Assessment of the impacts of farmer participation in farmer research groups in the highlands of Kabale, Uganda

The African Highlands Initiative (AHI) is promoting community-based participatory research approaches using farmer research groups (FRG) to catalyse farmer participation in research, and to widen the impact of participatory research. However, there is dearth of systematic empirical studies that evaluates the quality of participation in FRGs, and their impacts. This report summarises the results of an empirical study that investigated the types of participatory research that occurred at the different stages of the research process, how farmer participation occurred, who participates in FRG, what are the factors that determined farmers' participation in FRG, and what criteria to use in monitoring and evaluating the performance of FRG. Results showed that the types of participation were more of functional consultative and collaborative types, but varied in the different stages of the research process as farmers were increasingly taking on more roles and responsibilities. Farmer participation in FRG tend to follow a "U" shaped curve, with high participation at the initial stages of the process, followed by dramatic decrease as many farmers drop out from the groups, and slow increases towards the end of the first seasons. Similarly, there was a significantly higher participation of male farmers at the beginning of the process, compared to women. However, as FRGs progressed, the proportion of men decreased while the relative proportion of women increased dramatically to reach about 67% of farmers in mixed groups, and 24% of the FRGs were women only. These results suggest that FRG proved to be a more effective mechanism to involve women and the resource-poor farmers in research who would otherwise be bypassed by conventional approaches. The results of the Logit regression model confirmed that the probability of participating in FRG was higher for women compared to men, and that there were no significant differences in wealth circumstances between FRG members and the rest of the community. We argue that FRG as an approach has a great potential for catalyzing the participation of farmers as partners in research and development activities. However, this requires significant support and personal commitment of researchers to broaden the scope of FRGs from a functional consultative type to a more collegial empowering type, and from variety evaluation to broader natural resources management research and other developmental issues

The IITA Agripreneur Movement: A Dynamic Approach to Youth Empowerment across Africa

The Agripreneur Movement of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) allows youth to assume their rightful place in African agricultural transformation. It started as a single exploratory agribusiness incubation at IITA Headquarters in 2012, involving 37 youths. It has since grown to 10 countries through nine sponsoring organizations. We compiled the characteristics and outcomes of 40 Agripreneur projects between 2012 and 2021 to describe the movement’s growth. With time, the movement operated across 195 locations engaging 518 trainers within 493 training cohorts and 263 different learning enterprises. These efforts led to the training of 25,616 youth in modern agriculture and agribusiness, resulting in 1,661 modernized farms and 2,592 business start-ups. Of the learning enterprises, 38% involved crops, 32% involved agro-processing, and 30% involved animal husbandry, suggesting a sound balance in promoting agribusiness opportunities. About $38.5 million was directed toward the training and support of Agripreneurs between 2012 and 2021. We trace the origins of the Agripreneur Movement as isolated agribusiness incubations in Nigeria through its expansion to other countries and its adoption within the youth empowerment agendas of other development organizations, including the African Development Bank, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and the Mastercard Foundation. In this way, the legion of youth working with and inspired by the IITA Agripreneur Movement makes major contributions to and secures their rightful place within a complex array of rural development opportunities. What must occur next is its mainstreaming across the vocational agriculture systems and developmental sovereign loans of African countries

Kajian potensi ekstrak bilberi sebagai penunjuk pH untuk memantau kesegaran makanan secara kromametri

Penunjuk pH sebagai suatu pendekatan untuk memantau kualiti atau kesegaran makanan semasa telah mendapat perhatian industri pembungkusan makanan. Penggunaan sumber semula jadi pigmen tumbuhan terutamanya daripada buah-buahan dan sayur-sayuran menjadi pilihan para pengguna untuk menggantikan pewarna sintetik dalam memastikan keselamatan makanan yang diambil setiap hari. Dalam kajian ini, ekstrak daripada bilberi telah digunakan sebagai pewarna sensitif pH. Perubahan warna sampel dikaji secara terperinci melalui kaedah kromametri dan juga kaedah spektrofotometri ultra-lembayung nampak. Warna merah terang terhasil dalam pH berasid, merah pudar pada neutral dan magenta ke kuning dalam pH beralkali. Keputusan kajian kromametri menunjukkan bahawa ekstrak bilberi berupaya mempamerkan perubahan warna yang jelas terhadap perubahan pH, iaitu terdapat perubahan nilai warna a* yang menyumbang kepada perubahan yang bererti dalam perbezaan warna keseluruhan (ΔE*). Nilai ΔE* juga ditentukan wujud hubungan linear dan kuantitatif terhadap julat pH tertentu. Oleh yang demikian, ekstrak bilberi didapati berpotensi sebagai bahan sensor untuk pH dalam membangunkan satu sensor pH bagi memantau kesegaran makanan terutamanya hasilan laut berbungkus memandangkan tahap kerosakan produk tersebut berkait rapat dengan perubahan pH ke arah alkali

From best fit technologies to best fit scaling: incorporating and evaluating factors affecting the adoption of grain legumes in Sub-Saharan Africa

The success of scaling out depends on a clear understanding of the factors that affect adoption of grain legumes and account for the dynamism of those factors across heterogeneous contexts of sub-Saharan Africa. We reviewed literature on adoption of grain legumes and other technologies in sub-Saharan Africa and other developing countries. Our review enabled us to define broad factors affecting different components of the scaling out programme of N2Africa and the scales at which those factors were important. We identified three strategies for managing those factors in the N2Africa scaling out programme: (i) testing different technologies and practices; (ii) evaluating the performance of different technologies in different contexts; and (iii) monitoring factors that are difficult to predict. We incorporated the review lessons in a design to appropriately target and evaluate technologies in multiple contexts across scales from that of the farm to whole countries. Our implementation of this design has only been partially successful because of competing reasons for selecting activity sites. Nevertheless, we observe that grain legume species have been successfully targeted for multiple biophysical environments across sub-Saharan Africa, and to social and economic contexts within countries. Rhizobium inoculant and legume specific fertiliser blends have also been targeted to specific contexts, although not in all countries. Relatively fewer input and output marketing models have been tested due to public–private partnerships, which are a key mechanism for dissemination in the N2Africa project