Female farmers in the Rwandan farming system: A study of the ruhengeri prefecture

The purpose of this paper has been to focus on two aspects of development—agricultural production in the small central African country of Rwanda, and the role of 1890 Land-Grant institutions in international development. While a discussion of female farmers in the Ruhengeri Prefecture of Rwanda represents the primary focus of this paper, the second focus is the means by which this and other such research is possible. The findings from the Rwandan study are in keeping with those found in other African countries, in that a struggle exists to produce sufficient quantities of food to sustain an ever increasing population. For Rwanda, constraints to production include not only severe over-population, but environmental conditions and gender bias as well. In arriving at potential solutions to these problems, this paper takes the position that one viable means of addressing the problem is to focus development efforts on the female farmer. Traditional thinking and behavior have excluded women from the planning and implementation of development activities, focussing instead on often less productive males. However, a survey of female farmers (N=192) in the Ruhengeri region of Rwanda, provides insight into the plight of agriculture from the female perspective. As a result, recommendations are offered for improving agricultural production that aim at better utilizing existing high levels of labor contributed by the female farmer. Recommendations include 1) encouraging families to limit the size of their family through family planning, 2) implementing soil erosion techniques that consider conditions specific to Rwanda, and feasible for female application, and 3) directing assistance to women away from household related activities to those related to farming.     

Including growers in the “food safety” conversation: enhancing the design and implementation of food safety programming based on farm and marketing needs of fresh fruit and vegetable producers

Experts identified water quality, manure, good handling practices (including personal hygiene and equipment sanitation), and traceability as critical farm problem areas that, if addressed, are likely to decrease risk associated with microbial contamination of fresh produce from all scales of agriculture. However, the diverse nature of production strategies used by produce farmers presents multiple options for addressing foodborne illness issues while simultaneously creating potential complications. We use a mental models methodology to enhance our understanding of the underlying factors and assumptions of small, medium, and large produce growers that influence their decision-making processes for contamination prevention and control. This empirical evidence demonstrates how challenges and opportunities to food safety are related to the scale of production and marketing strategies. We believe that refining the development of standards and existing extension and outreach food safety programs are important to both consumer protection and supporting agricultural communities. Additionally, this approach will help develop and refine food safety programs that will result in empirically grounded recommendations based on identified grower information needs.     

广东高等农业院校参与公益性农技推广人员培训的模式探索

农业现代化的发展和农业的创收在很大程度上取决于广大农技推广人员的科技水平.面对急需培训的农技推广人员队伍,在分析国内外高等农业院校参与公益性农技推广人员培训模式的基础上,提出依托广东高等农业院校成功的继续教育模式,建立农村远程培训的长效机制,建立农技人员培训网络平台,建设农技培训网络教学资源库,以及组织大型专题培训,普及推广现代农业技能等对策,从而解决目前培训模式中存在的时空限制、规模过小、互动性缺乏等问题.     

Black land grant institutions and the title XII program: Is there room to maneuver?

In theory Black land grant (BLG) institutions offer a distinctive approach to agricultural assistance. An approach that is potentially sensitive to the smallholder environmental management and limited resource concerns faced by many Third World farmers attempting to meet food security and nutritional needs. Moreover, BLG approaches to agricultural assistance are characterized by sensitivities to the social, political, and cultural contexts in which food production and distribution take place. Yet these remain subjugated approaches within a foreign policy milieu that continues to privilege the more scientistic, technical, and managerial approaches to agricultural assistance historically taken by white land grant (WLG) institutions. This paper uses information gathered from informants in the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), BLG, and WLG institutions, as well as policy and program documents from these institutions to examine how the organization of BLG institutions within AID's Title XII program has affected their potential role in agricultural assistance in the Third World.Rosalind P. Harris is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Kentucky. She is currently conducting research, sponsored by the Ford Foundation and the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies on research and extension programs at historically Black land grant institutions.     

世界农业的发展趋势和预测

本文论述了世界农业的发展趋势,并对其进行了预测,提出了发展世界农业的九项目标。笔者认为这九项目标是解决以粮食为中心的农业问题的关键。并对栽培学、土壤肥料学、作物保护学、探索新生物资源和发展有机农业等途径进行了探讨。     

Systems of knowledge as systems of domination: The limitations of established meaning

The hegemony of Western science, inherent in international development projects, often increases the poverty and oppression of Third World women by pre-empting alternative realities. In African and Asian agrarian societies women grow from 60 to 90% of the food (World Bank, 1989); they hold incredible potential to increase food production. Their ability to operate under more marginal conditions than their male counterparts would seem to indicate that they have developed valuable knowledge— knowledge often generated in response to limited access to the more tangible resources offered by development assistance to male farmers. Recognizing the marginalization of women in the Third World, the Women in Development (WID) network was established during the 1970's to produce knowledge about women, fill in the gaps, and set the record straight. But knowledge creation for these purposes leaves underlying paradigms of Western science-based development unquestioned. Research from a feminist standpoint is used to challenge the objectivity and reliability of EuroAmerican development science. To date, WID has documented and analyzed the causes and consequences of Third World women's oppression with no substantial results to end them. Alternatively, feminist research validates women's perceptions of their reality, helping ordinary people to understand the connections between their experiences and broader social, economic, and political struggles. The paper emphasizes research pursued in order to act, closely linking knowing to doing to promote the emancipation of oppressed groups. A feminist standpoint is used to privilege the perspective of rural women in developing countries and ask: “What are the implications of the standard EuroAmerican approach to science for maximizing the potential contributions of rural women to agricultural development?” Some of these implications are illustrated with examples from on-farm research in Nigeria. To some extent, implications can be addressed by constructing meanings to structure a symbolic framework that includes female farmers and other disadvantaged groups.     

云南省农产品国际竞争力提升研究

如何促进我国云南省农产品贸易的的发展,利用云南省土地资源,合理发展农产品生产,扩大农产品出口,增加云南省的国际竞争力,成为了云南省的研究重点,以下根据云南省农产品出口的现状分析,结合国际农产品的特点,提出提升云南省农产品国际竞争力的措施与具体方案。     

中国作物种业科学技术发展的评述

《国务院关于加快推进现代农作物种业发展的意见》提出构建以产业为主导、企业为主体、“育繁推一体化”的现代农作物种业体系,全面提升中国农作物种业发展水平。国内外种业的发展推动了种业科学的形成和发展。种业科学是围绕“育繁推一体化”种业产业发展而形成的科学技术学科类群,作物遗传育种是其中的一部分,它和种子生产的理论与技术、种子示范和营销的理论与技术构成了种业科学技术的主体,在相应的遗传、生理、信息技术、政策法规等学科知识的配合下成为相对集中的学科体系。中国的种业科学技术体系正在形成与完善之中。文章在回顾作物育种科学技术进展包括传统的作物育种科学技术和现时分子生物育种研究热点的基础上,归纳出现时重要的8个育种理论和技术问题,继而回顾了作物种子生产和示范推广科学技术的进展,并在此基础上探讨了中国种业科学技术发展的策略和建议。提出要围绕种业发展的需求,建成相对完整的种业科学技术学科体系;要顶层设计,建设成企业种业科技和公益性种业科技两支相互补充、相互配合的种业科学技术研发力量;要优先研究和解决种业发展中的重大科学技术问题,其中包括规模化育种技术,资源富集、遗传解析与创新,常规育种的分子辅助技术,转基因育种与安全技术,品种区域适应性试验制度与品种审定制度的完善,配齐种业基础性公益性研究并确立种子生产标准化体系,加强作物杂优化研发使杂种化成为中国未来种业的特色等。     

The triple burden: the impact of time poverty on women’s participation in coffee producer organizational governance in Mexico

In the mid-1990s, fairtrade-organic registration data showed that only 9 % of Oaxaca, Mexico’s organic coffee ‘farm operators’ were women; by 2013 the female farmer rate had increased to 42 %. Our research investigates the impact of this significant increase in women’s coffee association participation among 210 members of two coffee producer associations in Oaxaca, Mexico. We find that female coffee organization members report high levels of household decision-making power and they are more likely than their male counterparts to report control over their coffee income. These significant advances in women’s agency within the household are offset by the fact that the women experience significant time poverty as they engage in coffee production while bearing a disproportionate share of domestic labor obligations. The women coffee producers view organizational labor as a third burden on their time, after their reproductive and productive labor. The time poverty they experience limits their ability to fully participate in coffee organizational governance and consequently there are few women leaders at all levels of the coffee producer businesses. This is problematic because it limits women’s ability to fully benefit from organizational membership: when women fully participate in governance they gain valuable business and leadership skills and producer associations with active female members may also be more likely to develop and maintain programs and policies that enhance gender equity. Our findings indicate that targeted agricultural development programs to improve gender equity among agricultural smallholders should involve creative ways to ease women’s labor burdens and reduce their time poverty in order to facilitate full organizational participation. The research findings fill a gap in existing studies of agricultural global value chains (GVCs) by demonstrating how the certified coffee GVC depends on women’s under and un-paid labor not only within the household but also within producer organizations.     

基于个案的区域农业集群成长思考

在高新技术产业、制造业等领域涌现了大量成功的产业集群范例。笔者分析认为，现代农业不仅可以产生集群，而且比传统形式的农业更有竞争力。但农业集群的形成及其竞争优势的获得是一个长期的重复博弈过程，具有一定的内生性质，政府不能刻意创造农业集群。农业集群以诱致性形成为主，成长路径因诱因不同而各异。以江苏部分集群为个案，重点考察了农业集群成长的三种路径，并提出相应的政府战略选择。     

The political economy of fisheries development in the third world

International agencies have contributed significantly to the promotion of capital-intensive fisheries development programs in many Third World nations. Activities of both bilateral and multilateral development assistance agencies are examined and shown to have certain common features, notably production-oriented programs typified by the introduction of powerful new fishing technologies, and the promotion of fishery exports as a means of increasing foreign exchange earnings. The argument is advanced that these programs have been largely detrimental to the best interests of recipient nations because they have ignored both resource limitations and the distributional consequences of such development. Fisheries development programs in the Third World are seen as being shaped by a convergence of institutional and class interests between national and international agencies. The perspective of political economy is used to examine these interests and explain their relation to policy outcomes. Evidence is presented to show that international agencies have contributed to dualistic patterns of industry growth which have skewed development benefits towards a narrow urban elite. Rural small-scale fishers have been increasingly marginalized as a result of their inability to compete over a limited and, in some cases, depleted resource. Fisheries development and resource management need to be seen as complementary aspects of a single process rather than as separate activities. Central to fisheries management is the question of resource allocation between competing users. Suggestions are offered by which international development agencies can play an important role in encouraging resource use patterns which are both biologically sustainable and socially just.     

Conservation agriculture and gendered livelihoods in Northwestern Cambodia: decision-making,space and access

Smallholder farmers in Rattanakmondol District, Battambang Province, Cambodia face challenges related to soil erosion, declining yields, climate change, and unsustainable tillage-based farming practices in their efforts to increase food production within maize-based systems. In 2010, research for development programs began introducing agricultural production systems based on conservation agriculture (CA) to smallholder farmers located in four communities within Rattanakmondol District as a pathway for addressing these issues. Understanding gendered practices and perspectives is integral to adapting CA technologies to the needs of local communities. This research identifies how gender differences regarding farmers’ access to assets, practices, and engagement in intra-household negotiations could constrain or facilitate the dissemination of CA. Our mixed-methods approach includes focus group discussions, semi-structured interviews, famer field visits, and a household survey. Gender differences in access to key productive assets may affect men’s and women’s individual ability to adapt CA. Farmers perceive the practices and technologies of CA as labor-saving, with the potential to reduce men’s and women’s labor burden in land-preparation activities. However, when considered in relation to the full array of productive and reproductive livelihood activities, CA can disproportionately affect men’s and women’s labor. Decisions about agricultural livelihoods were not always made jointly, with socio-cultural norms and responsibilities structuring an individual’s ability to participate in intra-household negotiations. While gender differences in power relations affect intra-household decision-making, men and women household members collectively negotiate the transition to CA-based production systems.     

农业机械化与可持续发展初探

笔者通过从农业可持续发展中存在的问题,提出农业机械化对于农业可持续发展的作用,以及保护性耕作、节水农业技术的应用等农业生产环节与农业可持续发展的关系。     

Agricultural economists,human capital,and economic development: How colleges of Agriculture can assist

Of the requisites for economic development, human capital is the most “policy-proof,” is the one which developed nations can most effectively render on large scale, and is that which American colleges of Agriculture are uniquely equipped to render. Graduate study in agricultural economics is a popular choice of third world students as it occupies a pivotal position between agricultural science and the liberal arts, giving it substantial relevance to economic development. It is necessary to understand the history, economics, sociology, and psychology of the institutions that are central to economic development. Graduate programs in agricultural economics have fallen short of their potential to contribute to human capital and hence to the process of economic development. It is recommended that these programs capitalize on the disciplinary ties to both agricultural science and to the liberal arts, and in particular, 1) place greater emphasis on international aspects of macroeconomics, 2) include in the study of microeconomics more realistic treatment of what prices and markets can and cannot accomplish, and 3) emphasize the importance of effective communication in preparing returning third world students for their responsibilities in bridging the gap between research and policy.     

农业遥感研究进展与展望

农业遥感是遥感科学的重要分支。文章回顾了农业遥感研究的百年发展历程,认为目前遥感在农业领域的应用广度和深度都在不断扩展,农业遥感从获取传统的总产、面积、单产等要素向更多监测要素不断深入,从传统的资源、环境向植保、农学等方向不断扩展,农业遥感正逐步成为农业科学的基础关键技术。论文从农情遥感、农业灾害遥感、农业资源环境遥感等领域全面总结了近年来中国农业遥感研究取得的成就及重要成果。从农业定量遥感、无人机遥感、作物表型遥感等方面指出了农业遥感研究发展的国际前沿,分析认为,随着传感器、物联网、互联网+、大数据、人工智能等技术的发展及现代农业发展的需求,“十三五”及未来10年,国内农业遥感技术在天空地一体化的农业遥感大数据获取、人工智能与大数据等的信息智能提取和挖掘等方面发展前景巨大。     

良好农业规范(GAP)及其在中国作物安全生产中的应用现状与展望

良好农业规范（GAP）是在人们对食品安全与健康关注程度日益加深的背景下产生和发展起来的,在安全健康的食物和非食物农产品生产以及保障国际贸易中食品质量安全与相互认可方面,日益受到国际社会的认可。介绍了国内外GAP的产生与发展,阐述了GAP的内涵和主要内容,并探讨了GAP在中国作物生产中的应用现状及未来发展趋势。总体来看,我国作物GAP生产最早应用于中药材生产,有关研究也较为广泛和深入;近年来在茶、烟草和个别蔬菜与果树生产中也有研究报道,但在粮食等大田作物的生产中还没有相关研究报道。     

农村农业自动化发展研究

该文阐述了国际农业机械化自动化设施的发展历程和取得的技术成果,以及在目前的技术条件下农业发展的状况,阐述了当今国际雾霾、全球变暖等环境污染对农作物的严重影响,分析了当今国际农业种植的发展方向.认为室内农作物的种植,运用现代科学技术的种植方法,发展设施农业应是今后中国农业主攻方向.将工业生产线运用到农业上,实现农业的自动控制和远程作业发展高效农业,是减轻不断增长的人口压力的有效手段.     

中美农业全球价值链嵌入位置与演进路径的对比研究——基于全球价值链生产长度的比较

本文从全球价值链视角出发,借鉴Wang等关于生产长度(PL)的计算方法,利用世界投入产出数据库(WIOD)的最新数据,对中国和美国农业全球价值链的生产长度进行计算,并通过分解得到两国各自农业在全球价值链中的国内生产长度和国际生产长度,对两国农业在全球价值链参与中的嵌入位置及演进情况进行比较。结果显示:①中国农业的整体全球价值链生产长度,以及国内、国际生产长度均大于美国,两国农业的国内生产长度均短于国际生产长度。②中国农业全球价值链演进路径为国内、国际生产长度同时延长,并促使整体全球生产长度也获得延长。③美国农业产业链演进路径为国外生产逐渐替代国内生产,但其整体的全球生产长度变长。因此,中国应注意防范农业领域对国外投入过度依赖的风险,避免农业国际生产长度进一步过度延长。     

Rethinking the role of U. S. development assistance in third world agriculture

International agricultural development as practiced by U. S. sponsored research groups in developing countries has emphasized technical questions of production, ignoring more fundamental social and economic issues that underline rural poverty and hunger. Rethinking the role of U. S. development assistance will require transcending the view that the only way to impact agriculture in the Third World is by increasing the intensity of land use in high potential agricultural areas. The challenge is to find ways of how to further increase agricultural productivity so that the rural poor significantly benefit, while at the same time conserving and regenerating the resource base. U. S. scientists must realize that this is only possible by improving the access of resource-poor farmers to land, water, other natural resources, as well as to equitable credit, markets, appropriate technologies, etc. Solidarious collaboration will emerge from the U. S. siding with progressive governments and/or community-based initiatives that promote political change aimed at securing farmers' control over resources and inputs, and changing the structural conditions and policies that perpetuate poverty. Miguel A. Altieri is Associate Professor at the Division of Biological Control, University of California, Berkeley. He teaches courses in agroecology and rural development, agroforestry, and biological control. His research emphasizes the development of sustainable agricultural systems both in California and in Latin America.     

保水剂在农业生产中的应用及发展前景

为了促进保水剂在农业生产中的应用及其发展,笔者简述了保水剂的吸水机制,保水剂的主要种类及其特性,保水剂对土壤水分、土壤养分、土壤温度及土壤结构的调节机理,介绍了保水剂在农业生产中的应用技术及其应用效果,提出了保水剂应用中应注意的问题及发展前景。