Linking Farmers to Markets Through Cooperatives Vegetables Supply Chain Redesign Options for Kapatagan, Mindanao, Philippines

The paper looks into the temperate vegetable industry in Kapatagan, an upland community in Mindanao, the Southern part of the Philippines. The intention in general is to identify ways by which smallholder vegetable producers are appropriately linked to markets through cooperatives with the end in view of increasing farmers’ income. Specifically the paper documented existing vegetable supply chains in Kapatagan as well as other relevant chains, assessed the various chains’ gaps and potentials in view of changing concepts and market requirements with supply chain and agro-industrial concepts as bases and identified entry points for chain enhancements.Farm Management, Production Economics,

Participatory Agricultural Chain Assessment (PACA): An Approach to Sustainable Agricultural Chain Development (SACD)—The Case of VECO Indonesia

For an organization that has been promoting sustainable agriculture development for some time, Vredeseilanden is not unaccustomed to seeing smallholder farmers struggle to secure markets and attain higher prices. The biggest stumbling blocks, as identified by the Belgium-based NGO, are the  farmers’ lack of access to markets, insufficient market information, the inability to meet the product quality required by markets, and limited access to resources (natural, technical, and financial). Cognizant of these problems, Vredeseilanden has modified its approach to assisting smallholder farmers within the context of sustainable agricultural chain development (SACD). SACD is seen by the organization as a means to facilitate greater market access for smallholder farmers. While being part of an ordinary supply chain provides the farmer with a link to market, being part of a sustainable supply chain provides him with an opportunity to participate in the decisions that shape the standards and quality enhancements the chain will deliver to end customers and to secure a more equitable share of the value added commensurate with effort. In its Asian operations, SACD is pursued through participatory agricultural chain assessment (PACA), an approach developed and field-tested by VECO Indonesia. PACA is comprised of three major subcomponents: (1) situation analysis; (2) intervention identification, which may be done by undertaking either participatory research for development (PRD) or multi-stakeholder dialogues (MSD) or both; and (3) chain intervention and planning. As an approach to sustainable agricultural development, PACA considers the level of need within the assisted communities/NGOs and the level of activity contributions each stakeholder is willing to contribute, making the resultant action plan more realistic and achievable

Economic and environmental impacts of using treated distillery slops for irrigation of sugarcane fields

This report provides information on the use of wastes from sugarcane distillation as a resource for improving agricultural productivity. It analyzes various treatment options to find out which brings the most economic, environmental and social benefits to the industry, agriculture and the environment. It finds that when the waste slops are treated optimally, they can be an effective fertilizer and irrigation resource with minimal pollution impact. This not only benefits farmers by increasing yields, but removes a heavy financial burden from the sugarcane processing companies in the form of pollution cleanup costs or fines. The report recommends that the government support this innovative way of reducing pollution

MAPPING OF BLUE CARBON ECOSYSTEMS: EFFECT OF PROXIMITY, ACTIVITY TYPES AND FREQUENCY OF VISITS IN THE ACCURACY OF PARTICIPATORY MAPS

Interest in blue carbon has drastically increased in recent years, particularly in improving the coastal resource carbon storage estimates and the development of methodology for identifying and monitoring such resources. In coastal resource mapping, participatory mapping techniques have the potential to provide a level of granularity and detail by taking advantage of local knowledge. In this work, we aim to evaluate the agreement between blue carbon ecosystem status obtained from participatory mapping versus the ones discriminated from satellite images, as well as assess how “relative proximity” to landmarks affects the accuracy. Results showed that the accuracy of mapped mangrove extents, evaluated as intersection-over-union, is positively correlated with frequency of visits. It is also found that maps generated by participants who have jobs or activities that nurture awareness about mangroves and seagrasses tend to agree better with remotely-sensed maps. The participants were even able to identify small patches of mangroves and seagrasses that are not present in the classified satellite images. While our initial work explores factors that impact the consistency between these sources, there is a need to establish a baseline for which both sources of information are evaluated against; and define relevant accuracy metrics. Our final goal is to systematically combine these two sources of information for an accurate holistic coastal resource map

Participatory Agricultural Chain Assessment (PACA): An Approach to Sustainable Agricultural Chain Development (SACD)—Th e Case of VECO Indonesia

For an organization that has been promoting sustainable agriculture development for some time, Vredeseilanden is not unaccustomed to seeing smallholder farmers struggle to secure markets and attain higher prices. The biggest stumbling blocks, as identified by the Belgium-based NGO, are the farmers’ lack of access to markets, insufficient market information, the inability to meet the product quality required by markets, and limited access to resources (natural, technical, and financial). Cognizant of these problems, Vredeseilanden has modified its approach to assisting smallholder farmers within the context of sustainable agricultural chain development (SACD). SACD is seen by the organization as a means to facilitate greater market access for smallholder farmers. While being part of an ordinary supply chain provides the farmer with a link to market, being part of a sustainable supply chain provides him with an opportunity to participate in the decisions that shape the standards and quality enhancements the chain will deliver to end customers and to secure a more equitable share of the value added commensurate with effort. In its Asian operations, SACD is pursued through participatory agricultural chain assessment (PACA), an approach developed and field-tested by VECO Indonesia. PACA is comprised of three major subcomponents: (1) situation analysis; (2) intervention identification, which may be done by undertaking either participatory research for development (PRD) or multi-stakeholder dialogues (MSD) or both; and (3) chain intervention and planning. As an approach to sustainable agricultural development, PACA considers the level of need within the assisted communities/NGOs and the level of activity contributions each stakeholder is willing to contribute, making the resultant action plan more realistic and achievable

Linking Farmers to Markets Through Cooperatives Vegetables Supply Chain Redesign Options for Kapatagan, Mindanao, Philippines

The paper looks into the temperate vegetable industry in Kapatagan, an upland community in Mindanao, the Southern part of the Philippines. The intention in general is to identify ways by which smallholder vegetable producers are appropriately linked to markets through cooperatives with the end in view of increasing farmers’ income. Specifically the paper documented existing vegetable supply chains in Kapatagan as well as other relevant chains, assessed the various chains’ gaps and potentials in view of changing concepts and market requirements with supply chain and agro-industrial concepts as bases and identified entry points for chain enhancements

Linking Farmers to Markets Through Cooperatives Vegetables Supply Chain Redesign Options for Kapatagan, Mindanao, Philippines

The paper looks into the temperate vegetable industry in Kapatagan, an upland community in Mindanao, the Southern part of the Philippines. The intention in general is to identify ways by which smallholder vegetable producers are appropriately linked to markets through cooperatives with the end in view of increasing farmers’ income. Specifically the paper documented existing vegetable supply chains in Kapatagan as well as other relevant chains, assessed the various chains’ gaps and potentials in view of changing concepts and market requirements with supply chain and agro-industrial concepts as bases and identified entry points for chain enhancements.Production Economics,

Real-Time Measurement of CH₄ in Human Breath Using a Compact CH₄/CO₂ Sensor

The presence of an elevated amount of methane (CH4) in exhaled breath can be used as a non-invasive tool to monitor certain health conditions. A compact, inexpensive and transportable CH4 sensor is thus very interesting for this purpose. In addition, if the sensor is also able to simultaneously measure carbon dioxide (CO2), one can extract the end-tidal concentration of exhaled CH4. Here, we report on such a sensor based on a commercial detection module using tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy. It was found that the measured CH4/CO2 values exhibit a strong interference with water vapor. Therefore, correction functions were experimentally identified and validated for both CO2 and CH4. A custom-built breath sampler was developed and tested with the sensor for real-time measurements of CH4 and CO2 in exhaled breath. As a result, the breath sensor demonstrated the capability of accurately measuring the exhaled CH4 and CO2 profiles in real-time. We obtained minimum detection limits of ~80 ppbv for CH4 and ~700 ppmv for CO2 in 1.5 s measurement time

Economic and Environmental Impacts of Using Treated Distillery Slops for Irrigation of Sugarcane Fields

This study provides information on the use of wastes from sugarcane distillation as a resource for improving agricultural productivity. It analyzes various treatment options to find out which brings the most economic, environmental and social benefits to the industry, agriculture and the environment. It finds that when the waste slops are treated optimally, they can be an effective fertilizer and irrigation resource with minimal pollution impact. This not only benefits farmers by increasing yields, but removes a heavy financial burden from the sugarcane processing companies in the form of pollution cleanup costs or fines. The report recommends that the government support this innovative way of reducing pollution.irrigation, Philippines