Horticulture

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.

After livestock and field crops, piece work is the next most important income source, followed by a group of activities that we have grouped into the category “other”.It is important to note that the contribution of livestock to income is largest among food secure households with an even larger prominence in the non-hotspot district. Piece work, on the other hand, is clearly most prominent among the extremely food insecure and most visible in the hotspot districts. Compared to all other food security groups, food insecure households appeared to have the most diversified set of income sources, with a significantly larger weight on numerous other minor sources collectively referred to as ‘other’ than any other group of households.

This study uses qualitative research techniques to identify the livelihood activities and to determine the position of livestock in the hierarchy of those activities among households in livestock-rearing communities of Southern Zambia. Seasonality analysis was also done to identify the shifts in relative importance of the activities across the different times of the year. The results indicate that, when livelihood is broadly defined, nft hydroponic livestock rearing is second only to field crop production both in terms of prevalence and relative importance . However, livestock and livestock-related products and services are by far the most important source of income. Livestock as a source of income is especially important among the food secure households, who earn more than half of their income through sales of livestock, livestock products and livestock-related services , compared to less than 40 percent among other food security groups.

That livestock is important as sources of livelihoods and,especially, income identifies the need to identify and implement interventions that could enhance livestock ownership and productivity. While food secure households are more commercial in approach, less food secure households have their sustenance and subsistence in mind. This inherent dichotomy in approach to livelihood needs to be reflected in intervention design and implementation. The peculiar geography of Cameroon makes it called “Africa in miniature”; the country has an important ecological diversity to find within it all the environmental varieties of the African continent. A study of the operating model of Cameroonian agriculture reveals the existence of diverse farming techniques and agricultural typologies that perfectly match this environmental richness.This diversity of Cameroon’s agriculture gives the agricultural sector enormous economic potential, which makes it a particularly important sector in the promotion of development.

In fact, the agricultural sector in Cameroon represents about 60% of the active population, with a contribution of about 30% of the GDP and about 16% of the budget revenues of the country.This sector has always been considered as the main provider of wealth, which is why the speeches of the various Cameroonian political authorities have always been considered as a priority in the country’s economy. But the fact is, in general,a relative stagnation of the agricultural performance of the country was noticeable.On the external level, this can be explained by constraints related to the international environment, particularly via the volatility of the prices of export products, whereas internally it depends fundamentally on the policy measures implemented, their coherence, and their phasing, as much as their deadlines.The crises of the mid-1980s and recently the 2008, sparked renewed interest in the predominant role played by the agricultural sector in developing countries.Cameroon has agricultural crops. These are divided between perennial agricultural crops and food crops for local consumption and, to a lesser extent, for export. In the category of perennial crops, the main products selected according to their economic importance are: cocoa,coffee, rubber,banana, cotton, tea; food production is more diversified; Without pretending to be exhaustive, we can mention in this category: groundnuts, plantains, tubers,fruits, maize, potatoes and other tropical products.

The analysis of the role of agriculture in economic activity is of major interest,because of its contribution to economic growth and the consideration of the influence of internal, external and institutional factors stemming from the in classical literature, the architecture and credibility of institutions are also a major determinant of agent incentives and therefore economic performance. Indeed,the main objectives of agricultural progress are known; increasing yields by increasing the volume of production and increasing productivity.

Further, the responses of species and ecosystems services to increasing intensification levels were discussed . We here present a conceptual model to understand the ecological and ecosystems consequences of different land-use dynamics associated to agriculture intensification.Upper diagram in Figure 2 shows nine landscapes composed of different proportions of natural habitat and farming area, as well as different degrees of agriculture intensification on the agriculture part. Landscapes can change in all directions according to changes in natural habitat proportions and agriculture intensification levels.Agroecological conversion changes landscapes in the downward direction, while agriculture intensification is the upward opposite trend .

From left to right, decrease in NH characterizes “natural habitat’ contraction, and the right to left change is the “natural habitat” expansion or Forest Transition. A is a landscape totally occupied by “natural habitat”, B consist of 80% of habitat cover proportion and agriculture intensification index of farming area is 0.2, B’ has 0.8 of habitat cover and agriculture intensification index is 0.5 and so on. Here we use the term “natural habitat” in the operational sense, ebb and flow table defining it as areas subjected to very low levels of human intervention, rather than in the philosophical sense which refers to it as untouched or untamed nature.Additionally, the available data of remote sensing about wood cover, as well as theoretical approaches to estimate populations sizes, uses this term, which will simplify our analyses, enabling to address regional issues, as will be further developed.Farming systems in which AI is equals to 1 are characterized by high input, low heterogeneity and high levels of human disturbance and low planned and associated diversity.

Traditional and poly culture,home gardens and low shade agroforestry are considered having agriculture intensification equals to 0.5. Finally, we assume that agroforestry and extractives systems locate at 0.2 on the intensification scale. On the other hand, theoretical and empirical studies show that fragmentation affects population inhabiting these patchy landscapes in a non-linear association. Particularly, population sizes falls steeply below 30% of habitat cover proportion, which represented by the dashed line in the upper diagram of Figure 2. Although we assumed a linear area-density relationship in the bottom right graphic, total population size in landscapes with less than 30% of habitat proportion is overestimated for not accounting for decrease in habitat population pool. Because species response to fragmentations depend on several factors such as timing since fragmentation, species specific time-lags in the response to habitat contraction,and differential functional response given to sensitive to human disturbs , making precise estimations rather uncertain.

To make our model simple and reliable, we did not incorporate this non-linear aspects assuming that density is fixed regardless of habitat area. Therefore, values in dashed boxes may be overestimated, which is of further conservation concern as will be further discussed.According to LSP proponents, moving upward in the diagram will reflect in changes in the left direction, inducing habitat expansion . Jevons Paradox, on the other hand, concern increasing yields inducing habitat reduction.As we show in the land-use and economic session, although forest transition fostered by yield increase occurs by some extent, the Jevons Paradox is much more frequent.As intensification increases farm area and decrease biodiversity in agriculture portion, as well as in the habitat portion , landscapes will change in D or E direction, tending to very low associated landscape biodiversity. Due to the fact that actual population sizes must be smaller than presented lower right graphic in Figure 2 as above mentioned, these landscapes with small habitat proportion, which are patchily distributed and embedded in intensive matrixes, may harbor very few species, specially sometime after fragmentation and intensification. Decrease on population sizes of once common species in the European farmlands show the extreme effects of agriculture intensification at long term.

Unfortunately, tropical landscapes undergoing to agriculture intensification may face similar problems in the future.Most of the tropical high bio diverse regions , such as the Brazilian Cerrado, Atlantic Forest, Meso-America, Western-Ghats and and Siri Lanka are around or below the 30% habitat cover and simultaneously undergoing agriculture intensification. This multiple effects reduce populations sizes in the matrix, as well as biological fluxes among habitat patches.This combination of increasing deforestation and matrix agriculture intensification is predicted to cause local and global extinctions at long term. On the other hand, if intermediate levels of agriculture are maintained as assumed by LSH hypothesis,and habitat loss is controlled, significant amount of biodiversity is maintained although at lower levels then the“original” non-managed landscape.

Confined to limited access to chain retailers, small farmers turned to the “thin” farmers markets for their products, in which finding reliable buyers turns out to be difficult and full of uncertainty. Farmers held a perception of lower yield of organic farming is 11.92% less likely to convert to organic farming. The low yield of organic farming is not just perception,but a fact in many areas, due to the lack of high-quality seed, organic fertilizer, and effective pests and weeds sprays. The perception of lower yield could easily explain farmers’ behavior of withholding converting to organic farming. There isn’t much evidence to verify the veracity of the claim of high liability, but the perception came up with a distinct adverse impact.

Farmers concerned about the higher liability in organic farming is 10.57% less likely to convert to organic farming. The conception likely came from the yield uncertainty due to damage from pests and/or weeds, which easily results in default on loan and other financial responsibility that must be cushioned with more debts. Consequently,the perception of high liability discouraged farmers to steer their production to organic farming. The size of a farm matters and negatively impacts the conversion. As the production scale increases, the chance of conversion become smaller. In this sample,the chance of conversion for large farms is 20.71% lower than their smaller counterparts. some previous studies that organic production poses great managerial challenge due to the intensive labor demand in dealing with diseases,pests, applying fertilizer, and handling marketing , and constraints on substitution of capital for labor. As a result, production scale was deemed as an uncontentious barrier to the organic conversion.

In the conversion to organic, the age of producers is another barrier. Table 3 shows that the probability of the conversion dropped substantially as producers become older. With the base group of 30 or young, the age group 31 – 60 has a probability of 20% lower in adopting organic farming, and the group 61 or older has a drop of 24%. It makes sense that the shorter planning horizons for older farmers offered less time to recapture investment costs and capture the long-term benefits. In addition, it was claimed that as one ages, the avoidance of risk becomes more important than expected future higher returns. The conversion to organic farming also demands the time and efforts to assimilate organic knowledge and methods, and likely expose farmers to lower yields and non-premium price in the transition period, and these surely weigh in on farmers decision on organic farming. Education wedged its influence in organic farming in a complex way.

The chance of conversion is 13% higher for farmers who had education of technical school or higher than farmers with just high-school diploma or lower. This conformed a previous claim that farmers with some college education had higher odds of adopting organic farming. However, the impact of education was not observed in conventional farmers and those with mixed enterprises. The lack of observations on mixed enterprise group may be the root of the result. While some results of this study bear resemblances to previous studies, there are some noteworthy differences identified. The impact of off-farm job is one of them.Our model was not in supportive of the claim that there exists an inverse relationship between working off-farm and the adoption of organic farming because off-farm job reduce the availability of labor and hence impedes organic farming practices. On the contrary, the impact of off-farm jobs in our model lead to an increased likelihood of organic conversion, which may reflect the influence of the enhanced risk tolerance due to extra income from off-farm jobs. The absence of off-farm job variable led to substantial changes in parameters of other variables in the model, so it, though less significant in statistics, was retained in the model. The further clarification hinges on the future studies with more observations and elaborated instruments related off-farm job. Analysis of the large survey in the Southern states came up with a few contributing factors in farmers’ choice of conversion to organic production. The pool of factors comprise barriers and stimuli, each of them have been discussed in detail in the previous section.

In view of potential impacts and the efficient way of improve the adoption of organic farming, the four factors of risk aversion, the age of operators, and the size of farms, and marketing channels deserve further elaboration.Organic farming is still at its early stage, there exist tremendous uncertainty in both production and marketing process. For most risk version farmers, an acceptable way to follow was doing by the top dog. Nevertheless the exemplars available at this stage are quite limited. A way to increase farmers’ expose to and know those successful frontrunners is to organize more workshops and training.