Livelihoods, Land and Political Economy: Reflections on Sam Moyo’s Research Methodology

This article focuses on the methodological lessons from Sam Moyo’s scholarship. Sam’s research is characterised by a combination of detailed empirical investigation, deep knowledge of the technical and practical aspects of agricultural production and farming livelihoods, and bigpicture political economy analysis and theory. Sam’s method is an insightful contemporary application of the method originally set out in Marx’s Grundrisse. Many contemporary explorations of agrarian political economy fail to sustain the important tension and dialectical debate, between diverse empirical realities and their ‘multiple determinations and relations’ and wider theorisation of the ‘concrete’ features of emergent processes of change. The implications of Sam’s methodological approach for the analysis of Zimbabwe’s land reform are discussed, especially in relation to the land occupations and the politics of agrarian reform since 2000

Land in the Political Economy of African Development: Alternative Strategies for Reform

Since 2000, there has been an escalation of land-related conflicts in Zimbabwe, Côte d’Ivoire, the Delta region of Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. These conflicts are examples of numerous national struggles for access to land in Africa and reflect the failure of the African state to address the land and development nexus on the continent. The land question in Africa is a by-product of globalised control of land, natural resources and minerals in general, reflecting incomplete decolonisation processes in ex-settler colonies along with the penchant for foreign‘investment’ in a neo-liberal policy framework that marginalises the ruraland urban poor. Global finance capital is increasingly entangled in conflicts over land, as the exploitation of oil, minerals and natural resources expands into new African enclaves that highlight the external dimension of distorted development. These processes define the significance of land in the political economy of African development. This paper examines the complex social and political contradictions that shape land struggles, including their colonial and post-independence trajectory. The failures of neo-liberal land reforms, based on market forces and their confrontation by popular demands for redistributive reforms are discussed

Exceptional Properties of Second and Third Order Ordinary Differential Equations of Maximal Symmetry

AbstractThe Riccati transformation is used in the reduction of order of second and third order ordinary differential equations of maximal symmetry. The sl(2,R) subalgebra is preserved under this transformation. The Riccati transformation is itself associated with the symmetry that is annihilated in the reduction of order. The solution symmetries and the intrinsically contact symmetries become nonlocal symmetries under the Riccati transformation. We investigate the fate and origins of the contact symmetries arising from the Riccati transformation. The exceptional properties of the second and third order equations of maximal symmetry are indicated. In the context of generalised symmetries we express the solution symmetries, contact symmetries, and the sl(2,R) elements in terms of a Jacobian. We show that a basis for the solution set of equations of maximal symmetry is given in terms of the solution set of a second order ordinary differential equation

Exceptional Properties of Second and Third Order Ordinary Differential Equations of Maximal Symmetry

AbstractThe Riccati transformation is used in the reduction of order of second and third order ordinary differential equations of maximal symmetry. The sl(2,R) subalgebra is preserved under this transformation. The Riccati transformation is itself associated with the symmetry that is annihilated in the reduction of order. The solution symmetries and the intrinsically contact symmetries become nonlocal symmetries under the Riccati transformation. We investigate the fate and origins of the contact symmetries arising from the Riccati transformation. The exceptional properties of the second and third order equations of maximal symmetry are indicated. In the context of generalised symmetries we express the solution symmetries, contact symmetries, and the sl(2,R) elements in terms of a Jacobian. We show that a basis for the solution set of equations of maximal symmetry is given in terms of the solution set of a second order ordinary differential equation

Efficacy of materials used by resource limited farmers in ethno-veterinary control of fleas in free-range chickens in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

Fleas are commonly controlled using commercial insecticides which are however expensive and inaccessible to resource-limited farmers. This has resulted in farmers resorting to the use of alternative remedies that are cheap and socially acceptable. However, information on the efficacy of these materials on fleas is lacking. The objectives of this study were to determine potential dermal irritation and efficacy of selected materials used in the control fleas in free-range chickens. The materials tested included used engine oil, Jeyes fluid (carbolic acid 13%), and plant material from Clutia pulchella and Calpurnia aurea. Distilled water and Karbadust (carbaryl 5%) were used as negative and positive controls, respectively. A complete randomized design was used where sixty free-range chickens were allocated to twelve treatment groups with five chickens each. The chickens were artificially infested with fleas, which were counted and recorded daily every morning for seven days. The results show that used engine oil, Jeyes fluid at (76.8%) and C. pulchella (100%) caused flea reduction in the order of 100, 99.8 and 85.5% three days post application of test materials. These reduction was similar to those of Karbadust (carbaryl 5%), a commercial insecticide that had a flea reduction of 100%. C. aurea (100%) and C. pulchella (75%) showed an efficacy of 75.5 and 60%, respectively. The different materials tested exhibited variable efficacy on fleas, where in certain cases it compared well with Karbadust used by farmers. The test materials did not cause any visible signs of irritation on chickens. Despite the efficacy of used engine oil and Jeyes fluid, they are environmental contaminants.Keywords: External parasites, flea control, skin irritation, used engine oilAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(14), pp. 1716-172

Simulations of Woodland Grassland Transitions Caused by Elephant

In South Africa, reintroduction of wildlife on small to medium sized farms is common. A primary concern for the landowners who introduce elephant is the effects they will have on tree and grass densities. It is possible that elephant impact can exacerbate a shift from woodland to grassland. In this paper it is shown how simulations can possibly assist in understanding the possible dynamics involved

Comment on "A note on the construction of the Ermakov-Lewis invariant"

We show that the basic results on the paper referred in the title [J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. v. 35 (2002) 5333-5345], concerning the derivation of the Ermakov invariant from Noether symmetry methods, are not new