Farmers’ Knowledge and Perceptions of the Effects of Climate Variability and Pollution on Crop Production and Their Varying Adaptation Strategies in The Gambia

Crop and livestock production is critical to food security in The Gambia. Over the years, the country has experienced a reduced yield due to perceived climate change events with limited studies on how climate change and pollution affect crop production. This study assesses farmers’ knowledge and perceptions of the effects of climate variability and pollution on crop production and their varying adaptation strategies in The Gambia. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used in this study. The sample size for quantitative data collection was calculated as 432 while the qualitative data involves both the focus group discussions and key informant interviews. The focus group discussions comprised two districts in each of the six agricultural regions and two farming communities engaged in crop production were chosen from each district. Furthermore, eight key informant interviews from relevant institutions were conducted. The study shows that The Gambia is highly vulnerable to extreme climatic events. Although most farmers opined that agricultural land contamination emanates from farm runoff and indiscriminate waste dumping, they had little knowledge of heavy metal pollution and bioremediation. The results showed that farmers experienced constraints such as inadequate access to credit, water, and irrigation facilities, insufficient access to efficient inputs, salt intrusion, etc. which threatened food security. The study concludes that crop farmers acknowledged the existence and impacts of climate change, and therefore recommend the availability and affordability of climate change resilient crops and promote variability awareness campaigns to address climate change impacts in The Gambia.

Applying Novel Techniques from Physical and Biological Sciences to Life Detection

One of the primary goals of the space exploration community is to unambiguously detect past or present life outside of Earth.As such,a number of so-called life detection technologies,instruments,and approaches have been applied as part of past,current,and future space missions.As astrobiology is a truly interdisciplinary field within the realm of space exploration with major contributions from physical and biological sciences(among others),recently there has been development of a number of relevant techniques from scientific fields that have yet to be fully applied to extraterrestrial life detection.As a culmination of the 2021 Blue Marble Space Institute of Science(BMSIS)Young Scientist Program(YSP),we present a number of techniques drawn from various fields(including,but not limited to,chemistry,materials science,biology,nanotechnology,medical science,astrophysics,and more)that either have been or have the potential to be applied to life detection research.These techniques broadly fall under three categories:instrumentation for in situ measurements of biosignatures within the solar system,calculations or observational techniques for remote measurements of exoplanet biosignatures,and technosignatures.We hope that this primer serves to inspire the field to consider applying more potential technologies from adjacent fields into any of these three categories of life detection.