Impact of CS-IPM on key social welfare aspects of smallholder farmers' livelihoods

Open Access JournalAll stakeholders, especially households that depend on agriculture, must come up with every avenue available to improve farm productivity in order to raise yields due to the constraints posed by climate change on food production systems. Sufficient increments in yields will address the challenges of food insecurity and malnutrition among vulnerable households, especially smallholder ones. Yield increases can be achieved sustainably through the deployment of various Climate Smart Integrated Pest Management (CS-IPM) practices, including good agronomic practices. Therefore, CS-IPM practices could be essential in ensuring better household welfare, including food security and nutrition. With such impact empirically documented, appropriate policy guidance can be realized in favor of CS-IPM practices at scale, thus helping to achieve sustainable food security and food systems. However, to this end, there is yet limited evidence on the real impact of CS-IPM practices on the various core social welfare household parameters, for instance, food security, household incomes, gender roles, and nutrition, among others. We contribute to this body of literature in this paper by reviewing various empirical evidence that analyzes the impact of respective CS-IPM practices on key social welfare aspects of smallholder farm households in developing countries around the world. The review finds that CS-IPM practices do increase households’ adaptation to climate change, thus enhancing soil and crop productivity, thereby ensuring food and nutrition security, as well as increasing market participation of CS-IPM adopters, thus leading to increased household incomes, asset accumulation, and subsequently better household food and nutrition security via direct own-farm produce consumption and market purchases using income. CS-IPM practices also enhance access to climate-related information, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, conserve biodiversity, and enhance dietary diversity through improved crop and livestock varieties and also reduce variable farm production costs. Therefore, there would be multiple welfare gains if CS-IPM practices were scaled up

Performance of six common beans cultivars in three different planting dates in Lichinga, Niassa, Mozambique.

A field experiment was conducted in the area of the Centro Zonal Norte do Instituto de Investigação Agrária de Moçambique (IIAM), em Lichinga, Niassa, Moçambique, with the objective of checking out the performance of common beans cultivars in response to local environmental conditions. A complete 6x3 factorial experimental design was used, encompassing six cultivars of common beans (BRS Pontal, BRS Agreste, BRS Perola, and BRS Requinte, developed by Embrapa, Brazil; and two locals, Manteiga and Encarnada), and three planting dates (12/12/2012, 29/12/2012, e 13/01/2013). There was soil cover fertilization at planting (500 kg/ha of the mixed NPK 2-24-12) and after 20 days of plants emergency (130 kg de N/ha). Each treatment was replicated four times in the field, in randomized blocks (18 m2 each, with five liner of six lineal meters each, spaced 0,45 cm, with nine seeds seeded per meter). At harvest (area of 3 m within the central lines), it was evaluated the plant final stand, degree of lodging, number of pods per plant, number of grains per pod, weight of 100 grains, and productivity. The Brazilian cultivars showed higher productivity than the local ones within the studied conditions, especially BRS Agreste, with an average production of 2,387 kg of grains/ha. The best planting date was at the end of December

Response of six common beans cultivars to phosphate and potassium fertilization in Lichinga, Niassa, Mozambique.

A field experiment was conducted to check out the response of the common bean BRS 293 Pontal to basic fertilization with Phosphorus (P) and Potassium, in the environmental conditions of Lichinga, Niassa, Mozambique. A complete factorial 5x4 was used, with five rates of P2O5 (0, 35, 70, 140, and 280 kg/ha, as Triple Superphosphate) and four rates of K2O (0, 50, 100 and 200 kg/ha, as Potassium Chloride). The experimental area was also fertilized with 90 kg/ha of Nitrogen (N), as Urea, spliced in 23 kg N/ha at planting and 67 kg N/ha 20 days after plants emergency. Each treatment was replicated four time in the field, in randomized blocks (18 m2 each, with five liner of six lineal meters each, spaced 0,45 cm, with nine seeds seeded per meter). At harvest (area of 3 m within the central lines), it was evaluated the plant final stand, degree of lodging, number of pods per plant, number of grains per pod, weight of 100 grains, and productivity. Based in the analysis of the data, it is concluded that maximum productivity, equivalent to 3,616 kg of grains/ha, would be obtained with a combination of 406 kg/ha of P2O5 and 43 kg/ha of K2O. Such rate is above what would be expected, which indicates that new studies would be necessary for better recommendation of P2O5 fertilization in this area

Socio-economic determinants for the deployment of Climate-Smart One-Health innovations. A meta-analysis approach prioritizing Ghana and Benin

Open Access Journal; Published online: 14 Mar 2023An ecosystem is inhabited by organisms that rely on it for their livelihoods. For an ecosystem to sustain life, its life-supporting components must be alive to be able to preserve both the ecosystem’s life-supporting components like soil, vegetation, water, etc., and the living organisms inhabiting the ecosystem like humans, birds, domestic, and wild animals, termed as the One-Health concept. This is indispensable for the sustainability of life. Several factors determine the ability of the ecosystem to provide ecosystem services and support life, more so amidst climate change. Hence, climate-smart (CS) One-Health innovations are essential to maintain the integrity of the ecosystem to be able to support life. However, factors that could effectively determine the deployment of such CS One-Health innovations are not well identified. This paper, closes the knowledge gap through a systematic review of literature for a meta-analysis of the socio-economic determinants for the successful deployment of CS One-Health innovations. Using a scoping review methodology, search engines like Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus, and AgriEcon were explored extensively for literature on CS One-Health innovations. Search results were then screened and only articles that met the inclusion criteria were considered in this study. Subsequently, appropriate articles were identified for data extraction. Results revealed that political will, community participation, knowledge of CS One-Health practices, the willingness of parties to engage in multi-disciplinary collaborative activities, and level of investment (income/funds) were enablers for the deployment of CS One-Health innovations. On the other hand, behavior incompatibility with innovations, policy failure to restrict the use of toxic substances in agriculture, poor community knowledge of CS One-Health innovations, and language barriers between communities and innovators, hindered such deployment. Hence, multiple factors (fostering and hindering) must be addressed in a multi-disciplinary framework to ensure the successful deployment of CS One-Health innovations

Performance of six common beans cultivars in three different planting dates in Lichinga, Niassa, Mozambique.

A field experiment was conducted in the area of the Centro Zonal Norte do Instituto de Investigação Agrária de Moçambique (IIAM), em Lichinga, Niassa, Moçambique, with the objective of checking out the performance of common beans cultivars in response to local environmental conditions. A complete 6x3 factorial experimental design was used, encompassing six cultivars of common beans (BRS Pontal, BRS Agreste, BRS Perola, and BRS Requinte, developed by Embrapa, Brazil; and two locals, Manteiga and Encarnada), and three planting dates (12/12/2012, 29/12/2012, e 13/01/2013). There was soil cover fertilization at planting (500 kg/ha of the mixed NPK 2-24-12) and after 20 days of plants emergency (130 kg de N/ha). Each treatment was replicated four times in the field, in randomized blocks (18 m2 each, with five liner of six lineal meters each, spaced 0,45 cm, with nine seeds seeded per meter). At harvest (area of 3 m within the central lines), it was evaluated the plant final stand, degree of lodging, number of pods per plant, number of grains per pod, weight of 100 grains, and productivity. The Brazilian cultivars showed higher productivity than the local ones within the studied conditions, especially BRS Agreste, with an average production of 2,387 kg of grains/ha. The best planting date was at the end of December

Response of six common beans cultivars to phosphate and potassium fertilization in Lichinga, Niassa, Mozambique.

A field experiment was conducted to check out the response of the common bean BRS 293 Pontal to basic fertilization with Phosphorus (P) and Potassium, in the environmental conditions of Lichinga, Niassa, Mozambique. A complete factorial 5x4 was used, with five rates of P2O5 (0, 35, 70, 140, and 280 kg/ha, as Triple Superphosphate) and four rates of K2O (0, 50, 100 and 200 kg/ha, as Potassium Chloride). The experimental area was also fertilized with 90 kg/ha of Nitrogen (N), as Urea, spliced in 23 kg N/ha at planting and 67 kg N/ha 20 days after plants emergency. Each treatment was replicated four time in the field, in randomized blocks (18 m2 each, with five liner of six lineal meters each, spaced 0,45 cm, with nine seeds seeded per meter). At harvest (area of 3 m within the central lines), it was evaluated the plant final stand, degree of lodging, number of pods per plant, number of grains per pod, weight of 100 grains, and productivity. Based in the analysis of the data, it is concluded that maximum productivity, equivalent to 3,616 kg of grains/ha, would be obtained with a combination of 406 kg/ha of P2O5 and 43 kg/ha of K2O. Such rate is above what would be expected, which indicates that new studies would be necessary for better recommendation of P2O5 fertilization in this area

Origin and spread of human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup U7

Human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup U is among the initial maternal founders in Southwest Asia and Europe and one that best indicates matrilineal genetic continuity between late Pleistocene hunter-gatherer groups and present-day populations of Europe. While most haplogroup U subclades are older than 30 thousand years, the comparatively recent coalescence time of the extant variation of haplogroup U7 (~16–19 thousand years ago) suggests that its current distribution is the consequence of more recent dispersal events, despite its wide geographical range across Europe, the Near East and South Asia. Here we report 267 new U7 mitogenomes that – analysed alongside 100 published ones – enable us to discern at least two distinct temporal phases of dispersal, both of which most likely emanated from the Near East. The earlier one began prior to the Holocene (~11.5 thousand years ago) towards South Asia, while the later dispersal took place more recently towards Mediterranean Europe during the Neolithic (~8 thousand years ago). These findings imply that the carriers of haplogroup U7 spread to South Asia and Europe before the suggested Bronze Age expansion of Indo-European languages from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe region

Beringian Standstill and Spread of Native American Founders

Native Americans derive from a small number of Asian founders who likely arrived to the Americas via Beringia. However, additional details about the intial colonization of the Americas remain unclear. To investigate the pioneering phase in the Americas we analyzed a total of 623 complete mtDNAs from the Americas and Asia, including 20 new complete mtDNAs from the Americas and seven from Asia. This sequence data was used to direct high-resolution genotyping from 20 American and 26 Asian populations. Here we describe more genetic diversity within the founder population than was previously reported. The newly resolved phylogenetic structure suggests that ancestors of Native Americans paused when they reached Beringia, during which time New World founder lineages differentiated from their Asian sister-clades. This pause in movement was followed by a swift migration southward that distributed the founder types all the way to South America. The data also suggest more recent bi-directional gene flow between Siberia and the North American Arctic

Genomic analyses inform on migration events during the peopling of Eurasia.

High-coverage whole-genome sequence studies have so far focused on a limited number of geographically restricted populations, or been targeted at specific diseases, such as cancer. Nevertheless, the availability of high-resolution genomic data has led to the development of new methodologies for inferring population history and refuelled the debate on the mutation rate in humans. Here we present the Estonian Biocentre Human Genome Diversity Panel (EGDP), a dataset of 483 high-coverage human genomes from 148 populations worldwide, including 379 new genomes from 125 populations, which we group into diversity and selection sets. We analyse this dataset to refine estimates of continent-wide patterns of heterozygosity, long- and short-distance gene flow, archaic admixture, and changes in effective population size through time as well as for signals of positive or balancing selection. We find a genetic signature in present-day Papuans that suggests that at least 2% of their genome originates from an early and largely extinct expansion of anatomically modern humans (AMHs) out of Africa. Together with evidence from the western Asian fossil record, and admixture between AMHs and Neanderthals predating the main Eurasian expansion, our results contribute to the mounting evidence for the presence of AMHs out of Africa earlier than 75,000 years ago.Support was provided by: Estonian Research Infrastructure Roadmap grant no 3.2.0304.11-0312; Australian Research Council Discovery grants (DP110102635 and DP140101405) (D.M.L., M.W. and E.W.); Danish National Research Foundation; the Lundbeck Foundation and KU2016 (E.W.); ERC Starting Investigator grant (FP7 - 261213) (T.K.); Estonian Research Council grant PUT766 (G.C. and M.K.); EU European Regional Development Fund through the Centre of Excellence in Genomics to Estonian Biocentre (R.V.; M.Me. and A.Me.), and Centre of Excellence for Genomics and Translational Medicine Project No. 2014-2020.4.01.15-0012 to EGC of UT (A.Me.) and EBC (M.Me.); Estonian Institutional Research grant IUT24-1 (L.S., M.J., A.K., B.Y., K.T., C.B.M., Le.S., H.Sa., S.L., D.M.B., E.M., R.V., G.H., M.K., G.C., T.K. and M.Me.) and IUT20-60 (A.Me.); French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and French ANR grant number ANR-14-CE31-0013-01 (F.-X.R.); Gates Cambridge Trust Funding (E.J.); ICG SB RAS (No. VI.58.1.1) (D.V.L.); Leverhulme Programme grant no. RP2011-R-045 (A.B.M., P.G. and M.G.T.); Ministry of Education and Science of Russia; Project 6.656.2014/K (S.A.F.); NEFREX grant funded by the European Union (People Marie Curie Actions; International Research Staff Exchange Scheme; call FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IRSES-number 318979) (M.Me., G.H. and M.K.); NIH grants 5DP1ES022577 05, 1R01DK104339-01, and 1R01GM113657-01 (S.Tis.); Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant N 14-06-00180a) (M.G.); Russian Foundation for Basic Research; grant 16-04-00890 (O.B. and E.B); Russian Science Foundation grant 14-14-00827 (O.B.); The Russian Foundation for Basic Research (14-04-00725-a), The Russian Humanitarian Scientific Foundation (13-11-02014) and the Program of the Basic Research of the RAS Presidium “Biological diversity” (E.K.K.); Wellcome Trust and Royal Society grant WT104125AIA & the Bristol Advanced Computing Research Centre (http://www.bris.ac.uk/acrc/) (D.J.L.); Wellcome Trust grant 098051 (Q.A.; C.T.-S. and Y.X.); Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship grant 100719/Z/12/Z (M.G.T.); Young Explorers Grant from the National Geographic Society (8900-11) (C.A.E.); ERC Consolidator Grant 647787 ‘LocalAdaptatio’ (A.Ma.); Program of the RAS Presidium “Basic research for the development of the Russian Arctic” (B.M.); Russian Foundation for Basic Research grant 16-06-00303 (E.B.); a Rutherford Fellowship (RDF-10-MAU-001) from the Royal Society of New Zealand (M.P.C.)

Estimating the intrahousehold costs and benefits of innovations to enhance smallholder farmers’ resilience

This paper introduces a new framework to quantify costs and benefits for resilience-related outcomes of agricultural innovations targeting smallholder farmers. The framework employs a non-unitary household model with expected utility to quantify welfare benefits associated with non-monetary outcomes that are important from a development perspective, such as improved consumption smoothing, empowerment, and changes in time use. We demonstrate the application of the framework using a case study of climate information services (CIS) in Ghana. We develop a set of individual bargaining weights based on the women’s empowerment in agriculture index, to demonstrate how benefits from CIS are distributed among men and women within households. We find that for the average risk-averse farmer, using CIS is associated with a 37-percent increase in expected utility, but male household heads benefit more than women living in male-headed households. Cost–benefit analyses that do not consider the intrahousehold distribution of benefits associated with agricultural innovations will overestimate benefits accruing to women with low bargaining power