scholarly journals Agricultural Advisory Diagnostics Using a Data-Based Approach: Test Case in an Intensively Managed Rural Landscape in the Ganga River Basin, India

2022 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soham Adla ◽  
Surya Gupta ◽  
Sri Harsha Karumanchi ◽  
Shivam Tripathi ◽  
Markus Disse ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Agricultural Extension ◽  
Rural Landscape ◽  
Ganga River ◽  
Soil Testing ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Intensively Managed ◽  
User Friendly ◽  
Performance Target

technology adoption through agricultural extension may be a consequence of providing generic information without sufficient adaptation to local conditions. Data-rich paradigms may be disruptive to extension services and can potentially change farmer-advisor interactions. This study fills a gap in pre-existing, generic advisory programs by suggesting an approach to “diagnose” farm-specific agricultural issues quantitatively first in order to facilitate advisors in developing farm-centric advisories. A user-friendly Farm Agricultural Diagnostics (FAD) tool is developed in Microsoft Excel VBA that uses farmer surveys and soil testing to quantify current agricultural performance, classify farms into different performance categories relative to a localized performance target, and visualize farm performance within a user-friendly interface. The advisory diagnostics approach is tested in Kanpur, representative of an intensively managed rural landscape in the Ganga river basin in India. The developed open-source tool is made available online to generate data-based agricultural advisories. During the field testing in Kanpur, the tool identifies 24% farms as nutrient-limited, 34% farms as water-limited, 27% farms with nutrient and water co-limitations, and the remaining farms as satisfactory compared to the localized performance target. It is recommended to design advisories in terms of water and nutrient recommendations which can fulfill the farm needs identified by the tool. The tool will add data-based value to pre-existing demand based advisory services in agricultural extension programs. The primary users of the tools are academic, governmental and non-governmental agencies working in the agricultural sector, whose rigorous scientific research, soil testing capacity, and direct stakeholder engagement, respectively, can be harnessed to generate more data-based and customized advisories, potentially improving farmer uptake of agricultural advisories.

ENHANCEMENT OF YOUTH INVOLVEMENT IN AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION ADVISORY SERVICES THROUGH CAPACITY BUILDING: A SOLUTION TO UNEMPLOYMENT IN NIGERIA

2021 ◽  
pp. 22-30
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Capacity Development ◽  
White Collar ◽  
Agricultural Extension ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Tertiary Institutions ◽  
Advisory Services ◽  
Extension System ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Sub Saharan

The unemployment rate in Nigeria and other Sub Saharan African countries keep surging year after year despite the need for human resources in several sectors. Nigeria records a large number of young graduates from tertiary institutions most of whom find it difficult to get white collar jobs. Despite this ongoing, human resource which is needed for economic development remains under exploited. Young people have a sense of responsibility which makes it easy for them to take up opportunities that will lead to individual and societal development. Unemployed youths who have interest in agriculture and the extension system can be recruited into this sector to achieve sustainable agricultural and rural development in these areas. Capacity development is essential in this scenario to absorb these group of people into the agricultural sector, thus, reducing employment rate. Unqualified young persons can carry out the functions or duties of agricultural extension advisory services if their technical and knowledge skills in line with the subject matter is developed.

Length-weight relationships of four freshwater cyprinid species from a tributary of Ganga River Basin in North India

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 497-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. K. Sharma ◽  
R. Singh ◽  
M. Gupta ◽  
N. N. Pandey ◽  
V. K. Tiwari ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Ganga River ◽  
North India ◽  
Cyprinid Species

Estimating the economic impacts of drought on agriculture through models and surveys in the Po river basin (Northern Italy)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iolanda Borzì ◽  
Beatrice Monteleone ◽  
Brunella Bonaccorso ◽  
Mario Martina
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Economic Impacts ◽  
Growing Season ◽  
Northern Italy ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Po River ◽  
Po River Basin

<p>Drought economic impacts, even if non-structural, are a significant threat for those sectors highly dependent on water resources. Agricultural production is highly sensitive to extreme weather events such as droughts and heatwaves.  Climate change is expected to exacerbate the frequency and the severity of droughts, as stated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which raises concerns about food security for the next decades.</p><p>The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that between 2005 and 2015, 83% of all drought-related losses were absorbed by agriculture. The huge monetary losses are mainly due to crop yield reduction because of high temperatures and reduced precipitation, which are linked to additional expenses for field irrigation.</p><p>This study aims at estimating the economic impacts of drought on the agricultural sector. The investigation has been carried out for a specific case study area within the Po river basin (Northern Italy). The Po valley is the largest agricultural area in Italy and accounts for 35% of Italian agricultural production. It has experienced multiple droughts over the past 20 years, with the long and severe drought from 2003 to 2008 that caused relevant impacts to the agricultural sector. The total economic impact of the 2005-2007 drought was estimated to be around 1.850M€. Climate change projections over the Italian peninsula from the PRUDENCE regional experiments showed that the frequency and the severity of droughts in Northern Italy will increase in the next century due to a decrease in precipitation during critical crop growing seasons (spring and summer).</p><p>The proposed methodology consists of two steps. At first, farmers have been subjected to surveys for assessing the monetary losses they experienced during past drought events and the cost associated with the mitigation strategies implemented to reduce the economic impacts of the extreme event, with special attention to irrigation practices.</p><p>Secondly, the crop growing season and yields have been estimated using the Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM), calibrated with local yields retrieved from the Italian National Institute for Statistics (ISTAT) over the period from 2006 to 2020. Weather parameters for simulations in APSIM were derived from remote-sensing images. The comparison between the average growing season and the ones with low yields allows the identification of the crop growing stages that experienced stress. Among the identified stresses, the ones related to water shortages are considered. The economic costs associated with agricultural practices are computed to obtain an estimation of farmers' expenses. Besides, farmers' income is computed based on crop prices and simulated yield. The reduced income obtained by farmers during the previously identified water-related stresses represents their loss due to drought.</p><p>Results reveal that the use of the developed methodology to identify drought stress in combination with the information coming from surveys helps in quickly assessing the economic impacts of past and present droughts in the Po river basin and represents a useful tool to evaluate which cultivations and which areas suffered the highest economic impacts of droughts.</p>

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