Fertiliser credit and agroecological use of organic soil amendments in northern Ghana

Contemporary African agricultural policy embodies the African Green Revolution’s drive towards modernisation and commercialisation. Agroecologists have criticised this movement on ecological, social and political grounds. Northern Ghanaian fertiliser credit schemes provide a good example through which these critiques can be examined in a context where agricultural policy reflects the African Green Revolution’s ideals. This study aimed to determine the relationship of such credit schemes to farmers’ use of organic amendments, elucidate other factors related to organic amendment use, and comment on the relevance of this modernisation policy and its relationship to agroecology. A first research phase employed semi-structured key informant interviews. Qualitative data from these informed construction of a semi-structured questionnaire that was used in a survey of 205 farmers. Multistage sampling purposively identified five villages and selected farmers within who had joined government and donor-funded fertiliser credit schemes. The use of organic and inorganic amendments was compared to that of peers who had not taken part in such schemes. Quantitative data were used in binomial logistic regression, inferential and descriptive statistics. Qualitative data were content analysed. Credit group membership was associated with higher fertiliser application and yield, but had little influence on the extent of commercialisation. Farmers who applied organic amendments were 40% less likely to belong to a fertiliser credit scheme than not, indicating substitution between organic and inorganic fertilisers. Organic amendments were 40% more likely to be applied to compound farms than outfields and six times more likely to be applied by household heads than other household members. However, household heads also preferentially joined credit groups. This was part of an agroecological soil fertility management strategy. Household heads appreciated the soil moisture retention properties of organic amendments, and applied them to compound farms to reduce risk to their household food supply in a semi-arid environment. They simultaneously accessed fertiliser to enhance this household provisioning strategy. They appreciated the increased yields this achieved, yet complained that the repayment terms of credit schemes were unfair, fertiliser did not enhance yields in dry conditions and fertilisers were supplied late. Farmers’ use of credited fertiliser alongside their existing agroecological strategy is helpful to the extent that it raises yields, yet is problematic in that it conflicts with risk-reduction strategies based on organics. There is some potential for modernised and agroecological management paradigms to coexist. For fertiliser credit to play a role in this, schemes must use fairer repayment terms and involve a focus on simultaneous use of organic amendments.Keywords: Agroecology, compost, Ghana, fertiliser credit, Soil Fertility Management, maiz

Breeding of Spanish Sparrow in Bahrain

The Spanish Sparrow Passer hispaniolensis is found from Europe and North Africa to western China and Afghanistan. This species shows complex movement patterns, some southern populations are sedentary while others are partially migratory or nomadic. North-ease African birds are considered to be winter visitors from breeding populations in the east of the birds’ range. Birds in the Middle East were considered to be primarily winter visitors to southern Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait and north-west Saudi Arabia (Snow \u26 Perrins, 1998; Beaman \u26 Madge, 1998). During the latter half of the 20th Century it began to establish itself as an irregular breeder in Arabia. It has continued to expand its range during this century with records of breeding in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates along the western coastal zone of the Arabian Gulf, while most recently two colonies were recorded from Qatar in 2007 (Jennings, in prep

Spectroscopic Binaries in Planetary Nebulae

It is already known that about 10% of central stars of PNe are very short-period binaries (hours to days), which are detected through photometric variations. These must have been formed through common-envelope interactions in initially wide binaries, accompanied by ejection of the envelope and its subsequent photoionization as a PN. Radial-velocity observations by ourselves and others are now suggesting that an even larger fraction of planetary nuclei may be spectroscopic binaries, making the total binary fraction very large. However, we have not as yet been able to rule out the possibility that the apparent velocity changes are actually due to stellar-wind variations. Pending follow-up spectroscopic observations with large telescopes, it presently appears plausible that binary-star ejection is the major formation channel for planetary nebulae.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; to appear in: Planetary Nebulae as Astronomical Tools, edited by R. Szczerba, G. Stasi\'nska, and S. K. G\'orny, AIP Conference Proceedings, Melville, New York, 200

If He Can Fight Like He Can Love Good Night Germany!

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/1804/thumbnail.jp

(Cock-a-Doodle I\u27m Off My Noodle) My Baby\u27s Back

With Ukulele arrangement. Contains advertisements and/or short musical examples of pieces being sold by publisher.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/7102/thumbnail.jp

In-situ strain softening and strain hardening of natural geomaterials on the microscale

Gas shale has proven to be a good candidate for mechanical characterization using nanoindentation. However, this natural material composed of nano-granular clay and microscale non-clay minerals also includes within its matrix a polymeric material. This kerogen biopolymer is interbedded and intertwined with the clay and non-clay minerals at almost all scales. Figure 1(a) demonstrates the nature of interlacing that occurs between shale rock and organic matter. Kerogen within the shale matrix has been mechanically characterized using nanoindentation to determine Young’s modulus and hardness such as in the work by Zeszotarski et al. 2004. As a polymer kerogen not only has a Young’s modulus in compression but also has a substantial Young’s modulus value in tension and much higher tensile strength than rocks in general! This fact has now been observed at the micro- and nanoscale during nanoindentation while monitoring in situ via scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Load and unload experiments with micro-Newton forces (µN) and nanometer (nm) displacements have clearly shown the elastic nature of kerogen in the shale gas matrix. This unique experimental setup provided us not only the ability to load and fracture micro- and nano-scale kerogen-rich shale structures but also the advantage of visualizing the initiation, propagation, and ultimate failure of the beams. Subsequent high resolution imaging of the support and beam fracture faces as well as complementary EDS allowed us to analyze the grains/minerals and non-minerals associated with the fracture. Strain softening behavior was measured on this composite at the micro scale in cantilever micro-beam as shown in Figure 1 (b) and (c). This behavior of gas shale could never be captured at the macro-scale

Semi-Markov Graph Dynamics

In this paper, we outline a model of graph (or network) dynamics based on two ingredients. The first ingredient is a Markov chain on the space of possible graphs. The second ingredient is a semi-Markov counting process of renewal type. The model consists in subordinating the Markov chain to the semi-Markov counting process. In simple words, this means that the chain transitions occur at random time instants called epochs. The model is quite rich and its possible connections with algebraic geometry are briefly discussed. Moreover, for the sake of simplicity, we focus on the space of undirected graphs with a fixed number of nodes. However, in an example, we present an interbank market model where it is meaningful to use directed graphs or even weighted graphs.Comment: 25 pages, 4 figures, submitted to PLoS-ON