Asian Journal of Agricultural Extension, Economics & Sociology

To make agriculture sustainable, the price of agricultural commodities must be sufficient but variations in price may occur depending on market demand. So, by adopting mushroom production at rural level farmers may minimize the price gap by price of their mushrooms and ultimately people get good quality of mushroom and mushroom based products like pickle at rural level. This sets good example and also increases extra income from the agriculture at rural level by youth.

Pigeon rearing not yet been considered in relation to the contribution of livestock sub-sector, though the pigeons rearing provide alternative source of animal protein. In India, majority of Hindu people believe that it brings happiness to their house. Female pigeons reach sexual maturity at about 5-7 months, laid eggs within 8–12 days after mating, the eggs hatch after 18 days of incubation. The breeding cycle in pigeons is about 2 months, when the cycle finished another breeding cycle begins consecutively. The body weight of mature brooding pigeon (male/female) ranges from 287 g to 290 g depends on the type of breed. Mortality rate of pigeon ranges from 5-15%. The Study was conducted in 4 villages of Cooch Behar district of West Bengal. 40 no. of respondents who were engaged in pigeon rearing are selected purposively. Data were collected through well design structure interviewed schedule and collected data was analyzed. The results revealed that pigeon rearing needs low investment, less care, low feed and low housing cost. The finding shows that benefit cost ratio is 8.72 at 10% of discounting rate for 12 years. Finding implied that it is an easy and economic husbandry practices which have short reproduction cycle and less disease occurrence. On an average, entrepreneur sale their squab at the rate of ₹ 240 per pair. Increasing the rate of pigeon farming may enhance the rate of reducing the gap of requirement of animal protein deficiency, increase income generation and may improve the socio-economic status of the rural poor community. From the findings it shows that pigeon rearing is require less initial investment and provides high income. Hence pigeon farming may be an easy, profitable, sustainable and reliable source of additional employment generation, opportunity for family labour utilization during their leisure time and way of earning quick cash income.

Participatory pre-extension demonstration was taken in Dedo and Bedele woreda, in Jimma and Buno Bedele zone in two kebeles each in 2018 main cropping season. Data were collected 100 plants from the demonstration plots. From this study, the performance of three improved fababean and one local variety collected from the areas serves as a check were tested in 11 farmers demonstration plots in two districts of southwestern Ethiopia. From the agronomic traits includes: Days to flowering, days to maturity, plant height (cm), harvest index (%), 1000 seed weight and yield and yield Mean grain yield of the tested varieties ranged from 2200 Kg/ha for local variety, to 4370 Kg/ha for Dosha with overall mean value of 3450 Kg/ha. In addition, the highest agronomic performance was recorded for most agronomic traits. In terms of thousand seed weight, the variety Tumsa (805.80 g) score the highest next to Gora (896.60 g).The farmers preference selection and three development agents, 8 men and 5 women farmers evaluated the trial using plant earliness, biomass, seed size, number of branches per plant, plant height and the disease reaction are used as a criteria to select promising varieties Tumsa (23.00), Dosha (16.94) and Gora (16.83) scored up to three highest values, respectively. The lowest (8.96) was scored for the local variety. From agronomic data at two districts in participation of farmers, Dosha, Gora, Tumsa and local variety fababean varieties were given superior in grain yield respectively. The study also showed that Dosha superior in other agronomic traits except thousand seed weight and harvest index. From the farmer’s preference Tumsa, Dosha, Gora and local variety ranks up to fourth. Therefore, all the three improved varieties with their agronomic packages selected by farmers are recommended for Dedo and Bedele districts Southwestern Ethiopia and similar highland agro ecology.

Agriculture is the backbone of Indian economy. In this changing World scenario, agriculture is taking a new shape and expanding its scope beyond the limits of mere crop cultivation and animal husbandry for livelihood of rural population. Activities like diversification, value addition, precision farming, high tech agriculture, agripreneurship, global marketing, organic farming, etc. are gradually getting due attention of people involved in redefining agriculture. Agripreneurship is a strategy that can lead to economic self-sufficiency of rural people. Agripreneurship can generate employment opportunities in the primary sector, reduce migration to urban areas and can help in making villages self sufficient. Despite of several efforts to promote entrepreneurship in rural areas, rural agripreneurs are very few in number because even though agripreneurs start entrepreneurial venture assuming high risk, they soon give up due to various constraints. So, a study was conducted on agripreneurs of Udham Singh Nagar district of Uttarakhand using case study method to identify various constraints faced by rural agripreneurs. It was found that majority of agripreneurs faced technical constraints while establishing or running the enterprise followed by marketing constraints. Other than these constraints, there were psychological constraints, socio- cultural constraints, information related constraints, financial constraints, administrative constraints and managerial constraints which were faced by the agripreneurs in running the enterprise smoothly. The agripreneurs should be provided with the trainings to overcome these constraints being faced by them.

The research was conducted to identify the maladies faced by the farming community in Koppal district of Karnataka state and to get the remedies for the problems by the respondents. The exploratory study was carried out in Koppal district of Karnataka state. Total of 120 respondents were investigated using pre tested interview schedule and the sample was selected using multistage random sampling. Four taluk as were considered for the study. Ex post facto design of research was followed.  The statistical tools such as frequency, percentage and further garret ranking were used to rank the maladies and remedies based on the interaction with the respondents. Lack of adequate skills in using ICT tools (89.20%), high cost of ICT tools (45.80%) and Fear of using modern gadgets or internet (25.0%) were the most severe technical, economic and socio-physical constraints experienced by the respondents. More training programme on how to use ICT (87.50%), opening of computer information centres at every village (68.33%) and provision of market information and website in reach of farmers (62.50%) were the suggested solutions to the identified constraints to the use of ICT in descending order. Unlocking the constraints to the ICT via the identified way out will enhance the livelihood of the respondents via adequate use of information.

Floriculture is a flourishing industry in Sri Lanka with a great potential in both domestic and export market. Street and mobile flower vending is a micro enterprise which is not a negligible portion of floriculture sector in the country. Present study was conducted to investigate the constraints faced by street and mobile flower vendors and to understand their willingness to adopt those challenges. Randomly selected 40 flower vendors from Galle, Matara and Hambantota districts were interviewed using a semi structured questionnaire by visiting them at their marketing sites such as streets, week fairs and “Kaprukawaruna” exhibitions conducted by Coconut Cultivation Board, Matara. According to the findings, majority of the respondents engage in the business as a full time employment and 43.3% of the vendors sell plants grown in their own nurseries. Apart from the flowering and ornamental plants, they sell fertilizers, coir dust and coconut husk pieces and product diversification has a significant impact (p=0.016) on their monthly income. Average nursery size was found to be 500ft² where average income was noted as 200 USD. Among the vendors 70% use their own money to refinance the business. Majority of the respondents (60%) were members of different flower grower societies. Vendors (87.5%) sell their products targeting week fairs and (62.5%) sell their products beside the streets in temporary fixed huts. Not having an authorized place to market their goods was identified as the major problem by 85% of the respondents. Majority of the vendors (62.5%) were willing to expand the business while 42.5% identified this as a profitable venture to invest. According to the binary logistic regression results, age (p=0.000), education level (p=0.001), economic status (p=0.057), nursery size (p=0.004) and credit accessibility (p=0.024) were positively related with their willingness to adopt for the challenges they face. It is concluded that following key actions must be taken to strengthen the street and mobile flower vendors for their further empowerment: Provision of proper authorized sites of operation, improve the market credit and other infrastructure facilities and more training opportunities.

Attaining food security is one of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals. Despite the various efforts made by governments, food insecurity continues to be a major developmental problem across the globe. Research shows that food production in Nigeria is increasing at a rate of less than 2.0% while the population growth rate is estimated to be increasing at 2.5% per annum. Therefore, this study was carried out to assess rural households’ food insecurity in Ekiti state, Nigeria. Descriptive statistics, Per-capita Food Consumption Expenditure, Probit Regression Analysis, Likert Rating Scale, and Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) were used to achieve the objectives. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 240 respondents used for the study. Results show that the respondents were in their active working age with an average age of about 46 years and marital status, educational qualification, primary occupation, access to credit, and age were significant drivers of food insecurity in the study area. Also, 68.33% of the respondents were food insecure while only 31.67% of the respondents were food secure. Seven out of ten generated perception statements developed were rated ‘agreed’ while the remaining three statements were rated disagreed. The results of HFIAS show that 31.7% of the respondents were least food insecure and 48.2% were moderately food insecure while the remaining 20.1% were most food insecure. Recommendations were made based on the findings of the research work that governmental and non-governmental organizations should make credit facilities available to the people in the study area in other to augment income inconsistency and policy measures that will enhance increase scale of production should be encouraged.

The study aimed at how to improve the technical support to enhance productivity of rural community in Boloso Sore and Boloso Bombe Woredas/Districts of Ethiopia. It employed both quantitative and qualitative study design. The study used questionnaire, KII and FGD guides to gather primary data and the secondary data were collected via desk review. The results of this study affirmed that serious efforts have been made and large amount of resources have been invested by Wonta Rural Development Association to improve the livelihood situation of the rural household. The viability and scope of supports made by the Wonta Rural Development Association to improve household productivity and intend to create rural employment worked out good in the areas of dairy goat and community based organizations like self help groups for savings. The productivity of horticulture, poultry and other activities were found inferior during the study period. Engagement of key stakeholders, continuous monitoring and evaluation schemes, feedback from end users among others to enhance technical support were slim. The study has suggested a conceptual model to improve rural household production and productivity to enhance household food security, to promote rural job opportunity and to introduce and apply value chain in rural context.

The present study was formulated during the year 2014 with 120 respondents from selected eight villages of Nagaur district of Rajasthan. The data of personnel attributes, i.e., age, education, annual income, caste, size of land holding, family type and size of family of the respondents were collected through personal interview. The age and annual income were found to be positive and significantly associated with the adoption level. The old age group was possessed high level of adoption (82.76%) as compare to other age group. Further, annual income had maximum level of adoption with high annual income group (75.00 %) compared to other annual income groups. Other variables like, education, caste, size of land holding, family type and family size were found to be non-significantly associated with the adoption level.

The agricultural sector is pivotal in poverty alleviation, job creation and food supply. In recent times the performance of the sector leaves more to be desired as its proportion in aggregate output fluctuated as output expands. This study empirically analysed the causal linkage between the agricultural sector output and economic growth in Nigeria using annualized time series data covering 1981 to 2018. Data were analysed using the Granger causality test, vector autoregression, and impulse response and variance decomposition econometric tools. The empirical results indicate that agricultural output did not perfectly interlink with economic growth. The causality test revealed that economic growth precedes agricultural sector output in a uni-directional manner, while the impulse response analysis indicated that economic growth does not respond swiftly to innovations in agriculture. The findings of our study did not corroborate the predictions of agriculture-led growth theorized by Kuznets (1968).

The emergence of modern communication technology has influenced lives of many people and businesses around the world. It has revolutionized agribusiness activities, improved communication and information access among farmers. Amid of this technophilia, many cocoa farmers are still challenged with agricultural and extension information access in Ghana. The main objective of this study was to ascertain the socio-economic factors that influerence cocoa farmers use of         e-agriculture services. A multistage cluster sampling method was used to select 113 cocoa farmers’ household from the Akyease cocoa district. The data obtained was analysed using SPSS software version 22. The study revealed that farmer education, household income, gender, among other factors were the main determinants of farmers' e-agriculture information access. It was therefore recommended that a comprehensive educational programme should be introduced to cocoa farmers to enhance their education and the use of e-agriculture services.

The study analyzed the effects of land degradation on poverty among farmers in Southern Part of Borno State, Nigeria. Using multistage sampling technique, 120 farming households were sampled from 20 villages spread across five Local Government Areas in Southern part of the State. The households’ expenditure, value of free natural resources, causes of land degradation and information on the household livelihood-related factors dominated the bulk of the data. The data were analyzed using Foster, Greer and Thorbecke (FGT) model and Probit regression model. A poverty line of N8588.48 was estimated and was enough to provide households with basic requirements per month for existence (food and non-food). Based on this poverty line of N8588.48, the FGT measure showed that 64% of the farming households in the study area were poor; the average depth of the poor households from the poverty line was 48% of the poverty line, while 22% of the poor farming households were severely poor. The probit regression revealed that quantity of fire-wood collected (0.061), duration of grazing (0.010), burning of crop residues (0.023), soil erosion (0.091) and flooding (0.051) were all positive and significant. On the other hand, fallowing period (-0.032) and knowledge of conservation (-0.087) were both negative and significant. The study therefore recommended that policies should be geared up towards minimizing fuel wood consumption through establishing alternative energy sources such as technologies that utilizes ample solar and wind energies.