International Journal of Agricultural Research, Innovation and Technology

1-6

Authors: Yetty Oktarina

This paper investigates rice market integration among five provinces in southern Sumatra using data from monthly retail rice markets during 2004-2009. The degree of integration was measured across provinces using vector error correction model. Result revealed that there is spatial market integration in southern Sumatra. Province of Bangka Belitung can make price adjustment more quickly compared to others provinces. In the long run period, rice price in Jambi province, Lampung province, and Bangka Belitung province became a reference price of rice in southern Sumatra. The study suggests policy recommendation for government to intervention this situation.

16-20

Authors: P.K. Ng’ang’a and C.R. Vogl

Austria is one of the major organic tomato producing countries for local and export marketing. These tomatoes are produced in parts of Austria especially around Vienna where their production system has to meet stringent organic quality standards in both local and international markets. These quality standards may put considerable strain on farmers and are normally formulated without famers’ participation so may not be wholly representative of the farmers’ quality interpretation. The aim of this paper is therefore to determine the Austrian organic tomatoes growers’ perception and practice of quality and challenges. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were carried out among 28 organic tomatoes farmers in Vienna, Austria. Findings suggest that quality of organic tomatoes is mainly perceived in terms of both informal values (big fruit size, long shelf life, food security and amount of income received from tomato sales) as well as formal norms (non- application of chemicals, human health, damage free, sweet taste, red colour, and juiciness). There were no gendered differences in quality perception among the growers. High costs of production inputs were identified as the main challenge to attaining quality in organic tomatoes. Following these findings, there is need for effective participation of growers in formulation of standards as well as subsidizing of production inputs by the government. The Austrian tomato growers as well as local and international retailers should work closely to increase the price received by the Austrian organic tomato growers so that it more adequately covers their production costs.

31-36

Authors: MJ Islam, MS Rahman, Rubeca Fancy, AKMS Rahman, M Shamsuzzoha, MAH Siddiqi

The variability in phosphorus concentrations and the decomposition rates of organic phosphorus were measured in five selected rivers through four surveys in July and November of 2012, and February and May of 2013. After collection the water samples were incubated for 20 days in a dark incubator and the change of forms of phosphorus such as particulate organic phosphorus (POP), dissolved organic phosphorus (DOP) and dissolved inorganic phosphorus (DIP) were analyzed. By fitting the changes to two types of models, the decomposition rates of organic phosphorus were determined. The mean total organic phosphorus (TOP) decomposition rate coefficients in the studied rivers was 0.039 day-1. The average POP decomposition rate coefficient (POP→DOP→DIP model) was 0.038 day-1 while the mean DOP decomposition rate coefficient was 0.251 day-1. The decomposition rate coefficients measured in this study might be applicable for modeling of river water quality.

44-50

Authors: Abdi Etafa Regassa

This paper analyzed the factors determining participation in irrigation project on agro pastoral household and their perception towards the scheme. The study result depends on cross-sectional data collected from a sample of 144 households of which 72 irrigation users and 72 non-users using a combination of multistage, stratified and random sampling. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and logistic regression to assess factors that affect participation in irrigation. Result revealed that agro pastoralists do have medium to very strong perception towards different aspects of irrigation performance indicator variable. It is observed that among the variables in logistic regression age, sex, income, input use and participation in cooperative organization have affected participation significantly and positively, while, farm experience, distance to the district market, and total livestock unit, affected participation in irrigation significantly and negatively. The study has also substantiated that irrigation in the study area has significant role on income and recommend that it shall be great and rewarding if policy makers, designers, implementers, and any funding agencies with similar interest. Further, capitalize and scale up the project to achieve the development plan and objective.

58-63

Authors: Tiwang N Gildas, Ibrahim N Manu

This paper aimed to assess the involvement of child labour in agribusinesses as well as the schooling pattern of children involved in these agribusinesses in Cameroon. For this study, some descriptive statistics and cross tabulations were computed using SPSS.20 and stata 13 software packages. The population of this study was made up of 51,190 individuals of both sexes that were concerned by the third Cameroon National Household Survey. The sample drawn from this population was constituted of individuals of age 5-17 years old, making a total of 17,550 children. The main results of this study revealed that agribusiness child labour was present everywhere in Cameroon and by both boys and girls. Children of all ages of the sample were concerned by the phenomenon and their level of education was essentially the primary. The impact of agribusiness child labour on education was positive because it helped the working and schooling children to provide means to finance their education and other needs. On the other hand, it has a negative impact on education because some children went for these jobs and finally stayed there and did not return back to school.

70-74

Authors: Warouma Arifa, Viktor Aulin, Igor Shepelenko

Wear is the main reason for the loss of performance of the parts for agricultural machinery. It leads to the degradation of the soil working quality. This work aims to highlight the wear resistance of the harrows discs manufactured, consolidated and sharpened differently. The tests were conducted in the laboratory and the field of the Faculty of Exploitation and Repair of Agricultural Machinery of the State Technical University of Kirovograd (Ukraine) in 2015. The technical equipment consists of devices for consolidation by electric discharge and for measurement the linear wear of discs, a harrow, a sand test bed, a tractor and discs made of different materials and technologies. Some parameterized were collected during the laboratory test each 5 ha and up to 20 ha of operation and in the fields each 30 ha until the time limit of exploitation. The Laboratory tests have shown that after twenty (20) ha of operation, the wear resistance of the experimental discs made of steel 65G and consolidated by electric discharge with simultaneous grinding (sharpening angle of 30°) is 2.95 times higher than the discs in series made of steel 28MnB5. The field experiment gave the following results: According to agro technical requirements, the plowing depth limit of serial discs made of steel 28MnB5 was reached after an operating duration of 120 ha while for experimental discs made of steel 65G and consolidated by electric discharge with simultaneous grinding (sharpening angle of 30 degrees) this duration is of 156 ha. The diameter wear limit of experimental discs was reached after an operating duration of 179 ha against 154 ha for the serial ones. Therefore, the new technology can be applied during the manufacture and / or the repair of the discs.

82-85

Authors: MR Begum, MN Islam, MSI Khan, S Islam, MAI Tapu

In developing countries, small scale integrated agriculture acts as a tool for supplying the fast-growing human population with high-quality protein, additional income to poor and food security to household, especially women. This study was conducted in different SLOPB-Bangladesh project areas of Patuakhali, a coastal district of Bangladesh to observe the effect of small scale integrated agriculture on poverty alleviation, equality of gender promotion and food security at household level. After baseline survey with a structured questionnaire, a total of 583 women beneficiaries were selected from poor communities and given training and technical support on family poultry, aquaculture and homestead gardening from 2008 to 2012. Data of income were collected in every month and analyzed by one way ANOVA or F-test, used to test significant difference among the mean income of different years and one sample t-test, used to test the significance difference in percent (%) of yearly increase income in different years and from baseline. It was postulated that, the number of income getting women grew in an upward trend along the advances of time, and average yearly income became significantly from baseline and rose to 246, and 566.42% for family poultry and homestead gardening respectively. For all three activities, it was significantly climbed to 281.79%, which brings better food and nutritional security in household, and the women were self-employed, empowered, and more esteemed to their family members as well as society than ever before.

1-9

Authors: Soni Prasoon, Singh Pushpraj

Remote Sensing and GIS is a very good modality for retrospection and the strategy for better exploitation of sustainable land use system. The present study was conducted in the Bilaspur district for analyzing the spatial distribution of Land Use Change. During last decades the increasing population of Bilaspur city, affect the land use pattern of Mopka Village. The anthropogenic activities were affecting the agricultural land along with barren land. For the development of civic amenities the land of the above village was used. The main objective of the present study is to analyses the land use/land cover distribution in Mopka village, Bilaspur district in between last 12 years and to identify the main forces behind the changes. The objectives of present studies are, to create a land use land cover maps of Mopka village using satellite imagery. To analysis the temporal changes of village area in between the year 2000 and 2012, the primary, secondary and satellite data were used. The results of the present study show that the decadeial changes due to population growth and increasing demand of infrastructure were destroying the natural resources, natural habitat and soil structure of area.

15-21

Authors: MS Alam, MM Islam, SN Begum

The study was attempted with an objective to check the purity of commonly used farmer’s rice seed stock. Assessment of varietal purity of collected 76 rice genotypes showed that there was a variation among the genotypes for varietal purity. Thirty-two genotypes showed 100% varietal purity and forty-four genotypes were contaminated with different types of off-types. The lowest varietal purity was observed in Lal gotal (74.67%). Grain dimension and 1000 seed weight were measured as important physical characteristics of seed to identify varietal purity.

28-35

Authors: VC Umunnakwe, FO Olajide Adedamola

The increasing realization of the negative political, social and economic consequences stemming from the precariousness of youth’s livelihoods, underscores the need to understand their livelihood activities, which is a requisite for curbing social ills and reducing rural poverty. The paper examined the participation of rural youth in livelihood activities, their socio-personal characteristics, the relationship between their socio-personal characteristics and their participation in livelihood activities as well as the inter-relationships among their socio-personal characteristics. Multi-stage random sampling was used to collect data from 247 respondents through interview schedule. Frequency counts and percentages were used to present data while Pearson product moment correction (PPMC) was used to test relationships. The results revealed that majority of the respondents were from other backward caste (66%), married (72.10%), belonged to joint (57.90%) and medium (50.60%) size families as well as families that were self-employed in agriculture (59.50%). Higher percentages of the respondents and their fathers were educated up to higher school and above. Huge majority (75.71%) of the respondents participated in cereal production while more than half of the respondents were involved in pulse production (56.28%) and petty trading (53.44%). Marital status; fathers’ educational attainment; family type and family size had significant relationship with participation in livelihood activities. Inter-correlations among socio-personal characteristics showed that caste was related to marital status and educational attainment. It is concluded that socio-personal attributes of rural youth are related to their participation in livelihood activities. The study recommends that socio-personal variables of present study be considered by rural development policy makers when undertaking programmes aimed at enhancing rural youth’s livelihoods.

40-44

Authors: Abdur Rakib, M Moniruzzaman, M Hasan, MM Rahman

An experiment on coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.) was conducted at the experimental field of Department of Horticulture, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University (BSMRAU), Gazipur during November 2012 to April 2013 to find out the suitable foliar doses and application frequency of urea and planofix (NAA). The experiment was laid out in factorial randomized complete block design with three replications. The treatment consisted of six foliar doses viz. T1 (Tap water as control), T2 (0.10 % urea), T3 (0.25 % urea), T4 (0.40 % urea), T5 (5 ppm planofix) and T6 (10 ppm planofix) and three application frequencies viz. F1 [20 days after sowing (20 DAS)], F2 (30 DAS) and F3 (20 and 30 DAS). Maximum foliage yield (6.94 t/ha) was recorded in 10 ppm planofix coupled with it’s twice application at 20 and 30 DAS which was closely followed the foliage yield (6.33 t/ha) by 5 ppm planofix with the same application frequency. The foliage yield was increased with the increase in urea concentration. The highest foliage yield (5.37 t/ha) was also recorded from twice application of urea and planofix at 20 and 30 DAS, respectively. Planofix 10 ppm with its twice application at 20 and 30 DAS gave the highest benefit-cost of ration 2.51.