Dragon fruit has been identified as a key strategic crop in Binh Thuan, Vietnam. However, dragon fruit farmers in this area are exposed to many risks impacting their livelihoods and agricultural productivity. This study, therefore, investigates the sources of risk these farmers are facing and explores heterogeneity in risk perception by segmenting farmers into distinct clusters. This study employed clustering methods and specifically mixes a hierarchical approach and a Partitioning Around Medoids (PAM) approach, to cluster the 315 dragon fruit farmers. Next, a multinomial logistic regression model was used to examine how clusters were associated with socio-demographic and farm characteristics. Risks were classified in eight domains: weather, biological, supply, demand, financial, logistic, operational and policy risks. While demand, biological, and supply risks are perceived to be high, logistic and policy risks are perceived low. More specifically, demand instability, output price volatility and pest and disease outbreaks were perceived as most important. Three clusters were found: Cluster 1 with a “high risk perception”, Cluster 2 forms a “medium risk perception” group, and Cluster 3 with “low risk perception”. The multinomial regression results showed that educational level and residence were significantly associated with both the high and medium risk perception clusters. In comparison to the medium risk perception group, the high risk perception group was negatively and significantly associated with larger household size, greater farming experience, and adherence to certification standards. The diverse risk profiles of the farmers could be used to support the effective design of tailored risk management policies.

Sorghum, a drought-tolerant crop, has been cultivated in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) for many decades. However, the considerable variation in adoption rates and the fact that it is not adopted or even dis-adopted in certain areas require a deeper understanding. This scoping review examines the state of knowledge on the socio-economic factors influencing sorghum adoption based on 52 empirical studies in SSA and explores the extent to which these results differ by methodology. The statistically significant results were mixed, making it difficult to determine the most effective predictors of sorghum adoption. This indicates that the effect of a particular variable depends on the context of use, the location of the study, and the measurement methods employed. In addition, several biases related to the analytical models were identified, including biases in adoption analysis, heterogeneity in decision-making, small sample size bias, non-independence of observations, multicollinearity, and endogeneity. Critical gaps include the need for further analysis of dis-adopters and gender-specific decision-making within households during the adoption process.

Although various Climate-Smart Agricultural (CSA) practices are promoted to safeguard agricultural production and food security in the Global South, their adoption remains limited. This study conducted a cross-sectional survey using a semi-structured questionnaire between March and April in 2023, with a sample of 231 smallholder farmers covering 5 villages (Purbo Karpara, Rampasa, Monohor Pur, Boro Isubpur, and Char Alapur) in Haor wetlands of Bangladesh. Then, this study examined smallholder farmers’ adoption intention of floating farming practice in Haor wetlands of Bangladesh based on an extended Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) model. The result demonstrated moderate predictive power of the proposed model, where farmers’ attitude, subjective norm, knowledge of floating farming practice, perceived behavioural control, and institutional accessibility jointly explained 11.50% of the total variance in adoption intention, with subjective norm and perceived behavioural control showing significant impact on smallholder farmers’ adoption intention. However, key barriers reported by smallholder farmers included unavailability of resources, limited access to modern farming practices, input and credit unavailability, insufficient access to training, and limited access to market system. These findings indicated that improving smallholder farmers’ access to extension services and credit facilities, raising awareness, providing training, and guaranteeing access to accurate and timely climate information and early warning systems could significantly improve their adaptive capacity. This study contributes to socio-psychological understanding of smallholder farmers’ pro-environmental behaviour and emphasises the need for context-specific interventions to support sustainable livelihoods and resilient agri-food systems in climate-vulnerable regions.

Pastoralism is one of the most important agricultural production systems in drylands worldwide. It plays an important role in both the economy and the cycle of ecosystem goods and services. However, it is vulnerable to climatic challenges such as prolonged drought and socioeconomic pressures such as administrative shortcomings and ineffective governance. Under neoliberal influence, political and economic reforms have been implemented over the last 30 years to address these threats. These reforms have promoted local institutions for rangeland management and agro-pastoral development. In this paper, we assess the impact of these reforms on pastoral devolvement and Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) by analyzing the performance of agro-pastoral community-based organizations CBOs in the province of Médenine (south-eastern Tunisia). We use a two-step methodology, with the first step focusing on a quantitative typology analysis of the performance of 31 CBOs. In a subsequent qualitative step, data from semi-structured interviews with 21 CBO chairpersons were used to identify the drivers of CBO performance.Results show that only 10% of the CBOs studied are able to move towards autonomy and proper integration into local and regional institutional networks and development dynamics. About 42% of the CBOs need further support and are in a precarious situation as they are dependent on public support. The remaining 48% have a low growth potential and in the early stages of consolidation. The qualitative analysis suggests that these shortcomings are mainly related to the CBOs' lack of networking skills. In addition, CBOs should improve their reputation and gain more trust from pastoral communities. Our findings suggest that well-functioning institutions do contribute to rural development; however, the design of pastoralist policy and institutional reforms should include long-term complementary support for the institutions created and consideration of the pastoralist community and regional contexts in order to achieve long-lasting transformative outcomes.

While place branding strategies are increasingly implemented in rural tourism, they are criticised for issues of exclusion and homogenisation. In response, attempts have been made to rejuvenate place branding by integrating the ideology of place-shaping. To explore the conceptual distinctions between place branding and place-shaping, and the potential for integrating these two approaches, this paper examines the process of tourism programme and beyond in a peripheral rural community in Southwest China. This case study collected qualitative data from 2016 to 2023 to describe how the village was transformed by a top-down tourism initiative and how local stakeholders subsequently shaped these changes. Our empirical investigation reveals that sustainable rural tourism development requires integrating place branding strategies with the place-shaping process. While the administrative and financial support was required to promote the place branding, the exogenous approach led to a brand alien to the place. In contrast, residents and other stakeholders have shaped a living place beyond the programme. It entails an integration where elements from the place branding and place-shaping are recruited, reinterpreted, and reconfigured to support sustainable, place-based development.

Numerous studies have been conducted to comprehend the economic importance of market participation for producers. However, a significant gap remains, particularly in Central Asia. This study assesses market participation drivers for Kyrgyzstan’s milk producers using the Life in Kyrgyzstan dataset, encompassing a comprehensive nationwide farm-level survey. Findings reveal that household assets boost market entry and sales volume, whereas distance from markets discourages participation but can increase sales for active sellers, reflecting transportation cost strategies. The insights inform policy interventions benefiting rural small-scale milk producers in Central Asian countries that share similar cultural backgrounds.

In alignment with the EU’s Circular Economy Framework, there has been a notable shift toward biorefineries as key facilities for converting biomass into commercially viable products. The abundant availability of grass represents a substantial yet underutilized resource for promoting a shift toward bioeconomy. This study aimed to improve the value chain of meadow grass by producing biogas, bio-based fertilizers, and lactic acid, and to determine the revenue potential from these products, addressing the critical challenge of optimizing biomass processing to maximize its value. Consequently, the grass samples were processed with three pretreatment techniques—milling, ensiling, and milling followed by ensiling—and then tested for their methane potential. Furthermore, the milled and ensiled grass was also subjected to an acid treatment followed by enzymatic hydrolysis, and the hydrolysate was assessed for lactic acid production using Lactobacillus delbrueckii and Pediococcus acidilactici. Our findings revealed that milled and ensiled fraction showcased an increase of 17

Conventional agriculture has been blamed for its ecological and economic concerns. Consequently, sustainable agriculture has emerged as a feasible and viable alternative for addressing food insecurity and climate change risks, despite its low uptake and unmet expectations. This study examined the opportunities, challenges, and limitations of adopting sustainable agriculture. To do this, a questionnaire survey and group discussions were used to collect information from a random sample of households. The collected data were examined using the percentage, priority ranking, and content analysis. Farmers have mentioned several economic benefits and ecological viability of sustainable agriculture: enhanced soil fertility, improved vegetation coverage, reduced land degradation, generated employment, and increased water availability. These results have then led to increased agricultural productivity, reduced carbon emissions, and improved food security. However, it was found that lack of information, limited institutional support, labour shortages, and fragmented farmland are the major constraints to adopting sustainable agriculture. Other problems include an increased workload, waterlogging, sedimentation, loss of cultivated and grazing land, the spread of external predators, and the emergence of diseases and pests. All of these problems may prohibit farmers from fully accepting and implementing sustainable agriculture. Hence, it is imperative to organize on-the-spot demonstrations, information-sharing, and capacity building for farmers and extension workers in order to comprehend the attributes, benefits, and constraints of sustainable agriculture. Farmers should also be given technical and financial assistance to implement sustainable agricultural practices. It is imperative that policymakers and development actors must establish and empower local institutions to promote sustainable agriculture, in order to fully explot its potential benefits and expand its reach to areas that are prone to drought and water shortages.

The hunter is the key actor in unsustainable hunting of bushmeat in African forests and his behavior is driven by socioeconomic factors among others. However, not much is known about the effectiveness of incentive-based conservation actions providing socioeconomic benefits to reduce hunting. This study, therefore, examined how changes in the socioeconomic situation of hunters brought about by reciprocal environmental agreements affects their hunting behavior. During a project implemented near the Dja Faunal Reserve (Cameroon), we recorded changes in socioeconomic characteristics of hunters for 15 months spanning 3 years. Bushmeat offtake and hunting effort parameters were also recorded. Comparisons of the evolution of these parameters over the years were made between hunters who signed the agreements and those who did not. We found that signatory hunters were older and had larger households than non-signatories, and they earned more income from cocoa sales. Although both groups of hunters had similar characteristics regarding hunting behavior at the start of the project, signatory hunters harvested less bushmeat at the end of project. More time was spent in hunting by non-signatory hunters compared to signatories who hunted less at the end of our monitoring period. Signatory hunters hunted less with firearms than non-signatories, and they consumed more and sold less of their catches compared to non-signatories. This study underlines the importance of reciprocal environmental agreements as an incentive-based conservation scheme that can reduce hunting pressure. These findings show that economic incentives provided to individuals through reciprocal environment agreements can promote livelihood paradigm shifts, alleviating poverty, decreasing dependence on natural resources and benefiting animal conservation. Le chasseur est l'acteur cle de la chasse pour la viande de brousse dans les forets africaines et son comportement est motive, entre autres, par des facteurs socio-economiques. Cependant, pas grand-chose n'est connu sur l'efficacite des actions de conservation basees sur des incitations offrant des avantages socio-economiques pour reduire la chasse. Cette etude a examine comment les changements dans la situation socio-economique des chasseurs induits par des accords environnementaux reciproques affectent leur comportement de chasse. Au cours d'un projet mis en oe uvre en peripherie nord de la reserve de faune du Dja (Cameroun), nous avons enregistre des changements dans les caracteristiques socio-economiques des chasseurs pendant 15 mois s'etalant sur trois annees. Les parametres de prelevement de viande de brousse et d'effort de chasse ont egalement ete enregistres. Des comparaisons de l'evolution de ces parametres au fil des annees ont ete faites entre les chasseurs qui ont signe les accords et ceux qui ne l'ont pas fait. Les resultats montrent que les chasseurs signataires etaient plus ages et avaient des menages plus nombreux que les non-signataires, et qu'ils tiraient davantage de revenus de la vente de cacao. Bien que les deux groupes de chasseurs aient des caracteristiques similaires concernant le comportement de chasse au debut du projet, les chasseurs signataires ont recolte moins de viande de brousse a la fin du projet. Plus de temps a ete consacre a la chasse par les chasseurs non-signataires par rapport aux signataires qui chassaient moins a la fin de notre periode de suivi. Les chasseurs signataires chassaient moins avec des armes a feu que les non-signataires, et ils consommaient plus et vendaient moins de leurs prises que les non-signataires. Cette etude souligne l'importance des accords environnementaux reciproques en tant que systeme de conservation incitatif pouvant reduire la pression de la chasse. Ces resultats montrent que les incitations economiques fournies aux individus par le biais d'accords environnementaux reciproques peuvent promouvoir des changements de paradigme des moyens de subsistance, reduire la pauvrete, reduire la dependance aux ressources naturelles et beneficier a la conservation de la faune sauvage. Evaluating the effectiveness of conservation programs providing socioeconomic benefits to reduce hunting on hunters' behavior is important. This study examines the effects of changes in socioeconomic conditions of hunters on their hunting behavior. The results show that providing alternative income to hunters can help reduce their hunting intensity in a context where wildlife is not yet depleted. This research can serve as a base to design future conservation projects in tropical forests.image

Saltwater intrusion poses severe threats to rice farming in Vietnam. Farmers can adapt by producing other crops or switching to other production models. This study evaluates the impact of implementing different saltwater-intrusion-adaptation strategies on farmers’ livelihoods by applying propensity score matching to cross-sectional survey data for 414 farmers in the Central Coastal region of Vietnam. We consider both economic and social indicators and find that there is considerable heterogeneity in the outcomes. With the exception of switching to new rice varieties, all adaptation strategies considered in the study significantly increase saline-land productivity, mainly as a result of higher revenues. Moreover, for these strategies, food security is found to be significantly higher, whereas life satisfaction is only higher for those farm households that cultivate vegetables, shrimp, or lotus-fish. Adopting new rice varieties is found to significantly decrease saline-land productivity, whereas the social impacts are not significant.

With the RePowerEU plan the European Commission aims to boost biomethane production as part of its strategy for energy independence. Biomethane from manure is commonly considered as a circular solution that produces renewable energy, manages waste and reduces emissions. However, the intertwining of biomethane production with the livestock sector, one of the most impactful sectors in the EU and globally, is highly controversial, yet rarely discussed. In this Policy Perspective we argue how the reliance on manure as primary feedstock for biomethane is extending the EU's lock-in into unsustainable, business-as-usual livestock farming practices, replacing a natural gas dependency with an animal feed dependency from other continents, jeopardizing EU's strategic autonomy, while perpetuating neocolonial forms of extractivism. We highlight that such mechanisms are reinforced by blind spots in the Renewable Energy Directive emissions accounting standards which have overlooked the upstream impacts of biomethane production from manure, especially the ones in the Global South, obscuring the link between energy and food systems. These gaps contribute to rebound effects in indirect land use change and on-farm emissions, hindering environmental targets. Recommendations are provided to stimulate a critical discussion in which commonly held assumptions and narratives on biomethane production from manure are challenged.

A plethora of infectious and non-infectious causes of bovine abortion and perinatal mortalities (APM) have been reported in literature. However, due to financial limitations or a potential zoonotic impact, many laboratories only offer a standard analytical panel, limited to a preestablished number of pathogens. To improve the cost-efficiency of laboratory diagnostics, it could be beneficial to design a targeted analytical approach for APM cases, based on maternal and environmental characteristics associated with the prevalence of specific abortifacient pathogens. The objective of this retrospective observational study was to implement a machine learning pipeline (MLP) to predict maternal and environmental factors associated with infectious APM. Our MLP based on a greedy ensemble approach incorporated a standard tuning grid of four models, applied on a dataset of 1,590 APM cases with a positive diagnosis that was achieved by analyzing an extensive set of abortifacient pathogens. Production type (dairy/beef), gestation length, and season were successfully predicted by the greedy ensemble, with a modest prediction capacity which ranged between 63 to 73%. Besides the predictive accuracy of individual variables, our MLP hierarchically identified predictor importance causes of associated environmental/maternal characteristics of APM. For instance, in APM cases that happened in beef cows, season at APM (spring/summer) was the most important predictor with a relative importance of 24%. Furthermore, at the last trimester of gestation Trueperella pyogenes and Neospora caninum were the most important predictors of APM with a relative importance of 22 and 17%, respectively. Interestingly, herd size came out as the most relevant predictor for APM in multiparous dams, with a relative importance of 12%. Based on these and other mix of predicted environmental/maternal and pathogenic potential causes, it could be concluded that implementing our MLP may be beneficial to design a more cost-effective, case-specific diagnostic approach for bovine APM cases at the diagnostic laboratory level.

Agroecology is receiving increasing attention and recognition as a concept for transitions to more sustainable agricultural and food systems. There is however a lack of characterization of agroecology in agricultural and food systems, while integrated and holistic measurements of their sustainability are scarce. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is considered to be a system explicitly based on agroecological principles and practices which shows potential in the face of the sustainability challenges in agriculture and food systems, but its link with agroecology and its holistic sustainability performance have remained understudied. Therefore, we applied the Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE) to 24 Community Supported Agriculture farms in the Flanders region of Belgium in order to characterize agroecology and to assess their multidimensional sustainability performance. Our results show that Community Supported Agriculture farms can be characterized as advanced agroecological systems, highlighted by their high to very high performance on many of the elements of agroecology. Moreover, our results show positive outcomes on several sustainability criteria across environmental, social and economic dimensions such as soil health, presence of natural vegetation and pollinators and ecological management of pests and diseases, as well as dietary diversity and profitability criteria like gross value, added value and net revenue. The integration and role of animals in these agroecosystems and the importance of - and dependence on - labor are however identified as two critical aspects regarding the agroecological transitions and sustainability of Community Supported Agriculture. Our findings emphasize the exemplary role Community Supported Agriculture could play in broader agroecological transitions, which, coupled with their high performance on several sustainability criteria, highlight the potential contribution of Community Supported Agriculture, and by extension of agroecology itself, to more sustainable agricultural and food systems in Flanders and beyond.

In Vietnam, pangasius farming has developed rapidly in the past decades, with the aquaculture of this particular fish species proving to be very beneficial for the local economy. However, the emergence and spread of the Covid-19 pandemic and the policy responses in slowing the spread of the virus have significantly impacted the sector. This paper investigates both the vulnerability and resilience of pangasius aquaculture by identifying the various impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on Vietnam's pangasius sector and the subsequent responses of this sector towards the issues brought forward by it. In this paper, data collected from 195 pangasius farms in Vietnam are operationalized via binary and ordinal logistic regression in an attempt to reveal the factors affecting the sector's output and the factors driving farmers' responses in the context of insecurity caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Since the emergence of the pandemic-induced shock on the pangasius sector, farmers have encountered difficulties regarding the sale of harvests and have been confronted with lower prices for pangasius products, with the sector reporting a reduction in the sales volume and the number of buyers, as well as farmers facing disruptions in logistics and input accessibility. As a response to the impacts of the pandemic, pangasius farmers resorted to a number of coping strategies including feeding pangasius less, reducing the farming scale, delaying harvesting, and/or releasing smaller sized fingerlings. Our regressions suggest that farms signing contracts with buyers are more resilient to the reduction in output price and the reduction in number of buyers but, on the other hand, these farms seem to be more severely impacted by the adverse impacts of reduced sales volume, higher feed price and difficulty to sell harvest compared to those without contracts. Furthermore, our findings suggest that farms selling products to export traders suffered more severely from the reduction in the price of pangasius products and in the number of buyers but, at the same time, these farms seemed to have fewer problems with the reduced sales volume and the increased feed price. Interestingly, our findings also suggest a cross-vulnerability with climate change, specifically with respect to the increase in feed price and the disruption in input logistics, hereby further increasing the vulnerability of pangasius farmers.

This paper provides a systematic overview of existing literature on the interdependence between terrestrial Ecosystem Services (ES) and agricultural landscape management. To this end, we constructed a structured methodological approach that future researchers and other stakeholders may use to explore potential gaps for potential avenues for research. The framework starts with a constructed bibliometric dataset comprising 2478 paper abstracts (and associated metadata) published between 2010 and 2019 that contain references to specific ES classes and case study location references worldwide. Next, the dataset was used to construct a Structural Topic Model (STM), which features marginal effect estimation of metadata covariates on topic prevalence and topic prevalence correlation. The estimated topic graph structure is then used for community detection of interconnected topics via cluster identification, which allowed us to determine the current structure of the academic discourse on the interaction between terrestrial ES and agricultural landscape management. We expect this novel approach to enable identification of research priorities, prioritization of project portfolios for our field of interest, and reusable methodological guidelines that can be employed to target other fields of knowledge similarly.

ABSTRACT Globally irrigation subsidies are utilized to boost modernization and increase irrigation efficiency. This paper examines the effects of the irrigation subsidy programme in Chile by reviewing 32 years of allocations and exploring the drivers and consequences of the subsidy programme with a clear market approach based on competition and a state risk-free strategy. Our analysis reveals that, despite the flexibility in targeting, the results indicate an uneven allocation to smallholders’ detriment, a state inability to identify farmers’ needs, market concentration and a bias towards agricultural expansion. As long as the programme remains unaltered, it will threaten agriculture and water resources’ sustainability.

French fisheries management emphasizes the collective management of fisheries resources and the non-transferability of fishing opportunities (quotas and licenses) as measures to prevent concentration and protect artisanal fisheries. However, in practice access problems are common, and researchers and fisheries managers have raised concerns regarding concentration and the disappearance of the so-called ‘artisanal fishing model’. Using literature and interview data, we reflect on the French fisheries management system, asking whether it can be considered ‘just’ for artisanal fishers. In this chapter, we (1) describe the French fisheries management system, with an emphasis on the allocation and redistribution of fishing opportunities, (2) explore how it is perceived and experienced by artisanal fishers in the Atlantic fishing sector, and (3) analyze how they have adapted to cope with institutional changes. This study shows that the quota allocation system has created significant entry barriers for artisanal fishers, notably new entrants and small-scale producers, which has contributed to a shift away from family-based fishing and towards expansion. Government policies aimed at bringing more justice to the system have failed. Nevertheless, some artisanal fishers seem to be finding new ways to anchor themselves in local economies and launch their businesses into an unsure future, both through bottom-up initiatives and partnerships with large-scale fishing companies.

Discrete choice experiments (DCEs) have become an often-used research method in food research due to their ability to uncover trade-offs made when choosing among multiple alternatives, especially when dealing with credence attributes. Insights into the main elements of the consumers' decision-making process are key to informing both public and private policies related to food production and consumption. However, DCEs are not confined to this field of study. This narrative methodological review sets out to provide a critical appraisal of the state of the art of DCEs in food research. We logically structure our review by comparing the field-independent state-of-the-art to its application in the specific food choice research domain. The comparison is presented for each of the steps required in implementing DCEs and allows for the identification of areas of improvement in best practice. We find that food research has adopted many of the methodological advances over the years, but further improvements are encouraged and outlined. Recommendations for future research are discussed.

Mobile phone apps can be a cost-effective way to provide decision support to farmers, and they can support the collection of agricultural data. The digitisation of agricultural systems, and the efforts to close the digital divide and to include smallholders, make data ownership and privacy issues more relevant than ever before. In Central and South American countries, smallholders’ preferences regarding data licenses and sharing have largely been ignored, and little attention has been paid to the potential of nonfinancial incentives to increase the uptake of digital solutions and participation by farmers. To investigate incentives for smallholder farmers to potentially use an agricultural advisory app in which they share their data, a Discrete Choice Experiment was designed. Based on a survey of 392 farmers in Mexico, preferences for attributes related to its usage were revealed using a conditional logit (CL) model. To explore heterogeneity, groups and profiles were explored through a latent class (LC) model. The CL model results revealed, for example, farmers’ positive preference to receive support at first use and access to training, while negative preference was found for sharing data with private actors. The LC identified three classes which differ in their preference for attributes such as the degree of data sharing. Furthermore, for example, a farmer’s connectedness to an innovation hub was found to be one of the significant variables in the class membership function. The main contribution of the study is that it shows the importance of nonfinancial incentives and the influence of data sharing on farmer preferences.