Smallholder Agriculture and Management Practices: Insights from the field

Increasing smallholder farmers’ yields has proven difficult and sophisticated industries have developed in order to address this problem. This study reports on the insights gained from interviewing various experts that work with smallholder farmers; it brings to the fore their insights on technologies and management practices that, in a sustainable way, may help to increase smallholder farmers’ productivity

Å skape et uenighetsfellesskap. Historisk tidsskrift som debattforum

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Developing child-friendly cities: Young children’s participation in urban planning

This article is based on a collaborative project between a municipality and a research team, aiming to investigate participatory methods that promote young children’s interest and participation in, and access to express their views in connection with, urban planning processes. The research question was: What characterizes a child-friendly city for young children and their families? The article is framed within the perspective of children’s rights, affordance and child-friendly outdoor environments. The project has employed multiple research methods. The participants were children (aged 3-6) and parents from three early childhood education and care institutions. The children (n=16) participated in guided tours, field conversations, drawing and constructive play using Lego. The parents (n=14) participated by identifying the locations that they preferred to frequent with their children, and a structured survey was used to identify what the parents liked and disliked about the places they identified. Our findings indicate that there are four important features that characterise a child-friendly city: 1) The availability of ‘green lungs’, 2) Creative and challenging play opportunities, 3) Places for the whole family, and 4) Safe playgrounds and walking routes. We discuss how better knowledge of what characterizes a child-friendly city can contribute to planning processes

Economic Growth and the Harmful Effects of Student Loan Debt on Biomedical Research

Modern theories of economic growth emphasize the role of research and development (R&D) activities in determining a society's standard of living. In some advanced economies, however, higher education costs and the level of indebtedness among graduates have increased dramatically during recent years. Student loans are evident throughout the Western world, particularly in the United States, and within the bio-medical sciences. In this paper the authors develop a basic model of economic growth in order to investi-gate the effects of biomedical graduates indebtedness on the allocation of human re-source in the R&D activities, and thus on the process of economic growth. Using this modified model to understand the consequences of the rising cost in biomedical educa-tion, we derive a 'science-growth curve' (a relation between the share of pure researcher and the economy rate of growth), and we find two possible effects of biomedical stu-dent indebtedness on economic growth: specifically, a composition effect and a productivity effect. First, we outline the Romer's classical growth model, and we apply it to a 'biomedical' knowledge-based economy, and second, the model is developed by factoring the difference between pure and applied biomedical research. The 'biomedical science sector' is one of the key pillars of modern knowledge-based economy. The costs of higher education in biomedical sciences and the graduates level of indebtedness represent, not only a great problem of equality of opportunity, but also a serious threat to future prosperity of the advanced economies