This study aimed at investigative decision support systems for assisting strategic and tactical decision making of smallholder farmers to reduce climate risks and increase crop productivity of semi-arid areas. Specifically, the study assessed farm-level decisions used by the farmers for reducing climate risks; examined information communication and knowledge sharing strategies for enhancing dec...

Attendance at traditional face–to-face workshops for New Zealand sheep and beef farmers has been dropping steadily over the past few years. FeedSmart, an industry and government funded research program, was charged with identifying the most effective learning approaches to use to assist New Zealand farmers to feed plan more effectively. As a result of investigating the ways farmers preferred to...

The study was conducted to ascertain the potential feedstuffs available for livestock management in three senatorial districts of Cross River State, Nigeria. A total of 192 structured questionnaires were administered to sole livestock and crop-livestock farmers in 24 villages at eight per village. At collection only 176 were retrieved from the respondents representing the farm households. Data ...

Event-related brain potentials were recorded during RSVP reading to test the hypothesis that quantifier expressions are incrementally interpreted fully and immediately. In sentences tapping general knowledge (Farmers grow crops/worms as their primary source of income), Experiment 1 found larger N400s for atypical (worms) than typical objects (crops). Experiment 2 crossed object typicality with ...

Most farm organizations and farmers movements originated from farmers beliefs that they were treated unfairly in the marketplace (Taylor, 1953). For over a century, farmers have felt that suppliers of certain inputs needed by farmers, such as bankers and farm equipment manufactures, received a disproportionate share of the profits from food production. They also believed that the buyers of thei...

Assisting tobacco farmers to transition to non-tobacco alternatives is a key element of comprehensive tobacco control's end-game strategy and specifically required by the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC). We examine the historical relationship between tobacco manufacturers and tobacco farmers in the United States, where the duration of the relation...

This article examines an ICT-based intervention (known as the DrumNet project) that has succeeded in integrating smallholder-resource and poor farmers into a higher value agricultural chain. The article assesses the design of the project, and how it resolves the smallholder farmers’ idiosyncratic market failures and examines member-farmers’ marketing margins. The article finds that the design o...

A large percentage of farmers do not respond to mail surveys. To gain insight into why farmers do not respond and how to improve response rates, a three-step research design was developed. First, an initial survey, based on in-person interviews with 15 farmers, was sent to 100 farmers. Second, farmers who did not respond to this mail survey were contacted by phone to investigate the reasons for...

Based on China’s organic paddy rice farmers’ data collected from field surveys in Wuchang City, this paper utilises a data envelopment analysis method to estimate the technical efficiency scores of organic paddy rice farmers converting from conventional to organic production. Local organic rice-processing firms provide support to farmers to convert to organic production and, thereby, expand the...

A study was conducted in the Madikwe District of the North West Province to investigate the supply of veterinary medicinal products to small-scale, subsistence and emerging farmers. A combination of individual interviews, focus groups and direct observation was used to collect data. Stock remedies were made available to farmers within the district at Field Service Units that were managed by adm...