Thesis (M.Agr.Sc.) - University of Queensland. / Includes bibliography.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin, 1951. / Typescript. Vita. Title from title screen (viewed May 9, 2006). Includes bibliographical references (leaves [311]-334). Online version of the print original.

A dissertation submitted to the FACULTY OF ARTS in partial fulfillment of the requirements for MASTERS DEGREE IN SOCIAL WORK (Community work) in the Department of Social Work at the University of Zululand, 2000. / The purpose of this study is to identify the role played by women in the agricultural development projects that are managed and worked by women in the Nseleni district of Kwazulu-Natal. The other purpose of this study is to establish the impact that these projects have. Females are heads of families in many households of rural communities of Nseleni. This is attributed to the fact that most males are working in remote urban areas of the country. Many of these females are fully engaged in different agricultural projects. When it comes to the administration of these projects, women are relegated to the bottom of the ladder as regards positions. Nseleni is under a tribal authority, which is composed of six different amaKhosi. In all these tribal authorities, the second in charge, the Izinduna, are all males. This has had a negative effect on the role of women in terms of getting access to farming land, where they have to get a male guarantor. Looking at extension officers, particularly from the government, most of them are males. This imbalance in the government employees has also influenced decisions taken to favour males. This is contrary to the 2020 vision of the Department of Agriculture which is to unlock agricultural development and to improve service delivery in KwaZulu-Natal without any gender discrimination. This vision is aiming to use participatory methodologies in involving communities at large in agricultural development.

Thesis (M.Dev.) --University of Limpopo, 2013 / Agricultural cooperatives have been widely promoted as a vehicle for smallholder agricultural development in South Africa. As a result, agricultural co-operative registrations in South Africa are increasing. However, research suggests that South African co-operatives have generally not been effective, successful and functional. This study has investigated the challenges facing agricultural cooperatives in the Greater Tzaneen Municipality. It is expected that identification of these elements may enable institutions that offer support to cooperatives make better decisions to improve primary agricultural cooperatives support. Understanding of these elements could inform the efforts for members of cooperatives to achieve their set objectives and thus improve agriculture cooperative, employability, functionality and profitability. A case study of the Nkomamonta Agricultural Primary Cooperative in the Greater Tzaneen Municipalities is used. It is composed of fifteen agricultural cooperative which were purposively selected for the study because they were nearby, they are a pilot agricultural cooperative in the municipality and which are also not functioning as expected. The sample also included the purposively selected members, customers of these agricultural cooperative, workers, Greater Tzaneen Municipality, Local SEDA and LIBSA to explore the differences and provide insight to the knowledge, opinions and challenges that are facing agricultural cooperatives. One-on-one interviews were carried out with co-operative members as well as focus group discussions with customers, members of the cooperatives, workers, the Municipal officials, SEDA and LIBSA. A framework for analysing the challenges agricultural cooperatives with reference to the Nkomamonta cooperative case study was developed using literature of objectives of agricultural cooperatives, challenges which were identified by other researchers and success factors of smallholder agriculture. According to this study, farmers’ activities are hampered by a number of constraints. Production capability of the fifteen primary cooperatives is hampered by resource constraints such as lack of access to land (in one cooperative), machinery and equipment, finances and information relevant to production. Marketing, transportation, poor infrastructure and the elderly age of some cooperative members and issues related to free-rider syndrome were part of the problems that were identified. Low capability of some of the fifteen cooperatives to mobilise resources, use the limited resources available and low capability to manage institutional arrangements rendered the cooperatives ineffective in achieving their set objectives. The study recommends strategies for ensuring that the challenges facing agricultural cooperatives are minimised to better their services in the community. These include strategies for addressing internal and external issues affecting the cooperatives. Direct intervention from government is recommended to improve production through revising land allocation systems which made Kulani Agricultural Cooperative not to have land for growing crops. Jerry Jeff and Nwa Rex went out of action for eight months due to renovation of neighbourhood inorganic farms by the Department of Agriculture. Another strategy would entail improving extension services and follow up and strict monitoring of effective use of government resources provided to farmers. Responding and action taking when disaster has struck the agricultural cooperative by Government is also a plausible strategy. Access and training to relevant technologies to improve the processing and packaging capabilities of cooperatives should improve. Marketing and management activities should be supported through provision of improved infrastructure and relevant training. Farmers themselves should consider assisting one another especially regarding land issues as it was discovered that 67 hectares lay unutilised while the farmer next door needed land. Farmers should also engage in value added activities, and improve marketing programs and cost-effective distribution mechanisms.

Slow agrarian development has often been blamed on the absence of civil society mobilization. This paper quantitatively analyzes the effect of political and fiscal decentralization on agricultural development in 30 democratizing African States. Hence two hypotheses are tested: H1) New democracies that combine elected sub-national governments with fiscal decentralization will be more likely to spend more in agriculture. H2) In such system we should observe better agricultural outputs, other things equal. Results reveal that counter-intuitively simultaneous democratic and fiscal decentralization have a negative impact on public investment in agriculture. On the other hand, as expected fiscal decentralization does not have any significant impact in the absence of democratic decentralization. Most importantly democratic decentralization is found to have a highly positive impact on the provision of agricultural related public goods when fiscal decentralization is low. The test also reveals that fiscal and political decentralization positively influence agricultural production.

The purpose of this study was to synthesize emergent agricultural development reports related to post-conflict needs assessments in eight southern Iraqi provinces. This study is an empirical case study of Post Conflict Agricultural Development Assessments and Strategies in Eight Southern Iraqi Provinces. The objective is a systems approach using qualitative and quantitative methods to improve Iraqi agricultural practice, extension and training, community development, security, and policies for governance. The design called for a case study and a description of pre-deployment activities of a military-based civilian assessment team, initial organization and adjustments, and techniques for internal and external communication. Particular attention was given to agricultural specialties, crosscutting constructs, and data collection and analysis protocols in eight provinces in Iraq. Three objectives were identified to achieve the purpose of this study. The first objective was to identify emergent agricultural development themes from each of the eight Iraqi provinces. The second objective was to identify emergent agricultural development trends from each of the eight Iraqi provinces. A third objective was to provide relevant case documentation to assist in future agricultural development/post conflict development efforts. It was found that Iraqi agricultural production lags due to many factors, including counter productive government policies that undermine productivity, distort local economies, and confound security issues and competition via subsidized credit and agricultural inputs. Outdated technology and undertrained producers lacking knowledge of production related areas such as plant and animal genetics, fertilizers, irrigation and drainage systems and farm equipment. Inadequate and unstable electricity availability and provision, degradation of irrigation-infrastructure and management systems, a complete lack of or insufficient access to credit and private capital as well as inadequate market development and network infrastructure have all taken their toll on evolution and improvement of agricultural growth in southern Iraq. It may be that the largest threat to the future of Iraq is not violence, but the diminishing hope of young people caused by their inability to obtain vocational based skills training and the lack of jobs that match such skills. A pervasive lack of job opportunities or perceived lack of job availability may encourage continued civil unrest and possibly continue the insurgency. In order to address this issue, an aggressive youth development focus can make a positive impact in the current society. A majority of youth without useful skills are forced to abandon the farm and move to cities or to pursue other means of earning income in rural areas.

The panorama of economic development witnessed of an interesting tempo for the scholars on examining their field of interest. It is identified that the agriculture growth has been the linchpin of economic development in the 1950s. This period marked the outset of rapid overall economic development for Taiwan through the policy measures drawn by the government. The present study essentially deals with policies lessons that Haiti may learn from the experience of Taiwan’s economic development over its early stages of this course, while examining the interaction between agriculture and industry affected overall development. It turns out that the nature of this interaction is the key to development, in contrast to Western style like what the industrialization was firstly perceived as the panacea for the developing economies. This study examines that Taiwan’s experience shows the fundamental role played by agriculture and the strong synergy that occurred between farming and fledgling industry. It also shows that economic development had to depend largely on a mutual enhancement between agriculture and industry, with industry gradually drawing both labor and capital from agriculture during the period that industry was small relative to agriculture; this linkage was symbiotic and profound. In this regard, the agriculture sector was an engine of growth in Taiwan and will be crucial to the current development of Haiti, as a poor country. History has witnessed that, for the great majority of developing countries, a dynamic agriculture will be necessary for the process of economic development from its early stages. Given that the agricultural sector is highly important in the economies of most developing countries, and that its performance has been quite disappointing in all but a few of them; the agriculture development strategies of many countries need to be reexamined and reformulated. The present study can be of some help in attaining this objective.

Thesis (Ph.D) -- Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, 1987. / Typescript. Vita. Bibliography: leaves 607-634. Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;

Tesis de grado de Magister Scientiae. IICA, Centro de Enseñanza e Investigación, Depto. de Desarrollo Rural.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1990. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 322-339).