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Botswana is among the fastest growing economies in the world in the last two decades (The World Bank 2006). The overall incidence of poverty fell from 60 per cent in 1985/86 to 30 per cent in 2002/03 (Central Statistics Office Botswana 2004). Rural poverty declined from 55 per cent in 1985/86 to 40 per cent in 1992/93. However, the incidence of rural poverty rose to 45 per cent in 2002/03 (Central Statistics Office Botswana 2004). An increased record of rural poverty compared to declining records in non rural poverty during the last decade prompted the current study to investigate the factors that contribute to the contradictory results in Botswana. Theoretically, Botswana appears as a dual economy (Hirschman 1958) when in practice, it is not. The rural economy is linked to the modern economy through government spending policy, migrant remittances, and the rural development policy. Therefore, rural economy in Botswana benefits directly from sustained economic growth. The cost of basic needs method and the mean income poverty line are applied in this thesis. Two subjective measures of poverty were adopted from Firdausy and Tisdell (1992), and Pradhan and Ravallion (2000) to explore whether they might be reliable low cost rural poverty indicators. In addition, economic deprivation is measured and results provide a basis to examining how future policies of redistribution can influence poverty reduction. The results are based on the case study of Nshakazhogwe village in rural north east Botswana of September-November 2005. This village was purposively chosen as a representative cluster and a face-to-face personal interview of all heads of household data collection method was used. The results show that women are overrepresented as heads of household which is common in Botswana (Quisumbing et al. 2001; Rosenhouse 1989). Botswana has an equal opportunity policy across gender (Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs 1995) and it has been found that female heads of households are common in other countries where opportunities to education and work for women are similar to men’s (Schultz 2001). The results indicate that the village characteristics are comparable to those of the rural north east Botswana region (Central Statistics Office 2007; Central Statistics Office Botswana 2001a; Central Statistics Office Botswana 2004), which means this village is typical for the region. The incidence of poverty at Nshakazhogwe is 29 per cent, which is lower than 45 per cent for all rural areas. The Lorenz curve analysis shows that the income share of the bottom 20 per cent share of the population is 2.7 per cent whereas the income share of the top 20 per cent share of the population is 65 per cent. The income inequality measure using the Gini index is 60 per cent which is comparable to Botswana Gini index in 2002/03 but less than the Gini index for the whole of Africa or the global Gini index. The results of application of subjective question of whether household heads believe their household belongs to the bottom 20 per cent less well-off household reveal that 42 per cent households reported positively, implying they were in poverty, which is a clear overestimate. However, the result is comparable to national rural poverty of 45 per cent using the mean income method (Central Statistics Office Botswana 2004). The results using a consumption adequacy method is 37 per cent, which is comparable to the rural north east region poverty rate (Central Statistics Office 2007). Overall, subjective measures used in this study are reliable indicators in distinguishing the well-off from the less well-off. The significance of this finding is that, if applied in rural Botswana, it might contribute to quicker, relevant and appropriate responses to poverty rural problems. Further research is required to verify the results of this study. Income transfers are very important at Nshakazhogwe. More poor households than non-poor households receive private transfers, whereas the relative frequency of poor households that receive government transfers is comparable to not poor households. Livestock, natural resource harvesting and crop production are not indicated frequently as sources of household income. Future research should investigate the target efficiency of government transfers and the relative benefits of individuals from each source of income in rural areas. Potential policy implications of this study are an increase in availability and regularity of reliable poverty indicators and an improvement of targeting efficiency of government welfare.

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Globalisation causes continual change in the dairy industry, creating new opportunities and risks in countries, states, and regions. To survive and benefit from these changes, stakeholders from across each country's dairy industry need to co-operate to develop alternatives for their regions. The Australian and Brazilian dairy Research, Development and Extension (R,D&E) organisations recognise this need in their mission statements. They also have some initiatives for more effective interaction with the stakeholders in their dairy industries. In the 1990s Australia created Regional Dairy Programs, including a Subtropical Dairy Program (SDP) for tropical and subtropical areas of east Australia, to gather demands from the production regions in order to design R,D&E. To promote interaction between R,D&E efforts and agricultural industries the Australian government matches expenditure on R,D&E dollar for dollar. The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation for Dairy (Embrapa Dairy) developed the Platform Project, with the objective of identifying constraints on dairy development in Brazil's main dairy production regions. Embrapa Dairy has also moved researchers to those regions to establish a link between stakeholders and the head research station in the design of R&D. There remains room for improvement in both countries' methods. In Australia's SDP, priorities for R,D&E are identified by regional teams consisting mostly of farmers and R,D&E people, but an evaluation has recommended involving a broader range of stakeholders to increase the diversity of ideas. In Brazil, dairy R&D priorities are identified mostly through quantitative surveys with farmers or panels of experts who consider large regions (of more than three states), without deeper involvement of farmers. Models and approaches in extension and systems thinking offer ideas for more effective and comprehensive approaches. The objectives of this study were to: 1. Develop a strategy to: - Involve a broad set of stakeholders in a dairy community to obtain a holistic view of their priorities for R,D&E, and - Help R,D&E people to understand the dairy farms and the production realities of small regions. 2. Document and compare the R,D&E priorities of dairy stakeholders in one Australian and two Brazilian regions, including the views of different groups of stakeholders within each region. Regional studies were conducted in three dairy regions, one region in the north coast of New South Wales, Australia, and two regions in Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil. The research method within each region studied combined three approaches, each involving a variety of stakeholders from across the production communities. These were familiarisation through staying on a farm and building trust; individual interviews with a diversity of stakeholders from farmers to off-farm enterprises and R,D&E staff, and focus group interviews with participants selected from those already interviewed individually. The focus groups verified and enlarged upon the findings of the individual interviews, and enabled convergence among the participants' views. The three approaches produced complementary results. The strategy for eliciting R,D&E priorities worked equally well in all three case studies. Across the three cases, the individual interviews pointed out previously unrecognised R,D&E priorities, going beyond production technologies into issues such as communication, farm management, labour and finance. Pasture issues also remained important. The results from the focus group interviews corroborated communication, farm management and finance as important priorities for R,D&E, while adding marketing, industry policy and organisation of farmers, issues which had not stood out originally in the individual interviews in any of the three regions studied. This suggests a number of things. In terms of strategy for developing R,D&E priorities, both individual interviews and group processes are valuable, and may provide somewhat different outcomes. Further, the primary information needs for the industry lie beyond the farm and production technologies. The results also show that stakeholders would like R,D&E people to work as their partners in improving the dairy industry. The involvement of a broader range of stakeholders brought a more holistic and integrated view of each region's dairy development needs. It was particularly useful to engage people from throughout the dairy community with R,D&E practitioners in identifying priorities, since this broadened the picture of needs and showed the relative importance of production technologies alongside other, previously unrecognised needs. The results also suggest that research organisations should include staff capable of taking a more systemic view of dairy production systems, on- and off-farm, and potentially other industries. The academic significance of this study lies in the combination of systems thinking, stakeholder analysis and participation with extension science, towards a practical need.

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