559 research outputs found
Farmers' Post-Harvest Grain Management Choices under Liquidity Constraints and Impending Risks: Implications for Achieving Food Security Objectives in Ethiopia
The purpose of this paper is to explore into the relationships between farmers' post-harvest grain management practices/capacities on the one hand, and liquidity constraints and impending risks on the other, in the context of achieving food security objective at household and national levels. The findings are primarily based on a household survey data from 300 randomly selected major food grain producing peasant households in three rural districts of Ethiopia. Results indicate that farmers perceived post-harvest grain loss as an imminent risk, and that instant sales of grains after harvest are triggered by temporary but immediate liquidity preferences to meet various obligations in the absence of or limited sources of cash other than crops sales, and by an impending risk of post-harvest grain loss and the limited capacity to prevent it. While specific considerations are essential, the general policy implication is that post-harvest grain management needs to be taken on board as a matter of strategic policy concern, not just from the perspective of reducing losses but also from the view point of considering it as a viable and dynamic economic activity in terms of generation of employment, value addition and income linkages.post-harvest, liquidity, risk, grain loss, grain sales, price fluctuations, Crop Production/Industries, Food Security and Poverty, Q12, Q13, Q18,
Evidence of authentic achievement: the extent of disciplined enquiry in student teachers' essay scripts
The purpose of this study was to describe the extent to which undergraduates engage in disciplined enquiry, as one means of operationalising critical thinking. Three hundred essays from second-year students were judged on the indicators of disciplinary concepts, elaborated written communication and analysis. Non parametric statistical tests revealed that disciplinary concepts were more in evidence than was analysis. This was manifest in written communications which were not, overall, elaborated into coherent essays. The results suggest that students need to appreciate that knowledge is an intentional, and perhaps, effortful construction of the human mind and that this involves the use of a knowledge-transforming strategy rather than the coping strategy of knowledge-telling. For this to happen, however, some current pedagogic practices may need to be revise
The adoption of micro irrigation technologies (private sector participation in irrigation development) : The KickStart experience
Manual pumpsIrrigated farmingPrivate sectorEconomic evaluation
Why Quantum Bit Commitment And Ideal Quantum Coin Tossing Are Impossible
There had been well known claims of unconditionally secure quantum protocols
for bit commitment. However, we, and independently Mayers, showed that all
proposed quantum bit commitment schemes are, in principle, insecure because the
sender, Alice, can almost always cheat successfully by using an
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) type of attack and delaying her measurements. One
might wonder if secure quantum bit commitment protocols exist at all. We answer
this question by showing that the same type of attack by Alice will, in
principle, break any bit commitment scheme. The cheating strategy generally
requires a quantum computer. We emphasize the generality of this ``no-go
theorem'': Unconditionally secure bit commitment schemes based on quantum
mechanics---fully quantum, classical or quantum but with measurements---are all
ruled out by this result. Since bit commitment is a useful primitive for
building up more sophisticated protocols such as zero-knowledge proofs, our
results cast very serious doubt on the security of quantum cryptography in the
so-called ``post-cold-war'' applications. We also show that ideal quantum coin
tossing is impossible because of the EPR attack. This no-go theorem for ideal
quantum coin tossing may help to shed some lights on the possibility of
non-ideal protocols.Comment: We emphasize the generality of this "no-go theorem". All bit
commitment schemes---fully quantum, classical and quantum but with
measurements---are shown to be necessarily insecure. Accepted for publication
in a special issue of Physica D. About 18 pages in elsart.sty. This is an
extended version of an earlier manuscript (quant-ph/9605026) which has
appeared in the proceedings of PHYSCOMP'9
Sustainable rural livelihoods to analyse family farming dynamics: A comparative perspective
The very nature of family farming makes it a complex scientific subject, being at the same time a social form of production and an economic agent. Its nature challenges disciplines that most of the time overlook dimensions that do not fit in with their own framework leading to partial views in anthropology, sociology, political science or economics, just to mention the most common disciplinary focus on rural societies. We suggest exploring the well-known Sustainable Rural Livelihood framework as a comprehensive and open conceptual design to address the evolution of family farming. While the entry point concerns individuals, it also considers the social structures and institutions in which they are embedded. It also contemplates natural, social and human assets in addition to physical and financial ones. The activity system developed by each individual within its social setting goes beyond sectorial approaches; the strategies developed are contextualized and influenced by policies. To illustrate how this framework can be implemented, we developed a case study approach in contrasting rural contexts ranging from Argentina, Brazil or Nicaragua for Latin American situations, to Indonesia, China or India for Asia, or to Mali, Cameroon or Mozambique for African illustrations. The cases will not be extensively presented here as we choose to highlight some of the main findings and crosscutting themes as ways and means of adapting to changing contexts. We also discuss the challenges and perspectives faced by family farming from other forms of production and provide some insight into "blind" issues: the social drawbacks and political dimensions linked to agriculture related to broader territorial and national concerns
Economic Insecurity and the Globalization of Production
A common claim in debates about globalization is that economic integration increases worker insecurity. Although this idea is central to both political and academic debates about international economic integration, the theoretical basis of the claim is often not clear. There is also no empirical research that has directly tested the relationship. In this paper, we argue that economic insecurity among workers may be related to riskier employment and/or wage outcomes, and that foreign direct investment may be a key factor contributing to this increased risk by making labor demands more elastic. We present new empirical evidence, based on the analysis of panel data from Great Britain collected from 1991-1999, that FDI activity in the industries in which individuals work is positively correlated with individual perceptions of economic insecurity. This relationship holds in yearly cross-sections, in a panel accounting for individual-specific effects, and in a dynamic panel model also accounting for individual-specific effects.
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