Report of inception workshop on globalisation and seafood trade legislation: The impact on poverty in India

DFID’s Post Harvest Fisheries Research Programme seeks to develop strategies and management systems to improve post harvest utilisation of fish in ways that will make an impact on lives of poor producers, processors, traders and consumers. “Globalisation & Seafood Trade Legislation – The Impact On Poverty In India” is the title of a project funded by DFID under the Post Harvest Fisheries Research Programme (PHFRP). Prior to finalisation of the project proposal, the collaborators – the Natural Resources Institute (NRI), Catalyst Management Services (CMS) and South Indian Federation of Fishermen Societies (SIFFS) – decided to meet with various possible stakeholders and key informants. An inception workshop was organised in Visakhapatnam, India, on 21 and 22 June 2001, of which this document is the record. The workshop started with a series of presentations including one on a related PHFRP project – “Changing Fish Utilisation and Its Impact on the Poor in India” by Integrated Marine Management Ltd (IMM). That was followed by identification of key issues. Against the background of these key issues, further short presentations were made (by selected workshop participants with relevant knowledge), based on which a shortlist of researchable issues was produced. Finally, it was agreed that no conclusive statements could be made on researchable issues and specific research sites for the fieldwork, given the limited information available. By end of October 2001, the research collaborators (SIFFS, CMS and NRI) will produce literature reviews to make full use of secondary information sources available to generate ideas about the key research issues and to avoid duplication of previous work. In addition, it was felt vital that fieldwork research activities should be co-ordinated and linked to the related PHFRP project “Changing Fish Utilisation and Its Impact on the Poor in India”. The key findings and recommendations from the scoping studies, conducted in the selected states of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Orissa, should feed into the final formulation of research issues and sites, to ensure integration and linkages given the limited resources available. The workshop ended with agreement among project collaborators on the ways forward, especially with regard to the literature reviews and initial fieldwork, to be finalised by the end of October 2001): a) Report on the Workshop (CMS, with inputs from NRI and SIFFS); b) An overview of international seafood legislation (NRI); c) A literature review of globalisation and sustainable livelihoods, with particular reference to the fishery sector (NRI); d) An analysis of trends in Indian seafood exports and trends in major markets (NRI); e) A review of the 1997 EU import ban on shrimp exports from India (SIFFS); f) Indian actions and re-actions to external Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary regulations and legislation, including a history of fish inspection in recent times (SIFFS); g) A review of export supply chains in Andhra Pradesh (SIFFS); h) A review of export supply chains in Kerala (SIFFS); and i) A review of export supply chains in Orissa (CMS). On completion of these studies, further detailed fieldwork will be undertaken in three selected states, beginning in Andhra Pradesh, followed by fieldwork in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, Kerala

Evaluation study of the suitability of instrumentation to measure ambient NH3 concentrations under field conditions

The uncertainties in emissions of ammonia (NH3) in Europe are large, partially due to the difficulty in monitoring of ambient concentrations due to its sticky nature. In the European Monitoring and Evaluation Program (EMEP) the current recommended guidelines to measure NH3 are by coated annular denuders with offline analysis. This method, however, is no longer used in most European countries and each one has taken a different strategy to monitor atmospheric ammonia due to the increase of commercial NH3 monitoring instrumentation available over the last 20 years. In June 2014, a 3 year project funded under the European Metrology Research Programme, “Metrology for Ammonia in Ambient Air” (MetNH3), started with the aim to develop metrological traceability for the measurement of NH3 in air from primary gas mixtures and instrumental standards to field application. This study presents the results from the field intercomparison (15 instruments) which was held in South East Scotland in August 2016 over an intensively managed grassland. The study compared active sampling methods to a meteorological traceable method which was developed during the project with the aim to produce a series of guidelines for ambient NH3 measurements. Preliminary results highlight both the importance of inlets and management of relative humidity in the measurement of ambient NH3 and of the requirement to carry out frequent intercomparison of NH3 instrumentation. Overall, it would be recommended from this study that a WMO-GAW world centre for NH3 would be established and support integration of standards into both routine and research measurements

A Behavioral Change Perspective of Maroon Soil Fertility Management in Traditional Shifting Cultivation in Suriname

In Suriname, the Maroons have practiced shifting cultivation for generations, but now the increasing influence of modern society is causing a trend of decreasing fallow periods with potentially adverse effects for the vulnerable tropical soils. Adoption of appropriate soil fertility management (SFM) practices is currently slow. Combining methods from cultural ecology and environmental psychology, this study identifies two groups with divergent behavioral intentions which we term semi-permanent cultivators and shifting cultivators. Semi-permanent cultivators intend to practice more permanent agriculture and experiment individually with plot-level SFM. Shifting cultivators rely on traditional knowledge that is not adequate for their reduced fallow periods, but perceive constraints that prevent them practicing more permanent agriculture. Semi-permanent cultivators act as a strong reference group setting a subjective norm, yet feel no need to exchange knowledge with shifting cultivators who are in danger of feeling marginalized. Drawing on a political ecology perspective, we conclude that cultural ecological knowledge declined due to negative perceptions of external actors setting a strong subjective norm. Semi-permanent cultivators who wish to enter the market economy are most likely to adopt SFM. We conclude that any future SFM intervention must be based on an in-depth understanding of each group’s behavior, in order to avoid exacerbating processes of marginalization

Multi-stakeholder innovation processes in African smallholder farming: key lessons and policy recommendations from Benin, Kenya and South Africa

Within the context of the European-funded JOLISAA FP7 project (JOint Learning in Innovation Systems in African Agriculture), several agricultural innovation experiences focused on smallholders were assessed in Benin, Kenya and South Africa. Fifty-six cases were characterised through review of grey literature and interviews with resource persons according to a common analytical framework inspired by the innovation systems perspective. Of these, 13 were assessed in greater depth through semistructured interviews, focus-group discussions and multistakeholder workshops. The cases cover a wide diversity of experiences in terms of types, domains, scales, timelines, initiators of innovation and stakeholders involved. Findings indicate that innovation triggers and drivers were multiple. For external stakeholders, likelihood of offering a technological fix to an existing problem and availability of funding were key triggers. For local people, access to input and output markets was a powerful trigger and driver. Market types and dynamics varied greatly. Developing functional value chains and accessing (often erratic) markets proved challenging especially for poorer and weakly organised farmers. Over long periods, many determinants of innovation change dynamically and often unpredictably during the process, including motivations of key stakeholders, triggers, drivers and stakeholder arrangements. The direction of innovation evolves, usually moving from a technology entry point to more organisational or institutional innovation. A recurring challenge for making interventions is whether and how these build on local initiatives and knowledge before engaging in innovation development. Another challenge lies in sustaining innovation processes that have been externally initiated and conducted within a protected environment, once the project stops. The conclusion is that innovation has to be seen as a continuously evolving bundle of innovations of various kinds, rather than as a pre-planned and usually narrowly defined intervention. Consequently, open-ended, flexible approaches to innovation development are needed with the potential to engage meaningfully over a long time with local stakeholders, so that they take full charge of the innovation process and direction

An assessment of the applicability of ambient NH3 instrumentation under field conditions

Ammonia (NH3) is an important atmospheric base which can contribute to eutrophication, acidification of ecosystems and the formation of secondary aerosol. In order to monitor potential policy driven reductions and provide information on NH3 emissions, transport and deposition, active sampling is required. There are, however, many challenges in measuring NH3 as it is a ‘sticky’ reactive molecule which is readily soluble and rapidly interacts with other trace gases to form secondary inorganic aerosol. When undertaking ambient NH3 measurements, inlet set up, use of filters, reliable calibration standards and potential chemical interferences in the analytical technique thus need particular attention. Due to these complexities of NH3 active measurements, a metrology-centred project on “Metrology for Ammonia in Ambient Air” (MetNH3) funded by the European Metrological Research Programme (EMRP), was started in 2014, with the aim of developing traceable NH3 monitoring methods and NH3 certified reference material, which will be applicable under field conditions. In this project a commercial cavity ring down instrument is being characterised and further developed to be the traceable method of choice, alongside with the development of an open path absorption spectrometer. The following study presents the first results of a field intercomparison of different NH3 instrumentation verified against traceable methods developed and characterised as part of the MetNH3 project, held in South East Scotland. In addition, the applicability of dynamic calibration systems, under field conditions which have developed within the project is assessed. The overall objective of this study will be to establish recommendations for ambient NH3¬ measurements