Horticulture

There is an urgent need for innovative thinking and methods to make new attempts for experiential activities. The new design method of experiential activities has become the new educational significance of leisure agriculture.Therefore, this study will explore the new direction of leisure farm experience activity design from the perspective of leisure farm operators, analyze the willingness and obstacles of leisure farms to implement food education, and provide new options for agricultural administration to implement food education. Shih said that the term “food education” was a newly coined word proposed by the Japanese as early as 1896 and 1898. The work mentioned, “sports, intellectual education, and talent education are food education”. Yang  pointed out that in 1903, the Japanese village Jingxianzhai pointed out in the serial novel “Esophagus” that food education is the first among children’s moral education,vertical rack system intellectual education, sports, and food education.

Agriculture is the most crucial source of human food, and dietary activities are a part of agricultural activities.“Food and agriculture” are essentially one and two sides. Therefore, the term “food and farming education” was born .Chen  mentioned that the form of food and farming education comes from Japan’s six-level industrial policy. In order to improve the development of the rural economy, Japan implements a six-level industrial policy to strengthen the integration of agriculture, forestry and fishery production, processing and sales,and enhance the added value of agriculture; to revitalize the agricultural, fishing,and mountain villages and promote the local consumption of real estate. The demand for nutritious lunches in high schools, middle schools, and primary schools promotes the consumption of agricultural products in rural areas. A special law is established to require school nutritious lunches to use local ingredients and set goals; through dietary education, to enhance their public confidence in consuming domestic agricultural products, let the citizens feel the local natural food culture, build a cooperative model and functional relationship between producers, direct sales offices and schools, and stimulate students’ emotions about producers and food supply; to save transportation costs and contribute to the environment .

Lin aid that “food and farming education” is a broadly defined name. The concept of this social movement is established. For example, government agencies,schools, peasant associations, flood and drain table non-profit organizations, leisure farms, organic farms, and agricultural enterprises can pass through Cooperate and participate in typical development. Moreover, integrate the elements of education into business behavior, combine the concept of agricultural experience and health, promote the way of connecting with the local agricultural food network,and cooperate with environmentally friendly and organic production methods. It should be the future of agricultural product marketing—the direction of development. The original meaning of leisure farms , that is, the “Leisure” products or services it provides, must be based on “Agriculture” operation. Therefore, the development of leisure farms is different from general sightseeing and tourism type. In addition to maintaining the production function of traditional agriculture,it is also necessary to transform some agricultural resources into leisure and recreation functions based on local characteristics.

Many researchers have two different perspectives on leisure farms. First, from the perspective of agricultural management, scholar Chiang  emphasized that leisure agriculture is a type of agricultural management transformed from production or combined with the service industry. Another scholar, Lin, Chen and Wang , looked at the service industry as a leisure service industry. He believed that leisure farms consisted of farmers engaged in agricultural production activities and living in rural areas. The site, following the local terrain, climate,soil, hydrology, and other natural environments, through appropriate planning and design, engaged in the local leisure service business, and then play the local leisure function. The primary source of profit for leisure farms is not the production and sales of agricultural products or the sale of processed products, but the income from operating the service industry, which has exceeded the scope of traditional agricultural production.

In the lower portion of Mt Isarog, the most affected crops are the vegetables and rice and these are caused by both pest infestations and scarcity of water. Both rice and vegetables are water dependent and would dry up when the water is scarce. In the upland area, rice decay because the variety of rice planted those that do not need much water which the farmers generally call “hasok” (planting rice in kaingin areas).The negative impact of heavy rainfall is observed both in the upland and lowland area of Mt. Isarog which include the infestation of pests, fungi and viruses and the oversupply of water. In the lowland area, rice grows better than in the upland area but abaca, coconut and root crops are not much affected by the presence of extreme rainfall. Vegetables are seen to have negative impacts in both the upland and lowland Isarog. At this climatic condition,aeroponic tower garden system it is not good to plant vegetablese specially they are not water resistant.

Upland variety of rice does not thrive at this season but when irrigation is abundant, farmers can plant a variety of rice resistant to water. Better yield for abaca, coconuts and root crops is also expected and this is beneficial to the farmers engaged in this kind of farming. The negative impact of typhoon is not spared to all kinds of crops but it is more evident in the upland Isarog compared to that in the lowland area. Total destruction of crops means no yield and the farmers has to plant all over again or wait for the crops to recover and bear fruits as in the case of coconut.The impact of the delay onset of rainfall to crops is the upland and lowland area is lesser compared to the extreme heat. This climate imbalance results to the decaying of crops as in the case of vegetables or drying of crops as in the case of root crops. The delay supply of rainwater results in destruction of leaves, poor or slow growth of crops as in the case of vegetables.

It can be noted that cassava grows healthy and therefore resilient at this climatic condition. Other root crops are not resilient particularly the “camote ” which exhibit drying,dutch buckets for sale decaying and defective tubers. Crops like abaca and coconut are not affected by this climate change.Generally, the upland Isarog is affected during the delay onset of rainfall but the negative impact is more felt in the lowland area because of the inability of the farmers to plant. Farmers in the upland area are less affected but waiting for the crops to recover is something that they should be prepared of and root crops and vegetable farming is an alternative source of income. The lowland farmers are more favorably affected than the upland farmers because rain is available.Growing crops in the upland Isarog watershed area is favorable during the early onset of rain because this allows the farmers to plant their crops earlier. Coconuts and abaca are not also adversely affected. Farmers adapt to this climate change by planting crops that are resilient to heat or they can use intercropping.

On Climate Change through trainings and similar activities, education provides the farmers basic understanding of various climatic events that strikes in their locality and develop their knowledge on climate variability. Farmers’ education can also help farmers on proper crop selection and use of various agri-technological approaches suitable to extreme weather conditions. Farmers can also be given some alternative livelihood trainings so that while they wait for the next cropping season, they have other sources of income. Farmers can also be taught with proper pest and farm management in different climatic conditions. Farmers always experience losses whenever a calamity strikes and it is at this moment that farmers needed the support of the government through crop insurance, micro-financing and the like so that they will not be indebted so much to the middlemen who charges a large percentage of their produce and who have no choice but to sell their products to these middlemen at a much lower cost. To encourage farmers to avail of crop insurance, it can be given at lower cost and micro-financing at lower interest. Uganda has been ranked from the top five in the 2000s to current top ten banana-producing countries . The decline in banana production has been attributed majorly to decline in soil productivity .

The western Sudan is also suffered from low soil fertility, especially in sandy soil. This type of soil has a higher requirement for water, mainly in the production of millet crops. Meanwhile, negative impacts and the adjustment of liberalization policies that hit the rural areas hard also influenced access to food for the majority of the population. The marketing policy constitutes a concern for the farmers; therefore, a lack of clear marketing price policies for agriculture and animal production are also affected food security. This resulted in higher costs of production,which directly led to diminishing the net returns from different farming activities . Moreover, nft hydroponic system the inequality and lack of income has a greater impact on the purchasing power of the people. North Kordofan State is recognized as a vulnerable food deficit area. The farmers and agro-pastoral herders are subjected to food insecurity since their agricultural production does not meet all their food consumption needs.

The situation of food security is ever-changing and unpredictable among the seasons and usually depends on the amount of food and cash crops produced at the farm level.The trend of food security can be described through the percentage change between consumption and production of cereal food from season 1995/96 to 2006/07. Figure 9 views the surplus and/or deficit in cereal foods based on the amount of both production and consumption. The figure reveals that a higher food deficit has been occurring since the end of the last decade, when consumption exceeded production. This mostly emerged from a decrease in production as a consequence of poor soil fertility,inadequate rainfall, and drought. Therefore, the percentage change between consumption and production was negative. Only in season 2005/2006, there was a food surplus, which has been shown by the positive change between food consumption and production as shown in Figure 9.

The sedentary farmers in North Kordofan State faced both shortage in food availability because of high fluctuations in the production due to unfavorable conditions and also severe inaccessibility to food because of acute, hydroponic nft system widespread poverty and limited off-farm income opportunities as reported by .The food deficit that has been occurring year after year affected about 74% of the total population. This population mostly lived in the Sheikan locality, and they suffered from chronic food deficit. They were distributed as 64.6% and 82.3% in the Southern and Northern parts of the locality, respectively. In contrast, about 49% of the population in the state was regarded as food insecure in the year 2006 . The average estimated food deficiency for food insecure households overall in the state was approximately 16.4%. However, this figure varied from 5% to 25% among the localities . Various activities have been conducted in North Kordofan State to reduce the food gap and food insecurity.Many NGOs in the region were delivered relief food as free food distribution for the most vulnerable groups.

This emergency food program seeks to secure food through food aid and relief during drought or bad seasons.This activity is usually conducted via coordination between governmental organizations (GOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Recently, there have been special programs implemented by the World Food Program (WFP) to improve the food insecurity situation. These programs are the School Feeding Program (SFP)and Food for Work (FFW). Unfortunately, despite the efforts made by these programs to alleviate food insecurity,there is only slight improvement. This is predominantly due to a lack of a good coordination between the government and international donors. Subsequently, many programs targeting the reduction of food insecurity have not successfully achieved their objectives. One of the most important activities for realizing food security in North Kordofan State is School Feeding Program(SFP). This program was implemented via an agreement between government representatives by the State Ministry of Education (SMOE), School Feeding Department (SFD), and the WFP. The agreement defined the terms and conditions under which the SMOE and SFD would implement the food distribution on behalf of WFP.

All pesticide residues should be immediately removed from the skin with soap and water when spills and leaks occur. The use of hand sprinkling makes the farmers more prone to spill the pesticide with resulting skin exposure and inhalation. Improved and affordable equipment are especially needed in tropical regions of Africa where many farmers do not have adequate equipment or must use knapsack sprayer for a longer periods without maintenance or replacement.The method of pesticide application and practices which are used by most Buea farmers exposes them not only to acute effects of pesticide poisoning but to the long term effects of neurological damage and cancer.

Many of the farmers mixed and sprayed pesticides injudiciously using knapsack sprayer cups and teas spoons without accurate measurements leading to an incorrect estimation of pesticide strength and overdosing of the chemicals. Although fungicide usage is said to have little effects on humans, studies have shown that there is high risk of cancer with long term use of mancozed of the carbamate chemical group .The farmer’s health risks were further increased because farmers were not aware of the need to monitor wind directions when spraying and even smoked while spraying. Less than one-fourth of farmers said they used PPE(long sleeved shirts, long pants, boots or closed toed shoes, gloves, masks, and a hat), with the majority (76.4%)of farmers wearing no or partial PPE. These exposures increase the farmer’s risk of pesticide poisoning and possible health effects, ebb flow tray which could explain why 85.3% of farmers reported signs and symptoms of acute pesticide poisoning after spraying.In the Ivory Coast, farmers avoided medical care on the assumption that signs and symptoms of pesticides poisoning are a normal phenomenon and need no medical attention .

This attitude further broadens the risk of long term effects of pesticides poisoning. Although most of the Buea farmers assumed their symptoms were from pesticide use, they thought that the symptoms were expected effects of pesticides use and should be accepted.Some farmers denied that these symptoms could be due to pesticide use, but attributed the symptoms to something other than pesticide exposure.Many Buea farmers said they discarded the pesticides containers on the farm. This was confirmed at the farm visits where many empty pesticide containers could be seen in clusters as one walked in the fields. The disposal of used containers was further complicated, because most of the farms are located along streams which were easier to use to wash the sprayers and to discard the used water. Because this is a mountainous terrain, most of this water runs off and the containers are swept away by rain into the streams and rivers which empty into the Atlantic Ocean. There is a potential pollution threat to the communities along the water way and to non-targeted fauna and flora which has a potential of destabilizing the food chain and the ecosystem at large.

Further studies are needed to evaluate this possibility in order to put in place adequate measures to control such practices.The availability of potable water remains a health concern throughout Cameroon in both urban and rural areas.Although the Buea municipality does have a potable water system, most farmers use it only for drinking water and use the streams for their domestic activities in order to limit water bills. The impact of this practice upon the water sources (streams) is concerning, for both the soil and the water may be affected.After using pesticides, the farmers do observe a decrease in pests and disease. The pesticide venders emphasize this benefit and make pesticides more financially attractive by distributing pesticides in smaller quantities of unlabelled containers. Labeling information is essential to making specific instructions for pesticide use available to all pesticide users. This practice does not encourage farmers to investigate other suitable non-chemical and environmental friendly methods that are equally inexpensive but offer good control of pests.

Yam is the sole crop that performs very well on a forest land or ondense wooded savanna newly converted to agriculture. Thus, the farmer starts the farm by cropping yam in the first year. The other food crops , and the cash crops, are cultivated either in the second, third,or forth year after the land is set to farm. For these reasons, the land area allocated annually for yam planting has constituted the proxy in this study of deforestation.Another consideration is that the vegetation includes both the wooded savanna and the forest and because these two vegetation cover types may coexist in the region, as largely discussed above, the land conversion to agriculture may include also the wooded savanna. At the national level and according the 2011 Agriculture census , the population in agriculture in rural area is of 97.3% in average.

The farms of 0.5 ha in size represent 76%, 0.5 1 ha18%, 1 2 ha 5%, and finally, the farms of more than 10 ha, 1%.The variables data or the proxies necessary for the study were collected in panel for the time period from 1995 to 2015, and from the prefectures in the Central region of Togo. There are four prefectures retained for the study which are Blitta, Sotouboua, Tchamba, and Tchaoudjo. The fifth prefecture, the Plain of the Mo River, is newly created and there are no data available for the whole study time period. These data are mainly the forest data, agricultural food crop data, the cash crop data, and the socio-economic data.The forest data are secondary data compiled in a monthly basis by the prefectures.The annual reports which constitute the major sources of the data collection are normally available either in the Regional Forest Office in Sokode, vertical farming racks or at the General Secretary of the Ministry in charge of the environmental and forest resources. The variables of interest here are the wood biomass which may be categorized as fuel wood, charcoal and industrial wood production. Data on the receipts collected from various forestry activities including transport permit,cutting certificates, and also from the fines for illegal forestry operations, are available in these annual reports.

Data on crop production are also secondary data made available in most cases by the Office of Agriculture Statistics, Information and Documentation of the Ministry of Agriculture. These data are the results of periodical agricultural census. But each year the census data are updated to make available data in the yearly basis. The variables considered here are the production and the out putprices, the fertilizer quantity and price, and the pesticide quantity and price for each year. As announced above, the concerned food crops are cereals, tuber and pulses. The major important cash crop produced in the Region is the cotton, but coffee and cocoa are also cultivated under the dense forests in Blitta, the prefecture at the south most of the region. The historical data were made available for this study by New Office of Cotton Society , formally called SOTOCO. The data include the cotton production, the price, cotton pesticides used, cotton fertilizer used and their prices. The socio-economic data are provided either by the National Institute of Statistics,and Economics and Demographic Studies , or from the websites.Besides the panel data, single point data such as data on agriculture systems were obtained by question and answer with the Institute of Counseling and Support ’s agents and with individual farmer producers implicated in major crops and cotton production.

This information concerns the recent years from 2011 to 2016. The common farming practice in the area is the mix cropping, and yam is the crop that starts the rotation. Therefore we decide the annual area converted toy am planting constitutes the proxy for the vegetation loss. The analysis results are compiled in Table 2 the full model, where are reported the 20 independence variables included in the model, their Fixed models and First Difference coefficient estimates, and the resulting probabilities. We are not able to report the reduced model outputs , the national cotton pesticide cost, the national cotton price and the national minimum wage, because these independent variables do not quite explain by themselves the vegetation cover area loss .Furthermore, including the time dummy’s to capture the time effect results in the drop of eight variable coefficients from the model, and significant statistical effect for all the fifteen non-dropped independent variables. Even though the pFtest for individual time effect is significant , we are not able to provide a Robust Standard Error of the time fixed effect for the full model either. A bunch of variable coefficients are also dropped from the model.

The genus has been shown to be neither routinely investigated norconsidered under environmental and sanitary legislation.In fact,the bacterium may cause remarkable liabilities for fish farms and serious illnesses in humans. Liabilities are also associated with shelf time owing to the high concentrations of bacteria .Infection dose for Aeromonas in human beings has still to be defined. Cooking process may inactivate these bacteria; however, cross-contamination remains a threat against health, especially in the case of high-risk groups such as children,elderly people, and immune depressed individuals. This microorganism has  frequently been detected in the feces of patients with HGS-gastroenteritis .

Although Brazil has native aquaculture species with great productive and economic potential, none of them, yet, has scientific and technological information that allows the structuring of the production chain. Thus, the main challenge of national aquaculture research is to generate knowledge about genetics and breeding, reproduction, physiology, nutrition, health, production systems,slaughter, processing and the market related to these species. For this, it is essential to bring research bodies closer to the productive sector and coordinated interaction between the researchers, generating knowledge and technologies for the agents of the production chain, in an increasingly efficient manner.In this sense,stacking pot there is already research in the areas of reproduction and genetic improvement of fish, nutrition and feeding of aquaculture species with the production of more sustainable rations that minimize the environmental impact,conservation and management of fishery resources, health of aquaculture species,agro-industrial processing of fish, aquaculture production systems, effluent treatment and reuse and sustainable development of continental artisanal fishing.

Nowadays, agriculture including market gardening, is facing many challenges such as the increase in food supply and the need for agricultural production that guarantees food safety, nutritional quality and respect for the environment .Indeed, market gardening production, particularly that of tomatoes in Burkina Faso plays an important nutritional and economic role, with annual production estimated at 300,000 tons, including an export of 100,000 tons . Thus, its consumption contributes to the intakes of fibre, antioxidant compounds and minerals . The profitability of the sector requires an intensive use of phytosanitary products to ensure good physical quality of the tomato without trace of pests. Studies on some market garden sites revealed bad phytosanitary practices such as the non-respect of prescribed doses and protection and hygiene rule during treatments, and mismanagement of empty pesticide packaging .The bad use of pesticides in this intensive agricultural practice is now being questioned by research and civil society, given the negative impacts of market gardening on the environment, producers and consumers’ health. Among these risks, the bioaccumulation of trace metal elements by market gardening products, including tomatoes, can lead to serious health risks . To face this situation, groups of stakeholders have emerged and are advocating sustainable agriculture through agroecological practices and effective consideration of the harmful environmental impacts of current forms of agriculture . In Burkina Faso, the national council for organic agriculture is working to promote biological agriculture through the certification of several tomato production sites, including the agroecological school farm Béo-Neeré.

Indeed,the practice of ecological market gardening produces fruits and vegetables with better micronutrient contents compared to conventional agriculture . Moreover,the physico-chemical and nutritional characterization, particularly trace metal elements, 15N nitrogen and phosphorus isotopes contents, can be considered as an index of quality and authenticity of tomato varieties . There is no comparative study on the above-mentioned parameters of tomato between an organic  and conventional site in Burkina Faso. The present study on three varieties of tomato aims to assess the influence of biological and conventional agriculture practices on the bioaccumulation of trace metal, 15N nitrogen and phosphorus isotope in tomato. The experimental device on the 2 sites is a Block Fisher with 3 repetitions. The elementary plots, separated by 1.5 m, are made up of 4 lines,each 3 m long.

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.