Agricultural Projects Research Articles

RESOURCE CAPACITY PLANNING AND CLIMATE SMART AGRICULTURE IN LAIKIPIA COUNTY, KENYA

Objective: The purpose of this study was to establish the extent to which capacity planning influences the performance of climate-smart agriculture projects in Laikipia County. Theoretical Framework: The study was anchored on the theory of change whose pillars are planning, participation, and evaluation. These factors are critical in capacity planning of scarce resources and evaluating the effectiveness of the process. Method: A concurrent mixed method approach that adopted the descriptive cross-sectional survey and correlational design was employed to study two World Bank-sponsored Kenya Climate Smart Agriculture projects. Stratified and Simple random sampling were employed to get a sample of 225 small-scale farmers and purposeful sampling identified four key informants. Data was collected using questionnaires and interview guide and analyzed using descriptive, inferential, and content data analysis techniques. Results and Discussion: The respondent’s opinion on capacity planning had a composite mean and standard deviation of 2.88 and 1.219 respectively. Capacity planning and the performance of climate-smart agriculture projects had a strong correlation coefficient of r=0.644 and p-value p=0.000<0.05. Therefore, resource capacity planning is fundamental in enhancing climate-smart projects, through proactive decisions, risk management, and cost reduction. Research Implications: Consequently, it is imperative to have policies that prioritize and promote capacity planning of the scarce public and private goods to enhance their allocation. Originality/Value: This study contributes to the literature by providing reliable and triangulated empirical data through authentic methodology enhancing suitability for data generalisability and replicability. The relevance and value of this research was evidenced by the need to promote food security in pursuance of the achievement of sustainable development goals.

Leveraging atmospheric moisture recycling in Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries for irrigation and afforestation planning

Effective irrigation planning is crucial for sustainable agricultural development and ecosystem restoration projects in arid regions. With respect to ambitious greening initiatives, Saudi Arabia is establishing a national strategy toward a more sustainable and eco-friendly future not only for itself but also for the broader Middle East region. Thus, comprehensively understanding the water cycle in the region is essential to identify the most suitable target locations for afforestation and reforestation while considering the potential role of irrigation. Herein, in addition to traditional pedoclimatic factors, we introduce a complementary consideration—“irrigation recycling.” Building on the well-established concept of atmospheric moisture recycling and taking advantage from an atmospheric trajectory dataset, we track the path of evaporated water from current or potential irrigated sites to the location where the evaporated water eventually falls as precipitation. Our analysis offers two key benefits. First, it helps pinpoint the regions in which and the periods during which water recycling is maximum within the country, aiding more precise calculations of the investment return value for irrigation infrastructures. Second, it helps identify the land-use change patterns that contribute to international efforts such as drought mitigation in East Africa as an example. We found that one-third of the actual precipitation in the current Saudi irrigated sites originated from evapotranspiration over land, mainly from Saudi Arabia and surrounding countries. Interestingly, most of the evapotranspiration from these irrigated sites will eventually fall somewhere over land (primarily in Iran). Controlling the seasonality and spatial distribution of the future irrigation expansion will allow controlling the atmospheric moisture recirculation in Saudi Arabia and nearby drought-prone regions such as Eastern Africa. The outcomes of this study will be the subject of future integrated assessments to account for the climatic feedbacks of the land-use change scenarios. At present, they provide crucial insights to support the decision-making process surrounding the Saudi and Middle East Green Initiatives. Further, the presented methodology offers a pragmatic framework that can be applied to similar greening projects for other regions, making it a viable and valuable approach for global sustainability programs.

Cultivating Sustainable Futures: Community-Led Farming Initiatives in Malaysia by APPGM-SDG

Malaysia grapples with pressing food security challenges, marked by uneven resource access, fluctuating agricultural yields, and vulnerability to external factors. Recognizing the urgency of these issues, APPGM-SDG has directed its efforts towards fostering both food security and food safety. With 198 ongoing projects this year and 53 successfully completed projects in the previous year, this journal article explores APPGM-SDG’s initiatives in localizing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Malaysia, with a specific focus on community farming projects. The article aims to offer a holistic overview of these projects, delving into their multifaceted impacts and thoroughly examining their farming practices, socio-economic and community dimensions. The methodology involves the promotion of the food security initiative through grant allocation and selection processes for identifying and supporting solution providers. Additionally, insights from the database of the 198 ongoing projects, coupled with two case studies from completed projects, highlight the scale and reach of APPGM-SDG’s endeavors, providing both quantitative and qualitative insights into the tangible outcomes and positive impacts realized within the grassroots communities.

Alleviating Poverty Through One House One Farm Project in Bangladesh

Poverty is a bad inhalation process in the economic breath system, especially at the rural level in Bangladesh. The one house one farm project was initiated to alleviate poverty in Bangladesh as an initiative of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The project focuses on rural households generating income through family farming with e-financial inclusion or online banking opportunities. The study focuses on the fundamental understanding and reasons for the One House One Farm project. The study follows a generic qualitative method with secondary data sources, including the website of The Project, newspaper articles, and journal articles, to indicate what, how, and why questions. With some beneficiaries' statements, an ethnographic study is conducted as another data collection source. The study introduces a thematic mode of analysis that covers the explanation of the pattern of the One House One Farm project and gives a general idea about the background. The study finds that the One House One Farm project was a primary and better initiative for alleviating or eradicating poverty in Bangladesh, which helps to focus on achieving Sustainable Development Goal- 01. Besides the main target of alleviating or eradicating poverty in Bangladesh, this project helped rural households create a basement for generating income and being free from dependency.

Unpacking the agricultural innovation and diffusion for modernizing the smallholders in rural China: From the perspective of agricultural innovation system and its governance

Innovation is perceived as a crucial tool for addressing the serious global challenges faced by the agriculture sector. This paper focuses on a new local public agricultural innovation project in the context of rural China, and intends to capture the embodied agricultural innovation and dissemination network for modernizing the smallholders. Through integrating the concepts of Agricultural Innovation System and Agricultural Innovation Governance, we develop a comprehensive framework for understanding the partnerships between agri-technicians and small farmers within the network structured by innovation governance practices. In-depth interview and network analysis methods were used to scrutinize the linkages among actors engaged with the agricultural innovation programme in case area and detect the achievements in enabling smallholders to upgrade technical trajectories in production and fostering modern farmers at the local levels. Our empirical analysis suggests that the single-center and multi-level network produced in the agricultural innovation practices, which is distinctive to the previous simplistic linear model for technology transfer, demonstrates obvious effectiveness in diffusing the new knowledge both vertically and horizontally, and that the grassroots sub-network generates the interaction space between agronomic experts and farmers for building mutual trust and co-producing technologies suitable for local conditions. Through allocating financial resources and supervising the public agricultural innovation projects, the provincial government indirectly dominates the directionality of local agricultural innovation for enabling smallholders to learn emerging technologies and cultivating the new generation of professional farmers. Nevertheless, the current agricultural innovation practice in case area has not completely avoided the social selection bias due to the clear marginalization of some vulnerable smallholders, and the duration of innovation projects imposed negative influence on the persistent collaborations between agri-technicians and smallholders in places. It is argued that for meeting the national agenda of agricultural modernization and common prosperity in rural area, how to reform the management measures of public innovation projects and enable the vulnerable farmers to equally engage with the innovation activities and share the interests brought by new technologies are the urgent challenges need to be addressed in the future.

From A Supervisor To A Plantation Owner

The looming financial crisis threatened to transform Mr. Rostam's thriving agribusiness into a sinking ship, casting a shadow of uncertainty over his entrepreneurial dreams. The once-promising future now appeared murky and fraught with challenges, leaving him to navigate the business desperately to keep his venture afloat. It is a test of resilience, innovation, and unwavering determination as he grapples with the harsh realities of an uncertain market. With limited resources, he coped with more of the challenges of a struggling business. The road ahead seemed daunting, with uncertainty lurking at every turn. Mr. Rostam pondered over the situation, feeling the weight of responsibility on his shoulders; he muttered, "The business has reached the critical point, and failure was not an option”. Mr. Rostam has to look for the right opportunity and decide about taking the next big leap of faith to start his next agriculture business venture. Terengganu Agrotech Development Corporation Sdn. Bhd. (TADC) looking for proposals to develop a large palm oil plantation farm in Terengganu state. Mr. Rostam has to develop the right plan with a partner that can invest in the proposed corporate farming project.

Experimental studies on lateral bearing capacity of modified tripod suction caissons for offshore wind turbines in silty clay

In recent years regular tripod suction caissons are commonly used in offshore wind farm projects because of economic feasibility and environment-friendly work principles. The design of a modified tripod suction caisson composed of three caissons with different diameters can improve the capacity behaviour in the direction of strong wind within a considered construction cost. This paper carried out model tests to study the lateral bearing capacity of modified tripod suction caissons in silty clay. Based on the equilibrium equation of vertical force of modified tripod suction caissons the average vertical subgrade reaction modulus is proposed to investigate the relationship between it and rotation, which is of paramount importance to the nonlinear lateral bearing capacity. The results show that the range of bearing capacity factors increases with the increasing effective diameter-height ratio indicating that modified tripod suction caisson with reasonable combinations can effectively improve its bearing capacity in a certain loading direction. The sum of the bearing capacity factors of three monopod suction caissons falls in the range of the capacity factors of the tripod foundation consisting of the above caissons. Suction under the lid increases with the increasing lateral load and seems to be not related to the combinations of suction caissons with different diameters. By fitting the experimental data, it is found that there is a power exponential relationship between the average vertical subgrade reaction modulus and rotation of the foundation.

Qualitative modeling for representing the social-ecological system of the Groix–Belle-île offshore wind farm project

Abstract The increasing numbers of offshore wind farm (OWF) projects question the impacts of such infrastructures on the social-ecological system (SES) in which they are to be constructed. Some answers can be given using qualitative modeling and loop analysis. We used participatory modeling to co-construct a qualitative model of the socio-ecosystem together with stakeholders of the APPEAL project. The goal of the project was to evaluate the potential impacts of the pilot OWF in the Groix–Belle-île region. Then, loop analysis was used to study the characteristics of the SES created by the setting-up of an OWF. We focused on the impacts of SES variables on each other by evaluating their effects through direct and indirect pathways. Pleasure boating appeared as one of the SES components prone to suffer from the OWF construction, whereas industrial tourism was likely to benefit from it. This article presents the methodology used to obtain such results, for it to be used in spatial planning or in citizen-science processes.

Pathways to identify and reduce uncertainties in agricultural climate impact assessments.

Both climate and impact models are essential for understanding and quantifying the impact of climate change on agricultural productivity. Multi-model ensembles have highlighted considerable uncertainties in these assessments, yet a systematic approach to quantify these uncertainties is lacking. We propose a standardized approach to attribute uncertainties in multi-model ensemble studies, based on insights from the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project. We find that crop model processes are the primary source of uncertainty in agricultural projections (over 50%), excluding unquantified hidden uncertainty that is not explicitly measured within the analyses. We propose multidimensional pathways to reduce uncertainty in climate change impact assessments.

Regional Interferences to Photovoltaic Development: A Polish Perspective

The stability of energy generation is crucial for the functioning of every country. Currently, the EU policy is moving towards becoming independent of fossil energy sources, which can be replaced with sources that are not exhaustible, for example, energy from the sun. Public awareness of renewable energy is increasing. People are willing to invest in natural solutions. However, planning large photovoltaic farm projects is difficult due to complex location requirements. The study aimed to analyse the interferences/barriers to be considered when searching for a suitable location to install a photovoltaic farm. The analysis was conducted for the territory of Poland. The study used a literature and local legislation query and the Delphi method. The Delphi method identified the most important interferences from the investor’s perspective. Eleven interferences have been identified, classified into legal, spatial, technical, social, and financial groups. Several are locally determined and only exist in selected locations (e.g., technical determinants of the power grid condition, etc.). In contrast, others are unitary (e.g., concerns about the impact of PV on human health, etc.). The decision-makers are aware of the existing interferences/barriers, and the proposed administrative, legal, and technical solutions marginally mitigate barriers. System solutions are recommended, allowing an easier way to find a suitable location for a PV system.

Implementing the Quality of Life and Potential of Social Farming

<p style="text-align:justify">The present study explores the Quality of Life (QoL) of young people with intellectual disabilities engaged in a social farming initiative, known as ‘‘Tuttincampo: Social Farming and Inclusivity’’. The project stands as an innovative approach to improving social inclusion and providing vocational education and training. The initiative seeks to offer a viable alternative to traditional rehabilitation day centers by establishing a network of both public and private institutions. To explore the QoL of the young people we analyze data from the Personal Outcome Scale (POS), a tool that investigates the perception of QoL through self-assessment and hetero-assessment. Data were collected at the beginning and at the end of the social agriculture project. The results obtained confirm the importance of planning pedagogical actions to support social inclusion and vocational training for people with intellectual disabilities, highlighting, as well, the potential of social farming as a new “space” to achieve a higher level of QoL.</p>

Multi-Dimensional Analysis of Offshore Wind Industry: The Case of French Wind Farms

The development of the offshore wind industry faces a number of organizational and economic hurdles, often strong societal resistance and the instability of public policies, thus drawing interest from academics who have analyzed this process from multiple viewpoints. This body of knowledge has served as the basis for a study aiming at characterizing France’s first three offshore wind farm projects, which finally reached the energy production stage after over ten years of development. Results show that although this development has been the subject of atypically strong social opposition, the projects’ features are quite close to those highlighted by the literature.

Make the desert bloom—imaginaries, infrastructure, and water-land entanglement in desert agriculture in Israel

AbstractUnderstanding the meaning of land–water entanglement is increasingly important today, in an age of climate change and desertification. Despite the close ties between water and land, literature largely focuses on each of them separately or ignores the attempts to disconnect them. This paper examines the connections and disconnections between water and land in the southern desert of Israel in the shadow of political use and environmental disaster. Drawing on ethnographic research, the paper explores the challenges and successes of intensive agriculture in arid regions, and how water allocation plays a crucial role in making the desert bloom. Weaving between the theoretical framework of 'agricultural infrastructure' and 'water-land imaginations', the paper separates between the different imaginations that enable the various dimensions of the water-land entanglement, the efforts made to expand the connection or disconnect them, and between their political, environmental and cultural realization as infrastructures. Overall, this paper provides insights into the ways by which Imaginations, infrastructures and land–water entanglement shape human-environmental interactions in arid regions and agriculture projects in the Anthropocene era.

Land Suitability Analysis for Residential Development in an Ecologically Sensitive Area: A Case Study of Nusantara, the New Indonesian Capital

Land suitability analysis is a process of evaluating various criteria to assess the appropriateness of land for specific purposes, such as agriculture, urban development, conservation, or infrastructure projects. This paper integrates multi-criteria analysis (MCA) and geographic information systems (GIS) to assess potential residential development suitability in Nusantara—the new Indonesian Capital. This study used two models to evaluate residential development suitability—a simple suitability model with equal criteria weight and a weighted suitability model using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach with two scenarios (waterfront city and biodiversity-positive city). Various criteria, including physical attributes, natural preservation and protection, blue amenities, transport accessibility, and natural disaster risks, were analysed. Integrating MCA with the AHP approach and GIS can be considered an advanced methodology. The simple suitability model is relatively more straightforward than the weighted suitability model since it does not require a weighting process. However, the weighted suitability model produced more nuanced results for the case study as the approach more accurately models real-world conditions. The weighted suitability analysis showed that most of the western and eastern parts of the new capital are highly suitable for future residential development. Comparing the Indonesian government’s planned residential areas with the result of the weighted suitability model for the biodiversity-positive city scenario showed that most planned residential areas are in highly suitable areas. The methodologies in the paper can be extended to similar contexts in different geographical areas.

ADAPTATION OF AN AGRICULTURAL PROJECT TO THE REGULATION OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS

Using an original methodological approach, a model analysis of the adaptation of an agricultural project to the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural land was carried out for the farms in the south of Russia. Emissions from both technological and ecosystem processes were taken into account. Methods of operations research and simulation modeling are applied to the study of two options for regulating greenhouse gas emissions, i.e. through market mechanisms focusing on the cost of carbon units in the EU and through the administrative control, which sets the emission limits. For each of the options, the optimal intensity of use was estimated for each land plot involved in the project.The proposed methodology supplements the scientific and methodological support for the analysis of the largescale agricultural projects under the state regulation of the impact of economic activities on the Earth’s climate. It is applicable to projects with a significant spatial dispersion of plots. As a result of the study, the scientific visions of the climate policy impact on the technological configuration of agricultural production were specified. A significant margin of sustainability of agriculture in the south of Russia to carbon market methods has been revealed; It is shown that as the restrictive administrative approaches are tightened, farmers prefer to stop the intensive use of areas with the highest productivity potential while maintaining the maximum production intensity within the rest. The totality of the results obtained is recommended for practical application for developing and analyzing investment agricultural projects, including the analysis of project risks, as well as for improving the state environmental and climate policy as a tool for analyzing its consequences.

Exploring Farmers Attitudes towards Climate Resilient Agricultural Technologies in Telangana State, India

Since the start of this century, there has been significant attention placed on climate change, largely due to its direct impact on ecosystems and agriculture, particularly affecting farmers in vulnerable regions. A descriptive research study was undertaken to explore the attitude of farmers towards climate resilient agricultural technologies in the National Innovations on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) project implemented villages of Suryapet and Khammam districts of Telangana state, India. The ex-post facto research design was used in this study. A sample of 200 respondents from the two districts i.e. Suryapet and Khammam were randomly selected to assess the attitude of farmers towards these CRA technologies and also employed Z test to evaluate significant difference between the attitude of farmers in Suryapet and Khammam districts towards climate resilient technologies. The findings of the study revealed that the majority of the Suryapet and Khammam (62.67% and 72.00%) farmers had highly favourable attitude towards CRA technologies which was followed by moderately favourable (35.33% and 28.00%) and less favourable (2.00% and 0.00%). On the whole, nearly two third (65.00%) of the respondents had highly favourable attitude towards CRA technologies which is considered as a precursor for adoption of these technologies by the farming community. By employing the Z-test it was observed that there was a difference between farmers' attitude in the Suryapet and Khammam districts where Khammam farmers were having slightly more favourable attitude when compared to Suryapet farmers. Therefore, the outcomes of this research study could assist extension organizations in effectively training and implementing climate-resilient technologies under the National Innovations on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) initiative in the other villages.

Enhancing Rural Livelihoods and Empowering Youth Through Agripreneurship: An Analysis of the Comprehensive Rural Development Programme in QwaQwa, Free State, South Africa

Agricultural production has long been a cornerstone of livelihoods in rural areas, providing essential resources and economic stability to communities worldwide. In recent years, there has been growing interest in the role of agriculture as a sustainable livelihood strategy for youth in these regions, especially in Africa, where the youth make up most of the population. This paper explores the impact of agricultural projects under the Comprehensive Rural Development Programme (CRDP) on improving the livelihoods of rural communities and empowering youth in Qwaqwa (Phuthaditjhaba), Free State. It investigates the programme’s impact on youth skills development, access to resources, and entrepreneurial opportunities, as well as identifying opportunities and challenges youth face within the context of the CRDP. This paper followed a case study design with a qualitative approach to describe, compare, evaluate, and identify patterns or cause-and-effect relationships between the various variables. Findings indicate that most CRDP-trained youths use their skills for household purposes, and some become job creators. However, there is also evidence that the trainees need additional support to increase production and market participation. The paper recommends that youth in rural and peri-urban areas require further interventions from governmental and non-governmental agencies to support strategies for increased production and job creation, which will, in turn, improve their livelihoods to meet the SDGs.

Study of the variation in the value of gravity resulting from basalt intrusions in the area of Massallata and its surroundings using Bouguer gravity anomaly maps

In this paper an attempt to locate the sites of basalt intrusion, an analysis and study of Bouguer map was carried out for the area, which lies between two circles of width 32,250 - 32,360 north, and between longitudes 14.30 - 13.49 east. The paper included processing the gravity data and separating the gravity anomaly from each other using the derivatives method Interpretation of gravity data was performed using the modeling program (2D, 3D), which aims to create a geological profile that shows the third dimension of the distribution of different rocks, and rather olivine and phenolitic basalt intrusions in the study area depending on the vertical distribution of density, which is reflected in the values of the gravity anomalies in the contour map of the region. Basalt does not have wide openings in the study area, but it is found in the form of dikes in irregularly sprawling areas, especially those that are considered areas of sculpture by the action of running water in the valleys As for the southeastern region of the study area, olivine basalt rocks were found at a depth of 3 - 5 meters, and they are deaf, which indicates their crystallization under the surface of the earth, especially in the area of the Tarhuna agricultural project. Keywords: Basalt intrusions, Bouguer gravity anomaly, Geological profile, Rock density.

Strengthening of the soil base - preparation for the road surface of the existing enterprise

The issue of constructing new and restoring existing complexes for the storage and processing of agricultural products, as well as logistics complexes, holds significant importance in today's conditions as an integral component of ensuring the normal functioning of our economy. Historically, in Ukraine, when developing regulatory documents, the primary requirements were outlined for the design and construction of civil and industrial buildings and structures: residential and administrative buildings, industrial facilities, and objects of transport, energy, and critical infrastructure. These requirements are based on ensuring strength, reliability, durability, safety, and cost-effectiveness. For projects involving the construction of logistics complexes or agricultural facilities, the regulatory documents in Ukraine contain significantly fewer detailed instructions and requirements [1, 2]. Therefore, when implementing this class of projects, design solutions are often based on requirements outlined in construction regulatory documents from other countries, such as Eurocodes (EN) [10], British Standards (BS), or the standards of the United States (ASTM), where considerable experience has already been accumulated in the reliable operation of such facilities. The issue of requirements for the engineering preparation of territories for industrial or agricultural projects during the development of comprehensive building plans is not sufficiently covered in national regulatory documents that establish requirements for the calculation of building structures, road construction, or comprehensive territory planning – these documents are too general and lack the necessary detailed information or clear requirements for the application of reliable design solutions. As a result, there are often cases where deformations of the surrounding surface and access roads to these facilities significantly complicate and/or render their normal operation impossible. This article focuses on the study of soil preparation as the foundation for access roads for a group of buildings and structures in a grain storage complex: assessing the condition of the foundation during the operation of the complex; identifying the causes of significant deformations; selecting methods for strengthening and stabilizing the foundation; and geotechnical quality control of the performed foundation strengthening work.

Socio-economic impacts of commercialisation of agriculture in the Kingdom of Eswatini: A case of Siphofaneni

The transformation of subsistence agriculture into market-oriented production has been in the policy spotlight in many countries in the global South, including the Kingdom of Eswatini. Although agricultural commercialisation continues to gain popularity as a development strategy in the rural spaces of Eswatini, there is still lack of scientific evidence on its effectiveness in rural poverty alleviation and contribution to rural livelihoods and welfare. This study aims to contribute to the ‘agricultural commercialisation and poverty’ debate by exploring the socio-economic impacts of agricultural commercialisation in rural Eswatini. Among the key findings of the study was that the commercialisation project (in Siphofaneni) improved income levels, income sources, and employment opportunities of rural people in Siphofaneni. Access to food and food consumption patterns (meal frequency & diets) were also improved. The study concluded that agricultural commercialisation improved the welfare outcomes of rural households in Siphofaneni and reduced poverty levels for some households. The study has made a timely contribution by providing some illumination on the role and contribution of the country's agricultural commercialisation project with regards to the improvement of the living conditions of people in Eswatini. The study recommended that the government of Eswatini expands the project into other food-deficit and deprived rural areas of the country rather than confining it to the drought-prone areas of Siphofaneni.