Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (SANREM) Knowledgebase
Permanent URI for this collection
The Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (SANREM) Knowledgebase is a collection of information resources (books, reports, journal articles, videos, movies, presentations) produced or identified, classified, and summarized by SANREM researchers. This collection provides direct access or links to resources relevant to sustainable agriculture and natural resource management. - http://www.oired.vt.edu/sanremcrsp/professionals/knowledgebase/
Contact Information:
Feed the Future SANREM Innovation Lab
Office of International Research, Education, and Development (OIRED)
526 Prices Fork Road
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0378
E-mail: sanrem@vt.edu
Telephone: +1 (540) 231-1230
Fax: +1 (540) 231-140
Contact Information:
Feed the Future SANREM Innovation Lab
Office of International Research, Education, and Development (OIRED)
526 Prices Fork Road
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0378
E-mail: sanrem@vt.edu
Telephone: +1 (540) 231-1230
Fax: +1 (540) 231-140
Browse
Browsing Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (SANREM) Knowledgebase by Content Type "Dissertation"
Now showing 1 - 12 of 12
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- Assessing the barriers to adoption of conservation agriculture practices among Chepang communities in the central mid-hills of NepalChan Halbrendt, Jacqueline Marie (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2014)Growing global populations and shifting climates have led to increasing demands on agricultural
- Can forest sector devolution improve rural livelihoods? An analysis of forest income and institutions in western UgandaJagger, Pamela (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University, 2009)Forest sector devolution is widely promoted throughout the low income tropics as a
- Cattle and manure management strategies to increase soil fertility in Western NigerGnoumou, B. (Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2001)In western Niger soil fertility depletion threatens food production. Cattlemanagement and manure are used to maintain soil fertility. However, cattle population and insufficient feed limit the use of manure for improving soil fertility. The purpose of this research was to assess farmers perceptions of soil fertility, particularly the role of cattle, the contribution of communal action to soil fertility improvement, and to examine the ability of phosphorus (P) supplementation to cattle to increase P levels in Djerma and Fulani farm fields.
- Consuming the savings: Water conservation in a vegetation barrier system at the Central Plateau in Burkina FasoSpaan, W. (Netherlands, Wageningen: Wageningen University and Research Centre, 2003)The vast majority of land users at the Central Plateau of Burkina Faso make a living by farming small plots, where mainly staple crops are produced for subsistence use. Both area interventions and line interventions comprising indigenous techniques as well as introduced techniques can be encountered at the Central Plateau and have proved to be effective. There is a preference for semipermeable line measures that slow down runoff and prevent water logging in wet periods.
- Effets de pratiques de gestion de la fertilité sur le sol et sur le rendement du mil en zone semi-aride en 5ème región au MaliTraoré, Boureima (Republique du Mali: Université de Bamako, Faculté des Sciences et Techniques, 2009)Millet is one of the main agricultural crops of the Region of Mopti, Mali. Rainfall and poor soil fertility are the main factors impacting millet yields. The present study is a contribution to the restoration of soil fertility and increasing millet yields in the region. Two types of activities were carried out: one a survey and the second an introduction of technical itineraries for soil fertilization in a rural environment. The different results of the tests of soil fertility management technical routes in farms showed that a system of mixed production, associating agriculture and animal husbandry and using Natural Phosphates can constitute a sustainable alternative to the continuous cultivation of cereals leading to a loss of soils fertility.
- Endophytic Bacillus Spp. of Theobroma cacao: Ecology and potential for biological control of cacao diseasesMelnick, Rachel L. (2010)In South America, there are three key diseases that affect the yield of Theobroma cacao: black pod, caused by Phytophthora spp.; frosty pod, caused by Moniliophthora roreri; and witches' broom, caused by Moniliophthora perniciosa. Although chemical control options exist, farmers typically only use cultural disease management such as phytosanitary pruning. Agrochemical use can be problematic in the developing countries where cacao is grown due to large risks to human health and the environment. As a result, there has been increased interest in the use of biological control for management of cacao diseases due to problems associated with pesticide use as well as consumer desire for organic chocolate. Fungal species have been the main focus for research on biological control of cacao diseases, while cacao-associated bacteria have been nearly ignored. The research in this dissertation focuses on obtaining and screening endospore-forming cacao bacterial endophytes for their ability to suppress diseases. In addition to research on suppression of witches' broom, four bacterial isolates were tested for their ability to suppress cacao pod disease and cherelle wilt in two cacao genotypes. None of the four tested isolates reduced diseases on cacao pods, but application of B. pumilus ET increased the overall number of healthy pods in the first two months of the four month experiment. These successful field results indicate the positive potential for the use of native endophytic bacteria to manage cacao diseases. In conclusion, the results reported here indicate that B. pumilus ET would likely make an excellent biological control agent, due to its multiple modes of action and ability to be combined with endophytic Trichoderma spp.
- Intercropping timber with food crops: A bioeconomic assessment of smallholder management options in the Philippine uplandsNissen, Todd M. (Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia, 1998)As the area under vegetable cultivation on the steep slopes of Mt. Kitanglad in the Philippines increases, so does concern about the future economic and ecological health of the farms and watershed. But vegetable farming, because of its intense management demands and returns to land, also provides farmers with distinct opportunities for moving towards profitable and lower-risk perennial-based systems. Experiments were conducted on farms to evaluate under what conditions timber farming would be attractive to small farmers, and the tradeoffs associated with different management decisions, including intercropping, species selection, planting density and geometry, and branch pruning. Tree seedlings of Paraserianthes falcataria, Eucalyptus deglupta, and E. torelliana were planted in 1995. Intercrops included cabbage, Chinese cabbage, cauliflower, beans, and maize. Intercrop yields and tree growth were measured over two years. A relationship between stand basal area and intercrop-yield reduction was found, which may be used to evaluate the relative competitiveness of different tree species. The stand basal area relationship and published tree-yield equations were used to estimate total returns through the length of model rotations. Because the value of crops remains much greater than the value of timber where fertility is good, intercropping gave higher returns to land only on parcels that were to be fallowed for a minimum three years or had very low productivity. Timber intercropping, however, had higher returns to labor than sole cropping. Under all conditions, timber intercropping was preferable to sole-cropping of trees because the costs of site establishment, fertilization, and weeding could be charged to the intercrop. Optimal returns to intercropping generally occurred at tree densities between 100-400 trees ha-1 . Low densities allow intercropping to continue long enough to confer adequate benefits to the trees while minimizing both inter- and intra-species competition. Low tree densities may eventually fully stock the site without having to thin, further improving the returns to labor. More research is needed to quantify the value of non-merchantable timber products, soil fertility effects of short-rotation timber, and the marginal gains to extended periods of intercropping.
- The role of social capital in the adoption and the performance of conservation agriculture: The practice of Likoti in LesothoSilici, L. (Rome, Italy: FAO, 2009)The citizens of Lesotho rely on a complex web of livelihood strategies made primarily of family kinships and strong community networks. Recently, community breakdowns have occurred because of extensive land degradation, soil erosion, widespread poverty, and HIV/AIDs. This thesis focuses on two aspects which are likely to help decrease the problems earlier stated. These aspects are to use conservation agriculture as an innovative set of sustainable agricultural practices and the appropriate inclusion of social capital aspects in development strategies which focus on innovation generation and diffusion.
- A soft systems approach to implicit water resources conflicts in a Philippine watershed: Stakeholder analysis and development of a group decision support system for land use optimizationBoerboom, L. (1999)Water resources conflicts are often implicit due to distance between stakeholders and the distributed nature of decision making. Physical distance and time separate downstream effects from upstream human activity. In addition, farmers and other interest groups manage upstream lands with different strategies. System state requirements of complex water systems, driven by purposeful activity, are difficult to define in advance and variable over time. Stakeholders constantly learn to adopt to a changing environment. Soft systems analysis, emphasizing learning inhuman related systems, provided a framework to analyze stakeholders and define design criteria for a group decision support system for land use optimization.
- Soil development and productivity and erosion management of steepland volcanic-ash derived soils for sustainable vegetable production in Mindanao, The PhilippinesPoudel, Durga D. (Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia, 1998)Highland vegetable systems in the Manupali watershed, Mindanao, the Philippines are important to supplement the demand for fresh vegetables in lowland cities, but the sustainability of these systems is constrained by declining soil productivity. A farm survey, soil characterizations, field experiments, and erosion modeling were undertaken to characterize vegetable production systems and soils; to test erosion control measures; and to evaluate impact of crop rotation on soil erosion. Two vegetable systems were identified: the Higher External Nutrient and the Lower External Nutrient systems. The former system existed at relatively higher elevations and showed negative profit. Despite a gradient in the degree of soil development across the four geomorphic units, soils were surprisingly uniform in their morphological and physical properties. However, they differed in fertility characteristics. Upper layers of mountain pedons showed 1.7 to 2% oxalate extractable Al, 1.4 to 2.7% oxalate extractable Fe, > 90% P retention, 10.7 to 11.5 pH in NaF, and practice of up-and-down planting showed the highest annual soil loss of 65.3 t ha-1 compared to 37.8, 43.7, and 45.4 t ha-1 for contouring, strip cropping and high-value contour hedgerows, respectively. Phosphorus had the highest average enrichment ratio of 4.7. Soil qualities differed between the slope positions of 19 m long erosion-runoff plots. Crop yields downslope were about 50% greater than those upslope. Tomato-cabbage-tomato cropping sequence showed 70 t ha-1 greater simulated annual soil loss than cabbage-tomato-cabbage. High-value contour hedgerows, multiple cropping that includes corn or cabbage rather than tomato at the most erosive period of the year, and appropriate soil fertility improvement measures are suggested to improve the sustainability of these systems.
- Three essays on productivity and risk, marketing decisions, and changes in well-being over timeLarochelle, Catherine (Virginia Tech, 2011-11-18)This dissertation is composed of three essays; the first two examine the decisionmaking of potato producing households in Bolivia and the third examines well-being changes among Zimbabwe households. The first essay entitled “The role of risk mitigation in production efficiency: A case study of potato cultivation in the Bolivian Andes” estimates the costs of self-managing environmental risk through activity and environmental diversification. Risk management has the potential to reduce income variability but at the cost of increasing production inefficiency, which we measure employing a stochastic production frontier. Among variables capturing environmental diversification, discontinuity between fields has the most detrimental effect on production efficiency. Activity diversification, measured by the ratio of potato to total crop revenue, has a stronger impact on inefficiency and yield losses than any of the environmental diversification variables. The second essay entitled “Determinants of market participation decisions and marketing choices in Bolivia” examines three decisions related to potato market participation: market entry, volume sold, and market choice. The first two are analyzed using a Heckman selection model. Results indicate that isolation, measured by population density and distance to markets, negatively impacts market entry. The most important determinant of quantity sold is land holding. Market choices are judged according to second-order stochastic dominance (SOSD). Market choices meeting the SOSD criterion are referred to as optimal marketing strategies as they have the higher expected payoff for a minimal income variance. Results suggest that the probability of selecting an optimal marketing strategy increases with quantity sold, access to market information, and access to liquidity while it decreases with distance to markets. The third essay entitled “A profile of changes in well-being in Zimbabwe, 2001- 2007/8, using an asset index methodology” shows that it is possible to examine intertemporal and spatial changes in well-being in the absence of consumption expenditures data by using an asset index. The asset index was constructed using Polychoric Principal Component Analysis. Results indicate that poverty and extremely poverty grew significantly in rural Zimbabwe while in urban areas, poverty diminished and extreme poverty grew.
- Women and pesticide management in the Philippines: An assessment of roles and knowledgeTanzo, I. R. (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University department of Rural Sociology, 2005)The research reported in this paper primarily focuses on women in pesticide management for rice and vegetables. The knowledge level of women is explored along with the issues facing women in pesticide management. The information collected for this paper was taken through an interview based process from a large group of farm women. Focus groups were formed which allowed for discussions between farm women leaders about how to present qualitative data. Different types of analysis processes were used to conclude the work being done by women.