6 research outputs found

    Transforming Agriculture in Southern Africa

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    This book provides a synthesis of the key issues and challenges facing agriculture and food production in Southern Africa. Southern Africa is facing numerous challenges from diverse issues such as agricultural transformations, growing populations, urbanization and climate change. These challenges place great pressure on food security, agriculture, water availability and other natural resources, as well as impacting biodiversity. Drawing on case studies from Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, the chapters in this book consider these challenges from an interdisciplinary perspective, covering key areas in constraints to production, the most important building blocks of good farming practices, and established and emerging technologies. This book will be a valuable support for informing new policies and processes aimed at improving food production and security and developing sustainable agriculture in Southern Africa. This informative volume will be key reading for those interested in agricultural science, African studies, rural studies, development studies and sustainability. It will also be a valuable resource for policymakers, governmental and nongovernmental organizations, and agricultural practitioners

    Managing Intellectual Property to Foster Agricultural Development

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    Over the past decades, consideration of IPRs has become increasingly important in many areas of agricultural development, including foreign direct investment, technology transfer, trade, investment in innovation, access to genetic resources, and the protection of traditional knowledge. The widening role of IPRs in governing the ownership of—and access to—innovation, information, and knowledge makes them particularly critical in ensuring that developing countries benefit from the introduction of new technologies that could radically alter the welfare of the poor. Failing to improve IPR policies and practices to support the needs of developing countries will eliminate significant development opportunities. The discussion in this note moves away from policy prescriptions to focus on investments to improve how IPRs are used in practice in agricultural development. These investments must be seen as complementary to other investments in agricultural development. IPRs are woven into the context of innovation and R&D. They can enable entrepreneurship and allow the leveraging of private resources for resolving the problems of poverty. Conversely, IPRs issues can delay important scientific advancements, deter investment in products for the poor, and impose crippling transaction costs on organizations if the wrong tools are used or tools are badly applied. The central benefit of pursuing the investments outlined in this note is to build into the system a more robust capacity for strategic and flexible use of IPRs tailored to development goals

    Transforming Agriculture in Southern Africa

    Get PDF
    This book provides a synthesis of the key issues and challenges facing agriculture and food production in Southern Africa. Southern Africa is facing numerous challenges from diverse issues such as agricultural transformations, growing populations, urbanization and climate change. These challenges place great pressure on food security, agriculture, water availability and other natural resources, as well as impacting biodiversity. Drawing on case studies from Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, the chapters in this book consider these challenges from an interdisciplinary perspective, covering key areas in constraints to production, the most important building blocks of good farming practices, and established and emerging technologies. This book will be a valuable support for informing new policies and processes aimed at improving food production and security and developing sustainable agriculture in Southern Africa. This informative volume will be key reading for those interested in agricultural science, African studies, rural studies, development studies and sustainability. It will also be a valuable resource for policymakers, governmental and nongovernmental organizations, and agricultural practitioners

    Conservation Agriculture and Scale of Appropriate Agricultural Mechanization in Smallholder Systems

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    This manual has focused on the need to amplify and accelerate adoption of conservation agriculture (CA) practices that enable productivity increases on a sustainable basis. The development of the training manual on ‘Conservation Agriculture and Scale Appropriate Agricultural Mechanization in Smallholder Systems’ is an outcome of the series of advanced training programs on Conservation Agriculture over past one decade. The objectives of this training manual are; (1) To foster capacity building of researchers, extension workers, farmers and machinery manufacturers to promote CA in Asia and Africa; and (2) To raise the awareness of policy planners and decision makers to develop a strategic plan for the development of CA and agricultural mechanization in the developing world. There are several initiatives in South Asia and Africa to promote CA practices as environment-friendly and alternative to conventional agriculture. However, little has been done to document the CA practices or even lessons learnt from these initiatives. Farmers today still lack access to information on CA practices. This is a comprehensive manual that explains in a step by step easy to follow manner on how to implement CA by smallholders in Asia and Africa. It explains what CA is, and why it is important, how to use CA principles in the field and highlights the issues and challenges that researchers, farmers, machinery manufacturers and service providers may encounter when they adopt and adapt CA practices. This manual aims to be a valuable reference and is intended for use by researchers, agricultural extension officers/workers, farmers, machinery manufacturers and service providers to promote CA in Asia and Africa for increasing productivity and reducing poverty. It is written in clear, easy-to-understand language, and is illustrated with numerous figures and tables. It is not intended to cover the subject of conservation agriculture comprehensively but to provide an overview of the principles and practices. Indeed, as the training draws from many distinct disciplines, it is unlikely that any one person will have the necessary technical skills to cover the complete course content. Manual also focuses on two crucial aspects: the provision of farm mechanization services as a viable business opportunity for entrepreneurs, and the essential criteria of raising productivity in an environmentally sensitive and responsible way. This manual is also designed to serve as source of information for custom hire service providers – whether already in the business or intending to start their own hire service business – with skills and competencies in both the technical and the management aspects of the small-scale mechanization business. CA to reach smallholder farmers needed the publication of simplified technical manual. This manual contains useful technical information on CA practices that offer practical answers to questions normally asked by farmers of what, why, how

    Innovations in Organic Food Systems for Sustainable Production and Enhanced Ecosystem Services

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    This is the proceedings of the international conference ‘Innovations in ORGANIC FOOD SYSTEMS for Sustainable Production and Enhanced Ecosystem Services’. The proceedings are a compilation of peer reviewed articles based on presentations of 18 speakers invited conference speakers and published as a Special Issue of the scientific journal ‘Sustainable Agriculture Research’ by the Canadian Centre of Science and Education. The conference was organized jointly by US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the International Centre for Research in Organic Food Systems, and the Organic Management Systems Group of ASA (ASA-OMS) with financial support from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Co-operative Research Programme on Biological Resource Management for Sustainable Agricultural Systems, whose financial support made it possible for most of the invited speakers to participate in the Conference. The 2-day conference joined speakers from 12 OECD countries and almost 200 conference participants in discussions on new knowledge, innovations, potentials and research needs that will strengthen the link between organic food systems, sustainable production and enhanced ecosystem services. The conference was held as a special symposium of the annual conference of the three societies American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA) and Soil Science Society of America (SSA), 1-2 November 2014, Long Beach, California

    Applied Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases in Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR)

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    The National Centre for Laboratory and Epidemiology (NCLE) is responsible for surveillance, outbreak investigation and responses, providing national public health laboratory services, as well as capacity building through a one-year Lao Field Epidemiology Training (FET) program. From March 2019 to 2020, I undertook my MAE field placement within the Epidemiology section at the NCLE. This dissertation illustrates the four field projects, skills, and knowledge I have gained during the 24-month placement. My field projects consist of establishing a Congenital Rubella Syndrome Sentinel Surveillance System; investigating contributing factors to low measles immunization coverage in an outbreak of a hard-to-reach rural village in Xaisomboun province; investigation of first few cases and contacts for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, analysing laboratory findings of the first 1000s cases of reported suspected COVID-19 cases and designing a dengue primary intervention study. I gained additional skills and knowledge during the program through the full literature reviews, teaching, writing for a lay audience, preparing an advanced draft of a paper for publication, preparing an abstract and oral presentation of projects, all of which will be demonstrated in subsequent and relevant chapters. I also successfully completed five MAE coursework units. Lastly, I also attained additional experience and professional development activities during participation in the 2019 Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI) Young Scientist Program, Training of Trainers (TOT) for FET graduates and coordinators, weekly Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) meeting, and weekly Surveillance Data Review/Analysis in Lao PDR. These projects, skills, knowledge, and experiences comply with the core requirements for the Australian National University Master of Philosophy (Applied Epidemiology) program
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