The role of self-help groups in rural non-farm employment

Self- help groups (SHGs) play today a major role in poverty alleviation in rural India. A growing number of poor people (mostly women) in various parts of India are members of SHGs and actively engage in savings and credit (S/C), as well as in other activities (income generation, natural resources management, literacy, child care and nutrition, etc.). This paper attempts to identify the role of SHGs in providing Rural Non-Farm Employment (RNFE) through enterprise development and marketing

Forward-Looking Review of the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (2013-2014)

The Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) was a 10-year (January 1, 2004–December 31, 2013) investment by the CGIAR, conducted over two phases and aimed at an overarching goal of raising water productivity and improving food security while helping alleviate poverty, improve health, and attain environmental security. This review, undertaken between November 2013 and March 2014, was commissioned by CPWF to assess CPWF’s achievements, but also to identify lessons to take forward by CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs) and other research and development stakeholders

Learning how to do things differently: challenges in sharing tacit knowledge for agricultural and rural development (with examples from India and Namibia)

Learning alliances (LAs) are considered to be a more sustainable alternative for sharing knowledge than research projects, because they enable flexible partnerships between a larger range of organisational levels, combine local adaptations with sharing of experience in a wider community, and are less constrained by project time horizons. This paper argues that, even though LAs have a number of advantages over projects, effective knowledge sharing and creation of innovations can only happen if there is a strong element of action research involved, which enables alliance partners to share the tacit knowledge embedded in technologies and innovations. Innovations both build on existing knowledge, and generate new knowledge. This knowledge can be either explicit (i.e. it can be codified and transmitted in a generally understood form, such as text) or implicit/ tacit (i.e. embodied in individuals and their skills and experiences). The tacit knowledge component of innovations is harder to share and scale up than those components that can be codified - leading to an inconsistency in knowledge transfer. In agricultural development, most innovations are nowadays about "doing things differently", including new ways of interacting and organising, rather than "doing different things", such as growing new crop varieties. These innovations have a very high component of tacit knowledge. While some authors have argues that tacit knowledge can be transferred into explicit knowledge, this paper argues that some forms of tacit knowledge can only be shared through "knowledge in action", e.g. doing things together. Therefore action research projects provide a valid component of learning alliances. The paper illustrates this with two cases from agricultural research that involved multi-agency, multi-disciplinary teams

How should the bunds be built ? Negotiating technologies for soil and water conservation in semi‑arid South India

SummaryIndigenous soil and water conservation (SWC) measures have been used by farmers. In semi‑arid regions of South India for centuries. These structures have often the following characteristics : They are constructed over a relatively long period of time (decades/ generations), requiring little investment at any given time ; they use locally available and cheap material ; their establishment and maintenance requires skills that are locally available and they respect property boundaries ; t..

How should the bunds be built ? Negotiating technologies for soil and water conservation in semi‑arid South India

SummaryIndigenous soil and water conservation (SWC) measures have been used by farmers. In semi‑arid regions of South India for centuries. These structures have often the following characteristics : They are constructed over a relatively long period of time (decades/ generations), requiring little investment at any given time ; they use locally available and cheap material ; their establishment and maintenance requires skills that are locally available and they respect property boundaries ; t..

Reversal of murine alcoholic steatohepatitis by pepducin-based functional blockade of interleukin-8 receptors.

OBJECTIVE: Alcoholic steatohepatitis is a life-threatening condition with short-term mortality up to 40%. It features hepatic neutrophil infiltration and blood neutrophilia, and may evolve from ethanol-induced breakdown of the enteric barrier and consequent bacteraemia. Signalling through CXCR1/2 G-protein-coupled-receptors (GPCRs), the interleukin (IL)-8 receptors, is critical for the recruitment and activation of neutrophils. We have developed short lipopeptides (pepducins), which inhibit post-ligand GPCR activation precisely targeting individual GPCRs. DESIGN: Experimental alcoholic liver disease was induced by administering alcohol and a Lieber-DeCarli high-fat diet. CXCR1/2 GPCRs were blocked via pepducins either from onset of the experiment or after disease was fully established. Hepatic inflammatory infiltration, hepatocyte lipid accumulation and overall survival were assessed as primary outcome parameters. Neutrophil activation was assessed by myeloperoxidase activity and liver cell damage by aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase plasma levels. Chemotaxis assays were performed to identify chemoattractant signals derived from alcohol-exposed hepatocytes. RESULTS: Here, we show that experimental alcoholic liver disease is driven by CXCR1/2-dependent activation of neutrophils. CXCR1/2-specific pepducins not only protected mice from liver inflammation, weight loss and mortality associated with experimental alcoholic liver disease, but therapeutic administration cured disease and prevented further mortality in fully established disease. Hepatic neutrophil infiltration and triglyceride accumulation was abrogated by CXCR1/2 blockade. Moreover, CXCL-1 plasma levels were decreased with the pepducin therapy as was the transcription of hepatic IL-1β mRNA. CONCLUSIONS: We propose that high circulating IL-8 in human alcoholic hepatitis may cause pathogenic overzealous neutrophil activation, and therapeutic blockade via pepducins merits clinical study.Wellcome Trust Career Re-entry Fellowship (103077/Z/13/Z) to NCK, Christian Doppler Research Society to HT and European Research Council (FP7/2007- 2013) to AKThis is the final version of the article. It first appeared from the BMJ Group via http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/gutjnl-2015-31034

Understanding the winners and losers of agricultural expansion in Ghana

Ghana’s population is forecast to double by 2050, resulting in an increased need for food provision. Much of this will be achieved through agricultural expansion. But what are the impacts? Who benefits or loses – and why? How will agricultural expansion ultimately affect food security

A framework for targeting water, sanitation and hygiene interventions in pastoralist populations in the Afar region of Ethiopia

Globally, many populations face structural and environmental barriers to access safe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services. Among these populations are many of the 200 million pastoralists whose livelihood patterns and extreme environmental settings challenge conventional WASH programming approaches. In this paper, we studied the Afar pastoralists in Ethiopia to identify WASH interventions that can mostly alleviate public health risks, within the population's structural and environmental living constraints. Surveys were carried out with 148 individuals and observational assessments made in 12 households as part of a Pastoralist Community WASH Risk Assessment. The results show that low levels of access to infrastructure are further compounded by risky behaviours related to water containment, storage and transportation. Additional behavioural risk factors were identified related to sanitation, hygiene and animal husbandry. The Pastoralist Community WASH Risk Assessment visually interprets the seriousness of the risks against the difficulty of addressing the problem. The assessment recommends interventions on household behaviours, environmental cleanliness, water storage, treatment and hand hygiene via small-scale educational interventions. The framework provides an approach for assessing risks in other marginal populations that are poorly understood and served through conventional approaches

The future of small farms and small food businesses as actors in regional food security: A participatory scenario analysis from Europe and Africa

This research was supported by the `Small Farms, Small Food Businesses and Sustainable Food Security' (SALSA) project, which has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 677363. Funding for open access charge: CRUE-Universitat Politecnica de Valencia.Ortiz Miranda, D.; Moreno-Pérez, OM.; Arnalte-Mur, L.; Cerrada-Serra, P.; Martinez Gomez, VD.; Adolph, B.; Atela, J.... (2022). The future of small farms and small food businesses as actors in regional food security: A participatory scenario analysis from Europe and Africa. Journal of Rural Studies. 95:326-335. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2022.09.0063263359

Serious gaming to inform local scale scenarios of land cover change to 2050 in North-Western province, Zambia

As pressure on agricultural land increases, there is an urgent need to develop easy-to-use tools, that are applicable at a wide range of geographic scales, to improve our understanding of the trade-offs between food production and the protection of ecosystems