Will Kudimaramathu make communities think tanks again?: a study of tanks in transit, coping mechanism of communities and...
Effects of training duration and the role of gender on farm participation in water user associations in southern Tajikis...
This paper examines whether longer training increases farm participation in community-managed water user associations, in a context where assignment to training duration was not randomized and none of these institutions existed before training began. We also examine whether participation is affected when farm managers migrate and leave farm operati...
Effectiveness of learning and experimentation approaches for farmers as a community based strategy for banana xanthomona...
Banana Xanthomonas wilt (BXW) is a devastating disease for banana and enset in east, central and Horn of Africa since 1968. The disease has spread to all banana growing countries in the region in the last decade, causing yield losses of up to 80 to 100%. Several efforts have been undertaken to develop and implement technologies for BXW management a...
Bangladesh: the importance of farmers’ seed systems and the roles of Community Seed Wealth Centers
This brief describes the most recent activities of UBINIG (Policy Research for Development Alternative) to support the the Nayakrishi Seed Network (NSN) of the Nayakrishi Andolon or New Agricultural Movement of Bangladesh, now active in three major agro-ecological zones of the country and bringing together 300,000 farmers. The NSN is made up of reg...
Modeling smallholder farmers' preferences for soil management measures: a case study from South Ethiopia
Land degradation is a major environmental problem in Ethiopia posing serious threats to agricultural productivity and livelihoods. The interactions of numerous socio-economic, demographic, natural, and institutional factors constitute the underlying causes of soil degradation in Ethiopia. However, there exist evidence gaps on the contextual factors...
Farmers’ perceptions on irrigation water contamination, health risks and risk management measures in prominent wastewate...
The use of wastewater to produce food crops particularly vegetables is very prevalent in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This practice may pose health risks to farm workers and consumers. Hence, the study was designed to evaluate farmers’ perceptions on irrigation water quality, health risks and health risk mitigation measures in four wastewater-irrigated u...
Will Kudimaramathu make communities “think tanks” again?
Like rest of Southern India, tanks in Tamil Nadu also suffered massive deterioration as irrigation moved towards being more atomistic and less community-managed. Tank institutions declined and what remained of these irrigation tanks evolved into mostly percolation tanks. In 2017, in the face one the biggest droughts affecting the state, Tamil Nadu ...
Market feasibility of faecal sludge and municipal solid waste-based compost as measured by farmers’ willingness-to-pay f...
There is a great potential to close the nutrient recycling loop, support a ‘circular economy’ and improve cost recovery within the waste sector and to create viable businesses via the conversion of waste to organic fertilizers. Successful commercialization of waste-based organic fertilizer businesses however largely depends on a sound market. We us...
Farm power policies and groundwater markets contrasting Gujarat with West Bengal (1990–2015)
With India emerging as the world’s largest groundwater irrigator, marginal farmers and tenants in many parts have come to depend on informal water markets for irrigation. Power subsidies have grown these markets and made them pro-poor, but are also responsible for groundwater depletion, and for financial troubles of electricity distribution compani...
Sequential irrigation scheduling avoiding night irrigation
The sequential irrigation scheduling problem is one where a set of irrigation jobs have to be scheduled sequentially. In this paper, an integer program is presented to solve this problem. The objective function is a dual-goal function that avoids night irrigation and minimizes earliness or tardiness, with the former objective taking priority over t...
