This paper discussed the threats from farm animals to food and human security. In response to these threats, a radical reform plan was adapted by several countries and the plan includes restructure of the organization of governing agencies, implementation of a traceability system from the farm sector to end users, application of hazard control measures, as well as tightening the food import con...

In the northern part of Kazakhstan, zero-tillage2 technology has the potential to increase wheat/grain productivity by 20 to 50 percent above current levels. However, phasing out conventional tillage can only be gradual, as full conversion to zero-tillage will require important investments and farm organizational changes. Actual current area under conservation agriculture (CA) appears to be inc...

Increasing numbers of studies suggest that farm trees and agroforestry practices improve household food security. Some have further speculated that poor farmers are responding to decreasing access to land and declining agricultural productivity by increasing farm tree and agroforestry activities because of the multiple benefits of trees, which are cash crops that demand relatively low levels of...

Using macro level data on MGNREGA performance in drought-prone states of Karnataka and Rajasthan as well as in irrigation-dominated state of Andhra Pradesh, this study has revealed that the impact of MGNREGA wage on the economic scarcity of labour is relatively modest when compared with the impact of hike in non-farm wages. Even though the provision of food security through public distribution ...

Web Services are widely used to provide services and exchange data among business units, customers, partners and suppliers for enterprises. Although Web Services significantly improve the interaction and development of processes in the business world, they raise several security concerns, since they greatly increase the exposure of critical enterprise data. Web Services exchange data using SOAP...

While tissue culture (TC) technology for vegetative plant propagation is gradually gaining in importance in Africa, rigorous ex post assessments of welfare effects for smallholder farm households is lacking. Using recent survey data and accounting for self-selection in technology adoption, we analyze the impacts of TC banana technology on household income and food security in Kenya. To assess f...

Penetration testing, the deliberate search for potential vulnerabilities in a system by using attack techniques, is a relevant tool of information security practitioners. This paper adds penetration testing to the realm of information security investment. Penetration testing is modeled as an information gathering option to reduce uncertainty in a discrete time, finite horizon, player-versus-nat...

Received: 1 November 2008 Revised: 27 July 2009 Accepted: 27 July 2009 Online publication date: 7 January 2010 Abstract Although multinationals operate under cross-border jurisdictions, the relevance of interstate security relations to international business has received little attention. Despite the impressive accumulation of knowledge in international business and international relations, the...

The information security experts are finding it challenging to timely response the emerging threats. The rapid changing of security landscape and dependency on the agile software and system development projects make it challenging to address these threats in a real time. This could create potential risks to the overall business continuity. Furthermore, critical human factors, cost and investmen...

Hosts (or nodes) in the Internet often face epidemic risks such as virus and worms attack. Despite the awareness of these risks and the availability of anti-virus software, investment in security protection is still scare, hence, epidemic risk is still prevalent. Deciding whether to invest in security protection is an inter-dependent process: security investment decision made by one node can af...