Agricultural Index Research Articles

A mixed-method (quantitative and qualitative) approach to measure women’s empowerment in agriculture: evidence from Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Pakistan

ABSTRACT There exists comprehensive literature on women’s empowerment; however, studies on the measurement of empowerment in the agricultural context are scarce, particularly in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Pakistan. In this paper, we used the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI), which includes five domains, i.e. resources, production, income, leadership, and time, to measure women’s empowerment in the agriculture sector. A survey of 600 rural women and 18 focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted by using multi-stage sampling. The results show that about 72% of the women are disempowered, and attribute to low socio-economic conditions, i.e. they have limited access to resources and little leadership skills as rural women in AJK are not free to speak in public. The results further reveal that women are also disempowered in some other indicators, such as autonomy in production, income, and leisure time. So, based on the current findings, it is proposed that government should strengthen these areas through effective policies to improve the status of women.

Hydrogeochemical Assessment of Groundwater and Suitability Analysis for Domestic and Agricultural Utility in Southern Punjab, Pakistan

Groundwater is a critical water supply for safe drinking water, agriculture, and industry worldwide. In the Khanewal district of Punjab, Pakistan, groundwater has severely deteriorated during the last few decades due to environmental changes and anthropogenic activities. Therefore, 68 groundwater samples were collected and analyzed for their main ions and trace elements to investigate the suitability of groundwater sources for drinking and agricultural purposes. Principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis (CA) were employed to determine the major factors influencing groundwater quality. To assess the groundwater’s appropriateness for drinking and irrigation, drinking and agricultural indices were used. The pH of the groundwater samples ranged from 6.9 to 9.2, indicating that the aquifers were slightly acidic to alkaline. The major cations were distributed as follows: Na+ > Ca2+ > Mg2+ > K+. Meanwhile, the anions are distributed as follows: HCO3− > SO42− > Cl− > F−. The main hydrochemical facies were identified as a mixed type; however, a mixed magnesium, calcium, and chloride pattern was observed. The reverse ion exchange process helps in exchanging Na+ with Ca2+ and Mg2+ ions in the groundwater system. Rock weathering processes, such as the dissolution of calcite, dolomite, and gypsum minerals, dominated the groundwater hydrochemistry. According to the Weight Arithmetic Water Quality Index (WAWQI), 50% of the water samples were unsafe for drinking. The Wilcox diagram, USSL diagram, and some other agricultural indices resulted in around 32% of the groundwater samples being unsuitable for irrigation purposes. The Khanewal’s groundwater quality was vulnerable due to geology and the influence of anthropogenic activities. For groundwater sustainability in Khanewal, management strategies and policies are required.

Gender relations in livestock production and animal-source food acquisition and consumption among smallholders in rural Timor-Leste: A mixed-methods exploration

Among smallholders, gender relations shape how agricultural products are produced and how foods are acquired and consumed, which impacts food security and nutrition. In Timor-Leste, most rural households own multiple livestock species, yet intake of animal-source foods (ASF) is low and malnutrition high. This study explores how gender relations inform livestock production and ASF acquisition and consumption in four Timorese villages in Baucau and Viqueque districts. We examined women's empowerment within the relational sphere of gender relations and applied a qualitative-dominant mixed-methods design. We used ownership and decision-making data from the Abbreviated Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (n = 161 women, n = 106 men) and 24-hr ASF recalls (n = 161 mother-child pairs). Findings were complemented with those from 33 semi-structured interviews, mostly with women and/or their husbands, analyzed through the Gender Relations Framework. We found that most women and men reported joint livestock ownership and joint decision-making on production and income. However, interviews revealed that for many women, joint decisions meant requiring their husband's consent, without which they would not proceed with selling livestock or purchasing ASF. Women's unequal bargaining position was influenced by social norms on the gendered division of labor, and by men's role and framing as income generators. In a setting where rice security was a priority concern, ASF were considered non-essential and unaffordable. Mixed-methods are valuable to understand the contextual significance of decision-making processes, as only through qualitative methods did the limited agency of women to exercise their voice in shaping final decisions become apparent. In their design, nutrition-sensitive programmes could include men as important actors in financial decisions that might affect dietary composition.

Shallow Groundwater Quality Assessment and Its Suitability Analysis for Drinking and Irrigation Purposes

For shallow groundwater, hydrogeochemical processes and quality assessment must be addressed because shallow groundwater is freely available in many parts of the globe. Due to recent anthropogenic activities and environmental changes in Sakrand, Sindh, Pakistan, the groundwater is extremely vulnerable. To provide safe drinking and agricultural water, hydrogeochemical analysis is required. Ninety-five groundwater samples were analyzed using agricultural and drinking indices to determine the hydrogeochemical parameters using multivariate analysis such as Pearson correlations, principal component cluster analysis, as well as Piper diagrams and Gibbs plot for drinking and agricultural indices. An abundance of ions was observed through the statistical summary; however, cations and anions were recorded in the orders Na+ > Ca2+ > Mg2+ > K+ and HCO3− > Cl− > SO42− > NO3− > F−. The hydrogeochemical process used to quantify the major reactions occurring in the groundwater system showed rock dominance; the Piper diagrams evaluated the water type. A mixed pattern of calcium, magnesium, and chloride ions (Ca2+−Mg2+−Cl− type) was observed. Additionally, the ion exchange method showed an excess of bicarbonate ions due to carbonic acid weathering. The water quality index (WQI) resulted 32.6% of groundwater being unsuitable for human consumption; however, the United States Salinity Laboratory (USSL) diagram showed 60% of samples were unsuitable for irrigation due to high salinity and the Wilcox diagram depicted 5% of samples lying in the unsuitable region. Most of the water samples were suitable for drinking; only a few samples were unsafe for drinking purposes for children due to the high hazard index.

Gender differences in time-poverty among rural householdsin Southwest Nigeria

This study seeks to assess gender inequality in and correlates of time poverty among 360 rural households in Southwest, Nigeria. A person is deemed to be time poor if (s)he works more than 10.5 hours per day, the internationally accepted threshold. Using the time allocation domain of the Abbreviated Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index, the study found that on the average, rural women and men spent about 10.3 hours and 8 hours, respectively, on work activities on a daily basis. Work activities for women were found to be diverse, spreading across reproductive and productive domains largely farming, own business e. g. trading, cooking and domestic work, while for men, work activities centred on productive economic activities, dominated by farming. Using a Probit regression model, the study found experience in agriculture and adoption of television to reduce the likelihood of time poverty among rural men. Surprisingly, participation in empowerment projects was found to increase the likelihood of time poverty among rural women. In conclusion, empowerment programmes should be expanded to address the non-material aspects of human well-being. Hence, the study recommends a gender-sensitive approach to intervention programmes in agriculture and adoption of a broader definition of empowerment which not only focus on expanding access to markets and increasing income but enhances control over time. This is more important for women who are already under the double burden of paid and unpaid domestic work.

Usage of The Field Index in Machine Translation

The current article discusses the main problems of human and machine translations, as well as introduces a new lexical description in machine translation for faster and more accurate translation. The new method uses so-called field indicators or the Field Indices to facilitate the MT search engine for words by marking these words with special components creating a semantic field, and allowing the MT devices to search for the word according to its usage in the text. The Field Index system covers the semantic description of the following main spheres: scientific field, public or social field and humanitarian field. These three spheres contain subfields that usually mingle with the parent index through a dash, with the parent index being with the first one. The scientific field includes such aspects as geography, mathematics, chemistry, physics, economy, medicine, etc., with related subfields like diseases and biological terms (for medicine), names of drugs (as a separate filed), finance and accounting (as part of economy), etc. Applied Sciences Index contains miscellaneous words used by other subfields of the same scientific sphere: e.g., computer, telephone, function and many others, and plays a crucial part in distinguishing polysemantic words such as mouse (hardware), root (in mathematics), etc. The public or social field contains subfields that narrow the meaning of words to a specific one and includes aspects as art, agriculture, law, education, religion, housing utilities, time, transportation, people, etc.i+iT Ss the widest semantic field containing a lot of subfields specifying words that belong to such groups as colours, architecture, games, music, sport, etc. (for art index), clothing, beverages, food and production (for agriculture index). Notions of time, people, professions and terms for religion and items used in household are present in this group due to its wide usage within the society. The humanitarian sphere deals mostly with terms used in languages, literature, manuscripts and libraries. These subfields help identify polysemantic words between nations and languages, book titles and ordinary words and phrases, and literary styles (documentaries, fairy tales, dramas, etc.). In turn, these can be further defined as prose or a poem. All formulae proposed in the project consider the presence of the Field Indices and its position at the end of the description of the word. Depending on the target language, the translated version should be identical with the source following this very principle.

Evaluating the quality of remote sensing products for agricultural index insurance.

Agricultural index insurance contracts increasingly use remote sensing data to estimate losses and determine indemnity payouts. Index insurance contracts inevitably make errors, failing to detect losses that occur and issuing payments when no losses occur. The quality of these contracts and the indices on which they are based, need to be evaluated to assess their fitness as insurance, and to provide a guide to choosing the index that best protects the insured. In the remote sensing literature, indices are often evaluated with generic model evaluation statistics such as R2 or Root Mean Square Error that do not directly consider the effect of errors on the quality of the insurance contract. Economic analysis suggests using measures that capture the impact of insurance on the expected economic well-being of the insured. To bridge the gap between the remote sensing and economic perspectives, we adopt a standard economic measure of expected well-being and transform it into a Relative Insurance Benefit (RIB) metric. RIB expresses the welfare benefits derived from an index insurance contract relative to a hypothetical contract that perfectly measures losses. RIB takes on its maximal value of one when the index contract offers the same economic benefits as the perfect contract. When it achieves none of the benefits of insurance it takes on a value of zero, and becomes negative if the contract leaves the insured worse off than having no insurance. Part of our contribution is to decompose this economic well-being measure into an asymmetric loss function. We also argue that the expected well-being measure we use has advantages over other economic measures for the normative purpose of insurance quality ascertainment. Finally, we illustrate the use of the RIB measure with a case study of potential livestock insurance contracts in Northern Kenya. We compared 24 indices that were made with 4 different statistical models and 3 remote sensing data sources. RIB for these indices ranged from 0.09 to 0.5, and R2 ranged from 0.2 to 0.51. While RIB and R2 were correlated, the model with the highest RIB did not have the highest R2. Our findings suggest that, when designing and evaluating an index insurance program, it is useful to separately consider the quality of a remote sensing-based index with a metric like the RIB instead of a generic goodness-of-fit metric.

The power of the collective empowers women: Evidence from self-help groups in India.

Women's groups are important rural social and financial institutions in South Asia. In India, a large majority of women's groups programs are implemented through self-help groups (SHGs). Originally designed as savings and credit groups, the role of SHGs has expanded to include creating health and nutrition awareness, improving governance, and addressing social issues related to gender- and caste-based discrimination. This paper uses panel data from 1470 rural Indian women from five states to study the impact of SHG membership on women's empowerment in agriculture, using the project-level Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI) and the abbreviated Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (A-WEAI). Because SHG membership was not randomized and women who self-select to be SHG members may be systematically different from non-members, we employ nearest neighbor matching methods to attribute the impact of SHG membership on women's empowerment in agriculture and intrahousehold inequality. Our findings suggest that SHG membership has a significant positive impact on aggregate measures of women's empowerment and reduces the gap between men's and women's empowerment scores. This improvement in aggregate empowerment is driven by improvements in women's scores, not a deterioration in men's. Greater control over income, greater decisionmaking over credit, and (somewhat mechanistically, given the treatment) greater and more active involvement in groups within the community lead to improvements in women's scores. However, impacts on other areas of empowerment are limited. The insignificant impacts on attitudes towards domestic violence and respect within the household suggest that women's groups alone may be insufficient to change deep-seated gender norms that disempower women. Our results have implications for the design and scale-up of women's group-based programs in South Asia, including the possibility that involving men is needed to change gender norms.

Designing for empowerment impact in agricultural development projects: Experimental evidence from the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages (ANGeL) project in Bangladesh.

The importance of women's roles for nutrition-sensitive agricultural projects is increasingly recognized, yet little is known about whether such projects improve women's empowerment and gender equality. We study the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages (ANGeL) pilot project, which was implemented as a cluster-randomized controlled trial by the Government of Bangladesh. The project's treatment arms included agricultural training, nutrition behavior change communication (BCC), and gender sensitization trainings delivered to husbands and wives together - with these components combined additively, such that the impact of gender sensitization could be distinguished from that of agriculture and nutrition trainings. Empowerment was measured using the internationally-validated project-level Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI), and attitudes regarding gender roles were elicited from both men and women, to explore potentially gender-transformative impacts. Our study finds that ANGeL increased both women's and men's empowerment, raised the prevalence of households achieving gender parity, and led to small improvements in the gender attitudes of both women and men. We find significant increases in women's empowerment scores and empowerment status from all treatment arms but with no significant differences across these. We find no evidence of unintended impacts on workloads and inconclusive evidence around impacts on intimate partner violence. Our results also suggest some potential benefits of bundling nutrition and gender components with an agricultural development intervention; however, many of these benefits seem to be driven by bundling nutrition with agriculture. While we cannot assess the extent to which including men and women within the same treatment arms contributed to our results, it is plausible that the positive impacts of all treatment arms on women's empowerment outcomes may have arisen from implementation modalities that provided information to both husbands and wives when they were together. The role of engaging men and women jointly in interventions is a promising area for future research.

Agricultural land use planning and land protection in the municipalities of Moscow region in conditions of urbanization

The article describes consequences of transformation of municipal regions into urban districts and provides characteristics of municipalities and dynamics of areas of agricultural lands and indices of their use in Moscow region. Based on the urban district of Solnechnogorsk, the main issues of land use planning scheme developed for a municipality are discussed in this paper.

Vegetable Growers and Women Empowerment: Their Effect in Poverty Reduction in Region Korhogo (Côte d’Ivoire)

In Côte d’Ivoire, women occupy an important place in the agricultural sector, which is the basis of the country’s economy. There is unanimous agreement on the essential role that these women must play through their empowerment for the country’s development. Therefore, we must find appropriate solutions to the problem of women’s empowerment in order to enable them to participate vigorously in the country’s development. This study aims to address the problems of women’s empowerment in agriculture by highlighting the potential opportunity that the practice of market gardening represents for women’s empowerment. Based on a qualitative approach using ENV (2019) data, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) shows that women producer of market garden produce are as self-reliant as their counterparts in other agricultural sub-sectors. In the same logic, the WEAI shows us that the practice of this crop has a positive effect on women’s empowerment. By using these four (4) methods of effect determination, namely the Nearest Neighbour Method, Radius Method, Stratification Method and Kernel Method, the following values were obtained: 0.007; 0.039; 0.017; 0.027, which are all positive. The objective of the study is to determine the impact of market gardening on the empowerment of the women who practice it.

Feminization of African Agriculture and the Meaning of Decision-Making for Empowerment and Sustainability

The purpose of this study was to assess women’s decision-making power in small-scale agriculture in six African countries in view of the feminization of agriculture and to discuss the meaning of decision-making in relation to women’s empowerment and sustainability. The data are drawn from a multisite and mixed-method agricultural research and development project in six sub-Saharan countries including two sites in each country. The five domains of empowerment outlined in the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index are used to structure the analysis. The results indicate that in the selected sites in Malawi, Rwanda and South Africa, women farmers tend to dominate agricultural decision-making, while the result is more mixed in the Kenyan sites, and decision-making tends to be dominated by men in the sites in Tanzania and Ethiopia. Despite women participating in agricultural decision-making, the qualitative results show that women small-scale farmers were not perceived to be empowered in any of the country sites. It appears that the feminization of agriculture leads to women playing a more important role in decision-making but also to more responsibilities and heavier workloads without necessarily resulting in improvements in well-being outcomes that would enhance sustainability.

Mapping weather risk – A multi-indicator analysis of satellite-based weather data for agricultural index insurance development in semi-arid and arid zones of Central Asia

Index insurance has been introduced as a solution to tackle several challenges that prevail in the agricultural insurance sector of developing countries. One of the main implementation challenges in these countries is the lack of reliable weather data for index development and implementation. The increasing availability of satellite data could ease the constraints of data access. Meanwhile, the suitability of various satellite products for yield estimation across world regions has to undergo a thorough assessment. This study contributes to the literature by systematically analyzing the accuracy of some globally available satellite data, namely the Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation (GSMaP), Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station (CHIRPS), and the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) compared to ground-level weather information for 14 different indicators for the case of Uzbekistan. Our analysis indicates that those sources may provide the necessary data for an accessible and adequate climate service. However, a considerable risk of overestimation and underestimation depending on the source of satellite data may exist, especially for precipitation data in the conditions of Central Asia. Among the tested datasets, GSMaP showed a relatively better performance than CHIRPS in precipitation estimation for drought and flood detection. In order to reduce detection inaccuracy, the application of satellite weather products for index insurance is possible when temporal aggregation (e.g., monthly, seasonal) is considered. Globally available climate data could serve as a good source to establish index insurance products in Central Asia; however, a careful selection of source and index is required.

Evaluating Women’s Empowerment in Rural Cameroon through the Abbreviated – Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index

Amartya Sen a Nobel laureate stressed the fact that empowering women and girls with more choices and more freedom is crucial to achieving a better future for all. This study evaluates the level of women’s empowerment in agriculture by assessing the empowerment gaps between male and female decision makers; and by comparing the level of women’s empowerment in agriculture across household types. Empowerment is assessed through the Five Domains of Empowerment (5DE) of the Abbreviated Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (A-WEAI). Using data collected from 600 rural households in the West region of Cameroon, the outcomes from the 5DE show that empowerment gaps between men and women exist in all domains of empowerment. The empowerment gaps between men and women are more severe in the resource and income domains. Also, group membership, excessive workload and access to and decision about credit contribute the most to disempowerment for both men and women. The study shows more women in dual headed household (DHHs) achieve adequacy in terms of input in productive decisions, access to and decision about credit, group membership and workload as compared to other household types. Also, women’s empowerment in the production, resource and income domains depend on the household type. The results of the study highlight the need for the creation of governmental and non-governmental organisations that will promote women’s empowerment in agriculture and other aspects life.

Chaotic Dynamics Analysis Based on Financial Time Series

It is a common phenomenon in the field of financial research to study the dynamic of financial market and explore the complexity of financial system by using various complex scientific methods. In this paper, the chaotic dynamic properties of financial time series are analyzed. Firstly, the nonlinear characteristics of the data are discussed through the empirical analysis of agriculture index data; the daily agriculture index returns can be decomposed into the different scales based on wavelet analysis. Secondly, the dynamic system of some nonlinear characteristic data is established according to the Taylor series expansion form, and the corresponding dynamic characteristics are analyzed. Finally, the bifurcation diagram of the system shows complicated bifurcation phenomena, which provides a perspective for the analysis of chaotic phenomena of economic data.

USING UAVs/DRONES AND VEGETATION INDICES IN THE VISIBLE SPECTRUM TO MONITORING AGRICULTURAL LANDS

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles UAVs or Drones have made great progress in the field of aerial surveys to study vegetation and farmland. The research focuses on developing smart systems for managing agricultural fields, thus facilitating decision-making, increasing agricultural productivity, improving profitability and protecting the environment. The paper highlights the ability of drones to distinguish agricultural land intended for cultivation and classified as deserted or cultivated or in the germination stage. For the first time in the Nineveh governorate, a Phantom 4 DJI UAV images were used, in addition to using the spatialized Pix4Dfielde program to process these images. Four types of the standard agricultural indices that rely on the visible spectrum have been used (Visible Atmospherically Resistant Index (VARI), Triangular Greenness Index (TGI), Synthetic Normalized Differences Vegetation Index (S-NDVI) and Visible Difference Vegetation Index (VDVI)) to test UAVs images and to categorize different types of agricultural land. The results showed that when using the S-NDVI and VDVI indicators, the values 0.16 and 0.14 appeared respectively in certain areas, which indicates the presence and integrity of vegetation cover, unlike other regions, whose indicators showed 0.010 and -0.004, respectively, which indicate that the plant has a bad condition or its absence at all. All results finding in this research reflect and confirm the validity of using UAVs images for agricultural field management and development.

Understanding female and male empowerment in Burkina Faso using the project-level Women\u2019s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI): a longitudinal study

BackgroundAchieving gender equality and women’s empowerment is a major global priority. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the Building the Resilience of Vulnerable Communities in Burkina Faso (BRB) project, an agricultural development program, improved women’s empowerment, as measured by the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI).MethodsThis study used a longitudinal, quasi-experimental study design. Participants included both treatment and comparison groups (total N = 751) comprising female members of savings groups and their husbands or main male household member in Burkina Faso. All participants completed the pro-WEAI questionnaire at both baseline and endline. The treatment group received a comprehensive intervention package consisting of agriculture loans and services, microenterprise loans, and education, nutrition education, and women’s empowerment programs including gender-based discussions designed to facilitate personalized changes in gender relations.ResultsThe proportion of the treatment group achieving empowerment did not change from baseline for women, but improved substantially for men. Women from the comparison group saw an increase in empowerment at endline while men saw a substantial decrease. Gender parity was high for women in both groups at baseline and increased slightly at endline. Women were more likely to have adequate empowerment in input in productive decisions, group membership, and membership in influential groups than men while men were more likely to have adequate empowerment in attitudes about domestic violence, control over use of income, and work balance than women. Participants from the treatment group reported an increase in the average number of empowerment indicators that they were adequate in while the comparison group saw a decrease in average adequacy over time (p = 0.002) after controlling for age, sex, and level of education.ConclusionDespite starting at an empowerment disadvantage, the treatment group experienced gains in individual indicators of empowerment while the comparison group men and women experienced mixed results, with the women gaining, and the men losing empowerment. This research suggests that the BRB intervention may have provided some protection for the treatment group when they faced an economic down-turn prior to the endline, indicative of household resilience. Future research should consider and strengthen relationships between resilience and empowerment.

Assessing the impact of a combined nutrition counselling and cash transfer intervention on women’s empowerment in rural Bangladesh: a randomised control trial protocol

IntroductionThere is growing interest in assessing the impact of health interventions, particularly when women are the focus of the intervention, on women’s empowerment. Globally, research has shown that interventions targeting...

Women’s Empowerment in Africa: Critical Reflections on the Abbreviated Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (A-WEAI)

Women’s Empowerment in Africa: Critical Reflections on the Abbreviated Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (A-WEAI)

Measuring women's empowerment in agriculture, food production, and child and maternal dietary diversity in Timor-Leste

Women’s empowerment is essential to improve nutrition in low and middle-income countries. We investigated the empowerment of women in agriculture in association with household production and the dietary diversity of children 12–59 months old and their mothers in Timor-Leste. Using the Abbreviated Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (A-WEAI) we analyzed 156 dual-adult rural households applying multivariable regression models. We found that the dietary diversity scores of empowered women and their children were higher than among those disempowered. The associations between different measures of empowerment and dietary diversity were larger and more significant among women than children. Food production diversity was consistently associated with children’s improved diets. We found small gender gaps in decisions on production, access to resources, and control over income, similar to findings in other Southeast Asian countries. Nutrition-sensitive policies and programmes in Timor-Leste could gain from prioritizing women’s empowerment and promoting agriculture diversification strategies as valuable investments to improve the diets and wellbeing of mothers and children.