International Journal of Agricultural Management and Development
Volume:2 Issue: 2, Jun 2012

The increasing demand for rice in Ghana has been a major concern to the government and other stakeholders. Recent concerns by the coalition for African Rice Development (CARD) to double rice production within ten years in Sub-Saharan countries have triggered the to implement strategies to boost rice production in the government. To fulfill this requirement,there is a need to monitor and forecast trends of rice production in the country. This study employs the Box-Jenkins approach to model milled rice production using time series data from 1960 to 2010. The analysis revealed that ARIMA (2, 1, 0) was the best model for forecasting milled rice production. Although, a ten years forecast with the model shows an increasing trend in production, the forecast value at 2015 (283.16 thousand metric tons) was not good enough to compare with the current production of Nigeria (2700 thousand metric tons), the leading producer of rice of rice in West Africa.

The importance of shea tree to the people of south-western Nigeria cannot be over emphasized considering both the economic and environmental uses of the tree. However, efforts have not been made to propagate its production by the farmers as the shea tree still grows in the wild state. It would be worthwhile to investigate farmers’ perception of shea nut tree as an economic tree and their attitudes toward the conservation measures needed to prevent its extinction. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 160 farmers for the study. A structured interview schedule was used to collect data from the respondents. Descriptive statistics of means and percentages were used to describe the data while correlation coefficients were employed to determine the relationships that exist between farmers’ perception and their socio- economics characteristics.A larger percentage of the farmers claimed the awareness of the potential products of shea nut trees. Majority (90.6%) of the respondents perceived shea tree as an economic tree and indicated that it provides income for women and children that gather the fruits. Most of the farmers had favourable attitude toward shea nut tree as an economic tree. Land ownership status (r = 0.536), age(r = 0.875), education (r = 0.725), farming experience (r = 0.508),household size (r = -0.817) and farm size (r = -0.673) had significant influence on the perception of farmers. The study therefore recommends that the extension agencies should play significant role in educating the farmers on the importance of conserving the trees to sustain its economic benefits.

Nowadays, agricultural R&D provides new and developed technologies to create modern agricultural producing methods. During recent years, improving agricultural productivity is affected by not only domestic R&D investments but also foreign countries R&D investments. Nowadays, according to new growth models, R&D is the base of productivity. Recent economics theories consider agricultural research and it`s spill overs as important factors for technological change and economic growth. This paper investigates the amount of agricultural total factor productivity in Iran and analyzes the relationship between TFP, domestic agricultural research, and foreign agricultural R&D during 1979 – 2008. In this study Iran`s partners are 20 Asian, European and South American countries. The Solow residual index approach is applied for the measurement of total factor productivity in agricultural sector of Iran. ARDL model involving different lag length specifications were estimated taking TFP as a dependent variable. The results indicate that agricultural researches (both domestic and foreign R&D) have positive and significant impact on agricultural TFP. But the impact of foreign R&D on agricultural productivity is stronger than the effect of domestic R&D. According to gained results considerable portion of national product should be allocated to R&D costs and research budget of agricultural sector should be increased to standard level. Also government should pay attention to it`s partner countries because agricultural R&D spill over of developed countries is more than developing countries.

The purpose of this study was investigation of East Azerbaijan researchers and extension agents’ view about the role of extension services on agricultural development. The methodology was descriptive-correlation which is carried out by survey method. In this study, the sample population was 335 people including all researchers and extension agents working in the agricultural sector. To assess the reliability of the questionnaire,Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used and level over 0.75 for all sections of the questionnaire was measured. Its validity was established asking for the help from the technical experts. Results showed that the agricultural extension is an undeniable necessity in the agricultural evelopment the effects of which has been positive and significant in the major variables of the agricultural development. The shortcomings are not due to the nature of extension rather they are because of improper execution, lack of support and similar reasons. The reduction of pest damage, improvement of the social status, contribution to boost handicrafts, acceptance of product insurance, ecommendations for land leveling, creation of sale cooperation,awareness raising of the market, use of modern irrigation methods and several factors else was those extension role factors that the respondents agreed upon.

Rural economy has an important role in rural sustainable development in every region or country. However, the rural economy in Iran is too much depending on agriculture and development of other rural economy in particular nonfarm activities, has been neglected by Iranian rural communities.Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify the role of non-farm business on rural sustainable development in Sanandaj Township. This study was a type of surveying research and employed both questionnaire and interview tools. A four-part questionnaire (with 48 questions) was developed in order to collect data from the respondents. Likert-type responses with five scales were used to assess different sections of the questionnaires. The questionnaires’ reliability was tested by Cronbach’s Alpha technique and it was 76% (α= 0.76). A number of 279 families, 181 families with and 98 without non-farm business were selected randomly in 2011. Results of the study showed that non-farm business can contribute to employment growth, income generating, and prevent seasonal and permanent migration from rural areas. Based on the results, non-farm business and non-farm industries need to be strongly invested by financial facilities through rural cooperatives and unions.Additionally, encouraging rural participation is essential in non-farms and industrial activities.

This study examined the effects of trade liberalization and exchange rate changes on carbohydrate staples in Nigeria. Secondary data published from 1974 to 2006 on cassava exports and rice imports as well as non-tradable carbohydrate staples were used. It was hypothesized that exchange rate changes and trade liberalization via price relatives, trade intensity and nominal protection coefficient have affected prices of carbohydrate staples in Nigeria. Results show that the effects of trade liberalization on prices of non tradable carbohydrate staples were mixed. Trade liberalization accounted for most changes in the price of non tradable rice than other crops. World prices positively affected the prices of maize and non tradable rice. Also increasing exchange rate will lead to increase in price of non tradable rice due to price competition with imported rice. The intensification of liberalization exercise from the removal of quantitative restriction to use of tariff, among other recommendations, should be encouraged because it can be a remedy to the negative impact of increase in the trade intensity and erosion of nominal protection coefficient on prices of the non tradable crops.

The purpose of this research was to study the effects of four personal and social variables including the age, literacy,job experience and size of herd on different variables such as implementing of managerial strategies in transition period,relevant costs of these strategies, average production per head and gross income of milk sale per head. For this purpose all required information were collected through questionnaire distribution among the owners of commercial dairy farms of Shahroud district. This questionnaire was included three parts. Relevant information about personal and social indices was inserted in first part. Second part included of relevant information about performance and non-performance of considered managerial strategies in transition period and third part was about relevant information about production and economic records.Finally all information about 50 herds was obtained and compared as well. Data analysis was through applying Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) method. Also it was possible to specify any relation among independent and dependent variables through calculation of Pearson Correlation Coefficient. Finally it was revealed that social and personal factors have a significanteffect on the implementation of management strategies and other independent factors.

To evaluate the effect of water, tape drip and furrow irrigation methods on the performance components and features of Agria cultivar potato, an experiment was carried out in the agriculture faculty of Kermanshah. Repeated three times, this study was carried out in the form of full random blocks with the main factor of different amounts of irrigation water in three levels (50, 75, and100 percent of cumulative evaporation from an A- class evaporation pan) and the secondary factor of irrigation method (including drip and furrow irrigations).At 3 repetitions, results showed that the minimum performance (19.168 tons per hectare) was related to the drip irrigation method with 50 percent evaporation from the A-class pan and the maximum one (34.455 tons per hectare) was related to the drip irrigation method with 100 percent evaporation from the A-class pan. The rate of irrigation and effectiveness of method on the number of the main stem per square meter and number of the main stem in the bush were not significant. The minimum percent (number of tubers) of tubers smaller than 35mm (26.47percent) and the maximum tuber production (37.17 percent) in the size of food and market-friendly (tuber bigger than 55mm) were attained by drip irrigation method with 100 percent evaporation from the A-class pan. The impact of Irrigation method on and the specific gravity of tubers and starch (dry matter) was and was not significant, respectively.