Chicken housing among the rural community of Tonj County in South Sudan: Types and designs

Rural communities usually exert talents and arts in the construction of chickens’ shelters as a token for chickens’ contributions to their livelihoods worldwide. A purposive cross-sectional study was conducted to highlight types and designs of rural chickens’ houses among the village/Boma communities in Tonj County, South Sudan. A total of 400 (four hundred) households owning chickens were randomly selected from 4 (four) villages for the study. A stratified randomized sample collection method, direct interview, enumeration and observations were used. Observations revealed that 271 (67.75%) of the households built houses above the ground level compared to 129 (32.25%) that built close to the ground level. 117 (43.17%) of the households preferred the dome shaped design houses, meanwhile 192(48%) frequently utilized bamboos for constructing the houses. The study concluded that high proportion of rural community was aware of the importance of housing to chickens. Furthermore, the dome shaped design and the bamboos were preferred for chickens’ houses. Farmers Field School (FFS) is needed for educating households to develop inclusive housing structures that realize more benefits and disseminate reciprocation of such study elsewhere in similar rural settings of South Sudan.

Integrated Pest Management Practices Adopted by Mango Growers at Meherpur Region in Bangladesh

A study on integrated pest management (IPM) practices adopted by the mango growers was carried out at Mujibnagar Upazila under Meherpur district of Bangladesh during August-September 2018 using structured questionnaire. Randomly selected 112 mango growers were used for the study. Results indicated that 75.9% of the respondents were highly adopted with IPM practices during mango cultivation. According to IPM Practices Use Index (IPUI), harvesting at right stage was ranked 1st and use of sex pheromone trap was ranked 10th as commonly used IPM tactic by the growers. The use of logistic regression model in this study was identified as the significant factor of IPM adoption, explore several factors, including contact with IPM club, IFMC and Farmers Field School (FFS) and annual income from mango cultivation. SAARC J. Agric., 19(1): 125-138 (2021)

Effects of Agricultural Programmes and Land Ownership on the Adoption of Sustainable Agricultural Practices in Nigeria

Many countries promote food security through agricultural policies to boost agricultural productivity without looking at the effect of such policies on sustainability. This study investigates the effect of agricultural policies and land ownership on the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices in Nigeria. A structured questionnaire was used for data collection from a survey of 288 smallholder farmers in November 2018. The results of the Logistic Regression Model revealed that programs affected the adoption of SAP. Farmers that participated in E-wallet were more likely to adopt fertiliser trees and use animal manure and were less likely to adopt planting basins than non-users. Farmers who participated in Fadama were less likely to adopt crop diversification. Participation in Farmers’ Field School (FFS) contributed to a greater likelihood of farmers adopting crop diversification and cover crops. Landowner farmers were found to be more likely to adopt mulching and less likely to adopt fertiliser trees. This study provides practical implications to foster sustainability through effective agricultural policies and land ownership to facilitate sustainable agricultural practice adoption rates.

Transforming Extension and Service Delivery through Bottom-Up Climate Resilient Farmer Field School Approach to Agribusiness in Eastern Africa

There is consensus that climate variability and change is impacting food security in Eastern Africa, and that conventional extension approaches, based on top-down model of information dissemination and technology transfer, are too inadequate to help smallholder farmers tackle increasingly complex agro-climatic adversities. Innovative service delivery options exist but are mostly operated in silos with little effort to explore and blend them. There are efforts to develop a blended Climate-Resilient Farmers Field School methodology to address the gaps, with objective to improve participants’ knowledge, skills and attitude to apply the blended approach and to sensitize actors on what needs to be advocated at the policy level. Some 661 local trainers/facilitators (ToT/ToFs), 32% of them women and 54% youth, were trained across Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, with additional 76 Master Trainers (MToTs) trained to backstop the ToT/ToFs. Through the implementation, the process reached 36 agribusinesses covering some 237,250 smallholder farmers trained across Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda on CSA technologies, practices, and innovations by the end of 2020. The blended approach offers lessons to transform extension to help farmers improve food security and resilience. Preliminary findings indicate that the process is rapidly shaping individual adaptive behavior and group adaptive thinking. Lessons also show a strong need for agronomists to work more closely with agro-meteorologists to ensure that farmers are properly guided to participate appropriately in the co-generation and application of climate information and agro-weather advisories, which they can interpret easily and utilize for their agricultural production purposes. Experience from this initiative can be leveraged to develop scalable participatory extension and training models

The Role of Agricultural Extension in Cocoa Production and Livelihood of Farmers in Meme Division, Cameroon

Agriculture is important not only for its supply of food but also for its provision of raw materials. Cocoa is a lucrative cash crop grown in kumba, Meme Division of Cameroon. Given the importance of the crop to farm communities and the economy of Cameroon, agricultural extension has key roles to enhance production through information dissemination and adoption of innovations. This survey thus assess the role of agricultural extension in cocoa production and the livelihood of farmers in Meme Division. Through simple random sampling technique, 137 farmers were selected from the population of 210 registered cocoa farmers in the study area. A questionnaire made up of open and close ended questions was the instrument for primary data collection. The collected data was analyzed using SPSS and results revealed that 90% of the farmers were married men and 60% were of the age 35-49 years. Also, 74% of the respondents had been into cocoa farming for more than 10 years, signifying that their livelihood depend on it. A low level of education is observed with 55% of them attaining only primary education. Moreover, 64% are small farm holders with 68% acknowledging use of family labor for production activities. Results further show that agricultural extension plays an essential role in cocoa production as 92% affirmed that extension provided information, knowledge and technical skills for capacity building and empowerment using Farmers Field School (FFS) and Farmers Business School (FBS) approaches. To 96%, extension initiates diffusion and adoption of innovations and organizes credits and market linkages (87%). Another 89%, were confirmative that extension liaise projects under the Program for the Improvement of Competitiveness of Family Agro-Pastoral Farms (with French acronym ACEFA) to accompany the farmers. Conclusively, extension service delivery empowers and ensures livelihood of farmers.

INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT (IPM) AND ITS APPLICATION IN RICE – A REVIEW

Rice is the staple food crop for more than half of the world’s population though it’s cultivation is done in only 11% of the world’s cultivable land. Several pests attack rice in different ways at different stages. Increased reliance on pesticides for pest control is found to be unsustainable and cost-ineffective. So, Integrated Pest Management (IPM) has been introduced as the best alternative for pest management in rice. IPM in rice helps to minimize risks to the environment and human health. Rice IPM uses the combination of cultural, use of resistant varieties, biological, physical, and chemical practices for pest control. Farmers Field School has been the most effective way to increase IPM knowledge among rice farmers. Such training helps to facilitate the farmers to apply ecologically informed farming practices. There are several challenges regarding the implementation of rice IPM. To increase IPM implementation in rice emphasis should be given on farmers’ training and education. The role of government is also vital for the successful implementation of IPM. This review article provides an overview of various IPM practices being performed in rice fields at present.

Economics of Rubber Production in Jhapa, Nepal

A study was conducted to examine cost structure and economic feasibility of rubber production in Jhapa district. It also aimed to assess determinants of increment in acreage of rubber cultivation in the study area. A total of sixty two rubber growers were selected by simple random sampling and interviewed with pre-tested semi structured schedule on the month of March, 2019. Study revealed that the total cost of natural rubber production per hectare of rubber orchard was 499774.8 NRs. /year. It was found to be economically viable and cost effective as indicated by satisfactory values of Benefit Cost Ratio (1.5), Net Present Value of NRs. 686547 at a discount rate of 12 percent and Internal Rate of Return 18 percent. Probit model revealed that trainings received, experience of rubber farming, ethnicity and membership in community organizations were significant factors that positively affected farmers’ decision in expanding rubber cultivation area. Received trainings solely could increase probability of acreage increment by 36.9 percent. Thus, it is recommended that extension services like training, farmers’ field school, and farm visits should be intensified for increment of profitability from rubber farming in Jhapa, Nepal.