adoption outcomes and productivity impacts of crop variety improvement research in sub-Saharan Africa. The book reports on the results of the DIIVA Project that focussed on the varietal generation, adoption and impact for 20 food crops in 30 countries. It also compares adoption outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa to those in South Asia, and guides future efforts for global agricultural research

Download or read book Crop Improvement Adoption and Impact of Improved Varieties in Food Crops in Sub Saharan Africa written by Tomas S. Walker and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contains 21 chapters presenting the most comprehensive, accurate and informative view of the spread of improved crop cultivars in Africa south of Sahara. The importance of the diffusion and adoption of different crop cultivars and the impacts of the use of these improved cultivars are also discussed.

Download or read book Food Security for African Smallholder Farmers written by Hupenyu Allan Mupambwa and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-02-28 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a synthesis of current agricultural research in Africa with the aim of presenting evidence based information that can be directly applied into improving the African smallholder farmers’ food security. It presents positive scientific research that has been undertaken in Africa, in simpler terms, thus driving the research for development agenda contributing to the attainment of SDG 2. Numerous research that targets resource poor African smallholder farmers has been published, yet the region faces very low productivity levels. This lack of translation from research to food security and increased agricultural incomes is due to the poor uptake of scientific research by farmers, which is partly due to poor presentation of this body of knowledge into simpler forms that extension workers and farmers can directly adopt. Therefore, this book offers research information in an easy, digestible and application oriented style, so as to enable transformation of the African agricultural sector by effectively driving agricultural productivity in Africa. This book is of interest to African extension workers, who will translate the simplified knowledge into lessons that can be useful to smallholder farmers. The book is also beneficial for policy makers as well as academics, researchers and other science based professionals.

Download or read book Pulse crops for sustainable farms in sub Saharan Africa written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2018-05-22 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pulses have a long history in sub-Saharan Africa due to their multiple benefits. Pulses, and legumes in general, can play an important role in agriculture because of their ability to biologically fix atmospheric nitrogen and to enhance the biological turnover of phosphorus; thus they could become the cornerstone of sustainable agriculture in Africa. In this sense, there is a body of literature that points to diversification of existing production systems – particularly legumes species, which provide critical environmental services, including soil erosion control and soil nutrient recapitalization. This publication is a review of some of the promising strategies to support the cultivation and utilization of pulses on smallholder farms in sub-Saharan Africa. The review is part of the legacy of the International Year of Pulses (IYP), which sought to recognize the contribution that pulses make to human well-being and the environment.

Download or read book Routledge Handbook of Agricultural Biodiversity written by Danny Hunter and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world relies on very few crop and animal species for agriculture and to supply its food needs. In recent decades, there has been increased appreciation of the risk this implies for food security and quality, especially in times of environmental change. As a result, agricultural biodiversity has moved to the top of research and policy agendas. This Handbook presents a comprehensive overview of our current knowledge of agricultural biodiversity in a series of specially commissioned chapters. It draws on multiple disciplines including plant and animal genetics, ecology, crop and animal science, food studies and nutrition, as well as social science subjects which explore the socio-economic, cultural, institutional, legal and policy aspects of agricultural biodiversity. It focuses not only on the core requirements to deliver a sustainable agriculture and food supply, but also highlights the additional ecosystem services provided by a diverse and resilient agricultural landscape and farming practices. The book provides an indispensable reference textbook for a wide range of courses in agriculture, ecology, biodiversity conservation and environmental studies.

Download or read book Root Tuber and Banana Food System Innovations written by Graham Thiele and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022 with total page 583 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book describes recent innovations in food systems based on root, tuber and banana crops in developing countries. These innovations respond to many of the challenges facing these vital crops, linked to their vegetative seed and bulky and perishable produce. The innovations create value, food, jobs and new sources of income while improving the wellbeing and quality of life of their users. Women are often key players in the production, processing and marketing of roots, tubers and bananas, so successful innovation needs to consider gender. These crops and their value chains have long been neglected by research and development, hence this book contributes to filling in the gap. The book features many outcomes of the CGIAR Research Program in Roots, Tubers and Banana (RTB), which operated from 2012-21, encompassing many tropical countries, academic and industry partners, multiple crops, and major initiatives. It describes the successful innovation model developed by RTB that brings together diverse partners and organizations, to create value for the end users and to generate positive economic and social outcomes. RTB has accelerated the scaling of innovations to reach many end users cost effectively. Though most of the book's examples and insights are from Africa, they can be applied worldwide. The book will be useful for decision makers designing policies to scale up agricultural solutions, for researchers and extension specialists seeking practical ideas, and for scholars of innovation.

Download or read book Assessing the adoption of improved bean varieties in Rwanda and the role of varietal attributes in adoption decisions written by Larochelle, Catherine and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2016-09-30 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beans are grown by nearly all rural households in Rwanda, provide a large share of calorie intakes, and are a vital source of proteins and micronutrients. Because of the importance of this crop, significant research efforts have been devoted to select, breed, and disseminate bean varieties with superior production, consumption, and market attributes, while addressing challenges related to climate changes and food insecurity. As a result, nearly 100 bean varieties have been released in Rwanda over the last four decades. This study aims at documenting this effort; it assesses adoption of improved bush and climbing bean varieties, identifies determinants of and barriers to adoption, and analyzes farmers' preferred variety attributes. Based on recent household data, 86 and 50 percent of households have adopted improved climbing and bush bean varieties, respectively. Adoption is positively associated with membership in farmers associations and size of landholding devoted to bean cultivation. Agro-climatic factors are strong predictors of adoption in general and of specific popular improved varieties. Varietal attributes most associated with high adoption rates are high yield, early maturity, storability, and taste. Findings from this study can serve to inform future breeding and dissemination efforts of improved bean varieties in Rwanda.

Download or read book Demand and supply side factors for accelerating varietal turnover An evidence from soybean in India written by Nuthalapati, Chandra Sekhara Rao and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2020-04-03 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soybeans were promoted on a large scale in India in order to augment farmers’ incomes in poverty-stricken areas and to combat dietary protein deficiencies. Soybean cultivation in India is a unique success story, having expanded in area from zero in 1970 to 11.5 million hectares by the first decade of this millennium At this juncture, the major concern of policymakers is to sustain cultivation of soybeans by ensuring reasonable growth in yield and farm incomes in the face of competitive yield improvements in comparable crops such as corn. This paper tries to understand the varietal adoption patterns and the stages of diffusion of existing varieties. It uses a large primary data set of 1,410 farm households in central and western India to unravel the underlying pathways for accelerating varietal turnover. It employs a dynamic framework by harnessing duration analysis. The average age of the adopted varieties is 8.4 years, which is relatively high and implies slower varietal turnover. Survival functions show that adoption of the leading varieties has reached the saturation stage and that policy intervention at this point can thus have a rapid impact in terms of varietal replacement. The analysis of rate of change of varietal replacement through hazard functions throws up interesting conclusions that are relevant to the formulation of new policies. Examination of all three conceptualized pathways—farm characteristics, sources of information, and perceived traits of the varieties and of genetic improvements—suggest the need for substitution of existing varieties with new improved varieties. While the drivers of varietal change do not vary with size of farm, regional differences are relevant. This paper discusses the potential impact of policy on production and income.

Download or read book Assessing the adoption of high iron bean varieties and their impact on iron intakes and other livelihood outcomes in Rwanda Main survey report written by Asare-Marfo, Dorene and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2017-02-10 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An impact assessment (IA) study was conducted in Season B 20152 to establish the reach of high-iron bean (HIB) varieties to Rwandan bean farmers since these varieties were released in 2010, and to understand the adoption and diffusion patterns that have occurred so far. The IA was carried out in two parts. The first part was a listing survey, which was conducted at the beginning of Season B 2015, during the planting period. A total of 19,575 households were enlisted in 120 randomly selected villages throughout the country, and 93 percent of those households were bean-producing households. The listing exercise revealed that 28 percent of bean farmers had grown at least one HIB variety in at least one season, since 2010—the equivalent of approximately half a million households. In Season B 2015, 20 percent of bean farmers were reported to be growing an HIB—the equivalent of approximately 350,000 households. Detailed results of the listing exercise are available in a separate report3. The second part of the study was a more detailed household survey, which was conducted among a subsample of nearly 1,400 bean-farming households, immediately after harvest had taken place. Both the listing and main household survey are nationally representative of rural bean producing households in Rwanda. This report presents key descriptive results from the main survey and sheds light on issues that may be investigated further in forthcoming publications. Key takeaways from the report are summarized below.

Download or read book OECD Food and Agricultural Reviews Innovation Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability in the United States written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2016-11-10 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The US food and agriculture sector is innovative, competitive and export-oriented. Maintaining high productivity growth in light of changes in national and global demand, while improving the sustainable use of resources, will nonetheless require further innovation.

Download or read book Biological Extinction written by Partha Dasgupta and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-09-05 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Questions why species are becoming extinct, and how we can protect the natural world on which we all depend.

Download or read book Varietal development and the effectiveness of seed sector policies written by Takeshima, Hiroyuki and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seed is an essential input in agriculture, and the availability of quality seed of superior varieties is often critical for improved food security and poverty reduction in developing countries like Nigeria. However, while the Nigerian government recognizes the importance of improving seed availability, its recent focus in the seed sector has mostly been on improving seed quality rather than on varietal development. This report argues that this is partly due to a knowledge gap regarding the relationship between varietal technology levels and the effectiveness of seed sector policies. We first provide a brief conceptual discussion on how the effectiveness of selected seed sector policies, such as certification, subsidies, and private sector promotion, may depend on underlying varietal technology levels. Using rice as an example, we then provide key historical and international perspectives on how varietal technology development by the public sector through intensive rice breeding had pre-ceded the expansion of seed certification and testing, and show that there still is a substantial need for the Nigerian government to develop improved rice varieties through intensified domestic plant breeding in order for its seed certification and seed subsidy programs to be more effective.

Download or read book Applications of Genetic and Genomic Research in Cereals written by Thomas Miedaner and published by Woodhead Publishing. This book was released on 2018-11-19 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Applications of Genetic and Genomic Research in Cereals covers new techniques for practical breeding, also discussing genetic and genomic approaches for improving special traits. Additional sections cover drought tolerance, biotic stress, biomass production, the impact of modern techniques on practical breeding, hybrid breeding, genetic diversity, and genomic selection. Written by an international team of top academics and edited by an expert in the field, this book will be of value to academics working in the agricultural sciences and essential reading for professionals working in plant breeding. Provides in-depth and comprehensive coverage of a rapidly developing field Presents techniques used in genetic and genomics research, with coverage of genotyping, gene cloning, genome editing and engineering and phenotyping in various cereals Includes the latest genetic and genomic approaches for improving special traits - drought tolerance, biotic stress and biomass production Covers breeding practices, with chapters on the genetic diversity of wheat, hybrid breeding and the potential of rye and barley crops

Download or read book Evaluating the adoption and impacts of agricultural technologies written by Francisco Areal and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2023-12-18 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Innovation in Small Farm Agriculture written by Amitava Rakshit and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2022-05-04 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Innovation in Small-Farm Agriculture: Improving Livelihoods and Sustainability is an invaluable resource focussing on the current state of knowledge and scientific advances about the complex and intertwined issues of innovation and how they relate to livelihood of small-scale farmers. This book exposes readers with a holistic overview on how agriculture is most associated with the development and transfer of technologies to farmers and their participation in research and development initiatives to improve the relevancy and usefulness of its outputs and innovation which is not well documented. The book offers comprehensive coverage of the most essential topics, including: Recent scientific advances on agricultural innovations for small farmers. Emphasizes on opportunities and constraints of techno-institutional paradigms. Highlight low-cost and eco-friendly interventions. Case studies on various innovations in agriculture spanning the different agricultural gamut.

Download or read book Advances in Food and Non Food Biomass Production Processing and Use in Sub Saharan Africa written by Daniel Callo-Concha and published by MDPI. This book was released on 2020-05-20 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bioeconomy concept aims to add sustainability to the production, transformation, and trade of biological goods. Though implemented around the world, the development of national bioeconomies is uneven, especially in the global South, where major challenges exist in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this context, the international BiomassWeb project aimed to underpin the bioeconomy concept by applying the value web approach, which seeks to uncover complex interlinked value webs instead of linear value chains. The project also aimed to develop intervention options to strengthen and optimize the synergies and trade-offs among different value chains. The Special Issue “Advances in Food and Non-Food Biomass Production, Processing and Use in Sub-Saharan Africa: Toward a Basis for a Regional Bioeconomy" compiles 23 articles produced in this framework. The articles are grouped in four sections: the value web approach; the production side; processing, transformation and trade; and global views.

Download or read book Harvesting Prosperity written by Keith Fuglie and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Back cover blurb Rising agricultural productivity has driven improvements in living standards for millennia. Today, redoubling that effort in developing countries is critical to reducing extreme poverty, ensuring food security for an increasing global population, and adapting to changes in climate. This volume presents fresh analysis on global trends and sources of productivity growth in agriculture and offers new perspectives on the drivers of that growth. It argues that gains from the reallocation of land and labor are not as promising as believed, so policy needs to focus more on the generation and dissemination of new technologies, which requires stepping up national research efforts. Yet, in many of the poorest nations, a serious research spending gap has emerged precisely at the time when the challenges faced by agriculture are intensifying. The book focuses on how this problem can be redressed in the public sector, as well as on reforms aimed at mobilizing new private sector actors and value chains, particularly creating a better enabling environment, reforming trade regulations, introducing new products, and strengthening intellectual property rights. On the demand side, the book examines what recent research reveals about policies to reduce the barriers impeding smallholder farmers from adopting new technologies. Harvesting Prosperity is the fourth volume of the World Bank Productivity Project, which seeks to bring frontier thinking on the measurement and determinants of productivity to global policy makers. “As rightly argued by the authors, growth in agricultural productivity is the essential instrument to promote development in low-income agriculture-based countries. Achieving this requires research and development, upgrading of universities, reinforcement of farmer capacities, removal of constraints to adoption, and the development of inclusive value chains with interlinked contracts. As important, such efforts also need to be placed within a context of comprehensive agricultural, rural, and structural transformations. However, in many countries implementation of the requisite policies has been lagging. This book, with contributions from many top experts in the field, provides the most up-to-date presentation of this argument and explains in detail how to successfully put its ideas into practice. Governments, the private sector, and civil society organizations need to study it carefully to turn the promise of agriculture for development into a reality.“ Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet Professors of the Graduate School, University of California at Berkeley