Rural Development Associations Research Articles

Barriers and facilitators of purchasing from short food supply chains in europe: insights from a stakeholder perspective

Thirty-two expert stakeholder (e.g., consumer advice center, state parliament at regional level, European Network for Rural Development, university and research center, chamber of tourism, rural development association, and social cooperative enterprise) interviews were conducted to examine consumer attitudes, values and preferences in relation to short food supply chains. These stakeholders have expertise in policy, consumer behaviour, the tourism sector and regulation. The interviewees represented the views of consumers, producers, and other actors who work with or within short food supply in seven European countries (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland). Consumers were generally perceived to be aware of the environmental impact of food production. In terms of preferences, consumers would like to shop for local food the way they shop at the supermarket: having variety of products, accessibility, and availability. The relative lack of convenience and high prices associated with short food supply chains products were seen as the major barriers to their purchase. Consumers were thought to buy the products because of health and environmental benefits, a desire to support their local community, and a preference for tradition. However, relatively few consumers purchase products regularly from SFSC. The main segments are people who believe in short food supply chains values, middle class families with young children and elderly people. More can be done to educate and engage consumers regarding these chains, and market research is needed to inform which strategy is likely to be most effective in specific contexts such as the regional level.

Improving Technical Support to Enhance Productivity of Rural Community in Boloso Sore and Boloso Bombe Woredas, Wolaita Zone, SNNPR, Ethiopia

The study aimed at how to improve the technical support to enhance productivity of rural community in Boloso Sore and Boloso Bombe Woredas/Districts of Ethiopia. It employed both quantitative and qualitative study design. The study used questionnaire, KII and FGD guides to gather primary data and the secondary data were collected via desk review. The results of this study affirmed that serious efforts have been made and large amount of resources have been invested by Wonta Rural Development Association to improve the livelihood situation of the rural household. The viability and scope of supports made by the Wonta Rural Development Association to improve household productivity and intend to create rural employment worked out good in the areas of dairy goat and community based organizations like self help groups for savings. The productivity of horticulture, poultry and other activities were found inferior during the study period. Engagement of key stakeholders, continuous monitoring and evaluation schemes, feedback from end users among others to enhance technical support were slim. The study has suggested a conceptual model to improve rural household production and productivity to enhance household food security, to promote rural job opportunity and to introduce and apply value chain in rural context.

The effects of trainings in soil and water conservation on farming practices, livelihoods, and land-use intensity in the Ethiopian highlands

Smallholder farmers in the Ethiopian Highlands face increasingly difficult farming conditions. Agricultural intensification to feed the growing rural population, livestock pressure on native vegetation, and climate change converge to exacerbate soil erosion, creating a significant threat to crop productivity and rural livelihoods. Farmer trainings can be a potent strategy to increase farmer awareness of the larger causes of soil loss, help farmers adapt to or mitigate environmental challenges, and improve crop outputs and incomes. However, evaluations of farmer training programs rarely assess socioeconomic and environmental outcomes simultaneously. Our study uses multiple methods to estimate the socio-ecological effects of a soil and water conservation training program for farmers implemented by ADHENO Integrated Rural Development Association, an Ethiopian non-governmental organization. We asked: (a) did farmers use practices taught in trainings; (b) did these strategies lead to improved agricultural productivity or livelihoods; and (c) how did land-use intensity change in areas with more participation in farmer trainings? To address questions (a) and (b), our study and results are based on 449 household surveys, collected between June and August 2017, in two rural kebeles in Ethiopia in which ADHENO has been active since 2003. We used remote sensing analysis of high resolution satellite images to measure land-use change over a period of nine years, addressing question (c) for one of the kebeles. Analysis of household surveys with propensity score matching and robustness checks suggests that participation in farmer trainings predicts the implementation of four out of seven soil conservation farming methods. Participants in training sessions also had higher average incomes from agriculture than non-participants. Linear models of land-use change in the area around villages did not depict a clear relationship between participation in farmer trainings and change in land-use intensity. These results indicate that farmer trainings focusing on soil and water conservation have the potential to influence farming practices and livelihoods and have implications for soil conservation efforts in the Ethiopian Highlands. This study highlights the importance of evaluating the impacts of small, localized development interventions, of which there are many in sub-Saharan Africa, to better understand the ways in which myriad types of programs influence both land use and livelihoods.

A participative approach to develop sustainability indicators for dehesa agroforestry farms

This paper provides a list of specific indicators that will allow the managers of dehesa farms to assess their sustainability in an easy and reliable way. To this end a Delphi analysis has been carried out with a group of experts in agroforestry systems and sustainability. A total of 30 experts from public institutions, farming, research bodies, environmental and rural development associations, agricultural organizations and companies took part in the study which intended to design a set of sustainability indicators adapted to dehesa agroforestry systems.The experts scored 83 original indicators related to the basic pillars of sustainability (environmental, social and economic) through a two-round procedure. Finally, 24 indicators were selected based on their importance and the consensus achieved.From an environmental point of view, and in line with its significance for dehesa ecosystems, it has been observed that “Stocking rate” is the indicator with greater relevance. Within the economic pillar, “Farm profitability” is the most important indicator, while regarding the technical indicators “Percentage of animal diet based on grazing” is the one that got the highest score. Finally, the “Degree of job satisfaction” and the “Generational renewal” were the most relevant labor indicators.It is considered that the Delphi approach used in this research settles some of the flaws of other sustainability models, such as the adaptation to the system to be studied and the involvement of stakeholders in the design.

Arquitectura troglodítica durante el siglo XX en Almería

The few studies on modern and contemporary housing in the province of Almeria have focused their interest on the most successful urban and building developments, having overshadowed other residential episodes without which the local reality is perceived misleading and incomplete, as the case of the underground architecture, which requires deepening its evolution and scope in the last century. The methodology followed is based on consulting census, inventories, registers, newspaper reports, files of Public Administrations, Rural Development Associations and other organizations, in addition to ground reconnaissance with an enough representative sampling of visits and interviews. Thus, after contextualizing the phenomenon, the results obtained allow to deduce both its territorial and social relevance as the slow, but progressive, change of consideration in recent decades in favour of a habitat that has been claimed as an intrinsic part of the heritage and cultural legacy.

Historic preservation, GIS, & rural development: The case of Almería province, Spain

A computerized database was created, based on a Geographic Information System (GIS), with hyperlinks to the website for a Rural Development Association (Almería province, Andalusia, Spain). Thus, a catalogue of traditional rural buildings in this particular area was compiled, identifying and characterizing each one, establishing criteria for a dynamic and rational selection. The purpose to select this example was to facilitate their management by public organizations or private individuals, for their reuse, restoration or both. The cataloguing and promotion of rural architecture will contribute to creating jobs by stimulating new economic activity, such as the promotion of cultural tourism, while preserving a valuable source of information on rural culture, recovering local construction techniques, encouraging a sense of community, and making villages and rural areas more attractive to visitors. The assessment of the rehabilitation potential of rural buildings in this region has helped to establish a priority order for their reuse, and so an intervention map has been devised in terms of a “Decision Index” corresponding to each considered building.

The Role of Emigrants in Rural Development Associations in Morocco

Morocco remains very significantly divided along urban/rural lines. Since the 1990s there has been a growing intensity of public and private, national and international initiatives to improve socio-economic conditions in rural Morocco. These initiatives have fostered the creation of village associations which have provided a key point of contact with internal and international migrants from the village. This paper presents results of a national survey of village associations in Morocco comprising detailed interviews with 64 associations in 16 provinces. On the basis of this survey a typology is constructed of these associations. The nature of their links with emigrants varies significantly according to the nature of the village associations themselves and the villages where they are based. At their most mature, these organisations have formed professional international networks which have had very significant impacts at the local and regional levels and have further promoted the dynamic of collective organisation in rural society.

Multiplex PCR Detection of Four Events of GM Maize (Event 3272,LY038, MIR162, and MON88017)

To date, a number of genetically modified (GM) crops have been planted in 23 countries. GM maize was grown on 35.2 million hectares (13% of the global biotech area) in 2007 [James, 2007]. Since the first approval of a commercial genetically modified organism (GMO) in 1996, many countries have approved commercial releases of various events of GM maize for food and feed. According to the GMO database of Agbios (http://www. agbios.com, Agriculture and Biotechnology Strategies Inc., Merrickville, Ontario), 47 events of GM maize including 18 stacked traits were developed and approved in several countries [James, 2007]. The KFDA (Korea Food and Drug Administration) has approved 28 events of GM maize. KFDA is additionally conducting safety assessments of several GM maize events (MIR162, MON89034, Event 3272, LY038, etc.). Korea first imported GM maize for food use (corn starch and syrup) in 2008. GM crops will continue to be developed in various countries and Korea may import more GMOs for food use in the near future. Therefore, detection methods should be continuously developed to monitor a labeling system for GM foods. In this study, an event-specific multiplex PCR detection method for four events of GM maize (Event 3272, LY038, MIR162, and MON88017) was devised. GM maize Event 3272 contains the thermostable alpha amylase (amy797E) gene from Thermococcus bacteria and the mannose-6-phosphate isomerase (pmi) gene from E. coli. GM maize LY038 contains the dihydrodipicolinate synthase (cordapA) gene from Corynebacterium glutamicum. GM maize MIR162 containing the vegetative insecticidal protein (vip3A) gene from Bacillus thuringiensis was developed to provide resistance to Lepidopteran species. GM maize MON88017 contains the Cry3Bb1 delta-endotoxin (cry3Bb1) gene for insect resistance from Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. kumamotoensis strain EG4691 and the 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (cp4 epsps) gene for glyphosate tolerance from Agrobacterium tumefaciens CP4. An event-specific PCR system designed based on the junction between the transgenic insert and the host DNA is regarded as the most specific approach [Heo et al., 2004]. Multiplex PCR detection methods have been developed for GM maize [Matsuoka et al., 2001; Heo et al., 2004; Hernandez et al., 2005; Onishi et al., 2005; Kim et al., 2006; Ahn et al., 2008], GM canola [Demeke et al., 2002; Kim et al., 2007], GM cotton [Kim et al., 2008], and mixed GM crops [James et al., 2003; Germini et al., 2004; Forte et al., 2005]. In this study, the multiplex PCR method was developed to efficiently monitor four events of GM maize (Event 3272, LY038, MIR162, and MON88017) in a single reaction using event-specific primers. Event 3272 and MIR162 were developed from Syngenta Seeds Inc. (Golden Valley, MN), and LY038 and MON88017 were developed from Monsanto Company (St. Louis, MO). Eleven different plants [soybean (Glycine max), corn (Zea mays), canola (Brassica napus), cotton (Gossypium hirsutum), rice (Oryza sativa), barley (Hordeum vulgare), buck wheat (Fagopyrum esculentum), wheat (Triticum aestivum), red-bean (Phaseolus angularis), radish (Raphanus sativus), and Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa subsp. pekinensis)] were collected from Rural Development Association in Korea and the Department of Food Biotechnology at Kyung Hee University. Samples were finely ground in liquid nitrogen using a mortar and pestle. The DNeasy Plant Maxi Kit (Qiagen GmbH, Hilden, Germany) was used for DNA extraction according to the manufacturer’s instructions. PCR was carried out on a Mastercycler (Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany). The 25-μL reaction volume contained 2.5 μL of 10× buffer (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA), 200 μM of each dNTP (Applied Biosystems), 1.5 mM of *Corresponding author Phone: 82-31-201-2660; Fax: 82-31-204-8116 E-mail: hykim@khu.ac.kr

Participatory Internal Learning for Grassroots NGOs in Micro-credit, Livelihoods and Environmental Regeneration

Helzi Noponen describes a unique system designed to build capacities of grassroots NGO programme staff to think critically about programme operations and make strategic changes through a participatory monitoring and evaluation system. The system, called an 'internal learning system' (ILS), is augmented by a human resource development plan for organization staff and leaders designed to build key management skills through a linked set of training activities. This 'Barefoot Managers' curriculum has been launched by SEWA, Self Employed Women's Association, in one of their participant-run rural development associations, Banaskantha DWCRA Mahila SEWA Association (BDMSA), located in a resource poor and drought stricken rural area of northern Gujarat, India. The area faces extreme challenges and SEWA has initiated a participatory approach to the intertwined problems of environmental degradation and poverty. They have launched a variety of projects which improve the environment, provide income earning opportunities, build community assets and strengthen 'social capital'. The unique feature of this approach is that they have done this through leveraging the capacities of poor women as key actors in household and community survival.