Horticulture

Over the second half of the 20th century, plant breeding has developed varieties adapted to high input farming systems and industrial baking, resulting in the replacement of local varieties, which were potentially adapted to the specific soil and climate conditions of each region and had potentially good bread making properties .Recently, however, agricultural practices more environment-friendly such as organic farming have developed leading to an increased diversity in agronomic, soil and ecological conditions. This, together with the growing demand for diversification in terms of product quality, has generated a need for new varieties, general and specific,which are barely met by the standard model of variety innovation.Breeding for organic farming should take several criteria into account: adaptation to the local soil and climatic conditions and to pest and pathogen pressures, weed competition, conformity to the organic specification and specifically growing without chemical inputs and pesticides, no genetic modification, acceptable economic profitability and a high level of nutritional and gustatory quality .

Modern varieties have been bred to provide high yield under high input agricultural conditions and thus they might lack the robustness and quality characteristics that are required for organic agriculture. Up to now, wheat sensory properties have not been systematically included as qualities parameters in the selection of new wheat varieties. However, the availability of suitable wheat varieties is critical for the development of organic agriculture able to meet demands in terms of nutritional and sensory quality.Sensory properties are usually measured through sensory methods as instrumental techniques are still limited to predict human perception . The influence of farming system,hydroponic nft system milling and baking technique including flour type and fermentation   and genetic structure   on bread sensory properties have been investigated. In order of importance the identified factors are milling technique, baking practice,genetic structure and finally farming system. To summarize,it seems that stone milled breads, wholegrain breads and organic wheat breads have specific sensory properties which are thought to be due to bran compared to conventional bread or white pan bread . They showed more intense aromas such as roasted cereals, bitterness or a crusty texture.This brought to light the close linked between nutritional and sensory qualities of wheat bread.The quantity and quality of grain protein is a first parameter that defines the textural properties of the bread. Among wheat protein the gliadin is implicated in the dough extensibility.

Moreover gliadin is suspected to play a role in gluten sensitivity by acting as inhibitors of alpha-amylase activity in some animals . The pro-vitamin and vitamin content are vital nutrient and their supplementation are important for the treatment of certain health problems. The “antioxidant” hypotheseis that Vitamin E, carotenoids and other antioxidant micronutrients afford protection against chronic disease by decreasing oxidative damage . The predominant carotenoid in wheat is lutein and is suspected to reduce the oxidative damage link to the aging process. Moreover, carotenoid content may affect bread flavour by limiting the development of hexanal, a compound responsible for flavour problems . Minerals content is another source of health benefits. Nevertheless, the availability of minerals depends on phytatecontent which had a decalcifying effect. On a sensory point of view, alkaline metal such as potassium or alkaline earth such as magnesium may contribute to the taste of wheat bread . Finally the different categories of dietary fibres have shown to benefit diabetes, blood cholesterol level, body weight control and reduction of the risk of coronary heart diseases. Moreover some fibres as pentosan are implicated in the textural properties of bread wheat. The genetic variability of population varieties can be expected to improve resilience because of their great adaptation capacity. Moreover,a significant historic evolution on nutritional composition of wheat grain has been observed between pure line varieties and population varieties which suggest that there is a potential for aroma and flavour diversity in population varieties.The farmer bakers from RSP have started to reproduce some of them and are interested in testing their processing in bread.In this context, a French interdisciplinary research programme, PICRI , was launched in 2007 to develop participatory breeding and management methods based on the broad diversity of landraces and historic varieties and to characterize their variability for hedonic, sensory and nutritional quality.The objective of this work was to assess sensory quality of different wheat varieties and mixtures of varieties and correlate with nutritional analyses of the same sample.

The inter-linked matrix of operative factors contributing for the integrity of agro- ecology is indicated in Figure 1. Development in agricultural landscapes is becoming more pluralistic as policy planners, farmers, environmentalists, conservationists and consumers have variable perceptions on the sustain-ability. These perceptions and priorities range from eco-logical, agro-technological and socio-economic dimensions. Thus, increasing the limits of acceptability of sustainability indices in agro-ecology must assume constructive terms, which defines collective participation, compromise, learning , conflict resolution and sustained interactions.The emerging concepts highlight the importance of joint learning, co- evolution and network reciprocity .

Arguably, sustainable agricultural process such as co-evolution and negotiation to bring in the element of sustainability can-not be achieved without strong leadership at local level. Global environmental change has the potential to ex-acerbate the ecological and societal impacts on agro- biodiversity . In many regions, land conversion forces declining populations towards the edges of their species range, ebb flow table where they become increasingly vulnerable to collapse if exposed to further human impact and climate change . The combination of irreversible species loss and positive feedbacks between biodiversity changes and ecosystem processes are likely to cause non- linear cost increases to society in the future, particularly when thresholds of ecosystem resilience exceeds . Climate change presents yet another challenge of in-creased habitat alterations affecting both food and non- food crops composition at landscape to regional scale. Agro-ecological system is already in the mode of rapid change leading to species range shifts and changes in plant diversity leading to lesser indigenous traditional plant species .

Further, the impact of climate change will have differential effects on the species through the adversities of deficient hydroogical regimes, high temperature, and variation in length of growing season and increased frequency of extreme weather.However, the preparedness requires evolving adaptive strategies to change the cropping patterns, change the farm operation timing, use of traditional crop varieties, improve water use efficiency, improve soil fertility, flexible institutional and governmental policies to suite diverse farming systems . Likewise, agro-biodiversity hotspots must receive increased attention to conserve and safeguard the species of local origin . Thus, the preparedness for the projected climate change requires building social capital at farm level. Further social capital building must be directed to understand the use of traditional varieties at farm level to landscape scale, species composition of contiguous/fragmented ecosystems, biodiversity value and spread of ecosystem services , degree of resilience of farms and identify potential alternative livelihood sup-port systems. Most of the traditional farming systems and practices may exhibit high resilience to the impact of climate change. Modern agriculture systems are categorized as destructive to ecosystem services due to intensive management practices. Further, agricultural systems may reach the point of collapse under climate change scenarios where the conventional agriculture has eroded much of species diversity of the buffer ecosystems and their services. There is need for integrating multiple scale analysis to include variability of current and projected climate, seasonal change impacts, risk proofing mechanisms, alternate land use plans to understand the vulnerability and sustenance of farm productivity .

Sustainability indices analysis of farms at landscape scale requires long period data set, which explains the temporal scale responses of the agro-ecological functions. Some of the climate induced changes cannot be measured directly in short time scale but long-term data sets allow more accurate vulnerability and/or resilience analysis. Any farm level analysis of impact of climate change require several individual studies focusing on various farming practices to provide evidence for multiple responses of the given farming systems at landscape to regional scale  to apply sustainability indices to analyze resilience scenarios. However, several of factor that contribute for resilient farming systems  need critical attention and profiling at landscape scale. Further, it calls for identifying the possible confounding socio-economic factors controlling responses due to technological advancement . Developmental research approach of PAR based analysis of sustainability indices at farm level merits attention to alleviate the climate induced changes to agricultural landscapes. Research literature on analysis of sustainability at farm level is increasing; however there is need for synthesis of the data to design a framework for long-term monitoring of the evolving farms.

At the national scale, pollination services may have been estimated to be equivalent of >16% – 25% of the market value of agricultural production. Few small-scale coffee growers were selected and invited to short discussions of whether bees increase coffee yield or not. As previously highlighted, majority of these farmers said they do not think bees are important for coffee fruit set. Consequently, coffee trees were selected and bagged to exclude pollinators. Farmers were asked to take care of the pollination experiments. The un-bagging process was run in their presence during the first blooming season  when farmers witnessed that bagged flowers had no fruit whereas un-bagged flowers that were regularly visited by bees did set fruits.

During experiments conducted in November-December 2007 in the same coffee fields, the researcher found that farmers were now fencing termite mounds to protect stingless bees nesting in termite mounds  because they were told during the first blooming season  by the researcher that these features  were used as habitats by various wild bees such as meliponini bees that pollinate their crops. When the researcher was setting experiments during the second blooming period,mobile vertical grow tables farmers were now asking for information about wild bees, where they live and what they eat and how to protect them in order to increase coffee yield. In this study it was found that pollination knowledge was shaped by a wide range of social, cultural, educational and individual attitudinal characteristics of respondents. It was also found that age, level of education, gender, general knowledge of importance of protecting natural and semi-natural habitats in the vicinity of coffee fields for coffee yield increase played no important role on pollination knowledge by interviewed farmers.

Contrastingly, the number of years passed farming coffee or the degree of contact with extension services were identified in the logistic model as most striking factors. In other words, knowledge of pollination by farmers was likely to occur in areas where they had access to regular extension service advices. Also, farmers who inherited their plantations and those who planted themselves their plantations were likely to know the word pollination. Therefore, it was recommended that these few factors that were identified, be taken into consideration to be successful during awareness campaigns aiming at raising farmers’ knowledge of the importance of conserving pollinators for coffee yield increase. Overall, it is important to increase the awareness of all small-scale coffee producers of the importance of con-serving pollinators within the farm landscape to increase coffee production. The role of extension services was found to significantly improve respondents’ knowledge of pollination, and hence the extension service institutions of Uganda should increase and be empowered. This will help in enhancing information provision to the farmers through, e.g., frequent visits, making bulletins or using other channels such as radio or television.

World wide, it has been observed that extension services have a significant impact on the learning process of farmers. There is also a need for extension services to inform farmers about the diversity and management of bee-food plants in the farm-landscape. There is a need to revise and incorporate in the school curriculum new concepts such as pollination such as young people; especially those leaving in rural areas are informed about the importance of pollinators and pollination services. Understanding farmers’ perceptions and motivations is of significant importance in relation to environmental services conservation. This can allow for gaining insight into the complex systemic interactions between natural processes, management policies, and local people de-pending on the environmental services . Ecosystem services such as pollination service are aspect of the environment that relate closely to human live hoods and that can be used to convince the public that biodiversity is not only wild animals that may damage their crops, but also creatures that live on their farms and that can help to sustain crop production. Further public awareness programs on ecosystem services such as pollination are highly needed While aiming at understand how farmers view the contribution of pollinators coffee yield, most farmers were saying that “either bees visit or not coffee flowers, fruit will still come provided that rains is here”. The reasons behind these thinking were not given.

It is important to collect such information since any management and technology that can be scaled-up to improve coffee production has to be implemented by small scale growers. There are many ecosystem services that are delivered in agricultural landscapes and pollination service is one of them. It may be difficult for farmers to invest in the conservation of ecosystem services without knowing and being convinced of their importance. Farmers can not consider managing their lands for the conservation of ecosystem services delivered by pollinator biodiversity if they are not aware or convinced of the importance of these services for their livelihoods. In Sub-Saharan Africa and in Uganda, farmers’ perceptions and awareness about the role of pollinators in coffee production remain largely un-documented. Yet, such information is necessary for developing suitable management plans to conserve agro-ecosystems and services delivered in and from these agro-ecosystems for coffee productivity stability and improvement.

Information about indigenous knowledge’s and perceptions of pollination services is necessary to be incorporated in the design of management strategies for increasing and maintaining pollination services for the stability of the yield of coffee and other pollinator-dependent crops and for on-farm biodiversity conservation . Pollination is a service nature provides that is mostly taken for granted, and very little is done to improve or maintain this natural service . However, pollination is an ecosystem service that is key to food security . Pollinators are essential for many vegetable,blueberry grow pot fruit and seed based crops including coffee that are grown in Uganda and in Sub-Sahara Africa.For pollen-limited crops, promoting polli-nation services is a mean of increasing their productivity without resorting to expensive agricultural inputs such as pesticides and herbicides. Indeed, pollination services are most likely underpinning productivity in many Sub- Saharan grown crops without farmers even recognizing it .

Globally, the contribution of pollinators for increasing genetic diversity, adaptation, seed set or crop production, crop quality and natural regeneration of wild and cultivated crops species has been highlighted and the need to conserve pollinators has been stressed worldwide.Yet the public’ knowledge of the role of pollinators re-mains poorly documented or not documented at all, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa including Uganda, where farmers grow crops with high degree of vulnerability to future pollinators decline . Conducting an interview survey seems to be an important step in information generation for policy-makers concerned with issues related to conciliate on-farm pollinator biodiversity conservation and promotion of agriculture modernization that is aiming at increasing agriculture production and thereby increasing household annual income and employment opportunity of the farmers. Hence, the relevance of assessing specific knowledge by farmers on pollinator importance for coffee crop yields increase, agriculture, wild biodiversity and agro- biodiversity conservation. The understanding of farmers’ perceptions of pollinator importance in coffee production can help in developing strategies to reduce on the negative attitudes and influence the change of attitudes and opinions towards the adoption of environmentally friendly farming practices by farmers.

The objective of this study was to document farmers’ knowledge and perceptions of the importance of ecosystem services delivered in farmlands and of pollinators for coffee yield increase and stability. It was hypothesized that “small-scale coffee growers were not aware of coffee pollinators and perceive these as not important in coffee production because “granted by the nature”. Be-cause most managers of coffee farms are aged  male farmers, and that female farmers play a secondary role, it was therefore hypothesized that the knowledge of pollination by farmers would be linked to the gender and age of the farmer. Since most coffee growers have small land area, it was expected that the size of the coffee farm would influence the knowledge of pollination.

In 2010, the total production of white shrimp Penaeus vannamei from world aquaculture was 2.7 million tons with a first sale value of U$ 11 billion . The rapid development of shrimp farming in many countries is a phenomenon of the last three decades as a result of industrial transformation and intensification of production patterns . Shrimp farming has been a significant agro-based economic activity . This multimillion dollar industry plays an important role in the economic development of many tropical and sub-tropical countries because of the high economic returns . However, there is evidence that sustainable production is limited partly by the carrying capacity of the coastal ecosystems supporting aquaculture . Additionally, the rapid growth of this Indus- try in an unregulated and uncoordinated way has led to a number of environmental, technical, economic and social problems, which have been widely reported in international literature .

The conversion of sensitive coastal land, including mangroves, into shrimp ponds in many locations and periods, has been principal criticism to shrimp farming Industry . In areas of intense shrimp farming, dis- charge waters from one farm mixed with supply waters used by neighboring farms, have resulted in pollution between farms and the spread of disease between shrimp populations . However, different shrimp culture technologies have different environmental impacts. Extensive systems requiring large land areas have contributed most to mangrove clearance, grow bucket while intensive systems have contributed more to pollution problems, through high stocking densities and feed and chemical inputs . Brazil is the third largest producers of farmed white shrimp in Latin America. The Brazilian production was estimated at 70,000 tons with an estimated value greater than U$ 280 million in 2010 . In Brazil, semi-intensive and intensive shrimp farming began during the 1980s with introduction and culture of white shrimp P. vannamei.

The northeast region of Brazil is responsible for around 97% of the national shrimp production . The fast development of shrimp farms in this region has given rise to concerns about specific environmental legislation for the activity, environmental pollution and conflict with rural population. In the early 2000s, Brazilian shrimp aquaculture was responsible for the employment of 50,000 people , reducing the pressure against the development of the activity. However, the industry has been suffered a severe collapse due to disease outbreaks in 2003 . This fact has caused a drastic reduction in the number of jobs, which has strengthened the movements against the shrimp industry. In Brazil, the total area dedicated to shrimp farming approximates 18,500 ha of which 5750 ha are located in Ceará State . The estuary of Jaguaribe river has the largest number of shrimp farms in the state of Ceará. In this estuary, the shrimp pond area increased from 820 ha in 2000 to 1640 ha in 2006 . However, information about the positive or negative impacts of shrimp farms in this region is unknown. This article documents the dimensioning of the production area of shrimp farms using satellite images and geoprocessing techniques, and analysis of shrimp production, technical, economic, social and environmental aspects of shrimp farms in the estuary of Jaguaribe river. Shrimp aquaculture production consists mainly of white shrimp Penaeus vannamei and it takes place almost exclusively in earthen ponds. This analysis focuses on shrimp production in ponds with particular attention to the cultivation and harvesting phases in the production cycle. The cultivation phase includes post larvae stocking, feeding and pond water exchange.

A number of farming processes in these phases have potentially significant impact on the environment. The processes of pond treatment, inlet water treatment, feeding, water ex- change, and final water discharge and sediment dredging were observed and described. The methodology was based on field observations, interviews, and analysis of secondary data . A survey carried in the period 2010-2012 involved visits to all shrimp farms. Interviews were conducted using a semi- structured questionnaire. Interviewees included farm owners or managers, traders, processing firms and hatchery managers and government officials. Data analysis was based on field observations, interview transcriptions, and external sources including official documents, external sources and academic literature on the subject.All shrimp farms were visited to collect information about the macro-economic benefits and problems of shrimp aquaculture. The macro-economic benefits include the creation of direct formal jobs, seasonal jobs, indirect for- mal jobs including hatcheries and post-harvest, earning of foreign exchange, diversification of the economy, stimulation of backward and forward-linked sectors, in-flow of direct investment and technological transfer.

In a letter dated 12April 1949, the Department of Agriculture requested that the District Commissioner hand over a vegetable garden in Choggu to an ex-service man Mr E. N. A.Boatey. This transfer was meant to facilitate the payment of rents for the land to the appropriate quarters . This shows that the local people also practiced dry season vegetable, but not on a large scale, compared to rain-fed vegetable agriculture which is a predominant practice because of the climatic condition in this agro-ecological zone.In the livestock domain, cattle, sheep, goat, horses, donkeys, pigs and poultry of various types were kept by the Dagomba’s. There were no intensive productions systems of animal rearing in the region, and small stocks were allowed to forage freely in the dry season and confined in the wet season .

Technological changes started in this sector with the importation of cattle from Europe with most of them dying before reaching the Gold Coast or shortly afterward. The few that survived were cross breed with the local cattle to produce what referred to as half or quartered-bred European crosses, and they were placed in the chief’s herds. This practice of passing down new technology to the community through the chiefs as already explained above was a popular concept then and sometimes still applied today in rural agricultural projects .Later local selective stock breeding was encouraged, nft growing system where Zebu, Mossi, and Ndama cattle were imported from Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger for cross breeding with the West African shorthorn cattle found in the protectorate . This new breed of livestock from the French African colonies was given to chiefs of the Dagomba catchment area. Native authority kraals were thus created to increase the cattle population in the region, as old and dysfunctional bulls were replaced with new active bulls.

There existed few cattle-owning families who were not capitalist-oriented. Thus the objective of increasing cattle population for commercial purposes by the colonial administrators did not succeed .From the pre-colonial to the colonial period Shaffer argued that “by most accounts, agricultural practices in the 1930s were essentially unchanged from earlier times. The staple crops remained millet and guinea corn which were cultivated using the same techniques as in the earliest times”. This is corroborated with an observation made by an agricultural officer Lynn, C. W, who describes agricultural activity thus, “men wander over the farm with long sticks and make holes at random, and women and children follow with the seeds in a calabash…the precarious food situation was due primarily to…methods not sufficiently intensive for the conditions obtaining” . The quotation above reflects the contemporary agricultural practice of the Dagomba people, from my observation during fieldwork and even discussions with other colleagues who have interacted with farmers in peri-urban and rural areas.

The slight difference is that few farmers now use tractors in their fields.relates Gunder-Frank’s metro pole-satellite framework on Latin America, to the case of the Northern territories and the Gold Coast in Ghana. Gunder-Frank’s framework in Figure 3 stated that metropolises were not only centers of confluence but exploitation, and he related this to the socio-economic and political relationship between the third world countries and the capitalist economies. The capitalist economies are meant to stay developed at the expense of the underdeveloped countries. Suttonuses the center-periphery relationship of Gunder-Frank to explain the relationship between the then Northern territories and the Gold Coast as designed by the British. stated that the North was a labour reserve for the South and its administration left at the mercy of the development in the South. This idea of the Northbeing a labour reserve for industries and plantations in the South is supported by many authors like.also supports this idea when he stated that the work for food programme and the use of compulsory labour retarded development in the North in favour of the South. Also, cheap food and reasonable prices for labour rendered in the South also encouraged North-South migration in the Gold Coast colony.

Now referred to as backyard farms or compound farms which are considered an ancient activity that existed all over the world and still practised today .According to Kranjac-Berisavljevic and Gandaa , 75% of farmers in the North cultivate yams; this region constitutes the “yam zone” which runs from Cameroon to Ivory Coast supplying about 90% of world’s yams each year—about33.7 million tonnes.Yam farming is not just an economic activity, but it is embedded in the culture and traditions of the people. During communal farming,yam seedlings are exchanged as a sign to appease the gods; these seedlings are believed to possess blessings from the gods and manifest in high yields .Apart from yams, cereals like sorghum, millet and guinea corn are also cultivated in this region, and livestock rearing takes place . These activities are reflected in the stories narrated by for example the cob of maize and a hundreds laves.

In this tale, the Dagomba people were visited by a god who lost hisson during his sojourn with them. To sympathise with him, they offered himabundant maize as compensation. This tale shows the hospitality of the Dagomba people showcasing one of their main staple crops and economic activities already practised at that time. These agricultural activities were mainly for subsistence,where surpluses were sold to get other needed goods in the regional and local markets especially along the Salaga slave market route .The main ways of cultivating land in the pre-colonial era were through bush fallowing and shifting cultivation explained by Blench . He stated that bush farms were cultivated for three to four years and when it showed signs of low productivity this land was left to fallow and another area chosen for farming.This token often came in the form of a kola nut after which aritual is performed to bless the land. Then the new owner gets “use right” to the land, grow table which he can pass on from generation to another.

The Linguist—the spokesman of the Zagyuri chief, during an interview, stated that during the pre-colonial times, when a person requested for a piece of land for farming, physical objects like trees and stones were used as boundary markers.A mark was usually put on these objects to indicate where a land boundarystrated or ended. This was a way to make the land legible and easy to manage by the chief. It was also an act of grounding claims. Access to land was not a problem as land was in abundance—strangers were also given lands for farming and housing with use rights. When a stranger decided to leave an area of land acquired traditionally, he forfeits all investments made on the land. He was not authorised to sell the land or the investments on it because the land was not sold to him. He was expected to give the land back to the chief who gave him use rights over it. In the case of indigenes, the use rights on the land can be passed on from one generation to another, or if the indigene wants to leave the area, he can give the land to another indigene or relative after the chief has been informed and agrees to these new arrangements.Land access was through the men in the households and women could only get access to land through them. This practice solidified the status of men as the decision makers in the community and society as a whole. Rituals and libations were poured on land for cleansing, an activity performed by the traditional institutions which constituted of mostly men.

These rituals and sacrifices transformed the land into a spiritual being, through which one communicates with his ancestors. The above explaination is one of the reasons why lands are allocated and not sold in this region. This tradition is now dying out as lands are now being “sold” by chiefs for personal gain especially with the increasing value of land due to urbanisation .Farmers in Sangani during a focus group discussion said this vegetable site is a sacred shrine. Their ancestors have been performing rituals and sacrifices to their gods, before the coming of the Europeans. There is a natural spring on this land and a big kapok tree , where these rituals take place. Ananimal is killed by the spring water and later grilled, and eaten under the kapok tree, as no sacrificial meat had to leave the sacred grounds.

Most commercial farmers in the district rely on irrigation systems for farming whilst the smallholder farmers generally depend on seasonal rainfall which typically falls from November to March. . The average rainfall ranges from 246 mm to 681 mm per annum.Soils in the district are variable and tend to be sandy in the west, but with a higher loam and clay content towards the east. The soils developed on basalt, sandstone and biotite gneiss and some have low inherent soil fertility. Maize is the predominant cereal grain grown in the district among smallholder farmers . Leguminous crops like groundnuts, Bambara nuts and cowpeas are also grown by smallholder farmers as well as vegetable crops which include spinach, cabbage, tomatoes andonions.These are grown for the farmers’ own consumption with any surplus sold to neighbours or relatives. Rain-fed crop yields are generally poor due to low and erratic rainfall coupled with poor fertility.

Commercial horticulture farming is well established in the south eastern side of the district and includes stakeholders which grow mangos, litchis,bananas, avocados, citrus, pecan and macadamia nuts . A study was conducted using an analysis of primary and secondary data to identify and characterize large and small-scale farming systems of three tree crops,vertical rack system in the Vhembe district. The analysis was aimed at highlighting the connectivity of interactions between the farming systems in terms of the four drivers of production.The focus of the paper is on land as a driver of production. Secondary data were collected from: the official subtropical crop database obtained from the local Department of Agriculture located in the town of Thohoyandou, climate data from the Institute for Soil, Climate and Water , land type and soils data from the Agricultural Research Council , peer reviewed research papers and related books. The target population was a combination of large-scale commercial and small-scale farmers within the district.

Based on the FAO definition of farming systems which informs the study, three different enterprises based on commodities grown at farm sites were chosen: 1) macadamia nut farming systems 2) mango farming systems and 3) avocado farming systems. Farming systems where initially broadly characterised based on available information extracted from the local Department of Agriculture database. The database is comprised of data on the farm location ,farm size , gender of farmer, farmer name and telephone number.A purposive sampling method was employed in choosing four criteria for site selection, these were used in the study namely commodity, size of the farm,location of the farm and gender of the farmer. This information was available for six subtropical commodities, namely bananas,litchis , avocados ,mangos , macadamia nuts and citrus . According to the database there are a total of 1121 documented subtropical crop farmers in the Vhembe district. According to the database the three commodities selected in the study were the most commonly grown commodities in the district.

Avocados were selected based on the willingness of the farmers to participate in the study based on a preliminary interaction with the farmers at a local study group meeting. Macadamias were selected based on their significance to the South African agricultural economy as high value export crops. The next selection criterion was size. Farms were selected using a systemic random sampling procedure to ensure that there was equal representation of farms within the size categories that exist in the database, these were namely small-scale as the study required both farmers with smallholdings and larger holdings. The next selection criterion was location. Farms were selected to ensure that there was equal representation of all 4 local municipalities that comprise the Vhembe district municipality namely Mutale, Makhado, Thulamela and Musina.Lastly, the farmers’ gender was also used as a farm selection criterion. A random number generation method was used to ensure that there was equal representation of both genders across the farms.

The effective field capacity averaged 0.1 ha/h with minimum and maximum of 0.09 ha/h and 1.12 ha/h, respectively. This indicates that it requires about 10 hours to weed one hectare of a maize field as opposed to 80 man–hours required when done manually as reported by and . Therefore, weeding using the developed cultivator can reduce time and labor requirements in farms .Reference evaluated five-tined and three-tined animal drawn cultivators and found their effective field capacity to be 0.08 ha/h and 0.05 ha/h, respectively.Hence this new developed cultivator is more efficient than both five and three-tined cultivator developed by . This study has demonstrated that it is technically feasible to integrate planting and cultivation units onto an existing mould board plough beam to develop an integrated tool suitable for use in small-scale maize farming.

This approach to development of farm tools has potential to reduce ownership costs of equipment which may contribute their increased adoption. This would be in line with current strategies for agricultural transformation in Africa whereby mechanization has been identified among the critical inputs needed to reduce extreme drudgery while improving productivity and production. Results of performance testing for the prototype indicate that its level of efficiency, effectiveness and reliability for planting and weeding operations is superior to manual operations currently used by small-scale farmers in the county and is comparable to similar but single-unit prototypes developed in other parts of the world. This demonstrates that the prototype has potential to transform mechanization on smallholder farms which in turn can result in improved productivity and production on such farms. This would lead to improved food security and reduction in drudgery associated with hand tools thereby making agricultural work more decent.

It is recommended to make further improvement on the prototype prior to adoption especially perfecting the seed metering devices to reduce seed damage and to develop supplementary metering devices such that the planter can be used as a multi-crop planter to sow other crops like soy beans and groundnut. In addition, an economic and ergonomic evaluation for the new developed prototype needs to assess suitability. Further, more rigorous testing in farmers’ fields with different soil types and conditions should be carried out to generalize field performance of the prototype. In Benin, bananas and plantains’ value chain is gradually developing as an important economic opportunity to stakeholders. Many food products derived from bananas and plantains are found in local and urban markets and are sold better than before . However, these include improved plantain chips, banana cakes and banana wine.

Despite the food and economic importance of this value chain,bananas and plantains are less available and scarce at given times of the year on the markets. This unavailability would undoubtedly be linked to the various production and marketing constraints.Production and marketing are the main constraints undermining the development of banana and plantain value chain. Concerning production constraints,the most important is the premature fall of plants under violent wind,diseases and pests damages. These constraints considerably reduce more than half of production. To solve these problems, research actions are essential to develop systems that are both inexpensive and effective to protect cultivated plants against climatic hazards. Natural repellents, made with local products such as neem seeds, have kept diseases and pests away from cultivated plants .

It is also fundamental to relay the results of previous studies, going beyond analysis in terms of returns. It is essential to adopt a more comprehensive approach to the economic and social benefits of agroecology with an increase in household income linked to savings achieved through the abandonment of chemical inputs and the diversification of production. Several agricultural practices are used by the farmers to reduce these constraints’ effects .Farmers use agricultural practices such as self-production of seeds, crop associations,crop rotation, irrigation, use of animal droppings to fertilize soils, and use of bio pesticides to control pests and diseases. Irrigation is essential for the survival of bananas .

The information collected covered organic practices adopted, societal and demographics of operators; characteristics of farms; farmers’ beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions related to organic farming practices, and so forth. A large sample of farmers from a population of total 4818farms in Georgia were randomly selected and interviewed. The instruments used in the interview were designed by faculty members of Fort Valley State University and the field work of the survey was administered by the Burruss Institute of Kennesaw State University. Farmers who respond to the screening question, “Do you produce fruits and vegetables?” with a “yes” were retained in the sample.About 2404 farmers were contacted, with 456 farmers going through the survey, which gave a return rate of 18.9%.

The instruments encompass abroad spectrum of questions pertinent to production practices, social demographics,individual attitude, beliefs, perceptions, as well as the characteristics of farms. The organic production in the survey may take the form of the USDA certified, certification exempt, or transitioning farms. The interview were conducted by trained personnel following the well-established procedures, which insures the veracity of data collected. However, it is also in evidence that some self-selection biases occurred due to the fact that the higher level of education were associated with organic producers and they were inclined to finish the survey retained in the sample, hydroponic dutch buckets which make the organic operations in the sample high than the overall percentage in Georgia farms in 2012 Census of Agriculture.The defect may constrain the effort to reach a general extrapolation beyond the survey data. In Table 1, the variables covered in the survey and the corresponding preliminary statistics were reported to provide a profile of small farmers in the Southern region of states.

We approached farmers’ choice of organic farming and potential factors of influence with the help of the logit regression model. After comparative study on the logit, the probit, and the linear probability models, being alike in ways in analyzing categorical data , we first exclude the linear probability model for its bias and inefficiency. The logit and probit models are arguably equivalent, only many investigators prefer the former for easy interpretation of parameters. For the sake of comparability, we used the logit  model hereof. Since rich documents related to the logit model are readily available in the literature, the authors just present a model brief in the context of this investigation, rather than a thoroughgoing model discussion in the coming section. As usual, the most challenging part of modelling is associated with model selection among many alternatives. In this study, we adopted the approach of Purposeful Selection of Variables , which usually retains important confounding variables and result potentially in a slightly richer model. We beganour model fitting by a univariate analysis of all variable relevant. Any variable with a significant univariate test at 0.25 level was selected as a candidate for the multivariate analysis. In an iterative process, covariates are removed from the model if they are non-significant and not a confounder.

Significance is evaluated at the 0.1 level and confounding as a change in any remaining parameter estimate greater than 15% as compared to the full model. A change in a parameter estimate above the 15% indicates that the excluded variable was important in the sense of providing a needed adjustment for one or more of the variables remaining in the model. At the end of this iterative process of deleting, refitting,and verifying, the model contains significant covariates and confounders. Then,we took into account of any variable not selected for the original multivariate model and added them back one at a time, with all significant covariates and confounders retained earlier. In such a way, other variables which, by themselves,were not significantly related to the outcome but became an important contributor in the presence of other variables will be included in the final model.