Pig production plays an important role in smallholder farming systems in upland villages of Lao PDR. It serves as an income source or as capital accumulation needed when crop (rice) production fails. Farmers raise pigs in many ways or systems depending on the availability of feed resources and the intensity of farming systems. There are two main problems in smallholder systems—disease and seaso...

Women play a significant role in smallholder production system in Pakistan. They actively participate in various activities relating to crop and livestock production in addition to conducting their routine domestic duties often working non-stop from dawn to dusk. But the extent of their participation varies from region to region. The aim of this field survey was to investigate the involvement o...

Understanding farmers’ perception is important in the development of sustainable and cost-effective integrated pest management strategies. Hence, farmers’ perception on rice insect pests and pesticide use was evaluated by selected 112 farmers composed of 77% males and 23% females, over the rice growing areas of North Cotabato, Central Mindanao, Philippines. 62% of farmers that were interviewed ...

INTRODUCTION Agricultural technologies developed by national and international research institutions were not benefiting the rural population of Ethiopia to the extent desired. As a response, integrated agricultural extension approaches are proposed as a key strategy to transform the smallholder farming sector. Improving Productivity and Market Success (IPMS) of Ethiopian Farmers project is one...

This study investigated the occupational safetypractices among smallholder farmers in Ile-Ife area of Osun State, Nigeria. Primary data were collected from 220 randomly selected farmers using pre-tested and validated structured interview schedule. Information was collected on demographic, socio-economic characteristics and safety practices of the respondents. The data were summarized using freq...

Decent work concept is based on four pillars namely employment, employment rights,social dialogue, social security. The uptake of decent work practices in smallholder dairy farms is poorly understood. This paper explores the linkage between socioeconomic status of smallholder farmer and compliance to decent work standards. The study involved 123 farmers. Three index scales were constructed to m...

This paper provides empirical evidence on the impact on technical inefficiency of smallholder dairy producers when they formally participate in a milk supply chain. Here the stochastic production frontier and technical inefficiency effects model are estimated based on the data gathered from 800 smallholder dairy farms in Pakistan. The results suggest that the technical inefficiency of the parti...

Lepidopteran stemborers and parasitic weeds in the genus Striga are major constraints to efficient production of cereals, the most important staple food crops in Africa. Smallholder farmers are resource constrained and unable to afford expensive chemicals for crop protection. Development of a push-pull approach for integrated pest and weed management is reviewed here. Appropriate plants were di...

For most smallholder farmers in Kenya conventional veterinary drugs have become very expensive and therefore unaffordable, causing them to seek low cost alternatives that are rarely documented in most ethnobiological studies. This study surveyed the utilisation of traditional herbal preparations in managing cattle ailments in Central Kenya with the aim of providing a comprehensive ethnobotanica...

Information is a prerequisite for wise forest management decisions, but is inadequate in many situations, especially in the context of small non-industrial forest growers. This paper presents a series of robust functions able be calibrated with sparse data, and integrated into a simple spreadsheet-based growth model designed to assist silvicultural decisions in smallholder plantations. A case s...