IS INCREASED INSTABILITY IN CEREAL PRODUCTION IN ETHIOPIA CAUSED BY POLICY CHANGES?

In Ethiopia, growth in cereal production is accompanied by a more than proportionate increase in the standard deviation of production. This study applies descriptive and variance decomposition procedures to determine the sources of increased instability in cereal production in order to show whether they are caused by policy changes. It was found that production instability was caused more by increased yield instability. Considering the fact that use of high-powered inputs is limited to a small number of farmers, production is at subsistence level and that farmers' responsiveness to policy changes is constrained by infrastructural and institutional constraints and by the existing land policy, instability in yield is predominantly attributed to weather variability.Cereals, detrending, differencing, production instability, variance decomposition, Ethiopia., Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries,

Aloe × Inopinata Gideon F.SM., N.R.Crouch & Oosth., (Asphodelaceae) [Aloe arborescens Mill. × Aloe chortolirioides A.Berger Var. Chortolirioides] : a nothospecies from the Barberton Centre of Endemism, Eastern South Africa

The natural hybrid between Aloe arborescens Mill. and A. chortolirioides A.Berger var. chortolirioides (Asphodelaceae) is here formally described as a nothospecies, A. ×inopinata Gideon F.Sm., N.R.Crouch & Oosth. The hybrid occurs at Kamhlabane, about 37 km [22 miles] east of Barberton, as well as at Twello 373JU in the Barberton district, Mpumalanga. It has been known in horticulture for many years, following the introduction of wild-sourced material by Gilbert W. Reynolds.http://www.bioone.org/loi/haseam2017Plant Scienc

FARM MANAGEMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA: THE STATE OF THE ART

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the present situation of farm management (FM) in South Africa in its professional context. The evolution of FM in the USA, the UK and Australia has been used as the norm to evaluate the progress of FM teaching and research in South Africa. In order to review the development of FM in South Africa over the past 60 years, the period has been divided into three phases. The outstanding feature of FM in Phase I (1925 - 1950) was its multidisciplinary nature in contrast with the dominating role of production economics in FM in Phase 11 (1950 - 1970). The last 15 years (Phase III) in the evolution of FM is typified by the greater role played by management science in FM. As in the USA, the UK and Australia, it can be said that FM is regarded basically as FM economics (narrower approach) in South Africa today, but attempts are being made to integrate the various disciplines. As far as FM teaching is concerned, the integration is accomplished in two alternative ways. In contrast to the case in the USA, FM research was given the highest priority than other fields of agricultural economics during Phase III. The progress made in FM in SA over the past 15 years was satisfactory on the whole. However, the progress was far from ideal, because there were no strong international leaders in FM during this period. FM will remain a key field of agricultural economics in future, but it can be expected that the relative importance of FM will decline as it did in the USA

Stochastic efficiency analysis of deficit irrigation with standard risk aversion

The main objective of this research was to develop an expected utility optimisation model to economically evaluate deficit irrigation within a multi-crop setting while taking into account the increasing production risk of deficit irrigation. The dynamic problem of optimising water use between multiple crops within a whole-farm setting when intraseasonal water supply may be limited was approximated by the inclusion of multiple irrigation schedules into the optimisation model. The SAPWAT model (South African Plant WATer) was further developed to quantify crop yield variability of deficit irrigation while taking the non-uniformity of irrigation applications into account. Stochastic budgeting procedures were used to generate appropriately correlated matrixes of gross margins necessary to incorporate risk into the water use optimisation model. Special care was taken to represent risk aversion consistently between the alternatives through the use of a new procedure to standardise values of absolute risk aversion. The model was applied to study the impact of increasing levels of risk aversion on the profitability of deficit irrigation under limited water supply conditions. The main conclusion from the analyses was that although deficit irrigation was stochastically more efficient than full irrigation under limited water supply conditions, irrigation farmers would not willingly choose to conserve water through deficit irrigation and would be expected to be compensated to do so. Deficit irrigation would not save water if the water that was saved through deficit irrigation were used to plant larger areas to increase the overall profitability of the strategy. Standard risk aversion was used to explain the simultaneous increasing and decreasing relationship between the utility weighted premiums and increasing levels of absolute risk aversion and was shown to be more consistent than when constant absolute risk aversion was assumed.Water-limiting condition Optimisation

Research note: Extracting a Cycvle from Ethiopian Agricultural Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

This study has two objectives. First, to extract a cycle from agricultural GDP. Second, to compute the periodicity of the cycle. To achieve these objectives, a univariate time series procedure is applied. It is found that agricultural GDP is cyclic and that the cycle occurs every 8.25 years. (Eastern Africa Social Science Research Review: 2003 19 (2): 111-120

IS INCREASED INSTABILITY IN CEREAL PRODUCTION IN ETHIOPIA CAUSED BY POLICY CHANGES?

In Ethiopia, growth in cereal production is accompanied by a more than proportionate increase in the standard deviation of production. This study applies descriptive and variance decomposition procedures to determine the sources of increased instability in cereal production in order to show whether they are caused by policy changes. It was found that production instability was caused more by increased yield instability. Considering the fact that use of high-powered inputs is limited to a small number of farmers, production is at subsistence level and that farmers' responsiveness to policy changes is constrained by infrastructural and institutional constraints and by the existing land policy, instability in yield is predominantly attributed to weather variability

Isolation and characterization of polymorphic tetranucleotide microsatellite loci in the pelagic perciform fish Pomatomus saltatrix (Linnaeus, 1766) from South Africa

Eight polymorphic microsatellite loci, containing simple tetranucleotide repeats, were isolated de novo from a Pomatomus saltatrix partial genomic library using the fast isolation by amplified fragment length polymorphism of sequences containing repeats protocol. These loci were further characterized in 100 individuals from two putative populations off the South African east coast. The loci are highly polymorphic with 18–37 alleles (on average 24 alleles/locus) and the observed heterozygosity in both populations was high (0.79). These loci will be used to assess population structuring in P. saltatrix along the southern African coast with consideration of implications for future management of this important linefish species

Using action research to solve everyday problems in classrooms – a position paper

Recent national and international reports have shown that South African education is not up to standard. Some of the problem areas are the low levels of literacy and numeracy among South African learners as listed in the local media. Instead of leaving it to academics and politicians who are not part of everyday educational practice, to find solutions to the literacy and numeracy problems this article suggests that the educational practitioner should become a research protagonist by engaging in classroom-based action research. Consequently, the objective of this article is to show how a pragmatic approach, utilising the attributes of action research, could be a viable option for conducting research from grassroots level, rather than engaging in traditional forms of research. Based on a literature study, a number of aspects of everyday educational practice are identified and matched with action research attributes to demonstrate its viability for pragmatic classroom-based research. It is suggested that educators become the leaders of such a pragmatic research process, with academics acting as associates and advisors.http://alternation.ukzn.ac.za/docs/19.3%20SpEd%205/11%20Oos.pd

Evaluating the resolution power of new microsatellites for species identification and stock delimitation in the Cape hakes Merluccius paradoxus and Merluccius capensis (Teleostei : Merlucciidae)

The utility of 15 new and 17 previously published microsatellite markers was evaluated for species identification and stock delimitation in the deep-water hake Merluccius paradoxus and the shallow-water hake Merluccius capensis. A total of 14 microsatellites was polymorphic in M. paradoxus and 10 in M. capensis. Two markers could individually discriminate the species using Bayesian clustering methods and a statistical power analysis showed that the set of markers for each species is likely to detect subtle genetic differentiation (FST < 0.006), which will be valuable to delimit and characterise genetic stocks.BCLME/BENEFIT and the Department of Science and Technology African Coelacanth Ecosystem Programme (ACEP) II.University of Pretoria’s postdoctoral programme.http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1095-86492016-05-31hb201