Small farms and smallholder farming systems play crucial roles in agricultural development in many developing countries. From the various rural development programs designed to support such farming systems, agricultural extension services are of at most importance. However, the benefit that farmers obtain from these services and the resulting impact depends, to a great extent, by their direct a...

For the past 20 years the US military services have suffered under the limitations of stove-piped computer software applications that function as discrete entities within a fragmented dataprocessing environment. Lack of interoperability has been identified by numerous think tanks, advisory boards, and studies, as the primary information systems problem (e.g., Army Science Board 2000, Air Force ...

Article history: Received 31 May 2006 Received in revised form 19 April 2007 Accepted 22 May 2007 Available online 13 July 2007 Agriculture produces more than just crops. Agricultural practices have environmental impacts that affect a wide range of ecosystem services, including water quality, pollination, nutrient cycling, soil retention, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity conservation. In ...

The complexity of financial matters and the financial illiteracy of clients prevents informed financial decision making in current financial advisory services. We propose a novel approach to improve this situation: The advisor integrates small learning episodes directly into the service encounter. These learning episodes are implemented using the concept of explorative learning and "microworlds...

With the rise and development of information technology (IT) services, the amount of data generated is rapidly increasing. Data from many different places are inconsistent. Data capture, storage and analysis have major challenges. Most data analysis methods are unable to handle such large amounts of data. Many studies employ neural networks, mostly specifying the number of hidden layers and neu...

a Plant Polymer Research Unit, National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research, USDA/Agricultural Research Services, 1815 N. University Street, Peoria, IL 61604, USA Ashland Hercules Water Technologies, 500 Hercules Road, Wilmington, DE 19808-1599, USA Mycotoxin Research Unit, National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research, USDA/Agricultural Research Services, 1815 N. University St...

Access to agricultural markets and marketing information are essential factors in promoting competitive markets and improving agricultural sector development. The agricultural sector employs majorities in developing countries and it contributes greatly to the development of these countries. Unluckily, majorities of the farmers are smallholders living in isolated rural areas and thus lack approp...

Different parts of the country have recently witnessed a large number of suicide deaths by the farmers who found themselves in extreme distress. A variety of factors are held as responsible for the farmers’ suicides which includes a) adverse seasonal conditions, b) lack of irrigation facilities, c) massive pest attack, d) wrong agricultural practices and failure of extension services: excessive...

diversity, accessibility and reliability are the three main factors governing the adoption of information sources by farmers in rural areas. based on the research hypothesis, the existing knowledge and information delivery system in the agricultural sector, functions far below the ever changing nature and tangible needs of existing farming systems. the main objective in this study is to determi...