Strategies to improve the livestock farming system in Chiredzi, South East Lowveld of Zimbabwe

In the current context of hyperinflation and economical failure in Zimbabwe, the cattle represent a refuge value for the main stakeholders. The main consequence is an important stocking of cattle (high increase of the cattle population) and an over­destocking of small ruminants and other species (to be validated). In order to improve the efficiency of livestock farming system in Lowveld, it is proposed to include 3 aspects (health protection, market access and feeding strategy) with 5 types of actions: ( 1) Surveys for improving the knowledge about demographic parameters, feeding strategy and livestock commodity channel; (2) Equipment and rehabilitation of livestock infrastructure as dipping tank, irrigation scheme, water sources, cattle market; (3) Farmers' organization in order to propose sustainable system for veterinary drugs providing; (4) Training of farmers on poultry, goat and dairy production including diffusion of risk factors manual for kid mortality; (5) Introduction of new technologies as forage cultivation in irrigated areas, inventory of by-products and small stock farrning. Thos proposals were discussed with the thematic working group

Camelids and sustainable development

Face to the global changes and new climatic constraints, the camel farming is confronted to new challenges, first to contribute to the “livestock revolution” (for reaching the requirements of a growing human population), especially in remote places of arid and mountainous areas, and in the same time to satisfy the necessity of sustainable development for the future generation. The current trends of the camelid farming systems in the world (settlement, intensification, market integration, territorial expanding, emerging diseases) question the scientists and the developers on the right ways for a sustainable development. Several aspects are discussed in the present paper: (i) the assessment of the contribution of camelids in the greenhouse gas emission, in relationships with the camel demography, (ii) the assessment and preservation of the camelid biodiversity, (ii) the assessment of the changes in the animal metabolism and in the environment management face to the intensification process, (iv) the control of the transboundary diseases in a population marked by mobility, and (v) the future of the social role of camelid in the more and more urbanized world.(Résumé d'auteur

Reading projects

"By reading only six hours a day", says Marianne Dashwood, outlining her plan of future application to her sister Elinor in Sense and Sensibility, "I shall gain in the course of a twelve-month a great deal of instruction which I now feel myself to want." She adds: "Our own library is too well known to me, to be resorted to for any thing beyond mere amusement. But there are many works well worth reading at the Park; and there are others of more modern production which I know I can borrow of Colonel Brandon" (301). We know, to some extent, what was in the Dashwoods' own library – volumes of Cowper, Scott and Thomson are mentioned. But what might Marianne have borrowed at Barton Park and Delaford? Which publications would Colonel Brandon have considered most appropriate for her project of self-improvement? Elinor considers Marianne's plan excessive, but what would have been a more realistic amount of time for her to spend reading each day, and where might she have done it

Noël Coward and the Sitwells: enmity, celebrity, popularity

In 1923, the year of the first public performance of Edith Sitwell and William Walton's Façade, Noël Coward satirized the Sitwell siblings in his sketch “The Swiss Family Whittlebot.” The result was an enduring feud between Coward and the Sitwells that shaped their celebrity personae and inflected responses to their work in the periodical press. They confronted each other across a class divide, and also across the perceived barrier between difficult modernism and accessible popular entertainment. Yet, in spite of these oppositional stances, certain convergences in their styles of writing and performance suggest a possible appeal to a shared audience. The interconnectedness of Coward's work with Edith Sitwell's, in particular, can be discerned on the level of literary style, influences, and parodic strategies

Martha Ostenso, literary history, and the Scandinavian diaspora

Through a case study of Martha Ostenso, this essay explores the exclusionary practices of literary history, and the ability of migrant writers to destabilise constructs of nation and region. Ostenso's career has been presented in strikingly different ways by Canadian and American literary historians, and she is inscribed into a variety of incompatible narratives of immigrant assimilation or regional literary development. Neither American nor Canadian critics, however, pay attention to Ostenso's use of Scandinavian material, perhaps because the Scandinavian diaspora disrupts nationalist literary histories by crossing political and cultural boundaries between America and Canada. This essay revises accepted views of Ostenso's reputation by concentrating on her multiple ethnic, national and regional identification, and it also initiates critical recuperation of some of Ostenso's neglected novels, The Young May Moon (1929), The White Reef (1934) and Prologue To Love (1932)

Sustainable Consumption of Food

One of the key areas for lifestyle change in the interest of sustainable consumption is the household diet. This paper identifies concrete scenarios for dietary alternatives to high calorie diets rich in fats and sugars, based on the specialized nutrition literature, that are likely to have salutary impact on both the environment and the personal quality of life. Rough estimates of the substantial implications for agriculture of a moderate diet-change scenario are discussed. The paper then describes an approach to more systematic quantitative analysis of alternative dietary scenarios through the integration of life-cycle analysis and an input-output model of the world economy that captures likely effects of shifting comparative advantage in agriculture. Vested interests that might resist these kinds of dietary changes are identified, and approaches are suggested for enlisting their support or countering their opposition.

A GIS BASED SPATIAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR LANDSCAPE CHARACTER ASSESSMENT

Landscape Character Assessment (LCA) provides a structured approach to identifying the character and distinctiveness about the landscape. It is a tool used to identify what makes a location unique, a set of techniques and procedures used to map differences between landscapes based on their physical, cultural and historical characteristics. Although the UK has committed to assessing all of its landscapes by signing the European Landscape Convention in 2006, only 60% of coverage has been achieved. The majority of LCAs are carried out by professional environment or landscape consultancies rather than ‘in-house’. Geographical Information Systems are increasingly being used to collate and analyse data and produce character maps. This research presents a Spatial Decision Support System (LCA-SDSS) based in ArcGIS 9.3 that can be used to support decision makers in conducting a LCA. The LCA-SDSS provides a method for storing data, a model base for the assessment of Landform, Ground Type, Land Cover & Cultural attributes and a method for the user to interact with the resulting maps. Using the Tamar Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) as a study area the SDSS was developed and tested, resulting in character maps for each stage of the modelling and a final characterisation map. These maps were compared to a LCA conducted by a professional environmental consultant and were found to have produced a good quality assessment as verified by the end user at the Tamar Valley AONB Partnership.Tamar Valley AONB Partnership and University of Plymouth HEIF

Input-Output Economics and Material Flows

This paper argues that resources constitute the fundamental area of overlap between the interests of input-output economists and industrial ecologists. Three misconceptions about input-output economics obscure this fact: the frequent failure to utilize combined quantity and price input-output models, treatment of value-added as a monetary concept only, and the belief that all input-output models assume a linear relationship between output and final deliveries. The paper dispels these misconceptions by describing a quantity input-output model with resources measured in physical units and the corresponding price model with both resource prices and product prices. The model is illustrated with a numerical example of a hypothetical economy and analysis of a scenario where that economy is subsequently obliged to extract a lower grade of ore. Then three other input-output models are presented: a model closed for household consumption, a dynamic model, and a model of the world economy. Unlike the basic model, the last two are non-linear in final deliveries and in factor prices while also retaining the desirable features of the basic model.