International Journal of Agricultural Management and Development
Volume:1 Issue: 4, Dec 2011

Globalization is integration of national economies in global economy and infers on increasing the flow of goods and services. In this study the consequences of globalization were studied through the analysis of Level of International Trade index (LIT) in the caviar export equation. The required data were gathered from Statistical Yearbook of Foreign Trade, Statistical Yearbook of fisheries, Statistical Yearbook of the International Monetary Fund, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and different issues of Central Bank of Iran over 1974-2007. The results showed that domestic production of caviar have significant and positive effects on its export. In addition, sign of level of international trade variable in the estimated model is positive and indicates trade restrictions remove lead to increase in caviar export.

The purpose of this study is to investigate comparative advantages of corn in comparison with other competitor crops. To do so, Linear Programming, to 2004-2005 data related to classic index (DRC) in Kermanshah province was applied. Results showed that corn has comparative advantages in all regions of Kermanshah province while in optimal cultivation pattern of 37.5 percentages of regions in existence of rotation and 50 percentages of regions in lack of rotation, corn acreage has been increased. In addition, comparing optimal cultivation pattern resulted from linear programming models with crops ranking based on comparative advantage indices indicated that, resources availability and limitations, tradable and non-tradable inputs costs and yield will lead to shift in production’s comparative advantage from one crop to another. Factors such as supporting policies and rotation might also have effects on comparative advantages and optimal cultivating pattern.

The green revolution fulfilled the food demand of crowded millions. From the time of green revolution to till date high yielding and fertilizer responsive varieties have evolved to increase the production per unit area. To improve the productivity only major nutrients are concentrated almost in all crops. Though the importance of micronutrient realized during past decades in most of the crops but it is not effectively materialized in general crop cultivation practices. The micronutrient deficiencies in soil are not only hamper crop productivity but also deteriorating the produce quality. World health organization (WHO) has estimated that over 3 billion people in the globe suffer from the micronutrient malnutrition and about 2 billion people of these have iron deficiency. Iron is one of the 16 essential elements needed for plant growth. Iron is used for the synthesis of chlorophyll and is essential for the function of chloroplasts. Zinc is involved in membrane integrity, enzyme activation, and gene expression. Rice, sorghum and corn are Zn sensitive and sorghum, sugarcane, groundnut, soyabean, beans, grapes, vegetables and citrus are highly Fe sensitive crops. To overcome these problems foliar spray is being recommended but it is not crop specific or soil specific recommendation. Keeping these problems in the view, recently development of micronutrient efficient genotypes, creating awareness of micronutrient dose, crop specific micronutrient uptake and accumulation are vital to improve productivity and to address human health problems. In this paper we discussed the importance of iron and zinc in agriculture and their role in crop plants and ways to improve the crop productivity as well as human health.

The Farmers of the Future (FoF) initiative implemented a programme of integrating natural resources management in the basic education curriculum. The purpose of the study was to document activities and determine the effects of FoF programme on primary school learners’ perceptions towards natural resources management by comparing learners involved in the FoF programme and those not involved. Further, comparison of perceptions by gender among learners involved in the FoF was done. The study employed an ex-post-facto design. The location of the study was the western region of Kenya. The sample was composed of 120 learners and 6 teachers, making a total of 126 respondents. This was in accordance with recommendations by Kathuri and Pals (1993). The data were collected using questionnaires and analysed using t-test at alpha = 0.05. The instruments were validated by two experts in the Department of Agricultural Education and Extension at Egerton University and one expert from ICRAF. Reliability was tested through pilot testing and indicated a reliability coefficient of 0.72 The findings indicated that the FoF programme had a significant influence on learners’ positive perceptions towards natural resources management thus the programme forms an integral part in sustainable agriculture.

This study focused on the income generating capacity of farm family’s own resources and examined the vulnerability to financial risk among the remote and peri-urban farming systems of Imo state. Primary data was collected using the farming and rural systems approach to randomly select and interview 120 households. Descriptive statistics and Mann whitney test were used in assessing between group differences while regression analysis was used to test the determinants of family income spread within the households. The results showed that the farming systems differed significantly in terms of rewards to resource use and efficiency. It also showed that remotely located households were more likely to be vulnerable to financial risks. A comparison of Male and Female Headed Households showed that the households had similar income generating potentials but with the cash flow analysis a safe conclusion may be reached that Female Headed Household were more financially unhealthy.

The issue of convergence or divergence of productivity has important policy for regional poverty reduction and increasing standards of living. If productivity converges to a common level without intervention, there is little need for explicit policies in lagging regions to promote catch up. On the other hand, productivity has divergence trend, then explicit policies would be needed to prevent further lagging of TFP and standard of living. Therefore, with regard to importance subject, this paper in finding out whether Iran and Eastern African countries in agriculture have managed to narrow their productivity gap? The results show that the range changes of average TFP growth lies between -4.9 percent in Rwanda countries and 1.1 percent in Iran and Somalia. The results of convergence test indicate that, from among 9 countries under consideration only five countries, be converging to the mean. Therefore, these countries managed to make better use of new available technologies, thus reaching far greater productivity levels than others. On the opposite, convergence can not be accepted for the rest countries.

This study was undertaken to investigate the effect of socioeconomic factors on fish catch around the Lower Ogun River in Isheri-Olofin area (downstream) and Ishasi (upstream). Two hundred and fifty (250) respondents were randomly sampled. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and chisquare. It was found that a large percentage (74.4%) owned personal fishing craft. 18% of the respondents have not had any formal education, 38.4% had attended primary school, 42.4% had attended secondary school, and 1.2% had attended a tertiary institution. Majority (62%) of the respondents were married while 31.2 % were single. The result shows that 98.4% of the respondents constitutes male while the remaining 1.6% constitutes female. 70.4 % of the respondents fall within the age bracket of 15–40 years while the remaining 29.6 % are elderly with age range of 41-66 years. It was also discovered that there is a significance decline in the abundance of catch in the downstream compared to the upstream. There is significant difference between the two stations in all socioeconomic factors evaluated.

Rural households in Nigeria are vulnerable to shock because of their limited capacity to make informed decision on secured coping strategies which is further aggravated by some households’ specific socio-economic characteristics. Attempts were made to identify shocks being faced by households’ heads and coping strategies. Multistage sampling technique was used to select 80 respondents and well structured questionnaire was used to collect data through in-depth interview. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics to describe households’ socio- economic variables; Probit analysis was also used to determine the relationship between personal socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, shocks and choice of coping actions. The results revealed that a large share of households experience multidimensional shocks, which are mainly associated to ecological but also suffer from other economic, demographic and social factors. Majority of households undertake coping actions in response to shocks; coping strategies employed but not limited to include borrowing, distress sales of assets, remittances, adjustment in food intake, drawing on savings. Educational status, household size, per capita income, shocks type, coping strategies, among others are found to significantly affect the choice of coping actions and are likely to have implications for households’ future welfare status.