Month: May 2022

They indicate that residents used the natural advantage of this area  to develop animal husbandry. However, the changes in the montane steppe belt were seen to greatly affect the scale of animal husbandry and the income of herdsmen . To address the challenges of agricultural production in mountain areas, farmers who are relatively better-off, tend to move along an altitude gradient—to the lowlands . The results of analysis of income inequality using the Gini index and Lorenz curves for income distribution are shown in Table 4 and Figure 3 respectively.The Gini coefficient for the pooled sample was 0.97. The analysis of income data disaggregated by farmland location, gender of household head, access to extension services, and membership to community-based financial institutions, revealed that the latter had the most equalizing effect on income. The Gini coefficient for farmers who were not members of any community-based was 0.77 implying that non-membership to these institutions had a more inequalising effect on income.

Importantly,4×8 flood tray income inequality was the highest among farmers with farmland locatedfar from homestead . Overall, these findings support the argument that the size of households, access to extension service, credit access, and membership to social groups determine income distribution .Unexpectedly however, income inequality among farmers who accessed extension services was higher than that of their counterpart farmers who did not access the services . We attribute this to variations in personal household characteristics , and economic characteristics  as indicated in our results of coefficients for the independent multiple linear regression models presented in Appendix 3. The coefficients for age of household, size of farmed land, and value of household assets in the model of farmers who accessed extension services statistically significantly determined household income with p-values of 0.001, 0.007,and 0.000 respectively. Before running our model to get the descriptive statistics such as mean, media,range and interquantile range, we generated the P-P and histogram plots of regression standardized residual against continuous predictor variables and used them to test the assumption of normality .

Where they vary more from the straight line,then the data could be considered to be not normally distributed, otherwise the data were considered to be normally distributed . The P-P and histogram plots add value to regression analysis as they can expose a biased model far more effectively than the numeric output by displaying problematic patterns in the residuals. If the model is biased then the results cannot be trusted. If the residual plots look good, ebb flow tray then the analyst can proceed with the assessment of model statistics such as the adjusted R-squared , which is also called the coefficient of determination, or the coefficient of multiple determination for multiple regression. It is used to measure the model’s goodness-of-fit and it shows the percentage of the dependent variable variation that a linear model explains.Graphically, it evaluates the scatter of the data points around the fitted regression line . The coefficients of our step by step multiple linear regression model for the pooled sample suggest that household assets, size of farmland, and age of household head positively influenced household income while the household size negatively influenced the household income. These results can be compared with findings of other previous studies. In Urban Ethiopia for example, Abebe  employed Fields’  regression based on decomposition technique to investigate the factors influencing income inequality using cross-sectional analysis.The study found age and household size to be negatively influencing expenditure and household income contributing to widen income inequality. In Malaysia, Ayyashand Sek  found sex and age of household heads to be contributing negatively to inequality and had inequality decreasing effects, with negative impact on inequality. Elsewhere, in South Korea, Shin analysed data linking survey data with administrative data shows that wealth, employment status, family size, and education were significant contributors of income inequality.

If our EC scheme is implemented, we believe that the inhabitants of Bangui town could get ecological compensation funding for four reasons. The first reason is that they provide ecological services values. The second is the opportunity cost of the locals to protect the environment. The third is poverty because of geographic reasons, such as severe undulating surface and lack of water and soil resources.The last reason is that the development of karst areas is seriously lagging behind for historical reasons, and reducing regional differences is one of the Chinese government’s objectives. Past EC projects did not have the desired effects as the projects were implemented in wide-ranging areas, e.g., the whole of west China or the whole area around the southern parts of the Yangtze River. In addition, the compensation to the farmers was too small and it was impossible to mobilize any enthusiasm from them . The farmers definitely need a special EC to improve their living standards while achieving ecosystem restoration.

Sachs and Reid stressed that environmental goals cannot be attained without also addressing poverty; similarly,vertical grow system addressing poverty is essential for improving the environment; both need additional resources, particularly in developing nations. On the basis of field measurements, literature study and analysis, we find that it has become increasingly necessary to establish a particular Ecological Compensation scheme for karst areas, to save the rapidly degrading natural forest ecosystem and reduce poverty. Due to the particularity of the karst region of southwest China, we have built an EC scheme that is not restricted by opportunity costs or the value of ecosystem services or other factors. It is more suited to local conditions, and stresses ease of operation and promotion. Land degradation due to use of unsustainable agricultural practices has affected many communities in rural mountain areas.

The available evidence from the study by Salvati  for example, shows that rural communities in inland,mountainous districts of Italy were particularly exposed to the extensive phenomena of land degradation and abandonment caused by bourgeoning human populations. Elsewhere,flower pot in the Bolivian mountain valley of north Chuquisaca,the study by Kessler and Stroosnijder  also provides similar evidence of soil degradation which caused dwindling availability of water and nutrient resources.They stressed the need for urgent integrated action with regard to soil and water conservation. More interesting is perhaps the argument that population growth in mountain areas can lead to land degradation or enhancement or aspects of all . In their paper, Templeton and Scherr conclude that increases in the labour-land endowment ratios of households and local land demand and labour supply increase the opportunity cost of land relative to labour, consequently, people use mountainous land resources more intensively for production and consumption, thus tending to deplete resources and significantly alter habitats.

Yet, capital- and labour-intensive methods of replenishing or improving soil productivity may become economically more important and attractive, especially when production systems promise greater returns than that from the systems which degrade the land . Agroforestry is one of these systems. It entails a range of land-use and farming systems which involve the deliberate growing of woody perennials  on the same land-management units as agricultural crops and or animals, in some form of spatial arrangement or temporal sequence . Agroforestry has huge potential to control land degrading and reduce vulnerability to poverty in mountain areas. It can help rural farmers in these areas to diversify and sustain production for increased social,economic and environmental benefits. In particular, agroforestry is crucial to small holder farmers in mountain areas because it can enhance their food supply,income and health .Agroforestry systems offer great solutions as they can be developed in unfavourable conditions where production would either rapidly degrade the land or otherwise would not be possible . They have the potential to mitigate land degradation problems through both the service and production functions played by the different components of agroforestry.

The most important challenge or potential road block to future progress of coral farming and reef rehabilitation overall is largely related to climate change associated conditions, in combination with poor land use management and weak governance. Therefore, human activities must be integrated into the equation for coral farming and reef rehabilitation success. This suggests that positioning of coral farms is fundamental. Special considerations should be given to factors such as: 1) environmental history of each proposed coral farming site; 2) environmental conditions of adjacent reef communities; 3) sediment movement ; 4) distance of sources of runoff; 5)exposure to wave action, winter storm and hurricane swells; 6) distance to large sand deposits ; and 7) magnitude and extent of recreational activities impacting the system, even with so called “low-impact” activities. Therefore, carrying capacity and the limit of acceptable change need to be determined for such sites.

Successful coral farming and reef rehabilitation will also require functional synchronized and integrated management efforts to address land use patterns, water quality issues and fishing activities  in order to improve ecosystem conditions for enhancing coral and fish recruitment, dutch bucket hydroponic and overall biodiversity recovery . It will be critical to fully implement LBSP controls, as well as appropriate watershed-scale management plans to control runoff impacts. Runoff-associated bleaching events and colony mortality can be highly clone-specific, as well as site-specific and event-specific. No generalizations can be made because not all coral clones respond the same, or because impacts from any given extreme rainfall event can produce different impacts on different locations, and on different times of the year. The combination of high SST and factors such as meso-scale water quality can also have significant impacts on project outcomes and should be closely monitored. Achieving successful local management of reefs is vital to maintain the sustained net production of coral farms, and of reef structure, and therefore the provision of the important ecosystem services that they provide.

These measures are also vital for buying time for reefs while global action on climate change is implemented . Any problem or imbalance in any of these elements will have in the long run a negative impact on rehabilitation success. If such impacts occur in combination with increasing forecasted climate change-related negative impacts in the near future and increased reef degradation rates, they could make community-based coral reef rehabilitation more challenging. In combination with declining reef condition and increased inability of coral and fish larvae to identify suitable natural reef bottoms for settlement , dutch buckets system it could potentially drive rapidly declining, transient coral reefs into the slippery slope to slime . It provided a framework to analyze ecosystem changes in terms of impacts on human well-being. Degradations in the environment are now seen as the increasing ecological costs of achieving this well-being. This increases the legitimacy of conservation and restoration policies, as this new reference framework offers a positive and ethno-centered approach to environmental protection. It entails a win-win relationship where services appear as common goods or as “the dividends that society receives from natural capital ”.

This change in the frame of reference requires a reassessment of actors’ perceptions of these services in order to adapt public policies and promote collective learning processes towards their protection and/or their development. At an individual level, perceptions are determining factors to understand behavior evolution in the face of new standards for ecosystem preservation . At a collective level, they condition adhesion and trust in the institutional systems responsible for the implementation of these measures.The ecosystem service approach involves several stages: the identification , the monetization, the privatization, and the marketing of services , partially adopted by the Ring et al. . Identification is a key stage which conditions the recognition of the value given to these services and the acceptation of policies. Yet, when compared to the other aspects, it is seldom the subject of research.

These included important events such as tropical storm Isaac , which also produced waves of approximately 4 m across coral farms. During late October 2012 long-period swells from Hurricane Sandy produced 5 m NW breaking waves, in combination with bottom swells across the region, and produced Doppler estimates of 13 cm. Another important event in December2012 was tropical storm Rafael, which produced not much rain, but generated 3 – 4 m swells. Bottom swells resulted in significant sediment resuspension. During the first 9 months of 2013 Culebra Island was initially impacted by three consecutive months of very dry conditions , followed by a few significant isolated strong rainfall episodes associated to the mid-Atlantic through positioning over Culebra. These included extreme events during late March  and a strong tropical wave during mid June . Then, tropical storm Chantal  produced some significant rain bands over eastern Puerto Rico and Culebra, with 2.5 m-high SW swells and a monthly rainfall anomaly of 215%. Tropical storm Gabrielle produced about 18 cm of rain over Culebra in about 48 hours. Runoff impacts by recurrent storm events, particularly those associated to passing tropical storms, hydroponic grow table were magnified by the recurrent practice of the Culebra Island municipal government of clearing all vegetation across several small creeks and natural drainage channels adjacent to urban areas as a preventive measure to manage potential flooding.

The end product of such practices is extreme runoff pulse events and major erosion of ephemeral stream banks with significant concomitant turbidity impacts on costal ecosystems. In spite of hurricane and extreme rainfall impacts during 2011, A. cervicornis farming during the first year was highly successful. Corals in “A frame” units showed 84% and 78% survival rate at BTA and PSO, respectively,after the first year. Survival rate at PME reached only 57% due to significant mechanical impacts by Hurricane Irene during August 2011, which caused localized destruction of some of the farming units and significant immediate and delayed coral mortality due to SDR and a White Band Disease-like condition.Also, frequent extreme rainfall events caused recurrent sediment-laden, nutrient-loaded turbid runoff impacts.PME, as well as BTA, received substantial recurrent runoff impacts. PME farms were eventually relocated after September 2011 to an alternative site adjacent to BTA, where surviving fragments showed an outstanding recovery. Temporal and management effects significantly influenced coral colony survival rates in “A frame” units, but clone variation did not, which means that extreme rainfall events had widespread adverse impacts among all clones in the population. Most interaction effects were also highly significant.

Mean percent live tissue cover on coral farms after one year was89% at BTA, 93% at PME ,and 91% at PSO ). Coral colonies showed rapid and remarkable tissue regeneration after hurricanes and blasting impacts. This project produced important lessons for adapting future community-based coral farming and coral reefrehabilitation efforts to forecasted climate changing conditions. Lessons include aspects regarding wild population source propagule selection to maintain high genetic diversity,flood tray coral farming site selection, impacts from LBSP and the crititical significance of managing adjacent land uses, and adaptive modifications to coral farming methods to improve success under changing environmental conditions. There were also important lessons learned regarding community-based participation in coral reef management activities. Maintaining high genetic clone diversity should be a critical component of every coral aquaculture and coral reef rehabilitation project to buffer against any future impacts by disease outbreaks, other epizootics, massive bleaching or environmental variability associated to local human factors or climate change. State-of-the-art genetic characterization confirmed that the six coral clones of A. cervicornis used in coral farms in this study were different genetic individuals. Genetic diversity and structure in scleractinian corals vary significantly, reflecting the evolutionary differences between species, but also the type of genetic markers employed. Microsatellite markers were more successful at detecting weak genetic structure than mitochondrial markers, ITS or allozymes.

Coffee production was devastated during the genocide and civil war,and then gradually revived, but was stopped in 2004/2005. The current level of productivity was never recovered fully after 1994 genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda. The low level of coffee yield is the result of various environmental,institutional, and farm management challenges.Moreover, the inability of farmers to adopt good agronomic practices such as weeding, mulching, pruning, use of improved varieties, fertilizers,and soil erosion control can also threaten coffee yields . Nyamasheke district is the one of the districts of Western Province of Rwanda.Nyamasheke district is divided into 15 sectors : Ruharambuga, Bushekeri,Bushenge, Cyato, Gihombo, Kagano, Kanjongo, Karambi, Karengera,Kirimbi, Macuba, Nyabitekeri, Mahembe, Rangiro, Shangi, it is also divided into68 cell , and 588 village , Nyamasheke district also has 1174square kilometers .

Nyamasheke district is the most coffee vertical grow table growing in Rwanda with 43,518 coffee farmers, with 13,032,732 of total coffee trees, and more than 39 coffee washing station were installed and operated in that district. Coffee production has been at the core of farm family livelihoods for many generations, and today it serves as source of cash income for over355,000 coffee farmers in Rwanda even if the income from the coffee production is still insufficient to the farmers relating to the farms input . Coffee based tourism is related to the consumption of the coffee, history, traditions,products and culture of a destination. Although literature in the field of coffee tourism is limited, researchers have inter-linked notions of coffee and tourism in a number of different ways that separately or collectively provide potential tourism products. The growth of coffee production and consumption,and an increasing number of coffee-related establishments worldwide suggest that there is a case for coffee-based tourism to be regarded as a growth niche tourism market . Coffee based tourism is subset of rural tourism which believed to have been started in late nineteenth century in Hawaii where coffee was included as part of luxurious vegetation of the uplands,where some tourists had travel experience related to coffee in the region .

The whole issue is that rural tourism based on coffee would improve community income and may alter the expansion of agriculture to sensitive forests. The concept of rural tourism has been popularized in decades mainly to counter the restructuring of western economy that demanded diversification of rural economy and rejuvenation of rurality .The term “rural tourism” sometimes used interchangeably with “agri-tourism”,“farm tourism”, and “farm-based tourism” mobile vertical grow tables and sometimes used in a different,even though some sources claim rural tourism is a comprehensive development approach combining ecotourism, farm tourism, and agri-tourism in a rural setting. Research methodology is a way to systematically solve the research problem.This study followed the qualitative methods, which adopts a holistic view that seeks discovery from involvement in the actual experience and aims to provide an in-depth understanding of social phenomena by exploring and interpreting collected data .This method helped participants to express their feelings beyond the structured questionnaires, hence giving a detailed description and clarify on their perception toward the potential contribution of Coffee-Based Tourism  to the study area .

Participants of this study were selected using purposive sampling technique.Respondents were selected according to their participation in coffee industry as well as their capacity to provide reliable data. Data were collected from July to August 2020 on the following respondents: ten coffee washing stations ’s managers and some coffee farmers’ representative. The interviewed managers and coffee farmers were from the following coffee washing station: Nyagatarecws, COOPAC Nyabumera cws, Gitwe cws, Karambi cws, Gasharu cws, Kirambocws, Rugali cws, Muhororo cws, Shara cws, and Kivu Belt Coffee cws. Tosubstantiate the date from the interviews, a document review was conducted.This study reviewed the following documents: the District Development Plan2013, the Rwandan tourism policy 2009, and the National Agriculture Export Development Board 2016.

Demonstrated that low input production system is found in all livestock production systems prevailing in the country except in Peri-urban and urban system. Animal feeding is free grazing. Prior to site selection, livestock experts in the district were contacted for brief discussions. In addition, secondary data were reviewed to better understand the current production systems and the area dominated by Begait goat. Based on this information, four rural kebeles and the special district were selected as study sites. A total of 150 Begait goat owning farmers  were selected at random.Interviews were conducted at the farmers’ residences using structured questionnaire with the assistance of development agents. The questionnaires covered information on key household characteristics, livestock possession, flock structure,purposes of keeping goat, mating system, marketing system and production constraints. To complement the survey work, focus group discussions were held with a total of 8 – 10 key informants per selected study site.

In addition,hydroponic channel general information about the district was obtained from secondary data sources. The overall average age of the sampled household head was 50 ±10.44 years, implying that the respondents were adults with a good experience in goat farming. The overall mean family size was 4.85 ± 0.89, which is comparable with the national estimate of 4.80 persons per household .Of the total sampled household heads, 98.67% were males. The rest households were female headed. Indeed, it is unlikely to find a female headed household unless she is widowed or divorced. Literacy rate among the household heads was 69.67%. Similar results were reported by  in Dale district and in Goma district. The better educational background obtained in this study would be a good opportunity for further animal genetic improvement programs in the study area, since literate communities are more likely adopt and practice new technologies. The study also revealed that most of the respondents were married. The percentage of unmarried and widowed was 0.67% and 1.33%,respectively. The present findings indicate that goat farming can be performed by every social class of the community regardless of their background characteristics,viewing the significant importance of goat for its owners. There was a slight increase in mean livestock holding of respondents from small-scale to large-scale farming even if the difference is not statistically significant except for cattle. None of the respondents owned mules and horses. This finding supports the fact that mules and horses could not adapt the hot environmental conditions of the area.The mean flock size of goats in the present study was close to the work of and ,hydroponic dutch buckets who reported that 44.0 and 48.5 heads per household in Siti zone of Somali region and Abergelle district of Amhara region, respectively.

In contrast,the mean flock size recorded in this study is higher than the previous average flock size of 21.20 Begait goats in the area . This difference might be due to random sampling error or due to changes in goat farming system over time in the area.The number of males and females in the sample population and their ages were often used as an indicator of a traditional management system in Africa. The present finding revealed that the proportion of does represents the largest class followed by suckling kids, while castrates represent the lowest proportion. This is in good agreement with previous findings in Ethiopia and elsewhere in Africa. The higher proportion of does than other age groups suggests that adult females stay in a flock for breeding purposes and/or milk production. However, the less number of buckling as compared to doeling is because of marketing and slaughtering of buckling.Small ruminants were the predominant livestock species in the area and this shows that their wide acceptability and ease of adaptation in the area.Sheep and goat numbers are growing fastest in the mixed farming systems as subsistence farmers prefer small stock because the risk of losing large ruminantsis high . In rural areas of Ethiopia, because of their subsistence and economic reasons, goats and sheep have been described as bank reserve which can be drawn upon when cash money is required. This confirms a study by ,who reported that keeping livestock, especially small ruminants plays role as safety net that enables households to get quick income to settle urgent financial needs.

All the variances were statistically significant at 95% confidence level during the analysis. The factor loadings are labeled on arrows from the latent variables to their respective variables, whiles the path coefficients, β are on the paths from one latent variable to another. The model fit indices listed in Table 5 asserts that the observed research model’s goodness-of-fit was satisfactory. The purpose of the study was to examine the factors that encourage the youth to champion agricultural farming in Ghana. Using the Exploratory Factor Analysis, the study implemented factors such as motivation, technology, economics,and external government policies that presumed to have significant effects on youth farming. Figure 2 gives the graphical representation of these relationships.The study observed that among the hypotheses which were significant to the effective assessments of the factors toward youth farming, technology accounts for a greater portion of the variance explained. Thus, signifying technology as a major determining factor that influences youth farming.

We observe that technology has a positive significant relationship with youth farming, 4×8 flood tray which means that technology has a direct influence on youth going into farming which toes the line of initial expectation. Researchers such as Bacco et al. ,  and Yuet al. ,  also confirmed technology’s influence on youth and farming.Also, there was a statistically significant association between government policies and youth farming . As presented in Figure 2; government policies equally have a direct influence on youth opting to farm. Tanko, confirmed that external activities such as government policies, religion, culture,and the like directly influence youth farming.Furthermore, the relationship between motivation and youth farming was surprisingly not significant, in statistical terms. The authors discovered that the indicators for motivation were basically concerned about intrinsic motivation, other than the general motivation which would have given an unswerving influence on the youth farm, as was expected by the authors . It should be worth noticing that some indicators of government policy account for extrinsic kind of motivation which talks about incentive packages to entice the youth to engage in agricultural farming. Supported by Damba et al., motivation influence people’s behavior, especially the youth, to go into the variable providing the source of motivation.

The result denotes that the relationship between economic and youth farming is not statistically significant, ebb flow tray yet the interaction of economic factors with motivation increases the absolute total effect of motivation on youth farming. This means that when the youth is intrinsically motivated, their economic status will boost their interest in farming and researchers such as Saiz-rubio,  confirmed economic progress inspires the youth to practice agriculture. The youth are expected to be more inclined hence more likely when there is an ideal financial situation.In addition, other variables such as attitude and knowledge though have no direct influence on youth farming; they moderate significantly on technology application in farming to drive the youth to have interest in agricultural farming.Finally, besides the previously discussed factors, other indicators such as the number of family members engaged in farming , predominant occupation of the locals, the level of education of the youth,and the availability of white-collar job or unemployment rate, among others have a great influence on the youth’s involvement in farming.

This contemporary study analyses four empirical factors such as technology,motivation, economic and government policies impact on youth farming. Still, other factors such as motivation, economic and governmental policies equally have encouraged the youth. The application and integration of these factors have been extensively accepted as the key elements that inspired youth to go into farming efficiently and effectively. The main result of the analyses shows their integration roles cannot be underestimated.Technology was identified as a universal modern approach for the current generation of youth, who can use technology to accomplish a greater solution to humanity’s food insecurity, especially on the African continent.

This is contrary to the expectation that such households’ heads would use their farming experience in promoting appropriate strategies on adaptation to rainfall variability. This may be associated with decrease in interest in adaptation after long years of farming without much improvement. Since 2006, food prices have continued to rise, extending problems such as riots, famine, and malnourished population growth; on the other hand, according to the 2014 report of the United Nations Climate Change Commission (IPCC),climate change is also impacting food, and human security is a big crisis for Taiwan that depends on imports of food. According to the information of the Agricultural Committee of the Executive Yuan, Taiwan’s food self-sufficiency rate in 2017 was 32.2% . If Taiwan continues to rely on imports, failure to find a solution will have a significant impact on Taiwan’s economic development and social stability.Agriculture is the foundation of region’s industry, but Taiwan’s agriculture is facing severe challenges of arable land loss, aging rural labor force, and climatic and environmental changes.

Therefore, the industry, government, and academia are all looking for solutions,mobile vertical farm including excellent agriculture, technology agriculture,and leisure agriculture. Taking leisure agriculture as an example, consumer contact can give consumers more opportunities to learn about the characteristics and advantages of local agricultural products. And then use and consume local agricultural products, which is an essential opportunity for the sustainable development of Taiwan’s agriculture . The Department of Leisure Agriculture combines natural landscape and ecological resources in the agricultural environment ,agricultural production (process), agricultural and fishery products, rural culture, humanities and arts, rural facilities, tourism, and other resources to develop new services with leisure functions industry. This means that the “Leisure” products or services it provides must be based on “Agriculture”.In recent years, the issues related to “food farmers”, “food security” and “food education” have been valued by the people.

The industrialized food production and sales methods have caused many problems, including human health and the ecological environment. The problem of “food safety” has gradually emerged, making developed countries realize the importance of food security. The national social awareness of agriculture has gradually reversed. The requirements for the source control of agricultural products and dietary safety have also increased . The concept has taken root and spread to schools and families, teaching the importance of traceability of ingredients. Leisure agriculture should be able to provide fresh, hygienic, and safe agricultural products to meet the needs of repairers. Conserve natural ecological landscapes,vertical farming racks conserve water sources, regulate the microclimate, and improve the environment in which people live and provide another need for urban social and cultural life. The three functions of production, ecology, and life, such as leisure agriculture, farming culture, and folk culture tourism, can provide consumers with agricultural knowledge education and demonstration functions.Tuan once put forward the viewpoint of the economics of experience of leisure agriculture, thinking that to experience the fun of doing it yourself, “experience”and “feel” become commercial products that can be sold.

Consumers’ internal psychological feelings come from personal.The interaction of mood and events, and through the design and operation of agricultural experience activities,can increase the sales opportunities of individual farm products. Leisure agriculture is based on life and situation, shaping the sensory experience and thinking identification, and finding new survival value and space for commodities.Allow visitors to experience special agricultural production activities, such as picking vegetables and fruits, making tea, feeding, fishing, agricultural products processing, etc.; the industry persuaded consumers to pay for the experience with carefully designed situations. At the same time, more and more consumers are willing to spend money to buy the experience. However, after two or thirty years of development, the design of experiential activities has gradually entered into rigid imprisonment.

The soil quality in the upper portion is loosened and infertile during prolonged heat, extreme rainfall and La Nino while it becomes dusty and cracked during extreme heat. During extreme rainfall and prolonged rainfall, the soil becomes wetter and loosened and in the upper portion of the Mt. Isarog watershed area, the soil are carried away making the soil less fertile in the upper portion and more fertile in the lower portion of the watershed area. The effect of extreme heat to soil quality is similar to the upper and lower portion of Mt. Isarog giving similar impacts to crops particularly to vegetables and rice. Abaca,coconuts and root crops which are more abundant in the upper portion are not affected by the cracking of soil because their roots are deep and they can still absorb water from the underground. The early onset of rain improves soil quality in the upper Isarog and favors the planting for all kinds of crops but the soil in the lower portion is muddy making the soil unfavorable for planting. During LaNina,strawberry gutter system lots of soil are washed out in the upper portion but soil quality in the lower portion of the watershed area is better.

A few of them also grow root crops but just the same root crops are also affected by the cracking and dryness of the land. This poor soil quality affects production for the inability of the crops to absorb water and the nutrients. The upland area is likewise affected by the cracking and drying of the soil particularly the root crops grown in Abucayan, Tagongtong, and Pinaglabanan,The coconuts and abaca grown in Hiwacloy and Digidgon are also affected by the extreme heat but because they have deep rooting system, they can surviveat this season. Coconuts, abaca and root crops can survive and are resilient to extreme rainfall so farmers of this kind are not affected.The upland farmers favor the advent of extreme rainfall because most of their crops are rain dependent and excessive water is not actually felt is the area because water flows freely downhill. Only the vegetables and rice farmers in the lowland area are the most affected by the oversupply of water. Vegetables and rice farmers in the upland area still favors the extreme rainfall. As observed,farmers in both the upland and lowland watershed area lack the farming technologies and innovations to help them cope with extreme weather like the use of mulching, aquaculture, hydroponics, micro-irrigation system, rainwater harvester and similar modern agriculture practices.

Farmers may be provided with technical knowledge on soil quality to help them understand better soil quality and how to deal with them in moments of climate variability. The impact of extreme heat is more felt in the upland area than in the lowland area. Root crops, hydroponic fodder system abaca and coconuts which are mostly grown in the upland area are favorable to upland famers because of better production indicating a better income to upland farmers. But for the lowland farmers, vegetable farming is not advisable at this climatic condition because of poor yield and low income. Rice farming has no income at all. This impact is true to both the lowland and upland farmers but the greater negative impact is experienced in the upland areas.

The negative impact of the typhoon is observed in both the lowland and upland area. But the upland farmers are more vulnerable. Whereas, the delay onset of rainy days has no effect on all kinds of crops in both the upland and lowland area. The income of the farmers in the upper portion of Mt. Isarogis affected both positively and negatively. While some farmers like the abaca,coconut and vegetable farmers are earning good income from their crops, the root crop farmers are losing their income due to the poor growth and quality product of the crops. During El Nino, the same effect is true to vegetables and upland rice farmers. The lowland rice farmers still enjoy the benefit of good harvest and good income at this climate condition.The impact of extreme heat is more observed in the upper portion of Mt. Isarog affecting abaca, coconuts and vegetables but not to root crops like camote . In the lowland area, the negative impact of extreme heat is more evident to vegetables and rice due to pest infestation and scarcity of water.

The western Sudan contributes significantly to the livestock production in Sudan. This region contains three important sub-systems of livestock. They migrate and move from the North to the South throughout the year, seeking good grazing and water points. They migrate to the south in the dry season when the rains stop and the areas are still favorable for better pastoral conditions. During the rainy season, herders migrate to the north when the conditions in the south become extremely wet coupled with the spread of insects and diseases. In this sub-farming system, no crop cultivation is practiced,nft growing system and herders depend on the market to satisfy their consumption and other needs.Until recently, it was rare in the southern parts of North Kordofan State to have conflicts concerning the competition over the natural resources . The second sub-system exhibits a similar directional movement of nomadicherders.

The transhumant practice crop cultivation in specific areas along their direction of movement. In this case, part of the family members remains behind to take care of crop cultivation. The sedentary is the third subsystem,in which farmers settle in villages and practice the traditional system of crop cultivation and livestock raising as well as engage in off-farm activities .Therefore, the most significant activity in North Kordofan State besides the cultivation of crops is grazing livestock.Good performance of livestock populations is determined by the amount of crop residues and the richness of the natural pasture system. The contribution of desert sheep to Sudan’s GNP is estimated at about 70%. This reveals a possibility to improve and develop the pastoral system in western Sudan as it plays a vital role in Sudan’s trade and export market.The local herds in North Kordofan State consist of sheep (the most numerous), camels (the most valued), and goats, although the large cattle herds are not commonly owned by local pastoralists. Cattle herds are more important in South Kordofan State, and they move to North Kordofan State only during the rainy season (grazing settlements).

The statistical data of livestock exhibited a disparity in the number of livestock in different localities in the state from 2003 to 2011 (see Figure 7). The figure shows the increase in the numbers of all livestock,vertical hydroponic nft system from 2003 to 2006, albeit there was a huge reduction in the number of sheep from 2007 to 2011 compared with2005 and 2006. The large numbers of livestock being raised in the North Kordofan State is attributed to the higher potential of the pastoral system. The food consumption pattern is symbolized as one of the important features of food and nutrition security for individuals and communities as well. The dominant local food for the majority of the population in Sudan as well as in North Kordofan State is cereal foods. The average food basket consists of cereal foods (millet or sorghum),pulses (cowpeas, lentils), oil crops (peanuts), meat, milk, dried okra, onions, vegetable oil, and sugar. In this context, Figure 8 shows the food consumption pattern and the share of different food groups in both rural and urban areas of North Kordofan State during the period 2002-2003.

The consumption of cereal food in North Kordofan State is about 30% and 51% of the total food group consumed in urban and rural areas, respectively. The cereal foods contribute about 43% and 57% to the total daily per capita caloric intake in both urban and rural areas, respectively as reported by . This was expected since most of the people in agricultural areas consumed what they usually produce on their farm. The western Sudan is well-known for its higher potential of natural resources. Yet, this area has experienced a higher deterioration in its natural resources due to drought that affecting the farming and pastoral system .Besides decreasing the productivity of food crops, it emerges that the cereal foods of millet and sorghum characterized by higher prices in the local markets. The erratic rainfall and its greater variation in its distribution as well as poor storage capacity are also influenced the food security. The destruction of the environment and the spread of pests and diseases particularly during the storage process are distressing the crop output.