Assessment of Traditional Methods of Controlling Striga on Cultivated Crops in Sudanian Agricultural Zone of Chad

The phytoparasite, Striga spp., is a major biotic constraint to cereals production in sub-Saharan Africa. This study was carried out at station of Bébédjia of Chadian Institute of Agronomic Research for the Development in Sudanian agricultural zone of Chad, on traditional methods of controlling Striga spp. This study helped to find out several methods of controlling Striga among which the most important is the agronomic method including organic and or mineral fertilization, associated crops, crop rotation and the use of false hosts and trap crops. Some farmers cultivated resistant varieties and early maturing varieties to control pest attack and some others used shea flour and herbicide treatment to reduce the effect of Striga on the farm. Most of these methods were applied by farmers from generation to generation, without a thorough study to understand their mechanism. Thus, the listed methods will be analysed by research in station to find out scientific explanations for each applied method. Then experiments will be carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of some methods previously identified by extension rural services in farmers’ area after improvement.

Gender and climate change adaptation in livestock production in Tunisia.

This section begins by examining the pattern of women's involvement in livestock livelihoods, and ownership and control of assets (mainly land and livestock) in the study areas. The discussion then moves to changes in gender roles; changes related to climate change; implications and coping mechanisms adopted by women and men; rural services and their role in building resilience; and innovation availability and adoption in the past 5 years. The findings of the study reveal that both women and men are marginalized from income generation training and loan acquisitions, and are negatively affected by resource degradation and climate change impacts, albeit in different ways. The benefits of the feminization of agrarian labor may be incommensurate with the disadvantages mainly due to the lack of social and economic interventions needed to improve agricultural productivity for women and men in the context of increased climate change impacts and resource degradation.

Rural Infrastructure and its Implication to Labor Market Participation in Jimma Zone, South-West Ethiopia

Rural economy remain the back bone of Ethiopian economy absorbing tremendous labor share while how these labor market behave in rural economy of Ethiopia is yet uncovered. Besides the appreciated role of rural access to basic infrastructure with reference to rural labor supply decision, the topic is not bold in domestic literature. Considering this inadequate attention to the topic, we tried to examine the impact of rural infrastructure provision on individual labor supply, and assess the implication with each component of rural services to household participation decision in the labor market, using household survey from Jimma zone. Our multinomial logit regression indicated that rural services like education, health, credit, market information and access to all-weather-road are important considerations with regard to individual labor supply decision in farm and off-farm activities. It would be better to enhance rural access to efficient agricultural extension as well as other basic services towards empowering rural livelihood, and ensuring economic transformation at large.

Rethinking the economics of rural water in Africa

Rural Africa lags behind global progress to provide safe drinking water to everyone. Decades of effort and billions of dollars of investment have yielded modest gains, with high but avoidable health and economic costs borne by over 300m people lacking basic water access. We explore why rural water is different for communities, schools, and healthcare facilities across characteristics of scale, institutions, demand, and finance. The findings conclude with policy recommendations to (i) network rural services at scale, (ii) unlock rural payments by creating value, and (iii) design and test performance-based funding models at national and regional scales, with an ambition to eliminate the need for future, sustainable development goals.

Individual social capital and access to rural services in Northern Vietnam

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of network-based individual social capital on the access of rural households to services. Design/methodology/approach – In the context of development economics, an innovative data collection approach is used to determine network-based social capital. The approach originates from the field of sociology and entails a personal network survey. The authors define four social capital variables according to tie strength and social distance between the respondent and his/her network member. Findings – Social network ties are not homogeneous. The econometric results suggest that social capital with weaker ties in combination with socially distant ties can potentially improve households’ access to rural services. Research limitations/implications – The empirical survey focusses on a single province in Northern Vietnam. Thus, the main limitation of the micro-study is its regional focus. A more representative sample of the whole country would be desirable to backup the policy recommendation. Originality/value – The results indicate that access to services in rural Vietnam it still too personalized and subjective. Thus, a thorough review of the access procedures and making them more objective would be better choice. This would also root out a potential alley for corruption and nepotism.