Environmental impact of high yield variety rice cultivation in Bangladesh: a study based on farm level data

This thesis conducts a comprehensive evaluation of the environmental impact of high yield variety (HYV) rice agriculture. More specifically, this thesis estimates environmental impact-induced loss in production efficiency and evaluates environmental impact-specific external costs. Findings of this study recommends that policy makers should consider the harmfulness of specific environmental impacts and socio-environmental and agro-economic factors that determine the level of eco-efficiency and the external cost through environmental impact management projects

Bangladesh agricultural sustainability: Economic, environmental and social issues

This chapter examines the potential for agricultural sustainability in Bangladesh mainly by analyzing economic, environmental and social issues at the macro-level. The economic issues were examined by assessing the contribution of the agricultural sector to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), trends in cereal yield, employment of the labor force in agriculture and domestic food price index covering a 38-year period (1980-2017). The environmental issues were examined by assessing the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation, cropping intensity and CO 2 emission from agriculture over time (1990-2015). The social context of agricultural sustainability were analyzed by examining attributes such as encroachment of arable land for urbanization and other industrial uses, unavailability of arable land, trends in increase in import of food grains and variability in food production. Results revealed that all of these issues adversely affected future agricultural productivity, thereby casting doubt on the sustainability of agriculture in Bangladesh. Despite having increasing trend in cereal yield since 1980s, the contribution of agriculture sector to the GDP was found to be decreasing over time. Also the proportion of working age population engaged in agriculture sector was declining over the last forty years. Furthermore, variability in food production and increasing domestic food price index affected food stability. Bangladeshi farmers are losing valuable arable land at a rate of 0.3% p.a., which may have influenced increase in cropping intensity at a rate of 0.6% p.a. since 1980's. Increasing trend in low-cost food grain import reflects changing preference of the consumers. The use of chemical fertilizer is increasing at a rate of 2.5 kg/ha p.a., which may be a principal factor in increasing CO 2 emissions from agriculture at a rate of 1.1% p.a. since 1990's. Among the selected indicator variables, a high uncertainty for sustainability in agriculture was found from falling agricultural value added to the GDP and use of chemical pesticides, while moderate uncertainty for sustainability was found for other indicator. The environment friendly agricultural practice can play a vital role in achieving agricultural sustainability in the long-run. Policy reforms are required with respect to subsidies in agriculture and the use of farm chemicals in order to improve agricultural productivity and limit adverse environmental impacts from agriculture

Impact of parents’ authoritative style on personality traits of children: a case study of Elementary class students in Pakistan

The study was carried out to determine the effects of authoritative parenthood on the personality traits of elementary school children including all the five traits namely agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness. The study is significant as it gives parents a chance to evaluate their parenting style and comprehend its positive and negative effects on children’ personality traits. It was an Ex Post Facto study in which data was collected about the cases of elementary class children in Pakistan. A multistage random sample of 30 elementary schools, three hundred cases (children and their parents) and 90 teachers was chosen. Two questionnaires were used in the study; One to evaluate the parenting styles of the parents which was adopted from Robinsons Parenting style questionnaire and second, adopted from the Big Five Inventory questionnaire to assess the personalities of the children. Cronbach’s Alpha value of the total parenting style questionnaire was 0.95 and Cronbach’s Alpha value of the total personality style tool used in this study was 0.84. Data was collected by the researchers during parent-teacher meetings and meetings with teachers in the selected schools. Percentage of frequencies, mean score, standard deviation, ANOVA statistics and correlation values were calculated using SPSS. Results indicated highly significant and positive relationship between authoritative parenting style and the four personality traits i.e. agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion and openness but a significant and negative relationship with neuroticism. Moreover, a highly significant impact of parenting authoritativeness level on children personality traits was explored. Therefore, it is recommended that parents should practice authoritative parenting style to raise strong and healthy individuals and refrain the negativism in the personality of children. &nbsp

Emotions Regulation and Academic Performance of Elementary School-Aged Students

Abstract Emotions regulations is the capacity that plays a necessary function in our routine lives and essential not only for the attainment of socialization but also necessary in achieving educational tasks.This research proposed to examine the association between the emotions regulations and academic achievement of elementary aged students. The quantitative research method was adopted to determine the results. The sample size of the study confined 209 students (boys & girls) of twelveelementary schools in district Bahawalnagar of Punjab Pakistan. The sample of the study utilized simple random sampling. A self-report questionnaire was used to collect the data from students regarding their emotions regulations. School records and Punjab Board Gazette (Punjab Examination Commission)was included to collect data of the study. Mean, standard deviation, and Pearson correlation techniques were applied to analyze the data. The results of the study exploredthat most of the respondents practice positive strategies while expressing their emotions and have a high level of academic sores. It was also found that the students who could not able to express their emotions in positive ways; consequently, they show poor performance in education. Therefore, policy makers need to focus on attention to develop positive emotions regulations among elementary aged students. Keywords; Emotions, Emotions regulations, academic achievements, elementary educatio

Environment-Smart Agriculture and Mapping of Interactions among Environmental Factors at the Farm Level: A Directed Graph Approach

Environment-smart agriculture (ESA) aims at sustaining increased agricultural production while limiting negative impacts on the environment. The present study develops an index of composite on-farm environmental impacts (COEI) as a proxy measure to evaluate ESA and validates the index by mapping interactions amongst agriculture related environmental impacts and potential constraints to practice ESA by using the directed graph approach. The cost of mitigation to practice ESA was calculated by estimating the cost of reducing on-farm environmental impacts by using the damage–cost method. The approach was empirically applied to a sample of 317 High Yielding Variety (HYV) rice farms from three intensive rice-growing regions of northwestern Bangladesh. Results showed that the use of chemical pesticides contributed towards higher level of uncertainty in practicing ESA than the use of chemical fertilizers, irrigation and household pollution. The combined effect of the influence from these factor interactions was estimated at 2.3, which falls in the critical region of influence and implies extreme level of uncertainty in practicing ESA. The cost of mitigating negative environmental impacts is higher for the problems of ‘decline in soil fertility’, ‘increases in crop diseases’ and ‘reduction in fish catch’ as compared to other soil and water related impacts. Policy implications include investments in addressing the problems of ‘soil fertility decline’, ‘increases in crop diseases’ and ‘reduction in fish catch’ and raising farmers’ awareness on using farm chemicals to promote ESA practices for HYV rice production