Adoption of agricultural innovations by smallholder farmers in the context of HIV/AIDS PDF Download

Author: Faith N. Nguthi
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9086866417
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
Using tissue-cultured technology is a potentially important way for smallholder banana farmers to improve their yields and income. In the situation of the impoverishing effects of high HIV/AIDS-prevalence in a rural banana-farming community, this applies even more. The research documented in this book examines the balance between required inputs and potential benefits of applying the tissue-cultured technology among HIV/AIDS-affected and non-affected households in Maragua district, Central Kenya, using a livelihood approach. The results show that adoption of the technology and its continued use differs according to the resources endowment of the farming households. Lack of financial and physical capital, notably a water tank, inhibits adoption, irrespective of HIV/AIDS-status. However, households headed by elderly females dominate among the poor households and the HIV/AIDS-affected households. This illustrates how HIV/AIDS interfaces with poverty and, thereby, indirectly with the feasibility of sustainable technology adoption. The research also shows that livelihood decisions and strategies of farming households are influenced by land tenure status (having title deeds or not) and labour constraints at the household level. The latter arise as a consequence of HIV/AIDS-related morbidity and mortality.

Author: Faith Njeri Nguthi
Publisher: Brill Wageningen Academic
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Using tissue-cultured technology is a potentially important way for smallholder banana farmers to improve their yields and income. In the situation of the impoverishing effects of high HIV/AIDS-prevalence in a rural banana-farming community, this applies even more. The research documented in this book examines the balance between required inputs and potential benefits of applying the tissue-cultured technology among HIV/AIDS-affected and non-affected households in Maragua district, Central Kenya, using a livelihood approach. The results show that adoption of the technology and its continued use differs according to the resources endowment of the farming households. Lack of financial and physical capital, notably a water tank, inhibits adoption, irrespective of HIV/AIDS-status. However, households headed by elderly females dominate among the poor households and the HIV/AIDS-affected households. This illustrates how HIV/AIDS interfaces with poverty and, thereby, indirectly with the feasibility of sustainable technology adoption. The research also shows that livelihood decisions and strategies of farming households are influenced by land tenure status (having title deeds or not) and labour constraints at the household level. The latter arise as a consequence of HIV/AIDS-related morbidity and mortality.

Author: Anke Niehof
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136536760
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
AIDS epidemics continue to threaten the livelihoods of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa. Three decades after the disease was first recognized, the annual death toll from AIDS exceeds that from wars, famine and floods combined. Yet despite millions of dollars of aid and research, there has previously been little detailed on-the-ground analysis of the multifaceted impacts on rural people. Filling that gap, this book brings together recent evidence of AIDS impacts on rural households, livelihoods, and agricultural practice in sub-Saharan Africa. There is particular emphasis on the role of women in affected households, and on the situation of children. The book is unique in presenting micro-level information collected by original empirical research in a range of African countries, and showing how well-grounded conclusions on trends, impacts and local responses can be applied to the design of HIV-responsive policies and programmes. AIDS impacts are more diverse than we previously thought, and local responses more varied - sometimes innovative, sometimes desperate. The book represents a major contribution to our understanding of the impacts of AIDS in the epidemic's heartland, and how these can be managed at different levels.

Author: Monica Karnhanga Beraho
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9086866344
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 371

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Book Description
This book was originally written as a doctoral dissertation. The research in this book was carried out among banana-farming households in the districts of Masaka and Kabarole in Uganda. A gendered livelihood approach was used. The research focused on the identification of critical factors that need to be taken into consideration in the development of relevant policies for HIV/AIDS-affected agriculture-based households or those that are at risk. The book shows that HIV/AIDS causes significant negative effects on the lives of those affected. Their resources are affected due to HIV/AIDS-related labour loss and asset-eroding effects and disinvestment in production and child education. While in the overwhelming majority of the affected cases the effects of AIDS are negative and lead to increased impoverishment and vulnerability, for some households HIV/AIDS-related effects are manageable. It is concluded that a household’s socio-economic status and demographic characteristics influence the magnitude of HIV/AIDS-related impacts experienced and capacity to cope. The book also highlights some historically specific social practices, policies, and ideologies that continue to maintain or reproduce distinct forms of inequality, with certain social groups being marginalized and others being privileged. Unless these are redressed, they will continue to aggravate people’s vulnerability regardless of the type of shock that they are exposed to or experience.

Author: Mariame Maiga
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9086867154
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
This book is about the effects of AIDS on women and food security in Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa. AIDS is more than a health problem. Rural households and women in particular have to cope with the lack of labour in agriculture which threatens their food security. For the matrilineal Agni women land ownership appears to be an unexpected burden, rather than a safeguard from poverty. Culture matters, but not in similar ways everywhere. Matrilineal or patrilineal kinship organisation, gender inequality, and norms about sexual relationships very much influence the differences in Agni and migrant women's vulnerability to AIDS. African women are often seen as victims of AIDS. This study shows that women may also use their creativity and social networks to battle and to be resilient against the effects of the illness in their everyday household activities. Using a combination of quantitative statistical data and qualitative methods, this research questions the effectiveness of mainstream AIDS policy and interventions in Côte d'Ivoire. Victimising the poor does not help. Instead, multi-sector policy intervention can mitigate the social effects of AIDS by improving household food security and by changing cultural practices through local leaders who have historical legitimacy and power.

Author: Munyaradzi Mabeza, Christopher
Publisher: Langaa RPCIG
ISBN: 9956764515
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
This book is a biography based on a qualitative ethnographic study of adaptation to climate by Mr Zephaniah Phiri Maseko, an award-winning smallholder farmer from Zvishavane, rural Zimbabwe. Ethnographic data provides insight and lessons of Mr Phiri Maseko and other farmers’ practices for rethinking existing strategies for adaptation to climate change. The concept of adaptation is probed in relationship to the closely related concepts of vulnerability, resilience and innovation. This study also explores the concept of conviviality and argues that Mr Phiri Maseko’s adaptation to climate hinges on mediating barriers between local and exogenous knowledge systems. The book argues that Mr Phiri Maseko offered tangible adaptive climate strategies through his innovations that “marry water and soil so that it won’t elope and run-off but raise a family” on his plot. His agricultural practices are anchored on the Shona concept of hurudza (an exceptionally productive farmer). This book explores the concept and practices of uhurudza, to suggest that the latter-day hurudza (commercial farmer) as embodied by Mr Phiri Maseko offers an important set of resources for the development of climate adaptation strategies in the region. This study of smallholder farmers’ adoption of innovations to climate highlights the “complex interplay” of multiple factors that act as barriers to uptake. Such interplay of multiple stressors increases the vulnerability of smallholders. The study concludes by arguing that in as much as the skewed colonial land policy impoverished the smallholder farmers, Mr Phiri Maseko nonetheless redefined himself as a latter-day hurudza and thus breaks free from the poverty cycle by conjuring ingenious ways of reducing vulnerability to climate. The book does not suggest that Mr Phiri Maseko’s innovations offer a silver bullet solution to the insecure rural livelihoods of smallholder farmers; nevertheless, they are a source of hope in an environment of uncertainty. His steely tenacity in the face of a multi-stressor environment is to be treasured.

Author: Carja Butijn
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9086867758
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
In 'The arena of everyday life' nine authors look back and forward at developments in the sociology of consumers and households. Nine chapters show variety in the employed methods, from multivariate analyses of survey data to classical essays. The contributions are organised around four themes. In the first theme, two chapters entail a critical discussion of the concepts livelihood and household. The second part deals with health, in particular food security, hygiene and aids/HIV. The third theme focuses on female opportunities to foster income procurement of household by respectively microfinance and entrepreneurship. The fourth theme concentrates on two topical societal developments in a Western society, the first chapter dealing with the issue of creating opportunities for tailor-made services to older people, the second one focussing on the home-work balance of telecommuters. This publication, written by international researchers, once supervised by prof. Anke Niehof, while writing their PhD dissertation, or (former) colleagues of Niehof, covers the many issues and reflecting her work and interest. The arena of everyday life is what her research and teaching evolved around, as shown in this book.

Author: Walter Leal Filho
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9783030451059
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 2838

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Book Description
This open access book discusses current thinking and presents the main issues and challenges associated with climate change in Africa. It introduces evidences from studies and projects which show how climate change adaptation is being - and may continue to be successfully implemented in African countries. Thanks to its scope and wide range of themes surrounding climate change, the ambition is that this book will be a lead publication on the topic, which may be regularly updated and hence capture further works. Climate change is a major global challenge. However, some geographical regions are more severly affected than others. One of these regions is the African continent. Due to a combination of unfavourable socio-economic and meteorological conditions, African countries are particularly vulnerable to climate change and its impacts. The recently released IPCC special report "Global Warming of 1.5o C" outlines the fact that keeping global warming by the level of 1.5o C is possible, but also suggested that an increase by 2o C could lead to crises with crops (agriculture fed by rain could drop by 50% in some African countries by 2020) and livestock production, could damage water supplies and pose an additonal threat to coastal areas. The 5th Assessment Report produced by IPCC predicts that wheat may disappear from Africa by 2080, and that maize— a staple—will fall significantly in southern Africa. Also, arid and semi-arid lands are likely to increase by up to 8%, with severe ramifications for livelihoods, poverty eradication and meeting the SDGs. Pursuing appropriate adaptation strategies is thus vital, in order to address the current and future challenges posed by a changing climate. It is against this background that the "African Handbook of Climate Change Adaptation" is being published. It contains papers prepared by scholars, representatives from social movements, practitioners and members of governmental agencies, undertaking research and/or executing climate change projects in Africa, and working with communities across the African continent. Encompassing over 100 contribtions from across Africa, it is the most comprehensive publication on climate change adaptation in Africa ever produced.

Author: Cees Leeuwis
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118688015
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
This important book is the re-titled third edition of the extremely well received and widely used Agricultural Extension (van den Ban & Hawkins, 1988, 1996). Building on the previous editions, Communication for Rural Innovation maintains and adapts the insights and conceptual models of value today, while reflecting many new ideas, angles and modes of thinking concerning how agricultural extension is taught and carried through today. Since the previous edition of the book, the number and type of organisations that apply communicative strategies to foster change and development in agriculture and resource management has become much more varied and this book is aimed at those who use communication to facilitate change in agriculture and resource management. Communication for Rural Innovation is essential reading for process facilitators, communication division personnel, knowledge managers, training officers, consultants, policy makers, extension specialists and managers of agricultural extension or research organisations. The book can also be used as an advanced introduction into issues of communicative intervention at BSc or MSc level.

Author: Ian Scoones
Publisher: Practical Action Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
Agriculture is an urgent global priority and farmers find themselves in the front line of some of the world's most pressing issues- climate change, globalization and food security. Twenty years ago, the Farmer First workshop held at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK, launched a movement to encourage farmer participation in agricultural research and development (R & D), responding to farmers' needs in complex, diverse, risk-prone environments, and promoting sustainable livelihoods and agriculture. Since that time, methodological, institutional and policy experiments have unfolded around the world. Farmer First Revisited returns to the debates about farmer participation in agricultural R & D and looks to the future.The book presents a range of experiences that highlight the importance of going beyond a focus on the farm to a wider innovation system, including market interactions as well as the wider institutional and policy environment. If, however, farmers are really to be put first, a politics of demand is required in order to shape the direction of these innovative systems.