Local Criteria Used by Farmers to Evaluate the Agronomic Performance and the Fertilizing Capacity of Cowpea Varieties: Diversity, Variability and Proximal Relation with Agronomic Measurements in Contrasted Sahelian Locations

When contributing to participatory research, farmers usually appreciate the performance of cowpea varieties using qualitative scores. The score they attribute to each variety are based on local knowledge. The specific criteria they individually use to attribute a score are not well described. The objectives of this work were to: 1) identify and describe exhaustively the local criteria used by farmers to measure the agronomic performance of cowpea;2) assess the variability and statistical structure of these farmer criteria across local contexts;3) and analyze the association between these farmer criteria and the classical agronomic measurement. To achieve these objectives, an augmented block design was implemented across fifteen locations in the regions of Maradi, Dosso and Tillabéri, representing a diversity of local contexts. From a set of 36 cowpea varieties, fifteen varieties were sown per location, including five varieties (controls) common to all locations. In each location, two replicates were sown in randomized Fisher’s blocks. After agronomic measurement and participatory evaluation (scoring of varieties by farmers), a group survey (focus group) was conducted in each location to identify the criteria considered by farmers to found their discretional scoring of varieties during the participatory evaluation. The analysis of the data identified, across locations, thirteen criteria defined by farmers to characterize the agronomic performance of cowpea. Some of these criteria were different according to location. Farmers ranked the three varieties with the best performance for each agronomical trait (Top 3 varieties). A comparison of the farmer ranking with the ranking based on agronomic measurements revealed similarity and complementary between both methods. This study highlighted the importance of considering both local and scientific knowledge in local varietal evaluations.

Mobile Application for Research Knowledge Sharing and Dissemination: The Case of Nm-Aist Univeristy Tanzania

The utilization of mobile and web applications has surpassed all other platforms in terms of disseminating researchers’ knowledge among diverse communities throughout the world. The current method of disseminating researchers’ knowledge to the communities in the Arusha region in Tanzania is through meetings, workshops, and focus group discussions held by researchers, agricultural extension officers and community members after every three months or during field study. Yet the strategy is inefficient and ineffective in practice. The purpose of this study was to determine the most efficient and successful method of disseminating knowledge in communities. The study began with a qualitative phase, utilizing an interpretive technique and a qualitative multiple case study research design. The Arusha region in Tanzania was selected as a case study where different social activities were undertaken, including farming, livestock keeping, tourism activities and fishing. Individual participants were interviewed by using a semi-structured questionnaire. In addition, focus group discussions were conducted to gather more information regarding the needs of the mobile application. Through the implementation of the application, the second phase of the study led to the development of a mobile application that includes community members, agricultural extension officers, and researchers that will enable anyone to install the application on their mobile phones to access knowledge regarding activities undertaken in Arusha. According to the findings of the first phase of the research, a substantial percentage of community members own mobile phones, and hence a mobile application would be sufficient. The research also found that most researcher-community interactions occur at the data collection and intervention assessment (field trials) stages. Hence, the mobile application will benefit community members, district agricultural, irrigation, and cooperative officers (DAICO), and researchers.

Mechanized Transplanting of Rice(Oryza sativa L.)in Nonpuddled and No-Till Conditions in the Rice-Wheat Cropping System in Haryana,India

The common practice of establishing rice in the rice-wheat system in India is manual transplanting of seedlings in the puddled soil. Besides being costly, cumbersome, and time consuming, puddling results in degradation of soil and the formation of a hard pan, which impedes root growth of subsequent upland crops. In addition, decreased availability and increasing cost of labor have increased the cost of rice cultivation through conventional methods. Because of these concerns, there is a need for mechanized transplanting of rice which is less labor-intensive and can ensure optimum plant population under nonpuddled and/or no-till conditions. A large number of on-farm trials were conducted at farmers’ fields in Haryana, India, from 2006 to 2010 to evaluate the performance of the mechanical transplanted rice (MTR) under nonpuddled and no-till situations as compared to conventional puddled transplant rice (CPTR). Compared with CPTR, nonpuddled MTR produced 3%-11% higher grain yield in different years. Rice cultivars, viz. HKR47, HKR127, PR113, PR114, PB1, PB1121, CSR30, and Arize6129, performed consistently better under nonpuddled MTR as compared to CPTR. Performance of different cultivars (PR113, PR114, HKR47, and Pusa 44) was also better under no-till MTR as compared to CPTR. The “basmati” cultivar CSR30 performed equally in no-till MTR and CPTR systems. The results of our study suggest that rice can be easily grown under nonpuddled and no-till conditions with yield advantages over the CPTR system. Even in the case of similar yield between CPTR and MTR systems, the MTR system will help in reducing labor requirement and ultimately, will increase overall profits to farmers.

Roles of mutual help of local community networks in community health activities: Improvement for the quality of life of older people in Thailand

Objectives: This study aimed to describe work and activities of community networks focusing on the improvement of the quality of life (QOL) of older people in Thailand.The understanding of the work can help enhancing the community development and strengthening of local communities and their networks.Methods: Qualitative methods including in-depth interview,observation,and focus group discussion were employed to the study.64 participants participated to the study and were recruited from 4 key actors within the community.Content analysis was used to analyze the obtained data.This study was conducted in 6 local administrative organizations (LAOs) which selected from the outstanding areas of the project.Each LAO represents one sub-district of the regions of Thailand namely;(1) the upper north,(2) the lower north,(3)the upper eastern,(4) the lower eastern,(5) the central and (6) the south.Results: The findings of this study were categorized into three main themes: (1) Social capital including people in the community,social groups,and organizations,(2) Mutual help/collaboration activities composed of six sets of activities related to social capitals working on the improvement of QOL of older people,and (3) Impacts of the mutual help/collaboration activities on older people and local communities who help to improve of QOL of older people.Conclusion: The findings are important features for the community development.These themes should be recommended for community nurses,health related groups and organizations for the improvement of QOL of older people in the community.

Transitioning from paternalism to empowerment of farmers in lowincome countries: Farming components to systems

Reasons for the initiation of farming systems/participatory approaches in non-Green Revolution（i.e., in more heterogeneous and less favourable production environments） areas in low-income countries is followed by a discussion of their evolution.Four phases are described along, with a brief description of some of the significant methods in which farmer participation has been sought, accessed and evaluated.They enabled/facilitated the evolutionary process.Although, over the last 40 years there has been a progress in making small-scale farmers much more visible in driving the agricultural research/development agenda through using the four basic stages embodied in the farming systems approach（i.e., descriptive, diagnosis, testing/evaluation and finally dissemination）, much still needs to be done.This leads on to a discussion as to some of the barriers still inhibiting true farmer empowerment and why further, such empowerment is imperative, if the agricultural challenges of this century are to be addressed successfully, namely substantially increasing agricultural productivity in an ecologically sustainable manner.Given the heterogeneity of the production environments and that many identified improvements are likely to be incremental rather than revolutionary in nature, this will require farmers＇ intimate involvement in their identification, evaluation and dissemination.Discussion in the paper recognizes that there is increasing globalization/commercialization of agriculture and is predicated on the need to consider the whole farmer-research-development continuum involving multiple stakeholders（i.e., farmers, scientists, extension workers, input/output service providers and policymakers）.Such a continuum has been explicitly recognized in the operational plans for the recently reformed international agricultural research（i.e., CGIAR） system.The paper concludes with a short discussion on the potential role of formal modelling.

A Systematic Review of Forensic Approaches to Disasters: Gaps and Challenges

Disaster forensic approaches aim to identify the causes of disasters to support disaster risk management.However,few studies have conducted a systematic literature review of scientific articles that labeled themselves as a forensic approach to disasters.This article provides a qualitative analysis of these forensic studies,focusing on five main issues:(1)the methodologies applied;(2)the forensic approaches used in the disaster risk management phases;(3)the hazards addressed;(4)if the methodologies involve social participation,and using what types of participation;and(5)if there are references to urban planning in the scientific studies analyzed.Our results showed a predominance of the Forensic Investigations of Disasters(FORIN)and Post-Event Review Capability(PERC)methodologies used in isolation or combination.There is a need for methodologies that engage people in participatory FORIN,fostering the co-production of knowledge and action research approaches.

Crowdsourcing to identify social innovation initiatives in health in low- and middleincome countries

Background:Crowdsourcing is a distributed problem-solving and production mechanism that leverages the collective intelligence of non-expert individuals and networked communities for specific goals.Social innovation(SI)initiatives aim to address health challenges in a sustainable manner,with a potential to strengthen health systems.They are developed by actors from different backgrounds and disciplines.This paper describes the application of crowdsourcing as a research method to explore SI initiatives in health.Methods:The study explored crowdsourcing as a method to identify SI initiatives implemented in Africa,Asia and Latin America.While crowdsourcing has been used in high-income country settings,there is limited knowledge on its use,benefits and challenges in low-and middle-income country(LMIC)settings.From 2014 to 2018,six crowdsourcing contests were conducted at global,regional and national levels.Results:A total of 305 eligible projects were identified;of these 38 SI initiatives in health were identified.We describe the process used to perform a crowdsourcing contest for SI,the outcome of the contests,and the challenges and opportunities when using this mechanism in LMICs.Conclusions:We demonstrate that crowdsourcing is a participatory method,that is able to identify bottom-up or grassroots SI initiatives developed by non-traditional actors.

Empowering the community through participation and action in historic neighbourhood conservation planning

This paper presents an attempt to initiate community empowerment within the participatory neighbourhood upgrading context of the Sengul Hammam Neighbourhood(istiklal).We adopted the Participatory Action Research methodology,which aims to generate knowledge meaningful for the community towards upgrading and revitalizing the neighbourhood.Respectively,a series of workshops,focus groups,and community activities were implemented in parallel processes with different neighbourhood groups.In order to change the situation in the neighbourhood,the inquiry began by mobilizing neighbourhood stakeholders and planning the future with primary school children.Later,this gained the active support of parents,women,the municipality,local leaders,and civil associations,and led them to take collective action over garbage collection,cleaning up the neighbourhood and building a playground-park.The mayor at the time of the research showed interest in istiklal but did not or could not give any financial or political support to upgrade the physical setting as a whole.The lack of support from the municipality in that regard and the neighbourhood being left to its own destiny caused a gradual dilapidation and loss of historic and cultural values.