A social networks approach for strengthening participation in technology innovation: lessons learnt from the Mount Elgon region of Kenya and Uganda

Participatory approaches to agricultural technology development have not yet fully lived up to their promise to incorporate farmer knowledge. This paper introduces a social networks approach (SNA) to improve participatory research processes for co-innovation. Drawing upon findings from a collaborative project developing conservation agricultural production systems for smallholders in western Kenya and eastern Uganda, the paper explores farmer support networks to improve participation in technological innovation and development. Key research themes include: identifying farmers’ agricultural production networks; the local articulation of agricultural production networks and mindsets; using networks to facilitate meaningful participation in technology development; and disadvantages and advantages of using a social network approach. The introduction of SNA improved participatory research by building external and internal legitimacy for determining who participates, discouraging participatory attrition, and providing a meaningful forum for participation of all stakeholders. As a result, the introduction of SNA is demonstrated to show strong promise for improving processes of participatory technology development in agriculture.     

Changing land use in the countryside: Stakeholders’ perception of the ongoing rural planning processes in Flanders

Rural areas in densely populated regions face increasing competition for land. Consequently, land use planning processes must attempt to balance the goals of diverse stakeholders and the process of reaching consensus becomes more complicated. By investigating the perception of the actors involved in rural planning, this research contributes to the knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of such processes. We have focused on the case of rural planning processes in Flanders in which proponents of nature and agriculture are competing for land. Data are collected through open interviews with key actors such as farmers, representatives of nature preservation organisations, farmers’ unions, and employees of the relevant governmental policy areas. Data analysis according to the grounded theory approach resulted in six categories and 26 concepts that represent the stakeholders’ perception of difficulties in the Flemish rural planning approach. Three points where difficulties arise are (1) the link between envisioning, drawing up the plan and implementation, (2) the need for data, and (3) the role of sectors. We use three concepts from literature (procedural justice, distributive justice and value conflicts) to frame the difficulties observed. Based on this analysis, we discuss several ways to improve rural planning processes.     

Effect of off‐farm income on smallholder commercialization: panel evidence from rural households in Ethiopia

This article investigates how off‐farm income affects crop output market participation decisions and marketed surplus of smallholder farmers in Ethiopia. A double‐hurdle model is estimated using three waves of panel data from the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey. Unobserved heterogeneity is controlled for using a correlated random effect procedure and potential endogeneity of explanatory variables using a control function approach. The results show that off‐farm income has no significant influence on household crop output market participation. However, conditional on market participation, additional off‐farm earnings negatively affect the marketed surplus. This indicates that farmers use off‐farm earnings for consumption rather than for investment in agricultural production. Policy measures that promote rural investment may help increase returns to labor for land‐poor households participating in off‐farm work in the process of agricultural commercialization.     

乡村振兴的共建共治共享路径研究

厘清乡村振兴的主体及实现路径问题,可以避免乡村振兴出现重大导向性偏差。本文在评述政府主导、资本主导和农民自主三种路径面临困境基础上,提出应以习近平“共建共治共享”社会治理理论引领乡村振兴。在阐释习近平“共建共治共享”社会治理理论后,构建了一个乡村振兴与共建共治共享内在关联的理论分析框架,回答了乡村振兴的本质属性“是什么”、乡村振兴“为什么”需要共建共治共享、乡村振兴“怎么”进行共建共治共享的问题。然后以明月村为例,阐明了普通乡村在特定的经济与制度条件下通过共建共治共享走上振兴之路的现实可行性。本文认为,乡村振兴应以增进农民福祉为导向,但从实现路径上不应只依靠农民,多元主体共建共治共享至关重要。现阶段实施乡村振兴战略,关键是抓住城市化带动消费升级的历史机遇,健全城乡融合的体制机制,构建一套可操作的共建共治共享机制,让城市化辐射到的乡村以市场方式率先振兴起来,同时把节约的财力转移给城市化辐射不到的乡村进行保底建设。     

网络治理视角下农业科技创新发展的路径研究——基于农业试验示范站的实践分析

[目的]农业科技的广泛应用是农业现代化发展的重要标志,农业试验示范站是提升农业科技水平的重要手段。[方法]文章以杨凌农业科技示范推广模式的典型代表——试验示范站作为研究对象,借助网络治理理论研究我国农业技术推广模式的特征和经验,分析农业技术推广过程中涉及的多方主体的职能定位,构建农业技术推广治理网络,同时通过深入分析市场机制和宏观调控机制的作用机理和作用过程,研究各方利益相对主体的关系,为创新农业科技示范推广机制构建提供理论支持。[结果]从网络类型的视角看,试验示范站是政府推动、基层农技试验示范站具体操作实施的政府参与型的网络治理模式;从网络主体的视角看,以试验示范站为主体,联动政府相关部门、普通农户等各个主体在技术推广过程中的行为;从网络运行的视角来看,通过从网络治理的主体因素、关系因素和环境因素等方面分析影响杨凌农业试验示范站网络治理效果的一些具体因素。[结论]政府参与型的农业科技示范推广模式通过政府推动、基层农技试验示范站具体操作实施、普通农户参与落实等一系列的技术推广过程实现了农业科技创新发展,该模式是最有效的农业科技创新发展路径之一。     

农村居民点人均用地面积差异及其影响因素分析——以湖北省孝感市杨店镇为例

研究目的:确定农村居民点人均用地面积存在盖异的影响因素.研究方法:方差分析法,多元线性回归法、主成分分析法.研究结果:通过分析认为扬店镇现状人均居民点用地差异主要由耕地资源禀赋、农业生产结构、农业生产效率和农民生活水平等因素引起.研究结论:促进扬店镇农村居民点集约节约利用的有效途径为改善农业生产结构、提高农业生产效率、完善农地流转制度和进行中心村建设.     

Using participatory rural appraisal and participatory research and extension in a post-independence environment: a case from East Timor

A participatory rural appraisal (PRA) conducted in East Timor in 2004 as part of an agricultural development project provided the basis for a number of community-based participatory extension initiatives. The PRA involved several communities throughout a watershed and also served as a training exercise for local agriculture ministry staff. Despite the poverty of many of the communities involved, and in contrast to published literature on the local agricultural situation, farmers clearly expressed their need for more marketable crops and alternative sources of livelihoods. Their desires contrasted with the project's initial assumption that the major need was for increased production of staple crops to alleviate food scarcity. The project consequently branched out from concentrating on basic agronomy of staple crops into developing marketable crops, improving livestock production and facilitating development of a local business. Farmers' groups were set up to allow farmers to develop their own agricultural enterprises. Some ministry staff who participated in the project welcomed the opportunity to move from the traditional authoritarian extension system set up under Indonesian colonial rule to a more collegial and educational system. The breakdown of institutions and lines of authority following independence may create new opportunities for participatory development in newly independent states.     

中国农村改革的未来方向

本文总结了我国农业农村发展新时代,深化改革,要准确把握农村未来方向,以土地制度改革为主线,聚焦土地制度、经营制度与产权制度三大问题。土地制度改革要在尊重农民意愿的基础上,推动土地经营权共享,通过土地经营权流转与不流转两种形式促进土地规模化、服务规模化;新型经营主体的培育要重点提升人力资本,注重职业农民的数量增长与质量提升,培养出一批真正有爱农情怀、工匠精神、创新意识、社会责任感的职业化农民;要充分理解农村集体产权制度改革的重大意义,把产权制度改革提升到第二次飞跃的高度来认识,并将改革与新产业新业态发展、农民就业增收、集体经济发展、乡村治理、党对基层基础工作领导等重大问题结合起来,充分发挥集体经济的优势,走出一条具有中国特色的现代农业发展道路,高质量完成全面建成小康社会的发展目标。     

Exploring farmer perceptions of agricultural innovations for maize-legume intensification in the mid-hills region of Nepal

Maize-legume intercropping is a fundamental component of mixed farming systems in the mid-hills of Nepal. However, its productivity is constrained by several biophysical and social factors, and limited adoption of proven agricultural innovations. In this study, we assessed the productivity impact of a selection of relevant agricultural innovations and changes in the associated perceptions of farmers through a series of two-year participatory on-farm trials. The evaluated innovations resulted in higher yields as compared to farmers' current practices. The active involvement of farmers enlarged our understanding of underlying decision-making factors to adopt or non-adopt agricultural innovations. Additionally, the in-depth farmer engagement in our onfarm trials positively influenced farmer perceptions of the innovations and their interest to adopt the agricultural innovations. Yet, farmers final decisions to adopt some of the evaluated innovations were limited by a host of factors including labour scarcity, the availability of inputs, and by cultural preferences despite the increased yields. This was particularly true for low and medium resource-endowed farmers. This study shows the importance of active farmer participation and context-specific design of research and development projects aiming for local impact.     

农业水价综合改革的推进困境及成因分析——基于小农户风险视角

农业水价综合改革在部分地区进展相对滞后。利用制度变迁及制度配置理论,分析了农业水价综合改革推进困境的特征及成因。结果表明,农业水价综合改革推进困境的主要特征是部分地区小农户对农业水价提高的接受意愿较低,客观上造成精准补贴和节水奖励难以发挥作用。该困境的核心成因是奖补政策无法缓解改革中的小农户风险,具体表现为:小农户对已有非正式农业用水制度的路径依赖,催生了对农业水价新制度的适应风险;农村社会保障制度等相关初级制度不够完善,加剧了农业水价提高后小农户的生产和生活风险。提出应因地制宜地设计农业水价改革的微观主体管理模式,将生存灌溉补贴和农业保险补贴纳入奖补政策,完善农村基础设施和社会保障体系。     

Design of a decision support tool for visualising E. coli risk on agricultural land using a stakeholder-driven approach

Enabling knowledge exchange between scientists and decision-makers is becoming increasingly necessary to promote the development of effective decision-support tools (DSTs) for environmental management. Participation of stakeholders in the design process beyond a basic level of consultation is essential for promoting trust in modelled outputs and accelerating eventual uptake of resulting tools and models by end-user communities. This study outlines the development of a DST to visualise and communicate the spatial and temporal patterns of E. coli (a faecal indicator organism) on agricultural land, as a first step in managing microbial pollution risks to the wider environment. A participatory approach was used to engage regulators, catchment managers, environmental scientists, farmers and farm advisors, researchers in geospatial technologies and water industry staff in the co-design of a novel, user-friendly and accessible DST for guiding on-farm microbial risk assessment. Recommendations for maximising the benefits of a participatory process to DST design are discussed with reference to a series of opportunities and limitations identified by our stakeholder cohort during the development of the Visualising Pathogen & Environmental Risk (ViPER) DST. The resulting toolkit provides environmental managers and farm advisors with one of the first freely-available DSTs for visualising patterns of E. coli inputs to pasture in space and time, and begins to address the lack of advisory tools currently available for informing decision-making with respect to managing microbial risks in agricultural systems.     

农户参与乡村旅游扶贫适应性评价指标体系研究

构建农户参与乡村旅游扶贫适应性评价指标体系,以福建省福鼎市赤溪村参与乡村旅游扶贫的农户为调研对象,运用AHP(层次分析法)计算各指标的权重;根据农户调研实际情况,运用适应性评价模型对农户的适应性综合值进行计算并评价。结果表明:对农户参与乡村旅游扶贫适应性影响最大的是经济适应性因子,影响最小的是生态适应性因子;对乡村旅游扶贫政策的了解度、年旅游收入、家庭成员从事乡村旅游的意愿度以及对游客的欢迎度的综合权重较大,传统节庆活动的参与度、使用清洁能源程度的综合权重较小;总体评价为较为适应,但综合得分值较低,仅为3.106。最后,根据农户的实际适应性情况,提出完善乡村旅游基础设施、加大扶贫政策宣传力度、提高旅游扶贫政策利用程度、给予困难农户更大的扶持力度、创新旅游经营模式和实行多项扶持的发展建议。     

重庆市休闲农业发展的SWOT分析

[目的]分析休闲农业发展的优劣势、机遇及挑战,为明确重庆市休闲农业的未来发展方向提供有益参考。[方法]文章运用SWOT分析法对重庆市休闲农业发展过程中的优势、劣势、机遇及威胁进行深入分析,建立了重庆市休闲农业的发展战略矩阵。[结果]自然景观优美、民俗文化丰厚、交通便捷、客源较多及政策保障是重庆市发展休闲农业的优势和机会;而制度不健全,法规不完善,休闲景点规模小而分散,专业性人才缺乏以及周边城市竞争是重庆市发展休闲农业面临主要挑战和威胁。[结论]重庆市休闲农业SWOT分析得出相应战略矩阵以及4种战略,即SO战略、WO战略、ST战略和WT战略,由此提出田园农业旅游、民俗风情旅游、农家乐旅游、参与体验游等4个未来发展方向。     

Perspectives on integrated rural development in peninsular Malaysia

Development strategies in the rural economy of peninsular Malaysia are examined in this article. Tactics used have included land settlement schemes, a guaranteed minimum price for paddy, input subsidies, grants, and agricultural credit at low or zero rates of interest. The number of development institutions has been multiplying. However, the author argues that the success of integrated rural development policies must be measured in terms of improved income for farmers. He concludes that Malaysian policy planners have yet to define their objectives clearly and to identify the priority target groups. The result has been little improvement in farm efficiency and rural poverty.     

How would global trade liberalization affect rural and regional incomes in Australia?

Agricultural protection in rich countries, which had depressed Australian farm incomes via its impact on Australia’s terms of trade, has diminished over the past two decades. So too has agricultural export taxation in poor countries, which has had the opposite impact on those terms of trade. Meanwhile, however, import protection for developing country farmers has been steadily growing. To what extent are Australian farmers and rural regions still adversely affected by farm and non‐farm price‐ and trade‐distortive policies abroad? This paper draws on new estimates of the current extent of those domestic and foreign distortions: first, to model their net impact on Australia’s terms of trade (using the World Bank’s Linkage model of the global economy); and second, to model the effects of that terms of trade impact on output and real incomes in rural versus urban and other regions and households within Australia as of 2004 (using Monash’s multi‐regional TERM model of the Australian economy).     

Local participation in cultural landscape maintenance: Lessons from Sweden

Local participation has evolved as a strategy in the conservation and maintenance of biological and cultural values in cultural landscapes. The meaning(s) of the concept, however, are fuzzy, and conditions for fruitful implementation have only been investigated to a limited extent. In this article, a couple of Swedish cases serve as points of departure for a better understanding of the prerequisites and critical aspects as regards an increased local involvement in landscape management. A review of research on community participation reveals some essential aspects; power relations, participants, the institutional framework, organisation, communication, knowledge building, monitoring and contextual factors. These aspects have formed the structure for the analysis of two cases within which local involvement is considered successful; Southern Öland, where community involvement in seminatural grassland management has been experienced in LIFE-projects and in the process of becoming a UNESCO World heritage site, and Mälarhagar, an integrated restoration and beef production project carried out in close collaboration with farmers. The results are discussed in terms of successful ingredients, counterproductive aspects and operational difficulties. The findings show that trust, communication and local influence are vital ingredients in a participatory approach. Communication and co-management are pointed out as central areas of competence for executives working with landscape management and planning. There are, however, collisions between directives concerning nature conservation and directives concerning public participation. For successful local involvement, the subject for collaboration has to be broadly defined. Furthermore, the strong emphasis on collaboration in participatory approaches demands that democratic aspects have to be considered.     

Agricultural intensification: food insecurity to income security in a mid-hill watershed of Nepal

A shift from cultivating cereal crops towards vegetables and other cash crops has evolved through the process of agricultural intensification in the hills of the Himalayan region. Agricultural intensification has attracted the attention of researchers in Nepalese agriculture due to its potential impacts on the environment and socio-economic status of farmers. Nevertheless, socio-economic drivers of agricultural intensification are as yet poorly studied in the Himalayan region. Farmers' perceptions of the effects of agricultural intensification on society and the environment are analysed in the Ansikhola watershed of Kavre district, Nepal. Before the onset of agricultural intensification, food sufficiency was the primary measure of the economic condition of farmers. However, in recent years agricultural income and profits have become key socio-economic measures. This study reveals that intensive agricultural practices shifted need-based cereal farming to market-oriented vegetable-based production systems, thereby improving socio-economic conditions for farmers. Positive changes in wealth and social status, migration from rural to urban areas, and shift in social division of labour are other important impacts.     

农业区划理论和实践研究文献综述

对国内外农业区划理论和实践的研究进展进行了梳理。美国、法国、日本等国外发达国家的农业区划工作经历了相当长的发展过程,已经形成了一套相对成熟的理论方法体系和具体的经验做法。20世纪 50年代以来,我国农业区划的内涵、研究对象、学科性质与特点、依据与理论基础、研究方法、研究内容与创新思路等核心问题引起了众多学者的关注和探讨,并初步形成了相对完整的理论体系。在实践方面,我国农业区划工作成效初显,农业区域布局得到优化,优势农产品产区进一步集中,特色农产品产业带初步形成。但农业区域结构雷同、区域发展不平衡、产业化程度低等问题依然存在。未来,我国农业区划工作要围绕"三农"问题的解决,运用定性与定量相结合的动态方法,进一步发挥农业区划在农业多功能拓展以及工业与农业、城市与农村、市民与农民之间统筹协调发展中的重要地位与作用。     

Towards understanding and resolving the conflict related to the Eastern Imperial Eagle (Aquila heliaca) conservation with participatory management planning

Conflicts often arise in relation to the conservation of protected predator species. If stakeholders are well defined and involved in participatory processes, their views and perceptions can be incorporated and steps can be made towards resolving such conflicts. In this paper, a case from Hungary is presented. In this case, a participatory management planning process was initiated in the Jászság Special Protection Area of European importance (SPA), within the frame of a LIFE+ project focusing on the conservation of the Eastern Imperial Eagle (Aquila heliaca). It provided a good opportunity to address a complex conflict situation between nature conservationists, game managers and farmers. We identified structural conflicts such as contradictions between direct agricultural payments and nature conservation goals, conflicts related to different views of the main influencing factors, relational problems between various stakeholders, and even differences in value orientation. The participatory management planning process was successful in clarifying the conflict situation and making productive steps toward a common understanding and resolution. Besides the mutually agreed conservation measures, the establishment of an administrative and financial incentive such as the high nature value area (HNVA) scheme proved to be an especially important factor for mitigating the conflict. It also contributed to a more successful realisation of nature conservation objectives in an area dominated by private land owners. However, continued interaction and cooperation are needed to stabilise this progress. Our paper also shows that stakeholder involvement in conservation management planning can transcend the strategic dimension of participation, and address broader common values besides the interests of land user groups.     

Potential hazards of land policy: Conservation,rural development and fire use in the Brazilian Amazon

With growing awareness of fire hazard as an environmental threat within tropical rainforests, the state of Brazil initiated a set of fire control policies aimed at monitoring and ameliorating fire hazard in the Amazon region. These policies were developed in the aftermath of large-scale fire events and reflect a conservationist discourse that responded to internal as well as international environmental concerns. In doing so, the policies have framed the “fire problem” around those who use fire in their land use practices, in particular small-scale agriculturalists. Yet, land policy in general has repeatedly failed to address the institutional arrangements which compel small-scale farmers to use fire in their agricultural practices and the underlying development processes that have made the landscape more vulnerable to accidental spread of fire. Using regional level data on small-scale farmers, I suggest that the conservation oriented approach of fire policy may not be enough to curtail accidental fire events and instead that the fire issue needs to be positioned within rural development as well.