Conversation with Lisa Garforth / Conversatorio con Lisa Garforth

\ua9 2023, Universidad Compultense Madrid. All rights reserved. Julia Ram\uedrez-Blanco interviews Lisa Garforth, author of the book Green Utopias and specialist in environmental utopias. With her, we talk about the possible ways of defining ecotopias, and how they manifest themselves both in literature and in different forms of social practice

Perception of concept and practice of social power in development interventions in Malawi

The study examined research participants’ perception of social power in intervention programmes in Malawi. Two districts and four villages with active participation in the intervention programmes were purposively selected. Focus group participants were purposively identified, while the snow balling procedure was employed to select key informants. A total of 375 participants consisting of 219 men and 156 women (to better explore the viewpoints of men from those of women) were drawn from the two study locations. Data were analysed by content analysis. The results showed that >98% of participants stated that power meant the ‘capacity of a social actor to influence decisions and secure compliance of other social actors. Less than 98% also perceived ‘power’ as the leadership ability of a social actor but few participants with high level of power shared this construct. Further analysis informed that power was perceived as the act of guiding fellow social actors to plan and implement activities serving common interest while another 50% of respondents perceived power as a mere potential ability to influence. Statistics however showed only 3.7% of relatively powerful social actors from agricultural extension workers and 1.3 % of sexual and reproductive health interventionists shared power as potential ability to influence way of thinking and doing. Therefore, stakeholders of development intervention should recognize experienced social actors and traditions as power indicators since these will enhance effective extension policy process aimed at development intervention among rural populace

Improvement in Crop Production in Ghana: Is it due to Area Expansion or Increased Productivity?

Agriculture continues to be the mainstay of the economy of Ghana contributing more than a third of the country’s Gross Domestic Product. As such, successive governments in Ghana and their development partners continue to formulate and implement policies, programmes and projects in the sector in order to spur productivity. As a result, some improvements in agricultural production in the country have been recorded in recent years. This paper examines whether or not these improvements are due to expansion in cultivated land area or increased productivity. Time series data covering the period between 1999 and 2009 from Ghana’s Ministry of Food and Agriculture were used for the study. Two main estimations were carried out. The first was a set of estimations of the growth rates of output, area cultivated, and productivity of selected staple crops produced and consumed across the country. The second was an estimation of the relationship between area under cultivation and output of the selected staple crops. The results revealed that improvements in the production of most staple crops in Ghana in recent years are largely due to area expansion rather than improvements in productivity. The results further showed that though output is generally increasing, productivity is decreasing. The conclusion is that improvements in agricultural production, particularly staple crops recorded in Ghana in recent times are due to area expansion rather than productivity increases. This has negative implications for the country’s drive towards self-sufficiency in food production and the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals. It is recommended that policy interventions that aim at improving agricultural production in the country should focus on enhancing productivity rather than area expansion. Key Words: Agriculture, Ghana, Growth Rates, Staple Crops, Productivit

Farmers’ attitudes to disease risk management in England: a comparative analysis of sheep and pig farmers

The UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) identified practices to reduce the risk of animal disease outbreaks. We report on the response of sheep and pig farmers in England to promotion of these practices. A conceptual framework was established from research on factors influencing adoption of animal health practices, linking knowledge, attitudes, social influences and perceived constraints to the implementation of specific practices. Qualitative data were collected from nine sheep and six pig enterprises in 2011. Thematic analysis explored attitudes and responses to the proposed practices, and factors influencing the likelihood of implementation. Most feel they are doing all they can reasonably do to minimise disease risk and that practices not being implemented are either not relevant or ineffective. There is little awareness and concern about risk from unseen threats. Pig farmers place more emphasis than sheep farmers on controlling wildlife, staff and visitor management and staff training. The main factors that influence livestock farmers’ decision on whether or not to implement a specific disease risk measure are: attitudes to, and perceptions of, disease risk; attitudes towards the specific measure and its efficacy; characteristics of the enterprise which they perceive as making a measure impractical; previous experience of a disease or of the measure; and the credibility of information and advice. Great importance is placed on access to authoritative information with most seeing vets as the prime source to interpret generic advice from national bodies in the local context. Uptake of disease risk measures could be increased by: improved risk communication through the farming press and vets to encourage farmers to recognise hidden threats; dissemination of credible early warning information to sharpen farmers’ assessment of risk; and targeted information through training events, farming press, vets and other advisers, and farmer groups, tailored to the different categories of livestock farmer

Farmers' management of rice varietal diversity in the mid-hills of Nepal: implications for on-farm conservation and crop improvement

Season-long monitoring of on-farm rice (Oryza sativa, L.) plots in Nepal explored farmers' decision-making process on the deployment of varieties to agroecosystems, application of production inputs to varieties, agronomic practices and relationship between economic return and area planted per variety. Farmers deploy varieties [landraces (LRs) and modern varieties (MVs)] to agroecosystems based on their understanding of characteristics of varieties and agroecosystems, and the interaction between them. In marginal growing conditions, LRs can compete with MVs. Within an agroecosystem, economic return and area planted to varieties have positive relationship, but this is not so between agroecosystems. LRs are very diverse on agronomic and economic traits; therefore, they cannot be rejected a priori as inferior materials without proper evaluation. LRs have to be evaluated for useful traits and utilized in breeding programmes to generate farmer-preferred materials for marginal environments and for their conservation on-farm

Solid state and sub-cooled liquid vapour pressures of substituted dicarboxylic acids using Knudsen Effusion Mass Spectrometry (KEMS) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry

Solid state vapour pressures of a selection of atmospherically important substituted dicarboxylic acids have been measured using Knudsen Effusion Mass Spectrometry (KEMS) over a range of 20 K (298–318 K). Enthalpies of fusion and melting points obtained using Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) were used to obtain sub-cooled liquid vapour pressures. They have been compared to estimation methods used on the E-AIM website. These methods are shown to poorly represent – OH groups in combination with COOH groups. Partitioning calculations have been performed to illustrate the impact of the different estimation methods on organic aerosol mass compared to the use of experimental data

Events, Neural Systems and Time Series

Different types of events occurring in computer, neural, business, and environmental systems are discussed. Though events in these different domains do differ, there are also important commonalities. We discuss the issues arising from automating complex event handling systems

Affective practices, care and bioscience: a study of two laboratories

Scientific knowledge-making is not just a matter of experiments, modelling and fieldwork. It also involves affective, embodied and material practices (Wetherell 2012) which can be understood together as 'matters of care' (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2011). In this paper we explore how affect spans and connects material, subjective and organisational practices, focusing in particular on the patterns of care we encountered in an observational study of two bioscience laboratories. We explore the preferred emotional subjectivities of each lab and their relation to material practice. We go on to consider flows and clots in the circulation of affect and their relation to care through an exploration of belonging and humour in the labs. We show how being a successful scientist or group of researchers involves a careful choreography of affect in relation to materials, colleagues and others to produce scientific results, subjects and workplaces. We end by considering how thinking with care troubles dominant constructions of scientific practice, successful scientific selves and collectives