In this issue, we have several articles which focus on agricultural development. Since colonial times, and reinforced by the emergence of international development, agriculture has been a key part of the developmental focus. The need to feed people clearly increased with the rapid rise in both global populations and the large numbers of people living in rural poverty. While some of the focus has been on production of foodstuffs for an increasingly urban population, there has simultaneously been attention given to increasing the availability of food for subsistence and semi-subsistence small-scale farmers. Despite a sustained emphasis on agricultural research backed up by a range of extension services, many have felt that, with a few exceptions, this effort and investment has not always paid dividends.
We often publish articles which work from the assumption that there is failure of farmers to implement or adopt improved techniques, and hence the increases in productivity do not meet the expectations and promises made of them. In addition to research and field trials of new agricultural techniques and improved crop varieties, we also have a large number of authors aiming to understand how change happens in rural populations especially with farmers, both male and female. In this issue we have several articles across the range of current issues in agricultural development.
Thomas Daum uses participatory techniques to explore the attitudes of young people in Zambia, who are key to the future, towards agriculture. This is timely, in a period when it seems that the migration of young people to cities and away from agriculture could undermine small farm production, while increasing youth unemployment in cities.
Amos Omore, Michael Kidoido, Edgar Twine, Lusato Kurwijila, Maureen O'Flynn and Julius Githinji apply theory of change methodology to see if this could help improve milk production and marketing in Tanzania. They conclude that the approach can be participatory and assist in the design and implementation of both R&D and developmental programmes.
Henry Mwololo, Jonathan Nzuma and Cecilia Ritho also tackle the problem of low take-up of new or improved technologies which has continued to undermine attempts to improve agricultural productivity, especially in Africa. They explored the connection between the apparent success or not of different extension methods and correlated these to the socio-economic conditions of the participating farmers. The author concludes that future extension programmes should ensure that the methods chosen relate to the socio-economic status of the participants to improve levels of take-up and implementation.
Setegn Gebeyehu, Joseph Kangile and Emmanuel Mwakatobe review the use of rice seed in Tanzania, and find that the majority of rice farmers use their own seed, rather than improved seed from commercial and state sources. The authors note that there was little difference in quality between local seed and professionally produced seed. However, they also found that despite the majority of seed being self-generated, few extension services focused on improving the ways farmers collected, stored, and utilised their own seed.
Francis K.Y. Amevenku, John K.M. Kuwornu, Alhassan W. Seini, Yaw B. Osei-Asare and Henry Anim-Somuah used a livelihood vulnerability index to assess the vulnerability of groups up and downstream of dams in Ghana, identified specific issues which exacerbated their vulnerability, and provide some options for future actions which could reduce them.
Stacy Armbruster, Jennifer Solomon, Trent Blare and Jason Donovan show that the interests and involvement of women in cacao production in Peru are ignored, to the detriment of this important crop's productivity. They note the tensions suffered by women who are time poor, with their farm work squeezed by other responsibilities and domestic reproductive work. These other claims on women's time also make it difficult to participate in opportunities for training courses and extension sessions which could help their cacao work. This gender bias towards male farmers seems to be built into many extension services and reinforces the disadvantage of women farmers in agriculture.
Lucy Carter and Liana Williams discuss the ethics of agricultural research and how changes in research approaches are related to a need to review these ethics.
Lars Bo Andersen uses actor network theory along with a concept described as “limbo” to explore the history of a project to provide one laptop per child in Nigeria. The article reviews the progress and more importantly the effect of “standstills” when the programme seemed to be no longer working as planned. It concludes that these disruptions often turned out to be transformative, and most people who have managed programmes will empathise that however well planned and designed a programme is, differences in understandings plus extraneous events can lead to delays.
Susan M. Crabtree tackles the difficult issue of placing a development worker in a foreign context, especially when carrying out research. This article considers reflexivity, and the personal reflection of the development worker on his or her situation in a particular context can have relevance for us all.
Elize Massard da Fonseca, Mariana Ramos Teixeira and Nilson do Rosario Costa compare industrial research strategies and cooperation between health services, private companies and researchers. The viewpoint looks at pharmaceutical research and industry, and how policies around these have evolved in Brazil and the UK, concluding that common issues around accountability, networking and other factors are more likely to achieve strong but fair cooperation between these different stakeholders.
Thomas M. Crea, Antonia Diaz-Valdes, Kaipeng Wang, Scott D. Easton and Brenda Urizar share a study exploring the links between school success and nutrition in Guatemala. The study looks at school feeding programmes and other means of trying to improve childhood nutrition, and measures these against school attainment scores, specifically reading levels and comprehension.