Promoting global watershed management towards rural communities: the May Zeg-zeg initiativeLength: pp.192-195

Watershed managementRural development

Transhumance in the Tigray highlands (Ethiopia)

Transhumance, the seasonal movement of herds occurring between two points and following precise routes repeated each year, is practiced on a broad scale in the open field areas of Tigray (North Ethiopia). This article presents a characterization of the practice, factors that explain its magnitude, and recent changes. Eleven villages were selected randomly, semistructured interviews were conducted, and data on the sites were collected both in the field and from secondary sources. The transhumance destination zones are characterized as better endowed with water and fodder resources, essentially due to their great extent. The sample villages can be classified into three groups: annual transhumance (average one-way traveling distance 8.1 km), home range herding (average traveling distance 2.2 km), and keeping livestock near homesteads. Movements are basically induced by the fact that there is little to no space for livestock near the villages during the crop-growing period—not by the significantly different temperature or rainfall conditions in the grazing lands. Adults will only herd the flocks when the distance for transhumance is great or considered unsafe; otherwise, young boys tend the livestock for the entire summer rainy season. Faced with social (schooling) and technological (reservoir construction and establishment of exclosures) changes, transhumance in Tigray has adjusted in a highly adaptive way, with new routes being developed and others abandoned. Transhumance does not lead to major conflicts in the study area even when livestock are brought to areas that belong to other ethnic groups (Afar, Amhara)

Urogenital pathogens, associated with Trichomonas vaginalis, among pregnant women in Kilifi, Kenya : a nested case-control study

Background: Screening of curable sexually transmitted infections is frequently oriented towards the diagnosis of chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis and trichomoniasis, whereas other pathogens, sometimes associated with similar urogenital syndromes, remain undiagnosed and/or untreated. Some of these pathogens are associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. Methods: In a nested case-control study, vaginal swabs from 79 pregnant women, i.e., 28T. vaginalis-positive (cases) and 51T. vaginalis-negative (controls), were screened by quantitative PCR for Adenovirus 1 and 2, Cytomegalovirus, Herpes Simplex Virus 1 and 2, Chlamydia trachomatis, Escherichia coli, Haemophilus ducreyi, Mycoplasma genitalium, M. hominis, candidatus M. girerdii, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Streptococcus agalactiae, Treponema pallidum, Ureaplasma parvum, U. urealyticum, and Candida albicans. Additionally, we determined whether women with pathogens highly associated with T. vaginalis had distinct clinical signs and symptoms compared to women with T. vaginalis mono-infection. Results: M. hominis was independently associated with T. vaginalis (adjusted odds ratio=6.8, 95% CI: 2.3-19.8). Moreover, M. genitalium and Ca M. girerdii were exclusively detected in women with T. vaginalis (P=0.002 and P=0.001), respectively. Four of the six women co-infected with T. vaginalis and Ca M. girerdii complained of vaginal itching, compared to only 4 out of the 22 women infected with T. vaginalis without Ca M. girerdii (P=0.020). Conclusion: We confirm M. hominis as a correlate of T. vaginalis in our population, and the exclusive association of both M. genitalium and Ca. M. girerdii with T. vaginalis. Screening and treatment of these pathogens should be considered

Integrated Crop Livestock Systems--A Key to Sustainable Intensification in Africa

Mixed crop-livestock systems provide livelihoods for a billion people and produce half the world’s cereal and around a third of its beef and milk. Market orientation and strong and growing demand for food provide powerful incentives for sustainable intensification of both crop and livestock enterprises in smallholders’ mixed systems in Africa. Better exploitation of the mutually reinforcing nature of crop and livestock systems can contribute to a positive, inclusive growth trajectory that is both ecologically and economically sustainable. In mixed systems, livestock intensification is often neglected relative to crops, yet livestock can make a positive contribution to raising productivity of the entire farming system. Similarly, intensification of crop production can pay dividends for livestock and enhance natural resources management, especially through increased biomass availability. Intensification and improved efficiency of livestock production means less greenhouse gases per unit of milk and more milk per unit of water. This paper argues that the opportunities and challenges justify greater investment in research for development to identify exactly where and how win-win outcomes can be achieved and what incentives, policies, technologies and other features of the enabling environment are needed to enable sustainable, integrated and productive mixed crop livstock systems

Capturing farm diversity with hypothesisbased typologies: An innovative methodological framework for farming system typology development

Creating typologies is a way to summarize the large heterogeneity of smallholder farming systems into a few farm types. Various methods exist, commonly using statistical analysis, to create these typologies. We demonstrate that the methodological decisions on data collection, variable selection, data-reduction and clustering techniques can bear a large impact on the typology results. We illustrate the effects of analysing the diversity from different angles, using different typology objectives and different hypotheses, on typology creation by using an example from Zambia's Eastern Province. Five separate typologies were created with principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA), based on three different expert-informed hypotheses. The greatest overlap between typologies was observed for the larger, wealthier farm types but for the remainder of the farms there were no clear overlaps between typologies. Based on these results, we argue that the typology development should be guided by a hypothesis on the local agriculture features and the drivers and mechanisms of differentiation among farming systems, such as biophysical and socio-economic conditions. That hypothesis is based both on the typology objective and on prior expert knowledge and theories of the farm diversity in the study area. We present a methodological framework that aims to integrate participatory and statistical methods for hypothesis-based typology construction. This is an iterative process whereby the results of the statistical analysis are compared with the reality of the target population as hypothesized by the local experts. Using a well-defined hypothesis and the presented methodological framework, which consolidates the hypothesis through local expert knowledge for the creation of typologies, warrants development of less subjective and more contextualized quantitative farm typologies.Estación Experimental Agropecuaria BarilocheFil: Alvarez, Stephanie. Wageningen University & Research. Farming Systems Ecology; HolandaFil: Timler, Carl J. Wageningen University & Research. Farming Systems Ecology; HolandaFil: Michalscheck, Mirja. Wageningen University & Research. Farming Systems Ecology; HolandaFil: Paas, Wim. Wageningen University & Research. Farming Systems Ecology; HolandaFil: Descheemaeker, Katrien. Wageningen University & Research. Plant Production Systems; HolandaFil: Tittonell, Pablo Adrian. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bariloche. Área de Recursos Naturales; ArgentinaFil: Andersson, Jens A. International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT); ZimbaweFil: Groot, Jeroen C. J. Wageningen University & Research. Farming Systems Ecology Group, Plant Sciences; Holand

Diversity among smallholder farms and households—Consequences for trade-offs, trajectories, targeting and scaling

United States Agency for International Developmen