Search Results (245)

Global changes and society’s development necessitate the improvement of water use and irrigation water saving, which require a set of water management measures to best deal with the necessary changes. This study considers the framework of the change process for water management in the Hetao Irrigation District (HID) of the Yellow River Basin. This paper presents the main measures that have been applied to ensure the sustainability and modernization of Hetao, mitigating water scarcity while maintaining land productivity and environmental value. Several components of modernization projects that have already been implemented are characterized, such as the off-farm canal distribution system, the on-farm surface irrigation, innovative crop and soil management techniques, drainage, and salinity control, including the management of autumn irrigation and advances of drip irrigation at the sector and farm levels. This characterization includes technologies, farmer training, labor needs, energy consumption, water savings, and economic aspects, based on data observed and reported in official reports. Therefore, this study integrates knowledge and analyzes the most limiting aspects in some case studies, evaluating the effectiveness of the solutions used. Full article

The increasingly severe ecological and environmental problems in rural areas pose a serious threat to agricultural sustainability and human well-being. Protecting the ecological environment of cultivated land is fundamental to ensuring food security and achieving sustainable development goals. The effective integration of digital technology into farmers’ production and daily life is a key driver for transforming farming practices and advancing the ecological protection of cultivated land. This study draws on data from the 2020 China Rural Revitalization Survey (CRRS) to systematically examine the impact of farmers’ digital participation on the ecological protection of cultivated land. The main findings are as follows: (1) Digital participation significantly promotes ecological conservation of cultivated land, with each unit increase associated with a 7.8% reduction in fertilizer use intensity; (2) the results are robust across various empirical strategies, including instrumental variable estimation, the ERM approach, residual analysis, and alternative indicator specifications; (3) mechanism analysis indicates that digital participation reduces fertilizer use through three main channels: expansion of social networks (accounting for 7.10%), enhancement of subjective cognition (29.66%), and adoption of agricultural technologies (10.18%); and (4) heterogeneity analysis shows that the protective effects on cultivated land are more pronounced among households with off-farm employment experience, in villages where leaders have higher educational attainment, and in regions with more advanced digital environments. Based on these findings, the following policy recommendations are proposed: enhancing digital infrastructure in rural areas, strengthening the training of agricultural practitioners, and developing localized digital environments tailored to local conditions. Full article

Climate change and variability are characterized by unpredictable and extreme weather events. They adversely impact the highly susceptible smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, who heavily rely on rain-fed agriculture. Climate smart agriculture (CSA) practices have been extensively promoted as offering long-term solutions to changing climate conditions, while enhancing the productivity and sustainability of African agricultural systems. Despite this, the adoption rate remains low among smallholder farmers. Understanding the factors that influence adoption of these practices among this key farming community is therefore necessary to increase their adoption. In this paper, we review and summarize findings from existing studies on the factors that influence the adoption of CSA practices by smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Our review reveals that land tenure security, access to information and extension services, and affiliation to group membership positively influence adoption. On the other hand, gender, risk perception, and off-farm income had conflicting effects by reporting both positive and negative influences on CSA adoption. We conclude that CSA adoption options are local-specific, and their development and implementation should emphasize locally tailored knowledge, skills, and resources. Full article

Desertification, accompanied by the loss of perennial grasses and bush encroachment, affects more than 10% of the world’s drylands, thereby placing increasing pressure on rangelands and farmers’ livelihoods. In Namibia, rangeland desertification is exacerbated by external shocks such as droughts, market changes, and new regulatory frameworks that have led to profound social and ecological changes within this tightly coupled social–ecological system (SES). In this context, the interrelationship among system components, drivers, and external factors, as well as the impact of strategies to halt desertification, remain poorly understood. The present study employed a retrospective mixed-methods approach to investigate the drivers of desertification on Namibia’s freehold farms by applying the social–ecological trap (SET) concept. Our approach combined remote sensing methods with semi-structured interviews and a literature review. The aim was to decipher the underlying processes and self-reinforcing feedback loops and to identify associated changes in the social and ecological subsystem. Our results revealed that inadequate grass availability, coupled with income deficits, serves as a pivotal catalyst for rangeland desertification, perpetuating a self-reinforcing feedback loop. To avoid or mitigate the effects of ecological regime shifts and to help farmers escape the SET of desertification, it will be necessary to implement changes in the dominant feedback loops through long-term risk mitigation strategies, such as rangeland restoration measures, as well as on- and off-farm income diversification. These strategies will provide a foundation for subsequent research on effective long-term mitigation strategies to prevent further rangeland desertification and to secure the livelihoods of farmers. Full article

The adoption of conservation agriculture techniques plays a crucial role in preventing soil erosion and guaranteeing food security. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the adoption of conservation agricultural technologies on income. Based on the survey data of 922 households in five provinces and cities in the Bohai Rim region in 2023, the study analyzes the impact of different attributes of technology adoption on farm household income through ESR (endogenous switching regression) models and different forms of mediated effects models. The empirical results show the following: (1) The income effects generated by different adoption statuses of conservation agriculture (CA) technologies vary, and the income effects for farmers who adopt multiple conservation agriculture (CA) technologies jointly are even worse. (2) Farmers’ time allocation mediates the effects of technology attributes on adoption. Specifically, farm work is the main mediating variable, while off-farm work plays a moderating role between the yield effect and income. (3) The complex technology adoption chain inhibits farmers from increasing production and income, while the farmers’ jobs in the non-agricultural sector have reduced this impact to a certain extent. In terms of policy recommendations, governments should enhance technical training programs for farmers, improve the market environment, and offer access to highly mechanized agricultural production trusteeship services to encourage the greater adoption of conservation agriculture (CA) technology among farmers. Full article

Tea and coffee as traditional cash crops have been produced in Rwanda for more than six and ten decades respectively. However, new cash crops are being produced and exported, although their role in increased income and poverty reduction over traditional ones is not well understood; hence the analysis of drivers of both traditional and non-mandatory cash crop production among smallholder farmers is imperative. The study applied an experimental research design, and two strata composed of non-mandatory cash crops and traditional crop growers were used to obtain a simple random sample of 400 smallholder farmers. The study analysed the effect of cash crop production on multidimensional poverty among farmers in the Rulindo District using a quantile treatment effect. Although the poorest category of adopters places a high opportunity cost in allocating more time to off-farm activities, the poorest households that are female-headed are likely to increase multidimensional poverty once they adopt non-mandatory cash crops. Similarly, farm size does not help the poorest households to reduce poverty. Poorest households could be considered while introducing new non-mandatory cash crops because they do not help them reduce non-pecuniary poverty. Tea, coffee and food crops should be helpful among the poorest smallholder farmers. Full article

Reliable evidence of species composition or habitat distribution is essential to advance pasture management and decision making, including the definition of fertiliser rates for aerial top dressing. This is more difficult in a diverse environment such as New Zealand hill country farms. The simplification of the landscape character using plant functional types and species dominance has proven useful in ecological studies and in modelling grasslands. This study used hyperspectral imagery to map hill country pasture into plant functional groups (PFGs) as a proxy for pasture quality. We validated a farm scale map generated using support vector machines (SVMs), with ground reference data, to an overall accuracy of 88.75%. We discuss how that information can improve on-farm decision making and allow for better coordination with off-farm consultants. This form of farm-wide mapping is also critical for the successful application of variable-rate aerial topdressing technology as input for the allocation of fertiliser rates. Full article

In order to contribute to the body of knowledge on sustainable poverty reduction by exploring the relationship between rural and structural transformations and rural poverty incidence in Asian developing countries, this paper selected China, the Philippines, and Vietnam as case studies. Based on a comparison with the provincial data from those three countries, both the graphic and regression analysis suggest that structural and rural transformations matter in rural poverty reduction in these three countries. There is strong evidence showing that raising the share of non-agricultural GDP and the share of rural off-farm employment significantly contributes to rural poverty reduction in all three countries. More importantly, with the expansion of the non-farm sectors in both urban and rural areas, high-value agricultural share has a statistically significant and negative correlation with rural poverty in China and Vietnam over time, while such a negative correlation is much weaker or even does not exist in the Philippines. This paper further concludes with several implications for policymakers to promote inclusive structural and rural transformations. Full article

Rice is one of the primary staple foods in Nepal, and there has been a notable increase in the production of this crop over the past ten years. Nonetheless, there appears to be a growing tendency to import rice. The plain region (Terai) of Nepal produces more than two-thirds of the country’s total rice output, with the highest productivity found in Madhesh Province. However, because of the limited knowledge regarding the technical aspects of rice production, commercial rice growers are facing challenges in using resources to produce output as effectively as possible. There is a pressing need to maximize production based on a limited number of inputs. Thus, this study aimed to examine the technical efficiency of rice farmers and the factors affecting technical inefficiency in the Parsa district of Nepal. This study area is the major domain of the Prime Minister Agriculture Modernization Project (PMAMP), which supports farmers with necessary agricultural inputs, infrastructure development, and innovative practices. Data were collected from 215 rice farmers using multistage purposive sampling and were subjected to a Cobb–Douglas stochastic frontier production function. The results showed that rice producers had a technical efficiency of 0.862. Age and off-farm activities were found to significantly influence the technical efficiency of rice farmers. The technical efficiency of rice producers could be enhanced using a project approach, such as the PMAMP. It is important for the government to implement innovations and technologies in farms with the participation of older farmers because their ability to adapt to novel techniques and technologies is better than that of young farmers. Youth generally prefer off-farm employment opportunities, so domestic investment in agriculture should be promoted to make this sector more appealing. Further, policies and programs focusing on pooling small rice fields and subsidizing the price of tractors will help improve the yield of rice. Full article

Nowadays, women’s contribution to society through their social and human involvement at the household level in terms of education, care, and nutrition, as well as their added value to economic functioning, is increasingly recognized. However, most of the related research highlights the relative contributions of women and men. This paper proposes to analyze the link between women’s contribution to social, economic, and financial activities and the rural livelihood of the whole household farm. Based on a household survey that included a respondent section for women from over 285 families in the least rurally developed regions of Morocco, descriptive statistics and systemic analysis successively based on multiple factorial and clustering analyses were used to analyze the links between household adaptative capacity and women’s material and immaterial contributions. The results revealed that women play a crucial role in intergenerational knowledge transfer, which constitutes a critical factor in household capacities and reproduction, especially in the least endowed households. However, the women’s farm or off-farm activities did not guarantee their autonomy. So, the contribution of women to household farm livelihood through their know-how opens alternative pathways to reconsider their contribution to the overall goal of livelihood improvement. Full article

This paper examines the status and rural transformation trends in the Philippines. Using secondary data covering 1988 to 2023, the levels of rural transformation across the country’s sixteen regions were analyzed based on three key indicators: the share of gross value added in high-value agriculture to the total GDP of agriculture, forestry and fishery, share of off-farm employment to the total rural labor force, and agricultural labor productivity. Through a panel regression analysis, this study also determined how selected institutional reforms, policies, and investments (IPIs) influenced the rural transformation that happened in the regions. The findings reveal that rural transformation in the Philippines has been generally slow because of the uneven progress across its local regions, with only three out of the sixteen regions reaching a high level of rural transformation from 1988 to 2023 and two regions remaining at low level of transformation, while the rest are still moving from a slow to moderate level of transformation. This study highlights the critical role of IPIs in driving rural transformation, demonstrating that their effects vary depending on the transformation stage of each region. These results underscore the need to properly identify, logically sequence, and efficiently integrate IPI interventions to address the transformation challenges effectively. Beyond its Philippine context, this study provides insights applicable to other developing countries facing similar rural transformation challenges, offering a replicable methodology for analyzing the transformation and guiding context-specific strategies. Full article

Sustainable farming practices (SFPs) are often touted as vehicles for improving crop productivity and the livelihoods of many rural households. However, SFP’s adoption rates remain persistently low, especially among smallholder farmers in many rural parts of developing countries. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the adoption of SFPs amongst smallholder crop farmers in Mbombela, South Africa. A simple random sampling procedure was employed to collect data from 294 farmers who were solely specializing in crop production. The data were collected using a structured questionnaire, and the analysis was performed with descriptive statistics. A multivariate probit model was adopted to determine the socio-economic determinants of adopting SFPs. The findings of this study confirm that SFPs are essential for addressing the abiotic and biophysical challenges that impede crop productivity, as farmers view these practices as highly beneficial in their farming activities. Also, the results reveal that crop rotation was the most adopted practice, whereas intercropping and conservation tillage were the least adopted practices in the surveyed area. Furthermore, the study showed that “gender, years of education, off-farm income, annual income, marital status, and satisfaction with extension services” were significant socio-economic attributes that do indeed influence the adoption of SFPs by smallholder crop farmers in the surveyed area. These findings underscore the need for the Ministry of Agriculture and rural development stakeholders to address issues relating to economic incentives, improve farmers’ perception of SFPs, provide financial literacy and support programs, and intensify efforts to promote underutilized practices. Full article

This study integrates the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF) and the Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture Systems (SAFA) to evaluate the sustainability and livelihood dynamics of the Amazonian Chakra system, recently designated as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) by the FAO. Using data from 330 producers across three associations (Kallari, Wiñak, and Tsatsayaku) in the Ecuadorian Amazon, the study employed discriminant analysis to assess governance, environmental integrity, economic resilience, social well-being, and livelihood capitals. Results revealed significant disparities across associations in key sustainability dimensions. Kallari and Wiñak demonstrated stronger governance, environmental integrity and economic resilience, linked to mature organizational structures and effective governance mechanisms. In contrast, Tsatsayaku excelled in demographic diversity and larger landholdings but lagged in governance and environmental practices. Extreme poverty affected 82% of households, with Tsatsayaku having the lowest rate (69%) compared to Wiñak (89%) and Kallari (87%). Chakra income contributed significantly to livelihoods, accounting for 44% of total income in Kallari, 37% in Wiñak, but only 16% in Tsatsayaku, whose producers relied more on off-farm activities and livestock. The integration of SLF and SAFA methodologies offered a nuanced understanding of sustainability, highlighting the importance of governance, financial strategies, and environmental conservation in promoting resilience. Policies should prioritize participatory governance, market transparency, and credit access to address disparities and strengthen sustainability. These findings underscore the critical role of the Amazonian Chakra as a sustainable agroforestry system, providing economic and cultural benefits, while emphasizing the need for tailored interventions to enhance the sustainability of Amazonian producer associations. Full article

Straw return and plastic film mulching are two critical management measures that not only maintain high and stable crop yields, but also have a significant impact on the ecological environment. However, there is still a lack of research on the comprehensive effects of straw return and different film mulching treatments on the ecological environment. Thus, a 2-year field experiment was conducted and six treatments, which included two main treatments, namely straw return (SR) and non-straw return (NR), and three sub-treatments, namely no film mulching (CK), plastic film mulching (PM) and fully biodegradable film mulching (BM), were applied in a garlic cropping system. Based on the life cycle assessment method, six endpoint damage categories, resource consumption, global warming potential, environmental acidification, eutrophication, human health, and ecotoxicity, were assessed. Furthermore, we also evaluated the costs and economic benefits of the six treatments and optimized the treatment of used mulch and straw off-farm. The results indicated that the environmental impacts of the six endpoint damages in the garlic cropping system were ranked as ecotoxicity, eutrophication, environmental acidification, global warming potential, human health, and resource consumption. The SR-BM treatment had the lowest life cycle environmental impact composite index at 27.68 per unit area, followed by SR-PM at 27.75. All six endpoint damage categories for the PM and BM treatments were lower than the CK treatment per t of yield, with the SR-BM treatment being the most economically efficient, yielding at 3691.03 CNY·t⁻¹ and exceeding that of the SR-CK treatment by 7.26%. Fertilizer inputs were the primary contributor to resource consumption, global warming potential, environmental acidification, eutrophication, and ecotoxicity, accounting for about 72.80% of these five environmental impacts. Crop protection significantly affected human health, and garlic mulching helped minimize pesticide use, thereby reducing potential health impacts. Compared to straw incineration and waste mulch power generation, straw power generation and waste mulch recycling granulation offered positive environmental benefits and were more effective offset strategies. In conclusion, straw return with biodegradable mulch is a synergistic cultivation measure that offers both environmental and economic benefits. For straw return with plastic film mulch, environmental impacts can be reduced by waste mulch recycling granulation. Full article

As the largest Payment for Environmental Services (PESs) program in China, the Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) has exerted a profound impact on both the ecosystems and rural households’ livelihoods. However, the direct impact and indirect impact mechanism of the SLCP on income remain poorly understood. To bridge this research gap, a unique dataset was used in this study, comprising more than 1200 sampled rural households from 1995 to 2016. An estimation was conducted regarding the direct impact of the SLCP and its subsidy changes in different implementation stages on rural household income, as well as the indirect impact mechanism of the SLCP on income. Our results provided twofold findings. First, participation in the first round of the SLCP increased rural household’s income by 4.63% compared with non-participation. However, in the transition period, the SLCP had no significant effect on the total income of rural households. In the subsidy extension and subsidy expiration stages, participation in the SLCP increased rural household total income by 12.53% and 11.77%, respectively. Second, the variables, including farmland area, forestland area, land-based production expenditure, land-based labor input, and off-farm labor input, had significant mediation effects on the impact of the SLCP on rural household income. To improve the implementation of the SLCP, policymakers could pay attention to more integrative approaches, such as forestland transfer, reduction in forestland fragmentation, and promotion of off-farm job opportunities. Full article