Challenges and opportunities to the African agriculture and food systems

Reduction in the proportion of undernourished people worldwide has been achieved despite global population increase. However, the achievement of reducing undernourishment globally was uneven; sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in particular has the least progress. In SSA, agriculture is only slowly changing with actual well below potential yields. Failures in agricultural policies, weak institutions, and poor governance are the root of growth stagnation. Agriculture contributes a significant share to the SSA economy and a majority of the population derives their livelihood from this sector. It is justifiable to assume that for sustainable growth of the African economy, significant investment and creative innovation in agriculture are needed. However, several factors such as growth of the farming population, loss of soil fertility, climate change, water scarcity, post-harvest losses, and limited market access could challenge such expectation. On the other hand, new policy reforms and initiatives, and appropriate investment that directly or indirectly support agricultural innovation and growth are emerging. This chapter discusses the challenges and opportunities to advance agricultural growth and food systems in Africa and makes recommendations for solutions.Keywords: Africa, food systems, agriculture, agricultural research, agricultural investmen

Marital satisfaction : a qualitative psychological analysis

Thesis advisor: Bernard O'BrienThis study investigated the phenomenology of marriage as experienced by couples who professed to enjoy a successful marriage. A qualitative approach was chosen to elucidate the multifaceted levels of experience in the marital relationship. In-depth interviews were conducted with twelve middle class, Caucasian couples from an urban area on the East Coast. Subjects were chosen from volunteers who had been married for at least twenty years and whose youngest child was out of high school. The interview covered the development of the couples' relationships from the initial attraction through the child-rearing years, and into the current post-child-rearing stage. Expectations, roles, and problem-solving were examined. Socioeconomic factors, religion, family, ethnicity, and finances were discussed as they related to the marriage. The influence of participants' parents' marriages was explored. The data collected were analyzed for salient themes, categories and critical issues in marital satisfaction. Twelve major themes emerged from the data. Of the twelve, four were salient: expectations of marriage, similarity of values, mutuality, and selective understanding. The strategy of selective understanding proved to be the core category, the one which related to the majority of other categories. These findings are useful for clinical and preventive applications, for their contribution to theories of marital satisfaction, and for guiding future research.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 1992.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Education

Rich Information in the Acoustic Signals from Feeding and Grazing in Ruminants

Because of their impact on productivity and the environment, feeding behaviour, ingestion and rumination are critical to understand intake in grazing ruminants. Many systems, mainly mechanical, have been developed to measure ingestive behaviour. However, these systems have problems, including mechanical failure and the inability to distinguish between the complex jaw movements of prehension and ingestion (Laca et al., 1994). The sounds generated by these behaviours are rich in information that holds potential not only to distinguish and count behaviours, but also identify aspects of the nature of the foods ingested

The Sound of Chewing

Acoustic biotelemetry has been proposed as a way to count ingestive bites and chews of grazing animals. Recent work has indicated the possibility that detailed analysis of \u27sounds of chewing\u27 contains information about other characteristics of the ingestive process that can be used to study grazing behaviour of free ranging animals (Laca & Wallis DeVries, 2000), or to monitor stall-fed animals in more detail

Resource heterogeneity and foraging behaviour of cattle across spatial scales

BackgroundUnderstanding the mechanisms that influence grazing selectivity in patchy environments is vital to promote sustainable production and conservation of cultivated and natural grasslands. To better understand how patch size and spatial dynamics influence selectivity in cattle, we examined grazing selectivity under 9 different treatments by offering alfalfa and fescue in patches of 3 sizes spaced with 1, 4, and 8 m between patches along an alley. We hypothesized that (1) selectivity is driven by preference for the forage species that maximizes forage intake over feeding scales ranging from single bites to patches along grazing paths, (2) that increasing patch size enhances selectivity for the preferred species, and that (3) increasing distances between patches restricts selectivity because of the aggregation of scale-specific behaviours across foraging scales.ResultsCows preferred and selected alfalfa, the species that yielded greater short-term intake rates (P < 0.0001) and greater daily intake potential. Selectivity was not affected by patch arrangement, but it was scale dependent. Selectivity tended to emerge at the scale of feeding stations and became strongly significant at the bite scale, because of differences in bite mass between plant species. Greater distance between patches resulted in longer patch residence time and faster speed of travel but lower overall intake rate, consistent with maximization of intake rate. Larger patches resulted in greater residence time and higher intake rate.ConclusionWe conclude that patch size and spacing affect components of intake rate and, to a lesser extent, the selectivity of livestock at lower hierarchies of the grazing process, particularly by enticing livestock to make more even use of the available species as patches are spaced further apart. Thus, modifications in the spatial pattern of plant patches along with reductions in the temporal and spatial allocation of grazing may offer opportunities to improve uniformity of grazing by livestock and help sustain biodiversity and stability of plant communities

Role of livestock in human nutrition and health for poverty reduction in developing countries

Livestock keeping is critical for many of the poor in the developing world, often contributing to multiple livelihood objectives and offering pathways out of poverty. Livestock keeping also affects an indispensable asset of the poor, their human capital, through its impact on their own nutrition and health. This paper outlines the linkages between livestock keeping and the physical well-being of the poor, and examines a number of commonly held beliefs that misrepresent livestock development issues related to these linkages. These beliefs limit the scope of intervention programs to promote livestock and limit their potential contribution to poverty reduction. Recognition of the complexity of the role livestock play in household decision-making and of the opportunities foregone due to these misconceptions can enhance the ability of livestock to contribute to human well-being in the developing world