Asian Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development

Affordances in crop diversification: Three cases from the Philippines

Teresa Joi P. de Leon — 2024-05-27

This paper investigated the viability of crop diversification as an alternative production system for Filipino rice farmers in light of the Rice Tariffication Law. Qualitative research methods were employed, including focus group discussions, key informant interviews, in-depth interviews, and wind-screen survey. The transcript analysis employed both inductive and deductive approaches, supplemented by auditability measures such as coding guides and informal member-checking. Using the Affordances Theory with additional insights from the Capabilities Theory and Intuitive Decision-Making Theory, the findings show that rice farmers in Nueva Ecija, Ilocos Norte, and Tarlac shared one cognitive process and one set of variables in deciding on diversifying crops. This is despite the provincial differences in farming contexts. Affordances and anti-affordances in crop diversification are dependent on farmers’ visual and tracking experiences, which guide them in their evaluation of crop diversification as a pro-welfare farming practice. They evaluate the suitability of crop diversification for their sociocultural, economic, and farming contexts, but then shift to intuitive decision-making for their ultimate decision. Risks that are mostly external to farmer control, such as sufficiency of irrigation, financial capital, weather, and climate, make them conclude in a posture of luck after a detailed evaluation process on the practice of crop diversification. This study provides insights into using crop diversification as an alternative production system for rice farmers.

Determinants of South Africa’s agri-food export performance: Gravity model approach

Mokgoshi John Mamashila — 2024-06-28

The central aim of this study was to investigate the determinants of South Africa's export growth and the challenges associated with agri-food products. To satisfactorily achieve this central aim, two specific objectives were set and addressed differently in this research work. Porter’s Diamond framework was followed to identify factors that influence the export performance of South Africa’s agri-food products, thereby identifying major challenges and opportunities for sustained growth, and the gravity model was applied to examine the main factors influencing South Africa’s agri-food exports to its major trading partners in Africa for the period 1996–2017. The study analyzed and interpreted the results using both primary and secondary data. The study aimed to pinpoint the elements that impact the export performance of South Africa's agri-food products, thereby pinpointing significant obstacles and prospects for long-term expansion. We collected primary data using a structured questionnaire, randomly selecting and interviewing 117 out of 137 respondents. The findings revealed that a scarcity of skilled labor, the expense of skilled labor, the availability of electricity, the cost of raw materials, the cost of advanced technology, transportation expenses, scientific research institutions, pricing, tariffs, language barriers, and crime are the primary barriers to the exportation of agri-food by South African firms. The researcher used 28 countries as export markets to examine factors influencing South Africa's agri-food exports, and the results showed that the size of the economy, geographical proximity, and currency devaluation had a huge effect on exports of agri-food products.

Marketing channel choice and its determinants among small-scale oil palm fruit farmers in Akwa Ibom State, the southern region of Nigeria

Glory Emmanul Edet — 2024-06-28

The study identified preferred marketing channel choices and determinants among oil palm fruit farmers in the southern region of Nigeria. Three hundred oil palm fruit farmers were randomly selected using the multi-stage random sampling technique. Descriptive statistics and logit regression techniques were employed to analyze the collected data. The socio-economic characteristics revealed that female farmers dominated oil palm fruit production in the region. The majority of the farmers were relatively young, literate, and had moderate household sizes but poor social capital accumulation. The study determined that the major marketing channels preferred by oil palm fruit farmers in the region were middlemen/agent marketing and direct sales in local markets. The empirical result identified oil palm fruit farmers’ education, experience, socialization, dependent ratio, non-farm income, farm income, land size, and access to credit as significant positive determinants of the choice of middlemen/agent marketing channel. Conversely, the researchers identified household size as a significant negative determinant. Moreover, marital status and household size significantly and positively influenced the choice of direct sales in the local market. On the contrary, the oil palm fruit farmers’ education, experience, non-farm income, farm income, farmers’ age, distance to the market, hectare of land, and access to farm credit have a significant negative relationship with the choice of direct sales in the local market. For a better and more efficient choice of marketing channel, oil palm farmers should improve their literacy level and build up social capital.

The impact of feeding date palm by products on the reproduction of Awassi ewe in the Qatari environment

Muzzamil Atta — 2024-06-28

The study aimed to examine the effect of feeding date palm with a product-based ration on the productivity of Awassi ewes raised intensively in the Qatari environment. The two matching total mixed rations consisted primarily of Rhodes and barely grains (CD), discarded dates, and crushed fronds (NCD). Forty-four Awassi ewes were divided into two matching groups. The groups were allocated randomly to the dietary treatments in a randomized block design experiment of 2 rams (mature fertile male sheep). Dates of service and lambing, ewes’ weights at conception and lambing, and lambs’ weights at birth and weaning (at 90 days of age) were registered. The type of diet had no effect on percentages of conceived and lambed ewes: gestation (150 ± 3.4 days), lambing interval periods (326 ± 17.4 days), litter size (117 ± 37.9 lambs/100 ewes), litter birth weight (3.9 ± 1.07 kg/lambing ewe), litter weaning weight (20.4 ± 5.83 kg/lambing ewe), weight of weaned lambs/ewe/year, weight of weaned lambs/kg of ewe weight/year, and weight of weaned lambs/kg^0.75 of ewe weight/year. The NCD group had higher feed intakes (dry matter, DM, metabolizable energy, ME, and crude protein, CP) than the CD group. However, in terms of cost, NCD had a low cost of daily feed intake (1.88 vs. 2.42 riyals/ewe/day) and a cost of one kilogram of weaned lambs/ewe/year (30.8 vs. 43.2 riyals). It was concluded that feed based on date palm byproducts provided a performance not different from conventional feed but at a low feed cost.