Organizational analysis of the seed sector of rice in Guinea: stakeholders, perception and institutional linkages

This paper analyses the organization of the rice seed sector in Guinea with the overall objectives to assess how organizational settings affect seed supply to small-scale farmers and to suggest institutional changes that would favour seed service and uptake of varieties. Data were collected in Guinea, West Africa, using focus group discussions with extension workers, farmers, representatives of farmers’ associations, agro-input dealers, researchers and non-governmental organization (NGO) staff, and surveys of 91 rice farming households and 41 local seed dealers. Findings suggest that the current institutional settings and perceptions of stakeholders from the formal seed sector inhibit smallholder farmers’ access to seed. Seed interventions in the past two decades have mainly relied on the national extension system, the research institute, NGOs, farmers’ associations and contract seed producers to ensure seed delivery. Although local seed dealers play a central role in providing seed to farmers, governmental organizations operating in a linear model of formal seed sector development have so far ignored their role. We discuss the need to find common ground and alternative models of seed sector development. In particular we suggest the involvement of local seed dealers in seed development activities to better link the formal and the informal seed systems and improve smallholder farmers’ access to seed from the formal sector

Strengthening local innovations in rice processing through video in Benin

In Africa, rice processing provides employment for many rural people. A survey on local rice processing methods in the north, central and south of Benin shows that local rice is often parboiled before milling. Parboiling is a transformation process that enhances the quality of rice. This important income generating activity is exclusively done by women from rice producing communities. In Benin, the traditional parboiling method is still prevailing and does not lead to quality rice. To address this, an improved rice parboiling technology was developed. AfricaRice subsequently developed a video where rural women explain how to use this improved technology. Four NGOs in central Benin publicly screened the video in 80 villages. After women watched the video, they started using the improved parboiler equipment individually or collectively. Women who didn’t have the financial support to buy the improved equipment understood its principle and developed creative solutions based on the idea of pre-cooking paddy with steam. Video watching also made women pay attention to reducing the loss of steam and to use local resources innovatively to conserve energy. Women also improved the quality of their parboiled rice by removing dirt, properly washing rice and drying rice on tarpaulins. On the other hand, in the north and south of Benin where there were no public video screenings, the traditional rice parboiling method is still predominant. This study shows the potential of farmer-to-farmer video to improve farmers’ practices and their attitudes to work collectively in agro-processing and marketing.Peer reviewe

Evaluating farmers' knowledge, perceptions and practices: a case study of pest management by fruit farmers in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

After the Doi moi policy reform of Vietnam in 1986, the government has increasingly emphasized diversification of agricultural production into high value crops. Over the period 1985-1995, fruit production in the Mekong Delta increased from 92,100 to 175,700 ha mainly due to better land tenure security. However, the potential of the fruit industry is not yet fully exploited. Besides pest and disease problems, fruit farmers lack an efficient marketing, credit and transport system. The agro-business has quickly responded to the government's policy reform. Pesticides and chemical fertilizers have become increasingly important at the expense of traditional practices of biological control. This study has tried to assess the agronomic, economic and social conditions influencing farmers' knowledge, perceptions and practices in pest management. Case studies are presented for mango, citrus and sapodilla.The ease of observation is an important aspect contributing to farmers' knowledge and perception of pests. As for rice, fruit farmers readily targeted pests such as leaf-feeding insects, which cause conspicuous damage symptoms. Cultivation practices may interfere with pest monitoring. Because mango trees are never shaped by pruning and trimming, trees often grow 8 m high or more. Therefore, damage of the mango seed borer Deanolis albizonalis (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) was often wrongly attributed to the fruit fly Bactrocera dorsalis (Diptera: Tephritidae), a situation which has recently improved due to extension and media activities. Citrus farmers have learnt about the existence of difficult-to-observe pests, such as the citrus red mite Panonychus citri (Acarina: Tetranychidae) and thrips (Thysanoptera: Thrips sp. and Scirtothrips sp.) through pesticide advertising campaigns by the Extension Service or through farmer-to-farmer promotion of certain acaricide products.Those fruit farmers knowing about natural enemies have acquired this knowledge only by observing their own orchard and refrained from applying pesticides on a calendar basis, which is commonly practiced by most other fruit farmers. However, because orchards are relatively closed habitats and competition between farmers is high, farmer-to-farmer information exchange about advanced farming techniques, including the manipulation of predatory ants, is quite uncommon. In 1998, about 75% of the sweet orange ( C sinensis ) and 25% of the Tieu mandarin ( C. reticulata ) orchards had large weaver ant Oecophylla smaragdina (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) populations, due to a lower pesticide pressure in the first crop. In citrus orchards with O. smaragdina fewer pesticide sprays and chemical fertilizers were used without affecting either the yield or the farmers' income.Farmers relying on pesticide advice from the media advertisements sprayed insecticides more frequently and applied more different products, whereas the extension has stimulated the use of acaricides and increased the number of both insecticide and fungicide sprays. The traditional practice of biological control with O. smaragdina might be endangered with growing media influence and when extension activities remain confined to chemical pest control. Citrus farmers with O. smaragdina or sapodilla farmers with the black ant Dolichoderus thoracicus (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in their orchard all used fewer highly toxic WHO Category I insecticides than those without ants. The majority (61%) of sapodilla farmers considered D thoracicus as beneficial in decreasing damage by the fruit borer Alophia sp. (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae). Promoting wider use of D. thoracicus may be difficult, because 30% of the farmers said that this ant increases populations of the mealybug Planococcus lilacinus (Homoptera: Pseudococcidae). In six on-farm experiments, the mealybug P. lilacinus was not affected by D. thoracicus , but Alophia sp. populations were significantly smaller in ant-abundant trees.By evaluating fruit farmers' knowledge, perceptions and pest management practices with a systems approach, this study has identified weaknesses and strengths for the development of IPM fruit programmes in Vietnam, which could also provide information to improve fruit pest management in other tropical countries.Key words:Deanolis albizonalis , Alophia sp., Planococcus lilacinus , Panonychuscitri , Dolichoderusthoracicus , Oecophyllasmaragdina , Vietnam, natural enemies, pesticides, agricultural knowledge systems</p

Farmers on film in the fight against striga

With the widespread scaling back of agricultural extension services in Africa, those with a responsibility to deliver information to rural communities are learning to follow new channels. In West Africa, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has built on experiences gained by the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) in developing a series of ten farmer-to-farmer videos. The ten films are now being widely shown to support rural learning on practical and affordable ways to control one of Africa's most serious weeds - striga..

The Replication Argument for Incompatibilism

In this paper, I articulate an argument for incompatibilism about moral responsibility and determinism. My argument comes in the form of an extended story, modeled loosely on Peter van Inwagen’s “rollback argument” scenario. I thus call it “the replication argument.” As I aim to bring out, though the argument is inspired by so-called “manipulation” and “original design” arguments, the argument is not a version of either such argument—and plausibly has advantages over both. The result, I believe, is a more convincing incompatibilist argument than those we have considered previously

La bóveda tabicada en el siglo XXI

New interactive equilibrium methods for the design and analysis of masonry structures have facilitated the construction of masonry structures with a formal language well beyond what is typically associated with compression-only architecture. These developments have also rekindled interest in tile vaulting, and led to a rediscovery of this traditional building technique. To ensure that tile vaults with new, complex shapes can still be built economically, the construction processes involved in the realisation of these structures have adapted. For example, cheaper and simpler falsework systems have been introduced. In addition, a wide variety of materials have been experimented with to be able to build more sustainable vaulted structures with local resources. This paper presents a review of the latest innovations in tile vaulting, based on the most representative works of the past few years with respect to shape, construction method and the use of materials.Los nuevos métodos interactivos de equilibrio para diseñar y analizar estructuras de fábrica han facilitado la construcción de este tipo de estructuras con un lenguaje formal normalmente no asociado a las estructuras a compresión. Estos avances también han reavivado el interés por la bóveda tabicada, y han dado lugar a un redescubrimiento de esta técnica constructiva tradicional. Los procesos constructivos han sido adaptados para garantizar que las nuevas bóvedas tabicadas de formas complejas puedan continuar materializándose de una manera económica. Por ejemplo, se han introducido sistemas de cimbrado más baratos y sencillos. Así mismo, se ha experimentado con una gran variedad de materiales que permitan construir estructuras abovedadas más sostenibles con recursos locales. Este artículo presenta una revisión de las últimas innovaciones en técnica tabicada basándose en las obras más representativas de los últimos años con respecto a la forma, el método constructivo y el uso de materiales

The Ontology of Intentional Agency in Light of Neurobiological Determinism: Philosophy Meets Folk Psychology

The moot point of the Western philosophical rhetoric about free will consists in examining whether the claim of authorship to intentional, deliberative actions fits into or is undermined by a one-way causal framework of determinism. Philosophers who think that reconciliation between the two is possible are known as metaphysical compatibilists. However, there are philosophers populating the other end of the spectrum, known as the metaphysical libertarians, who maintain that claim to intentional agency cannot be sustained unless it is assumed that indeterministic causal processes pervade the action-implementation apparatus employed by the agent. The metaphysical libertarians differ among themselves on the question of whether the indeterministic causal relation exists between the series of intentional states and processes, both conscious and unconscious, and the action, making claim for what has come to be known as the event-causal view, or between the agent and the action, arguing that a sort of agent causation is at work. In this paper, I have tried to propose that certain features of both event-causal and agent-causal libertarian views need to be combined in order to provide a more defendable compatibilist account accommodating deliberative actions with deterministic causation. The ‘‘agent-executed-eventcausal libertarianism’’, the account of agency I have tried to develop here, integrates certain plausible features of the two competing accounts of libertarianism turning them into a consistent whole. I hope to show in the process that the integration of these two variants of libertarianism does not challenge what some accounts of metaphysical compatibilism propose—that there exists a broader deterministic relation between the web of mental and extra-mental components constituting the agent’s dispositional system—the agent’s beliefs, desires, short-term and long-term goals based on them, the acquired social, cultural and religious beliefs, the general and immediate and situational environment in which the agent is placed, etc. on the one hand and the decisions she makes over her lifetime on the basis of these factors. While in the ‘‘Introduction’’ the philosophically assumed anomaly between deterministic causation and the intentional act of deciding has been briefly surveyed, the second section is devoted to the task of bridging the gap between compatibilism and libertarianism. The next section of the paper turns to an analysis of folk-psychological concepts and intuitions about the effects of neurochemical processes and prior mental events on the freedom of making choices. How philosophical insights can be beneficially informed by taking into consideration folk-psychological intuitions has also been discussed, thus setting up the background for such analysis. It has been suggested in the end that support for the proposed theory of intentional agency can be found in the folk-psychological intuitions, when they are taken in the right perspective

The rice seed sector in Guinea: Are we missing out crucial stakeholders?

The low use of improved rice seed by farmers in west Africa is not well understood. This study assessed how institutional settings and stakeholder perceptions in the formal rice seed sector inhibit small-scale farmers’ access to improved seed. Data were collected in s Guinea, west Africa, in 2007 and 2008. To understand the dynamics of seed interventions in Guinea since the 1980s, key persons were interviewed and relevant literature was reviewed. The results show that, although local seed dealers play a central role in providing seed of local and improved varieties to farmers, seed interventions have mainly relied on the national extension system, NGOs and a new class of contract seed producers that abide by rules and regulations set by the formal seed system. Within a linear model of seed sector development, governmental organizations, the most influential stakeholders of the formal seed system, have been unaware of the central role of local seed dealers in the informal seed system. We argue that in the context of weak extension service due to lack of financial and human resources, farmer-to-farmer dissemination approach centered on the local seed producers and dealers is an option that could be explored to enhance small-scale farmers’ access to improved seed. The local seed producers and dealers have shown their willingness to participate in such seed development activitie

All-conjugated cationic copolythiophene "rod-rod" block copolyelectrolytes: Synthesis, optical properties and solvent-dependent assembly

The optical and thermal properties and solvent-dependent assembly of all-conjugated cationic copolythiophene block copolyelectrolytes are investigated.</p

Self-assembled conjugated polyelectrolyte-surfactant complexes as efficient cathode interlayer materials for bulk heterojunction organic solar cells

Conjugated polyelectrolyte–surfactant cathodic interface layers lead to improved power conversion efficiencies in organic solar cells.</p