Nature Ecrogrow

It raises queries on gains and losses in terms of maintenance of water quality, biodiversity, carbon storage, pest control, pollinators and predators, fisheries and ecotourism in agricultural landscapes. Thus future revolution agricultural productivity must work on the principles of PAR that incorporates accumulated knowledge of ecological processes and feedbacks, disease dynamics, soil processes and beneficial microbial functions . A cyclical approach of PAR is promising in situation, which involves diversity of active stakeholders in research and as agents of positive change. The cyclic process of PAR includes observational, reflective thinking, experimental actions and coevolution through network reciprocity . The duality of the PAR is important to create positive social and environmental change contributing essentially to scientific knowledge gain to stakeholders. It facilitates strategic and potential expansion of PAR linkages among the communities, organizations, researchers and development of network for mutual learning.

However, long- term sustenance of the PAR cycle is challenge by itself due to changing priorities of the stakeholders and re-searchers. It is one of the drawbacks which may add skeptic view to PAR oriented approach to agro-ecological development initiatives. Many options may be created by asking questions in the initiation stage of the PAR process to make the PAR activity adaptable. The relevant questions may range from level of participation, powers of participants, gender issues, caste discrimintions, social roles of participants within the communities, social skills of scientific researchers and interactive forces operating at spatial,grow table geographic and political scales . In PAR approach, much importance need to be paid to benefit the adaptive management strategies  in natural resource management.The typology and the degree of relationship has been suggested  based on participation at the level of 1) Collegial— trust based relationship where researchers work in close association with local stakeholders to strengthen their research, developmental capacities and practice advocacy; 2) Collaborative—a direct collaboration between re-searchers and stakeholder with realizable objective/s; 3) Consultative—researcher orients his approach to need based solving of problem of the stakeholder/s; and 4) Contractual—service oriented contract between the re-searcher and stakeholder . All these relationships can be operational at one time, however need empowerment of local communities of their social capital aiming at positive change as a long and negotiated process .

The uneven power relationships, conflicts, rivalry, multi-ple cultures, caste based discrepancies operate while building PAR for agro-ecological sustainability. Environmental sociology is increasingly becoming in-dispensable in restoration of ecological functions. By definition environmental sociology is “complex symbolic and non-symbolic reciprocal interactions between society and environment, which are influenced by the cultural and social behavior while interacting with the physical and biological elements” . Agricultural landscapes provide ideal systems for environmental perspective analysis of development as human-well being holds the key to sustainability. Agricultural extension is recognized approach for lab-to-land dissemination of research output to farming communities. It fails to consider farm level innovations, which have not been documented but practiced in isolation. In such situation, PAR is best suited to operate in both direction with extension and learning the lessons from traditional experimental farming by the stakeholders. In this view, experts and farmers are guided by a knowledge interest in “technical power of control over an environment” and perceive their participation in environment as a sphere of instrumental rationality. Accordingly the farmers will have habitualized the laws of environment as behavioral rules. Indeed, co-evolution and network reciprocity of the farmers must be characterized as all human knowledge of environment is inevitably tied to the interest in ecological sustenance. Hence, environmental sociology perspective at farm level could be used to reconstruct the theoretical basis for sustain-able development of agricultural landscapes.

There is need for paradigm shift in extension activities and PAR to analyze the current situation and circumstantial changes to agricultural landscapes. Thus far the principles of extension have been aimed at increasing the productivity, which theoretically might negatively impact the sustainability of agricultural landscapes. PAR principles provide a basis for such an approach in the current theory of establishment of farm level sustainability and economic viability of production systems. Thus the meaning of sustainability assumes conservation and capacitating the farming communities through PAR to maintain the ecological services to achieve the new paradigm shift in productive agricultural landscapes. The concept of sustainability and economic rationality seem become inseparable and having their own legitimacy in agricultural landscapes.

While Baganda people have little knowledge of pollination,human communities living in most other ecological zones of Uganda have a good knowledge of pollination. In fact, during a study conducted in western part of Uganda , it was realized that communities  living in the mountainous region bordering Bwindi Impenetrable forest and Mgahinga Gorilla forest national parks were aware of the value pollinators. Most farmers interviewed from that region new how to manage their lands to care for pollinators . Farmers from that region had 5 to 15 beehives each while in central Uganda few farmers own beehives. Bee-keeping is not a common farming practice in central Uganda whereas in western part of the region, it is one of the lucrative activities providing income to farmers. Hence, knowledge of pollination by bees is advanced in west part of the country. Additionally Baganda people were incapable of differentiating bees from other insects. Batwa people had local names for different species of stingless bees.

Different stingless bee species have distinct names according to Batwa nomen-clature: Maranga , Obwiza , Obugashu , Obuzagali  and Obuganza . It was there after assumed that the high level of knowledge pollinator species and pollination by human communities from western part of Uganda may be linked to the fact that their agricultural systems is largely depending on inputs including pollination and fertilizers. Overall, the increase in level of knowledge of pollination by farmers seems following a gradient from the edge of Lake Victoria to Western part of the country. Differences in perceptions and knowledge of pollination constitute a major obstacle in farmer–researcher cooperation and collaboration which is necessary for sustainable management of pollination services in rural farmlands. The aim of this study was to understand knowledge and perceptions of the importance of pollinators and pollination services in coffee production. Farmers’ perceptions were investigated in order to harness their knowledge in the participatory development of conservation strategies of pollination services. Findings indicated that farmers’ awareness of pollinator importance in coffee yield increase was extremely low and gender biased with males having high knowledge than females.

One of the greatest challenges for the conservation of Apoidea fauna in farmlands of central Uganda is the great ignorance of the role played by bees in crop production enhancement including coffee. Ironically,vertical grow table small scale farmers in central Uganda are involved in all activities related to the destruction and conservation of natural resources. Obviously, farmers can play significant role in the conservation of bees if they are made aware of the importance of bees to the improvement of their livelihood and sustainability of their agricultural systems. African farmers are aware of insects as pests but not as important factor in the agricultural productivity. Bees are taken for granted by farmers, just like the air and the light. However, the “free pollination service” provided by “God” to human survival is irreplaceable and it will be difficult for scientists to find a technology that can replace it in the nature. In Uganda, many people and farmers believe that if there is a yield loss, it will be attributed to anything but not to pollination deficit. However, conservation of pollinators is a key for sustainable agriculture development in Africa. Much of crops grown in Africa owe their production to bee pollination activities. African green revolution will not work without paying great attention to pollinators in the plant breeding programs .

Findings from this study also indicated that, that more than 90% of the farmers were not aware of the role played by bees in the increase of coffee yield. As it was also observed in Kenya , small-scale farmers in central Uganda were not willing to manage their lands to protect pollinators because not only that they were ignorant, but, they also considered pollination as an unsolicited “free service”, or as a “public good”. Most farmers considered that coffee could still produce with or with-out receiving visits from bees. In contrast to the views and perceptions of the farmers, pollination experiments conducted from 30 coffees showed that the economic value of pollination services delivered to coffee approximated US $ 650/ha/year on average . At the national level, the total economic value of coffee produced in Uganda is on average of US$214 million from half million hectares dedicated to coffee production, and ap-proximately 60%  of this economic value is attributable to pollination services delivered by bees to coffee in Uganda . This is the evidence that coffee needed pollinators in central Uganda.

It was remarkably prescient coming at a time prior to the, then, forthcoming immanent and major upheavals in farming practice, including the transformation of agriculture by the chemical industry. Secondly, King’s book recorded, with an eye for detail, and with precision augmented by statistics, the principles and practice of what we can now describe as ancien régime organic agriculture. His book described agricultural practices across three populous countries which were self sufficient in food and had been feeding large populations, from the same soil, for millennia. Organics advocates have viewed it as an validation of their methods and it remains of interest to organics scholars because of its influence, its persistence, and its testimony. Thirdly, King, as well as Hopkins, chose a term, in their case ‘permanent’, that qualified ‘agriculture’, and thereby differentiated the practice of ‘permanent agriculture’ from ‘orthodox agriculture’ as preached by the USDA.

The term arose from a conflict, a clash of ideologies, and signalled a cleavage of the territory of agricultural theory and practice into different camps; it a cleavage which remains to this day. As a distinguishing term, ‘permanent’, was the first of many such distinguishing terms for alternative agricultures. ‘Permanent agriculture’ emerged in response to, and out of a conflict with, the USDA’s view of agriculture. There is the parallel with ‘organic agriculture’ which emerged,hydroponic net pots framed as a contest, three decades later as Northbourne’s “organic versus chemical farming” . ‘Permanent’ was a precursor to ‘organic’, the term which has, in the interim, become the dominant descriptor to describe non-orthodox, alternative agriculture. Fourthly, King called for a “world movement” to introduce and develop permanent agriculture practices. He noted that “China, Korea and Japan long ago struck the keynote of permanent agriculture it remains for us and other nations to profit by their experience”. The call for a “world movement” o alternative agriculture eventually manifested in France, in 1972 as the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements.

As China is now adopting organic agriculture on a grand scale  there are increasing opportunities to compare, across the divide of a century, places and practices that were documented by King. He described, for example, Chongming Island which is now increasingly adopting modern organic agriculture practices . King’s book has a special place in the canon of agricultural writers in general and organic farming in particular, and Farmers of Forty Centuries has earned its standing as a ‘classic’. In describing, with the eye of a scientist, an agricultural world that has all but disappeared, the work offers an accessible record of agricultural practices of increasing interest as the world faces the challenges of novel and contested agricultural technologies. Coffee is an important commercial crop. Coffee is an important cash crop in Uganda because the tree crop is the principal cash crop and the country’s largest agricultural foreign revenue earner . At the farmer level, coffee remains an important source of income since its production accounts for over 10% of total income of the farmer .

At the national level, income from coffee currently contributes around 20% – 26% of Uganda’s export earnings  In 1999, coffee exports totaled 150,000 mt representing US$125.316 million in foreign ex-change earnings. Exports by value for Uganda coffee is of 398 million $USD in 2009 . The improvement of coffee yield quality and quantity at farm level remains importantly an area that requires encouragement as part of national strategy to increase the production of coffee in Uganda. Thus, improvement and stability of coffee productivity are very important in the Uganda national economy. However the improvement needs the understanding of farmers’ perceptions and knowledge of pollinators and pollination services for coffee production among other key production and management factors to consider.

West European experience shows that production is efficient if the area of land use exceeds 100 ha. In fact, average area used by a single farming economy is far from being optimal even in developed states. In particular, small farms prevail in the EC countries: nearly 60% of all farming enterprises use less than 5 ha of agrarian lands each. The share of such small economies in the totality of EC farms amounts to 78% in Italy, 76% in Greece, 58% in Spain, and 34% 35% in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands and Finland. In contrast, the share of big economies with average land area of over 100 ha is 27% in Germany, 16% in Great Britain, 8% in France and 2% in Austria . Scientists representing the Institute of Agrarian Economics at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences conclude that farms using on the average less than 20 ha of agrarian lands in Ukraine are not rational, and efficient economy management is possible with farms that use over 150 200 ha, since cost price of land decreases with the in- crease of the cultivated land areas .

The Carpathian Region features 40% of farming enterprises that use lands of less than 5 ha, and 6% of the same using over 100 ha. The trend of farm quantity reduction with simultaneous insignificant increase of used land areas is today observed in many countries. That is,dutch buckets it is a trend of big in- vestments with simultaneous effort of agrarian lands expansion and formation of farms with developed auxiliary Assessment of nature-resource potential of the territory is an important component to help plan agricultural activity and an essential means in execution of regional policy. Comparison of nature-resource potential’s integral value and volume of gross output obtained by farming enterprises of the administrative oblasts of the Carpathian Region of Ukraine witnesses their complete correlation which is best expressed when comparatively analyzed with land resources. Further development of farming in the Carpathian Region of Ukraine in the aspect of use of its nature-resource potential requires farms’ mutual cooperation and integration as well as the same with other enterprises, that is, their inclusions into the system of agro-business on the basis of specialization and co-operation of production. In this case, farms with comparatively small land areas can also become profitable.

The extension is possible by way of incorporation of bankrupt farms. Formation of farm’s optimal land area together with the set of necessary means of production is pre-conditions to generation of commodity-competitive farming enterprise whose entrepreneurial activity would provide for gaining profit. The profit gained from product’s sale would at least allow the farmer satisfy his family’s consuming demands, and, as a maximum, let him execute extended reproduction and accumulation of capital. We find it appropriate to recommend farmers majorly specialize in production of labor-intensive cultures and some kinds of livestock growth and establishment of highly specialized enterprises engaged in bee-farming, fur farming, fish farming , etc.

The changes introduced in the agricultural sector focused on soils and water conservation and also mixed farming—where animal husbandry was integrated with agriculture with the use of more manure. Experiments were carried out on existing crops found in this region like cotton, shea butter, grains, ground nut and also on livestock. Many reasons account for the failure of the different agricultural and livestock experiments. Each venture was treated as a new idea without reference to other past experiences. There was little or no coordination between the different organisations implementing these projects over time and space, leading to a waste of time, money and resources. The aim of the colonial council in reviving agriculture and exporting raw materials like cotton to Europe,livestock to the South did not yield any fruits. In this example, we see how governmental interventions with the aim to improve the livelihood of the masses as stated in , does not succeed, due to different interest and agendas by the actors .

The brief consideration of tobacco, dawadawa, rice, and shea butter as cash crops was problematic due to numerous factors. First, a good transport system was absent. Secondly, most the crops were not suited for mechanisation. Thirdly there was a lack of technical expertise to fix any machine that broke down. The British colonial government invested a lot in the experimentation with cotton as a possible cash crop. Animal traction was introduced especially for this particular cash crop farming practice with ox-carts fabricated from wrecked cars, as the “main implement used is a heavy ridger pulled by paired oxen” . These technologies were introduced first to chiefs, with the idea was that if the chiefs adopted these technologies,hydroponic nft channel and then the people will do same. Chiefs, in this case, were used by the colonial administrators as an Obligatory Passage Point to get the people enrolled in the project. New farm technologies were introduced to the chiefs by the colonists who believed that if chiefs adopted these technologies,other farmers would be convinced to adopt them too. This process of enrolment is a process through which an actor convinces other actors to join his ideological network, by using discourses or intermediaries which the other actors accept.

Even though the people did not adopt many technologies elaborated above, intercropping of maize and millet fertilised with manure collected from animal kraals close to the compound was adopted by many farmers .Sutton also discusses the large-scale groundnut farms opened in 1955under the Gonja Development Company Scheme. The thinking behind this project was to acquire the land, plant, get farmers to weed it and when crops are sold, a third of the profit given to farmers. This project invested in the use of chemical fertilisers, tractors, and the crop rotation method. About 4000 acres of land was acquired, and expectations were to get roughly 400 farmers to settle and work on this farm. This project ended at the experimental phase with only 15 permanent farmers on site. Reasons for this failed project were that the farmers did not own the project, and found it taxing to relocate to this project farms to settle and farm.

Apart from the inter-cropping example above, farmers resisted all other governmental interventions by the colonial government to change their agricultural system, in this way reshaping the governance system in place by not legalising their power and authority in controlling the agricultural system .Irrigated dry season or market gardening on small protected plots was introduced by the Society of Missionaries of Africa who grew vegetables around water bodies first in the upper East region as stated by . The vegetables cultivated were mostly exotic that is, vegetables foreign to the localdiet. Vegetable cultivation increased in the city as the colonial administrator seach had gardens, where he or she cultivated vegetables and flowers for culinary and aesthetic purposes, especially in the Gold Coast . In the North, vegetables were grown in compound and bush farms; these vegetables were grown in the wet season and dried for culinary use in the dry season.

The above narrative gives us a glimpse into the socio-political life of the Dagbon people, which is embedded in their origin. These historical recollections are echoed by current writers like Imam and Mahama who painted the mas warriors, skilled hunters, and great agriculturalist. They are organised in centralised states with a patriarchal system of inheritance, where women are not included in the decision making of the state. The agricultural activities of the Dagomba people from the pre-colonial era to present date were extracted from secondary sources, archival data and oral history collected by anthropologists and historians who first visited these people.Even though oral history is considered problematic due to its sources and credence,it gives a clear picture of the past socio-political relationship of people. Also, primary data was collected from farmers, government officials,non-governmental organisations and traditional rulers through 101 key informantinte rviews, 35 focus group discussions, informal discussions and participant observations on fields especially from September 2013 to March 2015.

The questions addressed in these interviews and discussions focused on; pre-colonial and existing agricultural policies,grow table hydroponic evolving agricultural practices with a focus on urban vegetable farming and social norms which condition farm activities and practices.The key informant interviews purposively targeted key stakeholders who are knowledgeable about the subject of discussion and have experiences from faming during the pre to post colonial era. The information from key informant interviews was triangulated with information from focus group discussions disaggregated by gender and occupation. These qualitative methods provided us within depth knowledge of what activities took place, how and why it did. Combined with achival data and secondary literature we had a more holistic picture of the agricultural system in Northern Ghana and why it has not changed much. The paper is part of my doctoral work. The aim of the study was clearly explained to all respondents.Respondents were informed of their right to stop the interview or completely refuse to participate in the research. Few respondents opted out during this study. The agricultural system in the Northern region has evolved with resultant changes in the production, distribution and consumption patterns of the people. The different agricultural policies have shaped and are still shaping farmers practice within their socio-economic and political environment.

Changes in the agricultural activities of the Dagomba people will be considered at different time scales from pre-colonial times to date in relation to changing agricultural policies and the social reality of the people. In pre-colonial times, agricultural activities of the Dagomba’s were captured by historians and anthropologist through tales and participant observation. Cardinall and Tamakloe argued that, even though most traditional tales and history in Africa are regarded as superstition, they are believed to be accurate by the people who live it daily and to whom it is considered perfectly natural. This assertion he puts in opposition to tales in European peasantry societies which are half believed and not assumed to be natural occurrences. Talton also emphasized the importance of historical recollections in defining the customs and traditions of people, their socio-political structure and how they construct their identity and access to and control over different resources. Through tales of human interactions with the gods, we see a clear picture of the type of agricultural system that existed before colonialism influenced by religion and culture and constructed around the socio-economic and political environment; the people lived in. An example is the tale of Edubiaku the wise child, which describe show man received seeds as a gift from the gods to plant far afield and later around the living abode.Blench and Dendo corroborated the idea of farming far away from the living quarters, or the compound when he talks about the practice of bush farming in the Northern parts of Ghana. He explains that many fields were cultivated far from the living abode—about 4 to 10 km. From the different tales written in Cardinall and Tamakloe , we deciphered that due to the destruction of crops far from the compound by animals, the guard of the gods advised humans to sow their seeds close to their compounds.

The government’s prioritization of the sub-tropical fruit and nut sectors and the promotion of small-scale farmer integration in HVC markets raise concerns for sustainability and require investigation into whether farmers can sustain these HVC systems over time. There is a need for farmers to invest in various land use and management aspects that will affect the long-term sustainability of the farming systems .The study examines the land resource used under different commodities i.e. ,HVCs in the Vhembe district of Limpopo and how the land characteristics are driving the sustainable production of these commodities under different landownership and management systems. In order to achieve the overarching goal of sustainability that will ensure long term food security in the country there is need to explore what land characteristics will support production. The two farming systems in the study i.e. , small-scale and large-scale are recognised as systems due to the multi-variable nature of the processes within the farms and the non-linear interconnectedness that exists between them.

The four drivers of production i.e. , land, labour,capital and enterprise drive the two farming systems and the pathway of agricultural enterprise i.e. , production, management, marketing and value adding for each of the systems which have the potential to produce the same outcome indifferent ways. Future scenarios for sustainable agriculture within the different commodities must consider how production can be sustained under the two main farming systems.The land resource and its use are arguably one of the most important drivers of sustainable agriculture as they highlight numerous environmental interactions that can either be detrimental or beneficial to the sustainability of farming systems .Land is a highly politicized issue in the South African context due to historical allocation of land based on race by the previous government prior to democracy in 1994. There is a need for an emphasis on scale in the analysis of these two main South African farming systems in order to accurately investigate what land variables will drive sustainable agriculture in the country. Land characteristics namely,vertical farming racks farm size and ownership, topography, soil type and fertility, threats and hazards, water sources and irrigation, and the impact of climatic and its variability on the farming systems have been selected and are analysed between the two farm sizes and within three different commodities.

These land characteristics are further analysed alongside two production characteristics, i.e., income and yield in order to determine to what extent they can drive sustainability. The study took place in the Vhembe district which is the northern most district municipality of the Limpopo Province in South Africa . It shares borders with Zimbabwe and Botswana in the north-east and Mozambique in the south-east through the Kruger National Park . The Vhembe district is one of five district municipalities in the Limpopo Province. It has an area of 2,140,708hectares of which 247,757 hectares is arable land. The Vhembe district is comprised of four local municipalities: Thulamela, Mutale , Musina and Makhado. The South African governance structure regards the composition of local municipalities as towns and their surrounding rural areas . The main towns within the district are Thohoyandou, Malamulele,Musina and Makhado respectively for the four municipalities Thulamela,Mutale , Musina and Makhado.The district covers a geographical location that is largely rural . According to agriculture is the key contributor to employment and livelihoods in the district. Seventy percent of the farming activities in the district are attributed to smallholder agriculture and the remaining 30% is commercial agriculture . According to the Vhembe District Municipality’s Local Economic Development Strategy in 2019the district produces 4.4% of South Africa’s total agricultural output, 8.4% of the country’s sub-tropical fruits and 6.3% of its citrus. The district is situated in a semi-arid area, is frequently affected by dry spells that often develop into drought with severe water shortages from May to August .c

In terms of performance, the prototype developed in this study achieved mean field capacity, field efficiency and planting depth of 0.151 ha/h, 87% and 4.34cm, respectively. In comparison, corresponding figures for were 0.12 ha/h,71% and 4.94 cm, respectively. The planting depth achieved is within the acceptable range recommended for optimum germination of maize and there commended range for soil depth over seed in relation to seed size . Since a uniform planting depth is necessary for better crop stands , the planting unith as the potential to help small-scale farmers to achieve better crop production.The mean effective field capacity of the planting unit was found to be 0.151 ha/hindicating that it takes a farmer slightly over six hours to plant a hectare of land which is more effective than planting with hoes and other ox-drawn planters.One of the common problems associated with traditional methods of seed sowing is the high seed rate.

Results obtained indicate that the average seed rate achieved by the developed planting unit ranged between 30 kg/ha and 42 kg/ha with an average of35 kg/ha. The relatively higher seed rate may be attributed to the fact that the unit discharges 2 3 seed per seed cell. Available literature indicates that seeding rates for manually operated maize planters may vary considerably. For example, reported a seed rate of 43.2 kg/ha during their experiments on a manually operated maize seeding attachment for an animal drawn cultivator while reported a seed rate of 35 kg/ha from a study on modification and development of a two-row maize planter. These two studies show that the planter seed rate is within the range of what other researchers have achieved with two rows maize planters.reported that seeding maize at below optimum rates increases risk of not attaining maximum yield potential for a given environment while seeding maize at populations above the optimal,grow lights increases risk of encountering stress atcritical growth stages and suffering yield reductions.Analysis of seed damage by the planter indicated that the percentage of damaged seed ranged between 3% and 5% with an average of 4%, which is relatively high but comparable to results by other researchers including and .

Analysis of differences in seed damage by the two seed metering devices using one-way ANOVA showed statically significant differences with the right hand seed metering device damaging more seed than that on the left hand side . The relatively high seed damage may be attributed to flaws in the fabrication of the metering devices; for example,attributed high percentage of damaged seeds to inadequate clearance in the seed metering device. According to , seed damage increased with increasing metering device speed and this was attributed to shearing and jumping of seeds against the wall of the hopper at high speeds and the magnitude of damage depended on the strength of the seeds. However, the effect of speed on seed damage was not investigated in this study.In relation to seed spacing, the planter achieved an average seed spacing of 31cm, which is slightly higher than the design seed spacing of the planting unit which was set 30 cm as recommended for maize by agronomists. Additional tests done in relation to seed spacing were the average seed missing index ,multiple index and quality of feed index.

The results for those tests were as follows: 3% average seed missing index, 0% seed multiple index, 4% quality of feeding index which indicates that the planter has 97% precision in terms of seed spacing. This result is similar to , who found average field seed planting space by flute metering unit for maize as 34 cm compared to the theoretical value of 32 cm. This result could be due to the seeds metering device housing and seed tube which are the major source of inaccuracy in seed spacing. The cultivating unit was tested in the field at an average operating speed of 3.5km/h. Results indicated that the cultivator mean working width was 43 cm, the mean weeding depth was 3.5 cm while the cultivator mean weeding efficiency was 79.1%. These results are comparable to those obtained by other researchers who did similar work but in different environments and contexts such as .

A total of 56 household interviews were completed using a semi-structured questionnaire. Data collected through the wide spectrum of methods and instruments discussed above were analyzed using a wide range of techniques. These included post-interview brainstorming and collation of notes , and quantitative analysis of rank/score data and scale data collected using pre-designed tables and semi-structured questionnaires.Trading is most common in Kazungula District, which is not surprising being a border town next to the country’s tourist capital, Livingstone. Because of the nature of the terrain and inadequate land in Sinazongwe, many communities have resorted to fishing considering the fact that there are no restrictions involved as to what time of the year fishing is allowed or who should/shouldn’t fish.

This is unlike in Namwala, where the main rivers such as Namwala and Kafue are only open for fishing over the period March through to November.Table 2 presents the proportions of the interviewed focus groups that ranked each activity among the top three most important activities at the time of the survey and 10 years before,disaggregated by district and food security category. Table 2 also confirms the importance of crop agriculture and livestock in the study area with 81 percent and 53 percent of all the focus groups ranking them among the top three,flood and drain tray respectively.As expected, the relative importance of these two activities is higher as we go higher on the food security scale—towards the food secure stratum. More than 90 percent of the food secure, for example, ranked field crop production among the top three most important livelihood activities. The relatively lower weight placed on agriculture and livestock by the food insecure and extremely food insecure groups means that these groups place relatively higher weight on other activities. Gardening, for example, seems to be a significant preoccupation of the food insecure segments of the society, ranked highly by at least 58 percent of the groups.

Piece work and trading are also quite important among these groups with about half the interviewed FI and EFI focus groups ranking them in the top three.Compared to agriculture-based activities, piece work and trading are often regarded inferior and adopted as means for coping with harsh realities of food insecurity. Thus, the waning importance of field crops and livestock and growing importance of piece work over the 10 years prior to the survey suggest an increase in levels of vulnerability. The importance of livestock as a source of livelihood went down by 21 percent while gardening increased by as much as 29 percent between 1996 and 2006. However, the fact that crops and livestock are important sources of livelihood shows that agriculture is key in these communities. While crops of various types are very important in day to day life during normal years, livestock have from time to time played the role of a life saver during bad seasons. Field crops and livestock are the two most important sources of income, together representing almost half of the income earned by rural households. These results are consistent with , who found that field crops generated most of the livelihood incomes across social groups in West Africa.

When animal products and services are considered, the contribution of the two sources to income extends to about 60 percent. While field crop production received a higher score as a livelihood activity in a more general sense than did livestock rearing, livestock and their products represent a much more important source of income. When only live animals and meat sales are considered, livestock generate 26 percent of all income earned by the households, compared to field crops’ 21 percent. When animal products are taken into account, the contribution of livestock swells to 39 percent, which is almost double the contribution of field crops. The dominance of livestock as an income earner holds both in the total sample as well as among most individual food security sub-samples. This is consistent with the national picture in which livestock is argued to contribute at least 50 percent of agricultural gross domestic product.Generally, small scale farmers grow most of their field crops for consumption and only sell a few when need arises. On the contrary, livestock is rarely eaten but rather sold to solve household problems.In a non-hotspot district, one was considered wealthy depending on the number of cattle one owned. Cattle are sold for other various purposes such as building a house, dowry payments, and settling conflicts and exchanged for other assets including vehicles.