The Role of Agronomists in International Agricultural Development

Author(s):  
N. C. Brady
2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bridget Bwalya Umar

AbstractDifferent theories have been posited that try to explain the decision-making process of smallholders especially regarding the adoption of new technologies or new agricultural techniques. The objective of this paper is to review and re-assess the dominant household production theories to explain the decision making of smallholders practicing conservation agriculture (CA) in the southern, eastern, and central provinces of Zambia. It also discusses the potential role of CA toward economic development. It finds that the CA smallholders studied did not aim to maximize profits but tried to secure household consumption from their own production before any other considerations in risky and uncertain environments. Their response to economic incentives was contingent on minimizing risks associated with securing a minimum level of livelihood and investing into local forms of insurance. This paper concludes that the ability for CA to contribute to rural livelihoods and economic development would depend on how adequately the factors that hinder smallholder agricultural development in general are addressed.


2004 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-305
Author(s):  
Natalie Hicks

AbstractThis article explores the role of district government in agricultural development in Vietnam's Long An province from 1954 to the present. It argues that it is only in the reform era that the district has begun to realise its potential as a 'transmission belt' between the higher authorities and the grassroots. Under the South Vietnamese regime and in the pre-reform era of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, local initiative was stifled as policy was dictated from on high by central government, with disastrous consequences. In the reform era, district officials have been joined by 'associates of the state', such as agricultural extension officers, to develop innovative 'local' approaches to agricultural development. This has led to increased prosperity but also rising inequality. While the central government has been more willing to allow local experimentation under reform, its influence and interests are still felt, even at the district level. Most scholars emphasise a sharp break between pre-1975 and post-1975 Vietnam. By contrast, this article highlights the way in which there are important elements of continuity both between regimes and between the pre-reform and post-reform eras.


2020 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 1367-1379
Author(s):  
Vladimir Šebek

Public concern about the environmental impact of economic activities has significantly increased around the globe in recent years. Within the scope of unlawful acts, environmental delicts are among the most serious ones in terms of environmental impact, the consequences of which directly affect the quality and development of agriculture as the main branch of economic activity. The issue of environmental protection and liability can be approached from different perspectives, and the focus of the present research will be on the analysis of environmental delicts committed by legal entities, taking into consideration the importance and role of these entities in agriculture. In addition to general assumptions on legal regulation of the liability of legal entities, the authors also presented the results of research on legal entities reported, charged, and convicted for environmental delicts in the Republic of Serbia in the period from 2010 to 2017, with a special emphasis on the analysis of results obtained in the abovementioned research areas for the territory of AP Vojvodina.


2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 123-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Contò ◽  
M. Fiore ◽  
P. La Sala ◽  
P. Papapietro

The role of education, knowledge and human resources in the agribusiness becomes of primary importance for the development of agricultural sector and, more generally, of the territory. The main objective of the present paper is to verify the role of investment in human resources and, consequently, in services for the agricultural development for the dynamics of rural development, trade and international cooperation of agribusiness.After a literature review, the paper firstly analyses the characteristics of the Italian Region of Basilicata, selected for our empirical application, and secondly develops an econometric model to explain the relationship between the rural GDP and a set of economic variables and of network-education-social (NES) dummy variable. These NES is representative of social, educational and, network factors, describing the degree of openness of the region firm. As expected, the results show that farmers may act as engines for economic development when they are trained on the basis of the needs and requirements related to innovation and research, and they are assisted through new models of organization of agricultural services.


threatening the rest of the private sector, was especially conducive to this solution. None the less, the experience of post-reform agriculture in a number of socialist countries indicates that this is in practice the best way of articulating such disparate forms of production. Third, that the process of capitalist agricultural development does generate a large proletariat, even though it is disguised in the form of impoverished peasantry. This means that the agrarian reform can proceed in socialised production forms in the 'capitalist' sector without direct peasant owner-ship of land. It is true that in the Nicaraguan case, the relatively high land endowment per head reduced this pressure, but it is also important not to overestimate the 'peasant' nature of agriculture in Latin America [Goodman andRedclift, 1981], because this tends to lead to agrarian reform proposals which ignore the inevitable role of agriculture as the base of the national accumulation model in almost all underdeveloped economies in transition. Fourth, that in the case of Nicaragua, this logic has probably been carried too far. In implementing a project to eliminate the exploitative relation-ship between capitalist export agriculture and the peasantry (cheap labour and cheap food) by establishing a stable rural proletariat and secure food supplies, the revolutionary state has effectively undermined the remaining peasant economy without providing a coherent alternative. This has produced a new contradiction in the agrarian development model proposed for the rest of the century, when the revolution not only depends upon the mountain peasantry for defence against external aggression but also for food supplies during the transitional accumulation period. A successful agrarian accumulation model, above all during the tran-sition, must provide for an adequate articulation of distinct forms of pro-duction as part of the process of rural transformation.


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