Impact of improved agricultural extension approaches on technology adoption: Evidence from a randomised controlled trial in rural Tunisia
Low and slow adoption of innovative technologies among smallholder farmers in Tunisia is a key agricultural development problem partly related to the existing technology transfer approach used in the country. The objective of this study is to...
Impact of rangeland enclosure and seasonal grazing on protected and unprotected rangelands in Chakwal region, Pakistan
Scrub rangelands support livestock grazing and provide ecosystem services to their inhabitants. The present study was conducted in Chakwal, an important tract of the Pothwar Plateau, which sustains herds of small domestic and nomadic ruminants...
Legumes, members of the Fabaceae/Leguminosae family, are the third largest family of higher plants with almost 20,000 species belonging to 650 genera, and are ubiquitous all over the world. Among all legumes, pulse crops or food legumes fall...
Cost-Effective Cassava Processing: Case Study of Small-Scale Flash-Dryer Reengineering
The development and scaling out of flash-dryer innovations for more efficient, small-scale production of high-quality cassava flour (HQCF) and starch is described. The diagnoses of cassava-processing SMEs (small and medium enterprises) revealed...
Protein Biofortification in Lentils (Lens culinaris Medik.) Toward Human Health
Lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) is a nutritionally dense crop with significant quantities of protein, low-digestible carbohydrates, minerals, and vitamins. The amino acid composition of lentil protein can impact human health by maintaining amino...
Drought-Tolerance QTLs Associated with Grain Yield and Related Traits in Spring Bread Wheat
The present research aims to identify the efficient combination of drought-tolerance selection criteria and associated quantitative trait loci. A panel of 197 bread wheat genotypes was evaluated for yield- and drought-tolerance-related traits in...
Feminization, rural transformation, and wheat systems in post-soviet Uzbekistan
This paper examines how rural transformation in Uzbekistan alters gender norms and roles and, consequently, affects women’s involvement in agriculture. We focus on the role that contextual factors, particularly kinship relations, government...
Evaluation of rainwater harvesting and shrub establishment methods for sustainable watershed management in northern Afghanistan
Watershed rangelands in Northern Afghanistan provide various ecosystem services that support the local people’s livelihoods, but they are now highly degraded essentially due to the continuous high grazing pressure and recurrent droughts. Effects...
Calibration and validation of the FAO AquaCrop water productivity model for cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz)
FAO’s water-driven crop growth simulation model, AquaCrop, was calibrated and validated for cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz). Existing datasets, used in similar published works, were shared covering several years and regions (Colombia, Nigeria...
“Dear brother farmer”: Gender, agriculture and digital extension in rural Tunisia during the COVID-19 pandemic
Providing farmers with essential agricultural information and training in the era of COVID-19 has been a challenge that has prompted a renewed interest in digital extension services. There is a distinct gender gap, however, between men’s and...