1,720,953 research outputs found
Exploring farming systems and the role of agroecology in improving food security, productivity and market access for smallholder farmers.
Full text linkMaster of Agriculture in Food Security. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg 2016.Most smallholder farming areas in developing countries including South Africa are inhabited by resource constrained farmers, many of whom lack appropriate technologies. The farmers have largely had little education and up to 80% of those involved in agriculture are women. Smallholder farmers in these areas engage in farming activities oriented at subsistence and/or selling of surplus as a survival strategy. Most farms in South Africa where smallholder farmers reside are found in poorly developed areas in former homeland areas presided over by traditional authorities. These areas are characterized by less productive soils and poor and erratic rainfall. These farmers face many challenges including water shortages and lack of irrigation. The land is exposed to increased land degradation, and often they lack finances and cannot afford basic inputs and implements for farming. As a result of these challenges, farmers’ food security is affected. This study examined the smallholder crop production systems in these areas and explored the potential role of agroecology as a strategy to enhance their food security and markets access. Exploring farming systems which smallholder employs is important for providing a useful framework within which to examine agricultural development strategies and interventions impacting smallholder farmers in South Africa.
The research was conducted in KwaZulu-Natal, Swayimane area under uMshwathi Local Municipality which is located within the uMgungundlovu District Municipal area (29°25’S; 30°34’E). A sample of 80 smallholder farmers was purposively selected for the study. About 300 farmers in Swayimane practiced agroecology, 26% of those were interviewed for the study. The aimed to establish whether smallholder farmers applied agroecological principles or conventional farming. Primary data was collected using structured questionnaires and key informant interviews. Focus group discussions were also conducted to generate detailed information on which farming system was incorporated in their farms and whether agroecological principles can enhance productivity on their farms.
The sample consisted of 64% women and 36% men. In terms of age, most participants 36.3% fell between the ages of 46-60. Also most of the farmers attended secondary school 63.7%. The results show that different types of farming systems were practiced in the area. Smallholder farmers were practicing conventional farming, organic farming with conventional farming and agroecological principles in farming. The farming systems practiced were mostly affected by shortages of water. Farmers were forced to diversify their crops to those which are drought resistant which affected their profits as there was no established market for such crops. In addition, their food security was affected as there was less diversity of crops produced as a result of the water shortages. In employing these production systems, findings revealed that smallholder farmers considered yields, economic benefits, social and environmental factors when evaluating different farming systems to use in their farms. Hence farmers diversified their farming system by cultivating drought tolerant crops.
In terms of agroecology, farmers were aware that agroecology is not a relatively new concept in South Africa as these methods were also applied by their forefathers. However as much as farmers were aware and also applied agroecological concepts and principles to their farming practices, many still used industrial fertilizers in a large part of their farms and a few farmers used organic farming. Farmers acknowledged that some agroecological principles including organic farming were very helpful as they are environmentally friendly. Despite benefits of practising agroecological methods of farming, farmers were still somewhat reluctant to converting from using conventional to agroecological methods of farming because of the perceived difficulties associated with practicing some of the methods of agroecology. The most commonly mentioned disadvantages included low yields from producing food using organic fertilizers and lower profits made from selling such produce because the yields were much less compared to those produced conventionally.
With regards to market access farmers argued that markets demand consistency and quality. Hence farmers were not selling food produced organically because of low yields and the longer time it takes to mature. Accessing markets also comes with lots of institutional and social challenges which farmers find it hard to deal with and resorted to selling in informal markets. However, such produce was regarded by farmers as being healthy and methods of producing were less harmful to the environment, hence some farmers allocated smaller land portions to produce organic food products for household consumption.
Results also showed that training farmers in terms of using agroecology was important as those who have attended training were applying some of the methods in their farms. However, the trainings given to farmers did not yield the expected outcomes as farmers were still somewhat reluctant to changing their methods of farming. Hence as part of the recommendations for training smallholder farmers should be on practical on-farm training and should involve practical work. This type of on farm training could be more beneficial than sitting and listening in the training room. The training given should involve relevant stakeholder in the community including the Department of Agriculture. For the future, the research be expanded to include two study sites for comparison purposes, perhaps another province to see whether the results would be similar so that one can then give a reliable recommendations as to what really is the suitable farming methods for small farmers to employ
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
Author Under Sail The Imagination of Jack London, 1893-1902
No full textIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Spirit Truth -- 2. From Absorption to Theatricality and Back Again -- 3. "I Will Build a New Present" -- 4. Sons as Authors -- 5. Fathers as Publishers -- 6. The Daughter as Author -- 7. Lovers as Authors -- 8. At Sea with the Family -- 9. Yellow News, Yellow Stories -- 10. The Return Home -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About Jay WilliamsIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, YYYY. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries
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