Perceptions of the impacts of urban sprawl among urban and peri-urban dwellers of Hyderabad, India: a Latent class clustering analysis

Like many other developing countries, urban sprawl is a growing phenomenon in India, which poses socio-economic and environmental challenges that worryingly affect urban sustainability. In this study, a latent class clustering approach was used to investigate perceptions of urban sprawl among 622 urban and peri-urban dwellers in Hyderabad. The empirical results clustered the respondents into three distinct classes based on their perceptions of urban sprawl impacts: 'undecided respondents', 'negative perceivers', and 'opportunity perceivers'. The majority of respondents were undecided with no strong views towards the impacts of urban sprawl, which may increase their vulnerability and hinder effective adaptation to the adverse economic, social and environmental effects of urban sprawl. This also provokes concerns about the effectiveness of government interventions to build public awareness of urban development and its impacts on the city. With regard to the role of demographic and socio-economic characteristics in shaping the perception of the respondents, the results revealed that social caste plays a determining role in forming dwellers' perception. In particular, members of marginalised social castes were more likely to form positive perceptions of the impacts of urban sprawl as urban expansion generates better and stable income that improve their social status. In addition, individuals with higher levels of education were more likely to form negative or positive perceptions, implying that efforts to raise social capital could be a useful means for mitigating the impacts of urban sprawl. Finally, membership in community development organisations was a key factor in dictating membership of the negative perceivers' class. Overall, our findings suggest that an appropriate policy framework and specific programmes are needed for enhancing dwellers' perception towards the impacts of urban sprawl, which can enhance the design, acceptance, and implementation of a more sustainable governance of urbanisation and contribute to achieving urban sustainability in developing countries

Determinants of Agropastoralist Households’ Fodder Accessibility and Rangeland Conservation in Magu District, Tanzania

This research article was published by Elsevier in 2022The availability and accessibility of adequate and quality fodder is a huge challenge for pastoral and agropastoralist communities in Tanzania. Fodder scarcity, primarily driven by rangeland degradation, population growth, and climatic changes, limits livestock productivity and deepens rural poverty. This study assessed factors influencing agropastoralists’ access to fodder and their willingness to conserve fodder sources in Magu District, Tanzania. A total of 210 agropastoralist households were surveyed in three wards covering six villages. The results show that access to fodder during the wet season is positively influenced by a household's income, land size, number of livestock, and physical capital. Dry season fodder accessibility is negatively influenced by households’ land size, physical capital, and the number of livestock. Results also show that more than 60% of the agropastoral households accessed fodder sources formally (legally) in open areas, while 35% accessed fodder informally (illegally) in traditionally reserved highland areas, people's farms, and restricted urban areas. Conservation of rangelands and fodder sources is positively influenced by a head of households’ level of education and income, and only 40% of households participated in conservation of rangelands and fodder sources. Improved land tenure, education, and income diversification can improve households’ access to fodder and their willingness to conserve fodder sources

COVID-19 Impact on Household Food Security in Urban and Peri-Urban Areas of Hyderabad, India

This paper investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security and on coping-strategies in urban and peri-urban areas of the Hyderabad, India. Household survey data were collected before (October 2018) and during (January 2021) the onset of the pandemic. Results from logistic regression with the standarized Food Insecurity Expecience Scale (FIES) as dependent variable reveal that close to 40% of the households surveyed experienced a deterioration in food security status during the pandemic. In particular, we find that food security is closely related to the sector of employment in which the primary income- earning member of a household is engaged. To mitigate the impact of the pandemic on their food security, our sampled households adopted a variety of consumption-smoothing strategies including availing credit from both formal and informal sources, and liquidating their savings. Compared to households with severe or moderate level of food insecurity, households facing a mild level of food insecurity relied on stored food as a strategy to smoothen consumption in response to the income shock imparted by the pandemic. In addition, the results indicate that urban households, who adopted similar coping strategies as those adopted by peri-urban households, tended to be more food-insecure. Finally, the duration of unemployment experienced during the pandemic significantly influenced the status of household food security. These findings can inform the formulation of immediate and medium-term policy responses, including social protection policies conductive to mitigating the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and ameliorating the governance of urban food security during unexpected events and shocks

Farm parent and youth aspirations on the generational succession of farming: Evidence from South India

Agriculture remains vital in ensuring the food security of developing economies like India, yet increasing rural-urban migration, an aging farm population, and waning interest of rural youth in agriculture are emerging concerns. This paper focuses on the aspirations of farm parents and their children in agriculture, the challenges they confront, and potential solutions. We draw on qualitative data from two rural sites in Southern India, different from each other in their agro-ecological and social contexts, to point to the material, social, relational, and structural factors shaping aspirations. First, agrarian distress, resulting from climate variability and market uncertainty, affects farm households' socioeconomic status, resulting in farmers' aspiration failure in agriculture. Farm parents then focus on educating their children, aspiring for secure non-farm jobs for their sons, and finding suitable marriage partners, also in non-farm employment, for their daughters. While this steer from parents discourages youth from aspiring to careers in agriculture, in reality, there is a wide gap in the achievement of aspirations, and a majority of youth, especially young women, do end up working on their family farms. For the future development of agriculture and sustainable food systems, it is essential to protect young farmers from aspiration failures and innovate through appropriate policies

Can feeding a millet-based diet improve the growth of children?—A systematic review and meta-analysis

Undernutrition, such as stunting and underweight, is a major public health concern, which requires multi-sectoral attention. Diet plays a key role in growth and should optimally supply all required nutrients to support the growth. While millets (defined broadly to include sorghum) are traditional foods, and climate smart nutritious crops, which are grown across Africa and Asia, they have not been mainstreamed like rice, wheat, and maize. Diversifying staples with millets can potentially provide more macro and micro nutrients, compared to the mainstream crops. However, there is little known scientific evidence to prove millets’ efficacy on growth. Therefore, a systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to collate evidence of the benefits of millets in improving the growth of children. Eight eligible randomized feeding trials were included in the meta-analysis. Results from the randomized effect model showed a significant effect (p < 0.05) of millet-based diets on mean height (+28.2%) (n = 8), weight (n = 9) (+26%), mid upper arm circumference (n = 5) (+39%) and chest circumference (n = 5) (+37%) in comparison to regular rice-based diets over for the period of 3 months to 4.5 years, which was based on largely substituting rice with millets. When an enhanced and diverse diet was served, replacing rice with millet had only minimal growth improvement on chest circumference (p < 0.05). The quality assessment using GRADE shows that the evidence used for this systematic review and meta-analysis had moderate quality, based on eight scoring criteria. These results demonstrate the value of adding millet as the staple for undernourished communities. Further understanding of the efficacy of millets on growth in a wider range of diets is important to develop appropriate dietary programs and improve the nutritional status of various age groups across Africa and Asia

Inter-Temporal Impacts of Technological Interventions of Watershed Development Programme on Household Welfare, Soil Erosion and Nutrient Flow in Semi-Arid India: An Integrated Bioeconomic Modeling Approach

A dynamic and non-linear bioeconomic model, incorporating both economic and biophysical aspects was developed for a micro-watershed to assess the impact of key watershed management technological interventions (like HYVs and soil and water conservation structures) on social well being of rural poor and condition of natural resource base. The simulation results revealed that productivity enhancing technologies of dryland crops has increased the income for all the farm household groups and also provided incentive to farmers for conserving land resulted in less soil erosion and the nutrient mining in the watershed. The increase in the irrigated area in the watershed has improved the income of the household by cultivating more area under high value irrigated crops and has negative impact on natural resource by increasing soil erosion and nutrient mining in the watershed. The results clearly indicated that care should be taken while developing technologies for watershed development to avoid promotion of conflicting technologies. Preferably, those technologies that have multiple impacts in terms of meeting both welfare of the farmers and sustaining natural resources objectives must be prioritized

A latent class analysis of food hygiene and handling practices among urban and peri-urban residents in Hyderabad, India

In developing countries, food-borne diseases, attributable to lack of, or inappropriate, food hygiene and handling practices at home, are expected to increase due to a rapid growth in the consumption of fats and animal source foods. The context-specific and situational practices corresponding to underlying traits of food hygiene and handling practices for home-cooked food were investigated for a set of 662 randomly selected households in Hyderabad, India. Results indicate that about one-third of the households lack access to a refrigerator. Of those with a refrigerator, a majority (83%) had the temperature set at medium, with an actual temperature ranging from 8 to 11 °C. Results also show that smell, followed by food appearance rather than taste or labelled expiry dates were used as the main criteria for edibility. Furthermore, six indicators related to handling, storage and cooking non-vegetarian food and three indicators related to storage of the cooked food were assessed. For households with a refrigerator, the latent class analysis identified three exclusive and exhaustive subgroups of households representing the heterogeneity of handling and hygiene traits, while two subgroups were identified for households not having a refrigerator. Only a small proportion of households (12.6%) with a refrigerator were profiled as having adequate and consistent practices. Remaining subgroups revealed substantial within-group variations in terms of consistency in certain behaviors. Next, latent class modelling with covariates related to socio-demographic, socio-economic, socio-spatial variables and health or dietary outcomes showed that having higher than a primary school education, having a high percentage of food expenditure, or non-optimal refrigerator temperature were predictive of the latent class with more adequate practices. For households without a refrigerator, five covariates related to social class, age, income, and obesity distinguished the latent classes. These findings of latent trait-specific behaviors have implications for actions aiming to inform and direct behavioral change interventions on food safety practices in the developing countries

Is the current land use pattern in crop agriculture is sustainable in the Bhavani Basin of Southern India?: Application of a Bio-economic model

Efficient and sustainable utilization of resources, particularly land and water resources for agriculture have occupied the centre stage in the economic agenda of a nation. The regional resource availability and the biotic, abiotic and socio-economic constraints are largely varied in the any crop production system of that region. The integration of sustainable resource use with the production programs and income as objectives of farming thus, leads to a multiple objective-planning framework. Attaining sustainable increase in agriculture production by considering the biophysical variability of the region without affecting the natural resources base is therefore very important to achieve food security for the growing population in a developing country situation. The current study is to develop appropriate land use pattern in crop agriculture for sustainable land and water use to the agricultural development in the Bavani Basin of western zone of Tamil Nadu state in southern India, using a multiple goal linear programming approach. Bhavani basin in the western zone of Tamil Nadu - one of the most diversified in bio physical features, was evaluated in this study. The land use model employed in the study following the bio-economic model by Shiferaw and Holden, (2003) who incorporated the important variations in the biophysical system (land and soils) and market characteristics. This study traced the alternative cropping pattern which would maximizes the farm net income at a relatively lower water requirement, lower land requirement (hectare days to ensure relatively more fallow period to lower land exhaustion rate) and that would lower the environment damage in-terms of lower Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ) with the given land and ground water availability of each identified ten homogeneous land units beside the length of growing period determined on the basis of quantum and distribution of rainfall and temperature. The major biophysical factors considered beside the land availability, ground and surface water availability were; crop suitability for the particular soil type, crop sequence and climatic variations and these factors were specified as constraints in the land use model. The input data for the model were collected from the sample respondents in the delineated homogeneous land units. The actual water availability for each standard week (t) was estimated after adjusting the effective rainfall received during the period of crop stand from the total water requirement of each crop activity. The land use model estimates revealed the possibility of increasing the crop income from the current level of INR 6.14 billion to INR 8.25 billion annually. This alternative crop plan also helped to reduce the area under high water consuming crops in water deficit areas