Download or read book The Influence of Conservation Agriculture Adoption on Input Demand and Maize Production in Butha Buthe Lesotho written by Eric Bisangwa and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis examines the factors influencing adoption of conservation agriculture (CA) technologies and the effects adoption has on input demand, maize production, and farm profit in the province of Butha Buthe, Lesotho. In Lesotho, conventional agricultural practices such as plowing and brush burning for land preparation continue to cause soil erosion and reduce yields. Conservation agriculture technologies have been promoted by various organizations to improve soil structure, conserve water, reduce soil erosion, improve farmer household wellbeing, and increase food security. However, adoption of CA by smallholder farmers in Lesotho and other sub-Saharan countries has been relatively slow. Using data from a survey of 432 households, this thesis applies regression analysis to determine the factors influencing farmer adoption decisions of CA. Findings suggest that the use of CA practices is related to a number of household, farm and farmer characteristics, and the presence of extension efforts in the surveyed region. Agricultural training, farm size, education, access to fertilizer, distance to fields, household demographic structure, livestock ownership, and input prices played an important role in the decision to use CA. Results from the adoption model suggested that CA adoption was positively associated with farm profits and labor demand for crop production. Maize production and other input demands were not associated with CA adoption. Farmers were not responsive to prices as would be expected by profit maximizers. Farmers in Butha Buthe may not be maximizing profit with respect to input decisions for producing maize. Rather, their primary concerns may be growing maize for subsistence. The presence of non-government organizations, extension services and government efforts to promote CA in Butha Buthe may also explain the relative unresponsiveness of farmers to maize prices and input costs. Further research isolating these causes is warranted to understand what role input prices play in determining production and inputs demand decisions given the promotion of this technology by NGOs and other extension services, and the potential role CA may play in the wellbeing of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.

Download or read book Conservation Agriculture in Subsistence Farming written by Catherine Chan and published by CABI. This book was released on 2015-06-16 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conservation agriculture systems have long-term impacts on livelihoods, agricultural production, gender equity, and regional economic development of tribal societies in South Asia. This book presents South Asia as a case study, due to the high soil erosion caused by monsoon rainfall and geophysical conditions in the region, which necessitate conservation agriculture approaches, and the high percentage of people in South Asia relying on subsistence and traditional farming. The book takes an interdisciplinary approach to analyse systems at scales ranging from household to regional and national levels.

Download or read book Milestones in Green Transition and Climate Compatible Development in Eastern and Southern Africa written by Mukuna, Truphena E. and published by OSSREA. This book was released on 2016-07-25 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is widely recognised that climate change poses significant serious threats to sustained economic growth and agricultural development, poverty reduction, food security and political stability globally. Nowhere are these challenges more marked than in Africa where two-thirds of all available land is classified either as desert or dry land, in relation to which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2013) has classified the continent as the most vulnerable to climate change variability. This anthology is a product of a call from OSSREA to collate evidence based researches in a book in a bid to assess how far countries in eastern and southern Africa are implementing the UNFCCC, Rio+20, Agenda 21 and other global and Africa-wide decisions concerning the need to address climate change. This will contribute to post-2015 development agenda for sustainable development goals (SDGs), in which climate change and disaster risk reduction will be priority areas of focus. The book will serve as a valuable tool for experts, advisers and policymakers in pursing effective green growth policies and practices and achieving climate compatible development and in doing so inspire readers to choose a more sustainable pathway for humanity. It will also help in looking at climate change as both a challenge and opportunity for development. Further, this book aims at stimulating more research in climate compatible development and climate financing which have put most countries at crossroads.

Download or read book Conservation Agriculture and Sustainable Crop Intensification in Lesotho written by Laura Silici and published by Food & Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO). This book was released on 2010 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Want to be creative? Then think Inside the Box. The traditional view says that creativity is unstructured and doesn't follow rules or patterns. That you need to think "outside the box" to be truly original and innovative. That you should start with a problem and then "brainstorm" ideas without restraint until you find a solution. Inside the Box shows that more innovation-- and better and quicker innovation--happens when you work inside your familiar world (yes, inside the box) using a set of templates that channel the creative process in a way that makes us more--not less--creative. These techniques were derived from research that discovered a surprising set of common patterns shared by all inventive solutions. They form the basis for Systematic Inventive Thinking, or SIT, now used by hundreds of corporations throughout the world, including industry leaders such as Johnson & Johnson, GE, Procter & Gamble, SAP, and Philips. Many other books discuss how to make creativity a part of corporate culture, but none of them uses the innovative and unconventional SIT approach described in this book. With "inside the box" thinking, companies and organizations of any size can creatively solve problems before they develop--and innovate on an ongoing, systematic basis. This system really works

Download or read book The Economic Impact of the Adoption of Hybrid Maize in Swaziland written by Joseph Gichugu Kariuki and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Assessing the Influence of Conservation Agriculture on Household Wellbeing and Maize Marketing in Tete and Manica Mozambique written by William Edward McNair and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years there has been a movement on the part of farmers, governments, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO), and the international community to promote the use of sustainable agricultural practices. In Sub-Saharan Africa, this has translated into programs with the expressed aim of increasing smallholder farmer adoption rates of conservation agriculture (CA). This thesis contributes to the analysis of the adoption of conservation agriculture by smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa by assessing the economic status of CA adopters in the providences of Manica and Tete, Mozambique. Chapter II of the thesis examines the ceteris paribus correlation between smallholder farm household economic wellbeing with the use of conservation agriculture. Household wellbeing indicators are regressed on household demographic attributes, farm management practices, and a variable indicating the CA adoption status of farms. Of particular interest is the association between the use of conservation agriculture practices and a set of composite wellbeing indices comprised of livestock and asset ownership, and housing material quality. The results suggest that, holding other factors constant, CA households have higher wellbeing index scores related to asset ownership and housing material quality, but lower index scores related to livestock ownership. Chapter III of the thesis analyzes smallholder marketing of maize and use of CA by farmers. The chapter examines the factors associated with the likelihood of a household participating in maize markets as a vendor or buyer, and the subsequent quantity of maize transacted. A censored regression model estimates the intensity of market participation because a large number of households do not buy or sell grain. Of particular interest is the correlation between the adoption of CA practices and the likelihood a household sold or purchased maize. Results suggest that households using CA were more likely to sell maize and less likely to purchase maize for household consumption. However, the overall quantities sold by CA adopters and non-adopters were not different. Households using CA also exhibited different maize marketing patterns with transactions more evenly distributed throughout the year, as compared to non-CA households whose transactions were concentrated during times when food was scarce.

Download or read book Understanding the factors that influence cereal legume adoption amongst smallholder farmers in Malawi written by Nindi, Tabitha and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2021-03-17 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although sustainable intensification (SI) practices such as intercropping of cereals with legumes are believed to offer productivity benefits to farmers, the adoption of cereal-legume intercropping remains low in Malawi. We use dynamic programing to assess the impact of four key constraints that smallholder farmers face. These constraints are i) land, ii) labor, ii) input market access and iv) output market access. We use the model to evaluate farmers’ optimal production plans across six scenarios in which these constraints are relaxed and compare their production plans across these scenarios. The farmer’s decision process given these alternative scenarios is modeled to assess the impact of these constraints on SI adoption decisions. Our model preliminary results suggest that both resource (land and labor) and institutional constraints (access to input and output market) play a key role in influencing smallholder farmers’ SI adoption decisions. The model results help to illustrate how labor constraints, land constraints and limited access to input and output market affect smallholders’ adoption of cereal-legume intercropping in Malawi.

Download or read book Evaluating Trade offs Between Agricultural Productivity and Long term Ecosystem Services Provision Among Maize Farmers Practicing Conventional and Conservation Agriculture in Kafue Zambia written by Namulula Mwangana and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maize is a staple crop and underpins food security for Zambia. Maize productivity in Zambia is almost half the potential due to low uptake of conservation agricultural practices. This study tests the hypothesis of the trade-offs between agriculture productivity and long-term ecosystem services (ES) provision among maize farmers practising conventional agriculture on the one hand, and those practising conservation agriculture on the other hand, in Kafue district, Zambia. In addition, challenges which affect conservation agriculture uptake are assessed. Besides these challenges, the study notes that adoption of a new technology is also influenced by its efficiency, and therefore technical efficiency scores were estimated using the Stochastic Frontier Approach (SFA) to compare efficiency levels of the two agricultural systems. Kafue was purposefully selected as it is among the first districts where conservation agriculture was introduced. Through purposive and random sampling, the households surveyed were split into two distinct groups namely conservation agriculture (CA) farmers (treatment group) and conventional agriculture (CV) farmers (control group). The analysis significantly shows that farmers practicing CA have more knowledge than CV farmers about the capacity of conservation agriculture to reduce soil erosion, increase soil fertility, retain nutrients, mitigate pests and weeds and increase crop yield. However, both farming groups knew that CA helps conserve soils and that soil maintenance is important for food production. On the other hand, significantly, CV farmers knew more than CA farmers that CV reduces crop yield and increases soil erosion. On the other hand, CV farmers expressed a higher level of willingness to adopt CA practices than CA farmers who are unwilling to expand their area under CA. The study further shows that at least 55% of farmers practicing CA find inadequate labour to be the main challenge faced in CA. It appears that a policy that improves the farmers' knowledge on CA would help improve the uptake of CA. CA farmers were significantly more knowledgeable than CV farmers about the detrimental effects of CV, such as increasing air and water pollution, thus raising the need for training among CV farmers with emphasis on the effects of their farming system on the environment which affect the supply of ecosystem services. Efficiency is also a means of improving productivity hence the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) was employed to estimate technical efficiency levels in maize production. Using SFA, the study found that the technical efficiency of maize among CV farmers is 71.3% on average while that of CA farmers is 57.9% on average. Moreover, the study found that there was a significant difference (t=3.9854, P=0.0002) in the technical efficiency scores of the both CV and CA farmers. Nevertheless, the study also found that 77% of output variation among CA farmers can be explained by variation in technical efficiency. However, 33.4 % of total maize output can be explained by variation in technical efficiency among CV farmers. This means that CA farmers have a higher potential to increase their current output than CV farmers. Finally there was no significant difference in fertiliser usage between CA and CV farmers (t=1.3825, P=0.1700). Further, from SFA fertiliser responsiveness to maize output showed that a 1% increase in the use of synthetic fertiliser leads to 0.678% and 0% increase in maize output per hectare for CA and CV respectively at both 1% and 10% level of significance at the expense of water and air quality. Therefore, it can be concluded that there is a higher trade-off between maize production and water and air quality under conventional than under conservation agriculture.

Download or read book Assessing the development impacts of bio innovations The case of genetically modified maize and cassava in Tanzania written by Benfica, Rui and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2022-02-28 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tanzania’s agriculture faces persistent low crop productivity due to endogenous and exogenous factors, particularly low and unpredictable rainfall, and the incidence of pests. To address these challenges, the government and partners are making efforts to develop and deploy Genetically Modified (GM) Maize varieties with drought tolerance and insect resistant traits (WEMA), and Cassava Brown Streak Disease (CBSD) resistant varieties. This analysis overcomes limitations from earlier assessments of the impacts of those GM crops by accounting for trade-offs in resource competition and considering the indirect effects of adoption and yield gains from GM maize and cassava varieties on the broader economy, the Agri-Food System (AFS), and on household level outcomes. It extends the BioRAPP analysis to an ex-ante economywide framework. We reveal several findings. First, GM maize and cassava (individually and jointly) have positive impacts in the economy, the AFS, and the poverty, particularly in rural areas and among the poorest households. Second, given its relatively greater relevance in output and employment, and the stronger linkages in the AFS, the effects of GM maize on GDP and AFS growth, and poverty is relatively stronger than those from GM cassava. Third, as expected, relatively greater effects are found in higher adoption and high yield gains scenarios, and, in each scenario, the effects on the poorest households are greater than that for the higher quintiles. Furthermore, differential impact across scenarios is also greater amongst the poorest, while the differences are minimal for the top quintile. Finally, the high variation of results across scenarios, and the significant effects of the high adoption/high yield change scenario, suggest that efforts will be critical to ensure the realization of the maximization of adoption rates while ensuring the materialization of the yield growth potential of the GM varieties through the efficient use of technical recommendations on crop production management, and the introduction of the right investments and policy incentives.

Download or read book Local economy wide impact evaluation of Lesotho s Child Grants Programme and Sustainable Poverty Reduction through Income Nutrition and Access to Government Services Project written by Kagin, J., Taylor, J.E., Daidone, S. and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2021-05-28 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report presents findings from a study of the local-economy impacts of one of Lesotho’s largest social programmes, the Child Grants Programme (CGP), and a rural development intervention, the Sustainable Poverty Reduction through Income, Nutrition and Access to Government Services (SPRINGS) programme. The CGP provides cash transfers to eligible poor households, while SPRINGS was a multi-faceted productive intervention targeting areas reached by the CGP, that provided support in various forms. The study is part of a larger project - a partnership between FAO, IFAD and the Universidad de los Andes (UNIANDES) and its Centro de Estudios en Desarrollo Económico (CEDE) - that seeks to identify factors that lead to better articulation between social protection interventions and rural productive inclusion strategies.

Download or read book Heterogeneous Preferences and the Effects of Incentives in Promoting Conservation Agriculture in Malawi written by Patrick Ward and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Malawi faces significant challenges in meeting its future food security needs because there is little scope for increasing production by simply expanding the area under cultivation. One potential alternative for sustainably intensifying agricultural production is by means of conservation agriculture (CA), which improves soil quality through a suite of farming practices that reduce soil disturbance, increase soil cover via retained crop residues, and increase crop diversification. We use discrete choice experiments to study farmers' preferences for these different CA practices and assess willingness to adopt CA. Our results indicate that, despite many benefits, some farmers are not willing to adopt CA without receiving subsidies, and current farm-level practices significantly influence willingness to adopt the full CA package. Providing subsidies, however, can create perverse incentives. Subsidies may increase the adoption of intercropping and residue mulching, but adoption of these practices may crowd out adoption of zero tillage, leading to partial compliance. Further, exposure to various risks such as flooding and insect infestations often constrains adoption. Rather than designing subsidies or voucher programs to increase CA adoption, it may be important to tailor insurance policies to address the new risks brought about by CA adoption.

Download or read book Determinants of Adoption of Genetically Modified Maize by Smallholders in KwaZulu Natal South Africa written by Rebecca Manes and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Previous research on small-scale farmers in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa indicates that certain genetically modified maize seed types improve production efficiencies and increase net returns (Regier 2012). Yet despite the substantiated advantages, not all farmers have adopted genetically modified maize. The purpose of this research is to identify the determinants of adopting certain types of genetically modified maize over traditional or conventional hybrid maize for 184 small-holders in two villages in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Previous adoption studies use socioeconomic characteristics of the farmer as well as farm-level production characteristics to determine the probability that a farmer will implement an improved agricultural technology. While many studies employ a binomial approach to adoption, this study tests the probability of adopting three different GM varieties -- the insect resistant Bt maize, the herbicide tolerant Roundup Ready® maize, and the stacked trait BR maize. Furthermore, the model is enhanced by farmers' open-ended explanations of their perceptions on genetically modified maize and of the major production constraints they face. Following results from previous adoption studies, this research tests three hypotheses in a three different model structures. The first hypothesis tests whether farmers are more likely to adopt if they have greater financial means to cover higher expected production costs. This is tested by variables measuring off-farm employment and expected production costs. The second hypothesis tests whether farmers with less labor availability are more likely to choose maize with the herbicide tolerant technology, either the Roundup Ready® or stacked BR maize, which reduce the need for weeding. The final hypothesis is whether there are differences in the determinants of adoption that differentiate GM adopters into three distinct categories. These hypotheses are tested in three model structures that test the binary probability of adopting GM maize over non-GM, the probabilities of adopting each maize variety separately, and the intensity of adoption. The first finding is that many non-adopters have greater access to income and are more likely to sell a portion of their yield than are many farmers who adopted, especially in comparison to those who plant RR maize. Also, BR farmers are more likely to report input expenses as a major constraint in their adoption decision. Results for the second hypothesis show that those who planted either RR or BR maize did in fact have less family labor available, used less total labor, and used a greater proportion of family to hired labor. Finally, there are differences in the determinants for geographic site, education, self-sufficiency in maize supply, number of family members working off-farm, and whether households planned to sell any of their maize yields. This indicates that adoption should be considered according to each genetically modified trait.

Download or read book Determinants of Conservation Agriculture Adoption Among Zambian Smallholder Farmers written by Olipa Zulu-Mbata and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Adoption of the Conservation Farming Practice in Maize Production by Small Holder Farmers in the Makoni District of Zimbabwe written by N. Gono and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 55 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Conservation Agriculture and Its Impact on Soil Quality and Maize Yield written by Nkanyiso Justice Sithole and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book National Report on Climate Change written by and published by Lesotho Ministry of Natural Resources. This book was released on 2000 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Kingdom of Lesotho written by International Monetary Fund and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2006-04-27 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper for the Kingdom of Lesotho presents a determined plan in pursuance of high and sustainable equity-based economic growth. It contains medium-term objectives and strategies to address the major challenges facing the country. These challenges include employment creation and income generation, and improving quality of and access to education and health services. Lesotho plans to deal boldly with its trading and investment partners by exploiting the opportunities inherent in the process of globalization under such mechanisms as the Africa Growth and Opportunities Act.