Agricultural Administration最新文献

Since Independence, settlement schemes have been a popular tool of agrarian reform in Zambia. Large amounts of formerly European-owned land were available for resettlement, especially in the Southern Province, and many farmers have been moved to new areas, supplied with some amount of land and infrastructure and begun agricultural production, with expectations of improved results. How have resettled farmers reacted to the new structures and patterns of the settlement schemes? In this paper, two settlement schemes in Magoye, Mazabuka District, are compared, based on the responses of settlers to questions about problems they have encountered in the new situations. Inadequate credit, insecurity of tenure and a shortfall in expected social service provision (i.e. schools, clinics, roads) were seen by many settlers as the major problems. For those settlers who sign long-term lease agreements but do not actually purchase the land they farm, land ownership is of overwhelming concern. As discussed in the conclusion, settler participation in both the project design and management would be useful in avoiding or resolving many of these difficulties. Also, a future comparison of settlement schemes with other reform strategies, such as state farms or collectives, might prove informative in a search for solutions to the current problems of Zambian settlers.

United States farmers obtain operating control of 40 per cent of their farmland through some kind of rental arrangement. The most significant tenure category is that of the part-owners who own part of the land they farm, but rent the rest of it. They control more than 40 per cent of the total value of farm real estate. Share leasing is the most important type of rental arrangement. Share rents account, nationwide, for $2 out of every $3 rent paid to landlords. In general, the more productive the land and the higher the land value, the higher will be the portion of land under lease and the greater will be the use of share-rent leases.

Studies on the adoption of farm innovations have, especially in Kenya, focused on a single innovation, or a few innovations, but not for specific crops. This paper compares the extent to which the adoption of practices in selected crop enterprises approximated the level recommended by extension workers. Data were collected from the Lugari and Ikolomani divisions of Kakamega District, which is a smallholder area. The former is a settlement area in the previously European settled areas, the latter an area of traditional African farming. We found nearly all farmers in the former area to be knowledgeable about improved farming: they observed recommended practices. This was so largely because of their having been exposed to an earlier intensive extension education and assistance programme which led to saturation of knowledge in the area. The influence of personal factors, such as formal education and economic status, on farmers' observation of recommended practices was significant only within each study area; it could not explain the marked difference in observation of the practices between study areas. Thus, the initial intensive extension programme which was part of the settlement policy has proved to have a positive, long-lasting effect which is very desirable for agricultural development.

The paper focuses on the methods used to evaluate and plan the future course of agricultural extension programmes in the hills of Nepal, with particular reference to the Overseas Development Administration's Project based at Lumle in West Nepal. This Project is now entering a transition phase during which the administrative and financial functions will become the responsibility of the Nepalese Government.

The Lumle Project, and its sister project in Eastern Nepal at Pakhribas, are considered to be ‘centres of excellence’ in terms of centre activities and field programmes. This position has been made possible largely due to the relatively high levels of financial investment in the Centres (both for physical infrastructure and staff salaries/wages) and also due to the administrative autonomy from the Nepal Government which they have enjoyed.

This position now has to be gradually changed so that the Nepalese Government (HMGN) will be in a position to take over the two Projects, probably in five years' time, with as little disruption as possible in services provided to farmers. With this in mind, the Overseas Development Admininstration established an extension officer and an economist to review the activities of both Centres in detail with a view to developing more cost-effective services, compatible with HMGN's resources, and to begin the process of transition.

This paper gives an outline of some of the methods used by the extensionist to monitor and evaluate programmes at Lumle and shows the rationale behind some of the current changes being implemented with the long-term future in mind.

The theory which guides the levying of user fees has been constructed in the industrialized world, particularly for application to public utilities. There is a danger that the theory will create dysfunctions as it is applied to new social environments and to new service areas. This paper examines the experience of Kenya with user fees in the agricultural sector in order to identify some of the unforeseen ways in which the actualities of African development diverge from the implicitly Western assumptions of the theory. The conclusion is that user fees have a number of very attractive features for Africa, but that they also have to be applied with care and modification if they are to have their intended positive impact on agricultural services.

This paper highlights recent political and environmental concern over the consequences of British agricultural policy. It suggests that conservation needs to become a farm management objective and that policies should be designed to that end. The administration and implementation of policies is seen to be crucial and County Agricultural and Rural Conservation Committees are proposed as a suitable mechanism for administering the new policies. Earlier precedents for such committees and possible powers and a constitution appropriate to the 1980s are discussed. The committees are seen in the context of a bargained partnership between government and farmers, with a primarily self-regulatory function within the agricultural community.

The purpose of the study described in this paper was to determine how useful non-contact farmers perceived contact farmers to be as a source of rice production information when compared with other sources such as the radio, newspapers, journals, agricultural pamphlets, demonstrations, field days, agricultural extension workers and other non-contact farmers. The data were collected by personal interview questionnaires from a random sample of 200 non-contact farmers living in a representative dry zone district in Sri Lanka. Non-contact farmers perceived the agricultural extension worker to be the most useful source of rice production information; contact farmers, the radio and neighbouring non-contact farmers were ranked second, third and fourth, respectively. In most cases, non-contact farmers' perceptions of the understandability, availability and trustworthiness of an information source were positively related to their perceived usefulness of that source. Recommendations are made to increase the efficiency of information dissemination under the training and visit system of extension in Sri Lanka.