Academic literature on the topic 'Farmers Rural development projects Goats Agriculture'

Goat-centered approach can transform rural agrarian households and communities toward gender inclusive climate change adaptation in agriculture to enhance food security and nutrition in Sub Saharan Africa. Gender inequality, climate change effect and food and nutrition insecurity are the most defining and deeply intertwined socio-economic and environmental challenges in rural communities in sub Saharan Africa. This chapter offers an overview of potentiality of goat rearing as a sustainable and holistic approach in addressing triple challenges of gender inequality, climate change effects and food and nutrition insecurity in rural communities. The failure to address gender inequality and deal with the climate change effect has thrown the Sub-Saharan Africa into a state of perpetual food scarcity due to compromised food production, consequently condemning the rural communities and its people to extreme poverty and nutrition insecurity. Because of this scenario, a number of both internal and external development agencies, have put several measures in place to alleviate the situation, which has for long preyed upon the region and continues to frustrate food stability in the region. The total failure of the previous autonomously attempt to address the triple challenges of gender inequality, climate change effects and food and nutrition insecurity at the household level give ground to prominence on the endorsement of more sustainable and multifaceted approaches. A proposition is made that goat rearing is one such initiative, which combines the empowerment of women in agriculture to ensure availability of the basic food needs of the household, while sustaining animal production due to goat’s adaptability to the climate induced harsh environmental conditions. The goat centered multifactorial approach to address the triple challenges is focused on the exploitation of the interlinkages among these socio-economic and environmental ills. The major assumption is that goat rearing in rural economies simultaneously curtails the risk of food and nutrition insecurity by acting as an entry point of gender equality, while leveraging on the opportunities that goat rearing will effectively offset adversities posed by the climate change effect. In most instances, women are potentially more vulnerable compared to men as they directly experience the ponderous effects of climate change in agricultural production, in turn compromising food and nutrition security. Goat rearing is central in the removal of systemic barriers that hold women back from equal participation in agriculture, by broadening their socio-economic opportunities, hence, playing a significant role in agricultural value-chains. The goat-rearing sustainability concept is based on establishing and maintaining the circumstances under which people and nature can subsist in productive harmony, that allow fulfilling the social, economic, and other requirements of present and future generations. Despite the climate change adverse effects, the goat population has continued to proliferate in harshest agro-ecological regions, which demonstrate that goats have managed to adapt to the current unfriendly climate induced environmental conditions. It is assumed that promoting goat rearing will narrow the gender equality gap between men and women, and enhance the participation of women in agriculture, hence, improving productivity, and food and nutrition security. Goats due to their numerical population advantage and deeply embedment in rural communities have constantly contributed to rural poor resource farmers’ livelihoods in many ways, and their contributions tend to be significant. This chapter offers an overview of potentiality of goat rearing as a sustainable and holistic approach in addressing triple challenges of gender inequality, climate change effects and food insecurity in rural communities of Sub Saharan Africa.

Tropical plantations serve diverse economic, social, political, and ecological functions. With considerably higher yields than managed native forests, tropical and subtropical plantations make substantial contributions to world timber and pulp production (Wadsworth 1983, Evans 1992). Tree plantations can also be a source of cash, savings, and insurance for individual farmers. Plantations may help stabilize rural populations in regions where shifting agriculture is the predominant land use. In combination with subsistence and commercial crops (agroforestry) or cattle (agrosilvopastoral systems), plantations have been used as tools in rural development projects worldwide. Plantations are often seen as alternatives to deforestation as they can provide products that otherwise would be taken from natural forests (Fearnside 1990, McNabb et al. 1994). Nutrient cycling characteristics of tropical plantations differ from those of natural forests in a number of ways. Natural forests are adapted to ecological niches by intricate and effective physiological adaptations of growth in the environment (see Cuevas, this volume). Instead, tropical plantations are simplified, generally monospecific ecosystems that occupy the site for a limited period of time that can range from 4-12 years (for biomass, pulpwood, or fuelwood) up to 20-40 years (timber). In many instances plantations are composed of species that are exotic to the region, or even when indigenous, are new to the particular plantation site. Since plantation tree species have been generally selected for production of timber or other aboveground tree parts, they tend to maintain a smaller fraction of total tree biomass nutrients in roots than natural forests (Vogt et al. 1997). In rain forests growing on poor soils, high tree productivity is in part due to the existence of important nutrient conserving mechanisms mediated by the root system (Cuevas, this volume). The smaller biomass of plantation root systems may thus make them more susceptible to nutrient and water stress. Smaller root systems may also make plantation forests more susceptible to disturbances from strong winds and pathogens that attack aerial parts (Vogt et al. 1997). Nutrient demands by plantation trees vary from season to season and with the developmental age of the stand (Drechsel and Zech 1993). During the life of the plantation, large quantities of nutrients are returned to the soil by above- and belowground litter, harvest residues, stem flow, and throughfall.

The rational use of land should be ensured, soil-friendly agricultural branches should be developed as well as attractive environment for work, living and resting in the countryside should be created in promoting rural development in Lithuania. Areas with favourable natural conditions have a high degree of economic activity, farm size, and economic development. However, not everywhere the natural conditions for the development of agriculture are favourable. The research was carried out in the Giedraičiai rural area of Molėtai district, which deals with the factors influencing the use of land,

Resilience is understood as the capacity of rural systems to transform and adapt, and this is key to achieving sustainable rural development. The aim of the research is to study resilience from a cooperative framework based on four concepts: persistence, adaptability, transformation capacity, and learning, and to collect successful strategies that encourage resilience. The research is part of a project called Rethink funded by the European Commission and state agencies of 14 European countries, included in the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) and the ERA-NET RURAGRI. The methodology is struct

Organic agriculture in Turkey has been put on the agenda in accordance with external demands since 1980. These demands initially started with traditional products such as raisin and fig and then the number of requested products has increased rapidly. Including the transition process, approximately 24,354 farmers produced 665.550 tons organic products in 251.899-hectare field in Turkey. Gökçeada, becoming an organic island, is a region where significant projects are implemented. With a total of 101 varieties of organic products, Gökçeada has a potential of up to 50% of the number of varieties i