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| Registros recuperados: 71 | |
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| Gomez, Jose Alfonso Aguirre; Bellon, Mauricio R.; Smale, Melinda. |
| Four environments with contrasting potential for agricultural productivity and infrastructure development were identified in Guanajuato State, Mexico, to test hypotheses about the relationship of maize biological diversity to the region's potential for agricultural productivity and infrastructure development. Samples of all types of maize grown by a random sample of farmers were collected from each environment. The maize samples were classified by race, racial mixture, or type of 'creolized' or improved variety. Landraces were the dominant maize class in all four environments; the use of improved varieties was negligible. Several diversity indices were calculated, and no statistically significant differences were apparent between the environments with the... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Crop Production/Industries. |
| Ano: 1998 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/7671 |
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| Brennan, John P.; Godden, David P.; Smale, Melinda; Meng, Erika C.H.. |
| As part of an ACIAR-funded project on genetic diversity in wheat in Australia and China, Australian wheat breeders were surveyed to assess the importance of genetic diversity to breeders. This paper reports the findings of that survey, and identifies the key issues that concern wheat breeders. The issues addressed include the breeders’ attitude to diversity and the diversity available in their current gene pool. The sources of materials that breeders use to maintain and/or increase diversity in their programs are identified, and ways in which diversity influences breeding decisions are also examined. More importantly from the policy view point, survey responses identify changes over time in the environment in which breeders operate that affect the extent... |
| Tipo: Presentation |
Palavras-chave: Genetic/diversity/wheat/breeder/survey; Crop Production/Industries. |
| Ano: 1999 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/123776 |
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| Nagarajan, Latha; Smale, Melinda; Glewwe, Paul. |
| The purpose of the research paper is to characterize biological diversity related to millets in the semi-arid regions of India at various spatial scales of analysis (e.g., farm household versus community levels) and place that evidence in a broader seed systems (includes both formal and informal) context. An important finding of this research is that producer access to millet genetic resources is affected by the extent to which seed is traded via formal markets or through other social institutions, along with farm and household characteristics. Findings also underscore the need for an enhanced theoretical understanding of local seed markets in analyzing crop variety choices and the diversity of materials grown in less favored environments. |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Millet diversity; Seed systems; Local markets; Crop diversity; Biological diversity; Crop Production/Industries. |
| Ano: 2005 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/59235 |
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| Smale, Melinda; Mason, Nicole M.. |
| The successful development and diffusion of improved maize seed in Zambia during the 1970s–80s was a major achievement of African agriculture but was predicated on a government commitment to parastatal grain and seed marketing, the provision of services to maize growers, and a pan-territorial pricing scheme that was fiscally unsustainable. Declining maize output when this system was dismantled contributed to the reinstatement in 2002 of subsidies for maize seed and fertilizer through the Fertilizer and Farmer Input Support Programs (FISP). In the meantime, seed liberalization has led to an array of new, improved maize varieties, most of which are hybrids. This analysis explores the determinants of demand for first-generation (F1) hybrid maize seed in... |
| Tipo: Working Paper |
Palavras-chave: Zambia; Maize; Seed subsidies; Agricultural and Food Policy; Food Security and Poverty. |
| Ano: 2012 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/123555 |
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| Benin, Samuel; Gebremedhin, Berhanu; Smale, Melinda; Pender, John L.; Ehui, Simeon K.. |
| On farm conservation of crop diversity poses obvious policy challenges in terms of the design of appropriate incentive mechanisms and possible trade-offs between conservation and productivity. This paper compares factors explaining the inter-specific diversity (diversity among species) and infra-specific diversity (diversity among varieties within a species) of cereal crops grown in communities and on individual farms in the northern Ethiopian highlands. Using named varieties and ecological indices of spatial diversity (richness, evenness, and inverse dominance), we find that a combination of factors related to the agro-ecology of a community, its access to markets, and the characteristics of its households and farms significantly affect both the inter-... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Household Farms; Communities; Ethiopia; Agrobiodiversity; On Farm Conservation; Crop Production/Industries. |
| Ano: 2003 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/16101 |
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| Katungi, Enid; Machethe, Charles Lepepeule; Smale, Melinda. |
| Although social capital is a potentially important asset for poverty reduction in developing economies, there has been little analysis of factors affecting its formation in developing countries such as Uganda. This paper analyzes what influences households to join local organizations and the intensity of social networks in central Uganda. Social networks were disaggregated by major activity to gain insight into household access, and the interaction between local organizations and social networks was examined. Probit and ordered probit models were estimated to identify what led households to participate in organizations and the intensity of participation. A negative binomial model was applied to analyze the household intensity of social networks. The... |
| Tipo: Journal Article |
Palavras-chave: Social capital; Group based extension approaches; Uganda; Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession. |
| Ano: 2007 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/57016 |
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| Birol, Ekin; Villalba, Eric Rayn; Smale, Melinda. |
| Maize, the second most globally important staple crop after wheat, originated in Mexico, where it is typically grown as part of a set of associated crops and practices called the milpa system. This ancient mode of production is practiced today in ways that vary by cultural context and agro-environment. Milpas generate private economic value, in terms of food security, diet quality and livelihoods, for the two-million farm households who manage them. Furthermore, milpas generate public economic value by conserving agrobiodiversity, especially that of maize landraces, which have the potential to contribute unique traits needed by plant breeders for future crop improvement. In this way, milpas contribute to global food security in maize. However, the... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Mexico; Maize; Genetically modified crops; Conservation; Crop Production/Industries. |
| Ano: 2007 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/42373 |
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| Louette, Dominique; Smale, Melinda. |
| Experimental results and farmer surveys in a Mexican community indicate that farmers seed selection practices protect the phenological integrity of their maize varieties as they define them, despite numerous factors contributing to genetic instability. Analysis of morphological and genetic data suggests that when subjected to significant gene flow through cross-pollination, ear characteristics are maintained through farmers selection even though other characteristics may continue to evolve genetically. Because the effects of farmers selection practices are confined largely to ear characteristics and plant characteristics that are linked to them, their practices appear to offer only limited scope for improving varieties. Farmers expectations of what... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Crop Production/Industries. |
| Ano: 1998 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/7667 |
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| Rice, Elizabeth; Smale, Melinda; Blanco, Jose-Luis. |
| The principal advantage of in situ conservation is that it allows adaptive evolutionary processes to continue in the species that are being conserved. For a cultivated crop species, in situ conservation involves farmers' management of their own genetic resources even as the farmers themselves adapt to a changing environment. Improved seed selection practices and other on-farm breeding strategies have been proposed as a means of providing economic incentives for farmers to continue growing traditional varieties or landraces identified as important for conservation. This paper describes a pilot study among a group of indigenous farmers in the Sierra de Santa Marta, Veracruz, Mexico, who have collaborated in such efforts. The findings raise key issues about... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Crop Production/Industries. |
| Ano: 1997 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/7690 |
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| Katungi, Enid; Smale, Melinda. |
| Changing agricultural research and extension systems mean that informal mechanisms of information diffusion are often the primary source of information about improved seed and practices for farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper investigates the interactions between gender, social capital and information exchange in rural Uganda. Within the framework of farmer-to-farmer models, we conceptualize the informal information diffusion process to comprise social capital accumulation and information exchange. We assume that each agent participates in information exchange with a fixed (predetermined) level of social capital and examine how endowments of social capital influence information exchange, paying close attention to gender differences. A multinomial... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Gender; Social capital; Information exchange; Informal mechanisms; Uganda; Labor and Human Capital. |
| Ano: 2006 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/50070 |
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| Bellon, Mauricio R.; Smale, Melinda; Aguirre, Alfonso; Taba, Suketoshi; Aragon, Flavio; Diaz, Jaime; Castro, Humberto. |
| Identifying the appropriate germplasm to be improved is a key component of any participatory breeding effort because of its implications for impacts on social welfare and genetic diversity. This paper describes a method developed to select a subset of 17 populations for a participatory breeding project from a set of 152 maize landraces. The larger set of landraces was collected in order to characterize, for conservation purposes, the maize diversity present in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, Mexico. The method combines data representing the perspectives of both men and women members of farm households and those of genetic resources specialists, including professional plant breeders, gene bank managers, and social scientists. The different perspectives... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Mexico; Oaxaca; Maize; Zea mays; Land race; Germplasm conservation; Plant breeding; Selecting; Innovation adoption; Social welfare; Welfare economics; On farm research; Participatory research; Farm Management. |
| Ano: 2000 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/46524 |
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| Registros recuperados: 71 | |
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