Preservation of biodiversity, and particularly agricultural biodiversity, has been recognized as being critical to sustaining productive ecosystems, and has been suggested as a viable strategy to promote adequate human nutrition and food security (1). In sub-Saharan Africa, farm sizes are generally small, have been declining and are expected to continue to decline over the next decades. At the ...

Grass pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) is probably the most drought tolerant legume crop and it is also resistant to moderate salinity. In drought prone areas the plant is considered an insurance crop for subsistence farmers. During drought-triggered famines, grass pea can be the only food available and a lifesaver. In addition, grass pea is valuable for its abundant nutrients, especially protein and ...

soil management (sm) is critical to human well-being that it is more important now because of meeting the high demands for food production and satisfying the needs of an increasing world population. therefore, the purpose of this descriptivecorrelation study was to investigate the effective factors on wheat farmers’ adoption of farming methods of soil management (fmsm). the research instrument ...

Sweetpotato (Ipomea batatans) is a food crop of global significance. The storage roots and foliage of crop are attacked by a wide range of pests and diseases. Whilst these are generally well controlled in developed countries using approaches such as clean planting material and monitoring with pheromone traps to guide insecticide use, research into methods suitable for developing countries has l...

Despite the recent emphasis in Africa by national and regional plant protection organizations to control pest birds, traditional farmers usually are still left to their own initiative, as they have been for centuries, to protect their crops. These farmers employ many ingenious visual and oratory frightening techniques, barriers, agronomic planting or harvesting modifications, and bird populatio...

Farmers’ practices in the management of agricultural landscapes influence biodiversity with implications for livelihoods, ecosystem service provision, and biodiversity conservation. In this study, we examined how smallholding farmers in an agricultureforest mosaic landscape in southwestern Ethiopia manage trees and forests with regard to a few selected ecosystem services and disservices that th...

Agricultural contracts and crop insurance are important ways for farmers to mitigate risks in modern U.S. agriculture. In this paper, we investigate the effect of crop insurance enrollment on farmers’ participation of marketing contracts. Following Ligon (2003), we setup a mechanism design framework to demonstrate an integrator’s contract design problem where farmers are assumed to be expected ...

Agricultural producers face many risks in their economic activity due to weather conditions, plant or animal diseases, price volatility, policy changes and so on. One of the management tools to deal with some of these risks is the crop insurance system. In Catalonia (North-East of Spain) farmers’ participation in crop insurance for vegetables is low. Only 5 percent of the vegetables area is ins...

The study was undertaken to find out how crop farmers in the Techiman municipality of Ghana determine and manage the fertility of their soils. Data were obtained through questionnaire and interview of one hundred and ten randomly selected farmers from the municipality between January and February, 2010. Frequency count, percentage and correlation coefficient were used to analyze the data. The f...

Labour productivity affects food security, but quantifying this relationship has been scarce with respect to empirical literature. The Central Madagascar dataset explores the influence of labour productivity and related variables on the food security status of cassava farmers. Drawing on both theory and empirical evidence, this paper argues that fundamental effects of links between labour produ...