612 research outputs found
Priorities and Preconditions for Successful Investment in Smallholder Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa
In the past couple of years, there has been resurgence in interest in smallholder agriculture as a potential driver for growth and poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, there remains considerable skepticism as to whether public investment in smallholder agriculture will lead to the desired growth and poverty reduction, given a general pessimism about "absorptive capacity" for (public) investment in Africa, the perception of failure of past agricultural investment and the observation that current conditions are unconducive to agricultural growth in Africa. This paper combines experiences of two UK-based NGOs dedicated to promoting smallholder agriculture and strengthening rural livelihoods in Africa with insights from academic literature on African agriculture and rural markets to set out an agenda for investment in smallholder agriculture in Africa. It identifies priorities for public investment, but also key issues related to "absorptive capacity" that need to be addressed if such investment is to succeed in generating agricultural growth and poverty reduction. Particular emphasis is placed on: a) investment in human and organisational capacity of smallholder farmers; b) investment in coordinated service provision to equip producers to respond to evolving market opportunities; c) the process of developing and implementing credible agricultural development strategies at both national and local level, and; d) reform of Ministries of Agriculture to support this process.International Development,
EVALUATION OF THE 2006/7 AGRICULTURAL INPUT SUBSIDY PROGRAMME, MALAWI. FINAL REPORT
This report evaluates the 2006/7 Malawi Government Agricultural Input Subsidy Programme (AISP). The main objective of the evaluation is to assess the impact and implementation of the AISP in order to provide lessons for future interventions in growth and social protection. The evaluation combined qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis. Quantitative data were collected through a national survey in 2007 of 2,491 households who were previously interviewed in the 2004/05 Integrated Household Survey, a survey of retail shops selling inputs in six districts and data on stocks and sales from manufacturers, large-scale importers and dealers of fertilizers and seeds. The quantitative data was triangulated by qualitative data from focus group discussions with smallholder farmers in 12 districts, and key informant interviews with government staff, input distributors and beneficiary and non-beneficiary households. The analysis is based on descriptive statistics, econometric modelling and livelihood and rural economy modelling. An Interim Report in March 2007 provides fuller details of the implementation of the programme.Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty, Productivity Analysis,
Asset functions and livelihood strategies: A framework for pro-poor analysis, policy and practice
Advances in the understanding of mitochondrial DNA as a pathogenic factor in inflammatory diseases
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has many similarities with bacterial DNA because of their shared common ancestry. Increasing evidence demonstrates mtDNA to be a potent danger signal that is recognised by the innate immune system and can directly modulate the inflammatory response. In humans, elevated circulating mtDNA is found in conditions with significant tissue injury such as trauma and sepsis and increasingly in chronic organ-specific and systemic illnesses such as steatohepatitis and systemic lupus erythematosus. In this review, we examine our current understanding of mtDNA-mediated inflammation and how the mechanisms regulating mitochondrial homeostasis and mtDNA release represent exciting and previously under-recognised important factors in many human inflammatory diseases, offering many new translational opportunities
Mobile applications for weather and climate information: their use and potential for smallholder farmers
Mobile phones are increasingly being used to provide smallholder farmers with agricultural
and related information. There is currently great interest in their scope to communicate
climate and weather information. Farmers consistently identify demand for weather
information and whilst ICTs may be one way of delivering this at scale there are concerns that
this should not be seen as a panacea. At a time when there have been a range of initiatives and
projects that have been implemented this paper seeks to draw lessons and identify key
considerations to inform the development of future mobile applications to provide climate
services to smallholder farmers. A literature review, interviews with key informants and
experts and 15 case study reviews were conducted. This focused principally on Sub Saharan
Africa but included some examples from India.
Despite numerous initiatives few have developed fully beyond the pilot stage and few have
been evaluated. Some of the provision to date has been of questionable value to farmers. A
key observation is that relatively little attention has been paid in design, to the needs for and
use of both the information and technology by farmers, and few attempts made to differentiate
provision according to gender and other demographic variables. Other factors contributing to
success included communications approaches, which are interactive and/or involve trusted
intermediaries who can add context to and help interpret more complex information.
Providing weather information alongside other services as ‘bundles’ and in conjunction with
complementary communications approaches appears to work well. An important challenge is
how to meet farmers’ needs for location specific, timely and relevant information in
economically sustainable ways. More widely there are challenges in achieving successful
business models and potential conflicts between initiatives driven by mobile network
operators and public goals.
The study identified areas of considerable potential which include: the use of increasingly
available mobile data connections to ensure locally relevant content is available to farmers in
timely fashion (including both historical climate information and forecasts); development of
participatory decision making tools to enable farmers to interpret information for their own
contexts and consider implications and management options; use of visual applications and
participatory video on mobile devices to enhance learning and advisory services for farmers; the potential for increased feedback between farmers and service providers as well as
increased knowledge sharing between farmers provided by the use of social media
Pre-existing diabetic retinopathy as a prognostic factor for COVID-19 outcomes amongst people with diabetes: A systematic review
Development of a histopathology scoring system for the pulmonary complications of organophosphorus insecticide poisoning in a pig model
Organophosphorus (OP) insecticide self-poisoning causes over 100,000 global deaths annually. Around a third of patients are intubated and up to half of these can die. Post-mortem analysis of OP poisoned patients' lungs reveals consolidation, edema and hemorrhage, suggesting that direct or indirect lung damage may contribute to mortality. The lung injury caused by these formulated agricultural preparations is poorly characterised in humans, and a valid histopathology scoring system is needed in a relevant animal model to further investigate the disease and potential treatments. We conducted two pilot studies in anesthetized minipigs, which are commonly used for toxicological studies. In the first, pigs were given 2.5 mL/kg of either OP (n = 4) or saline (n = 2) by gavage and compared with positive controls (iv oleic acid n = 2). The second study simulated ingestion followed by gastric content aspiration: mixtures of OP (n = 3) or saline (n = 2) (0.63-0.71mL/kg) were placed in the stomach, and then small volumes of the gastric content were placed in the lung. At post-mortem examination, lungs were removed and inflation-fixed with 10% neutral buffered formalin. Samples (n = 62) were taken from cranial and caudal regions of both lungs. Two experienced lung histopathologists separately scored these samples using 8 proposed features of damage and their scores related (Kendall rank order). Two elements had small and inconsistent scores. When these were removed, the correlation increased from 0.74 to 0.78. Eight months later, a subset of samples (n = 35) was re-scored using the modified system by one of the previous histopathologists, with a correlation of 0.88. We have developed a reproducible pulmonary histopathology scoring system for OP poisoning in pigs which will assist future toxicological research and improve understanding and treatment of human OP poisoning
Perilipin A is essential for the translocation of hormone-sensitive lipase during lipolytic activation
Akey step in lipolytic activation of adipocytes is the translocation of hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL) from the cytosol to the surface of the lipid storage droplet. Adipocytes from perilipin-null animals have an elevated basal rate of lipolysis compared with adipocytes from wild-type mice, but fail to respond maximally to lipolytic stimuli. This defect is downstream of the β-adrenergic receptor–adenylyl cyclase complex. Now, we show that HSL is basally associated with lipid droplet surfaces at a low level in perilipin nulls, but that stimulated translocation from the cytosol to lipid droplets is absent in adipocytes derived from embryonic fibroblasts of perilipin-null mice. We have also reconstructed the HSL translocation reaction in the nonadipocyte Chinese hamster ovary cell line by introduction of GFP-tagged HSL with and without perilipin A. On activation of protein kinase A, HSL-GFP translocates to lipid droplets only in cells that express fully phosphorylatable perilipin A, confirming that perilipin is required to elicit the HSL translocation reaction. Moreover, in Chinese hamster ovary cells that express both HSL and perilipin A, these two proteins cooperate to produce a more rapidly accelerated lipolysis than do cells that express either of these proteins alone, indicating that lipolysis is a concerted reaction mediated by both protein kinase A–phosphorylated HSL and perilipin A
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