This thesis is concerned with an investigation into current on-farm grain storage practice and with ascertaining what educational interventions, if any, are appropriate for future and more detailed consideration. The Australian grain growing, handling, and marketing industry has changed in recent times. A few years ago (1989), the grain growers only essential contact with grain marketing was through the bulk handling authorities and the Australian Wheat Board. Advice was freely available from state departments of agriculture, and the only requirement to store grain on-farm was that necessary for the grower's own needs. Now (1994), there is a possible advantage that grain stored on-farm may be used for a wide range of selling options, amongst other reasons, and market requirements are much more complex and stringent. There is a substantial body of research on grain storage techniques. At the same time there is a significant gap between researched knowledge and the use of this knowledge for on-farm storage. A major purpose of this study is to identify an improved approach to extension and farmer education that may help to reduce this gap. This thesis contains a review of the general literature on extension followed by an overview of extension in the developed world to establish the international context for Australia. Then the historical context of extension is examined briefly to understand the current situation in each state. Some educational models are reviewed to identify relationships between stakeholders and the opportunities available for and constraints to development of educational strategies. Information channels are reviewed to comprehend extension interaction and grain storage technologies are reviewed to ensure comprehension of techniques. On the basis of the literature review a field study was designed to investigate current on-farm storage practice, current extension sources for storage information and preferences for future educational interventions. This was done by a survey using a stratified random sample of grain growers and cluster selection of individuals for personal interviews. This information was complemented by informal discussion with farmers at field days. The results of the study confirmed the gap between research knowledge and on-farm implementation of this knowledge. They also demonstrated that grain growers wanted more information and gave some indicators of how this might be achieved. Major findings of the research included the need for extension coalitions and the desirability for active involvement of the grain grower. Major conclusions, for on-farm storage and extension, are drawn to form a basis for development of future extension interventions. These are aimed at ensuring grain growers have available the information needed for good storage practice. This includes an essential understanding the grain growers' needs and perceptions, early, in any planning process. It also includes the necessity for coordination of extension/education activities at local, regional and national levels. The research has some major implications for an improved approach to extension and on-farm storage. These include the establishment of a farmers-as-researcher program to implement grain storage innovations and the recognition that implemented change will need long term maintenance; often more resource intensive than the original intervention.

A "peer advisory group" essentially melds a business advisory board with a peer group. Peer advisory groups consist of business managers who meet together for the purpose of mutual self-improvement and learning through the sharing of experiences. The entire peer advisory group concept encompasses many variations and this research focuses on groups consisting of farm managers. Unfortunately, some farm managers who wish to participate have expressed frustration with group formation: they find it difficult to identify suitable individuals to participate in a peer advisory group with. Peer advisory groups can take many forms, and experts have suggested an individual should specifically seek out people interested in the same type of group. For example, an individual who wants to strictly focus discussion on production issues should seek out other individuals who also seek to focus on production discussions. Some individuals have suggested that some type of "clearinghouse" organizations could be beneficial in assisting individuals with the peer advisory group formation problem. Such an organization would likely need to adapt some sort of method for identifying individuals who have interest in a similar type of group. Although this could be approached from several different angles, one possible approach involves the practice of cluster analysis?a wide set of procedures intended to break down a set of objects into "clusters" of individuals with similar attributes. Cluster analysis comes with several attractive benefits; however, literature includes countless variations in the methods and criticisms of certain aspects of the methodology. This thesis focuses on using cluster analysis to assist with peer advisory group formation. More specifically, this thesis seeks to answer the following question: how could a clearinghouse organization apply cluster analysis methods to a pool of candidates to effectively create peer advisory groups congruent to the individuals' needs and wants? An approach was proposed which differs slightly from traditional cluster analysis methods, and this was applied to a hypothetical pool of candidates, along with several control methods. The proposed approach was found to most effectively create peer advisory groups which fulfilled the desires of the individuals.

Abstract Communication technology is emerging while researches on the observations of farmers are very few, especially the research on supply and demand of farmers. It is an issue needed to be stressed for the industry of agriculture. If the farmer's reading behavior which is very important to the agricultural development during the process of cultivating the young freshman of agriculture, the farmers facing minority situation have no longer kept abreast with the pace of change in the informational age and cannot respond to these challenges. Therefore, there is the necessity of enhancing the farmers¡¦ reading behavior. After a comprehensive review of the reading behavior theories, it is found that most studies are centered on the compulsory education. Studies concerning for the farmers¡¦ reading behavior are rare. However, the New Agriculture Movement pushed forward by the Taiwanese government aims to stress that first of all underlying con-cepts shall be reformed since the farmers¡¦ reading habit dominates the development of the agricultural science journals. As a result, it is essential for this study to regard new farmers¡¦ reading behavior as the subject of the study. The major purpose of this study is to explore the intention of new farmers¡¦ reading behavior as the mode of this study from the perspective of decomposed the-ory of planned behavior in terms of the media consumption theory. How to gain the relevant information of the agriculture from the farmers¡¦ reading behavior and how to improve the farmers¡¦ reading habit from the viewpoint of agricultural knowledge communications management are analyzed. The major contribution of this research is that I try new angles to reexamine atti-tude, subjective norm, and perceived behavior control for the academy situation, es-pecially the findings on the media consumption. A complete verification and predic-tion of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is proposed that differs from the past studies from the comprehensive perspective. In the past, it is less likely to deeply ex-plore the above issue. In the meantime, for the practices, the questionnaire is conducted among new farmers and the collection obtained material is carried on the SEM statistical analysis. This study which combines ¡§Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior¡¨ with ¡§Media Consumption Theory¡¨ expect that practice is directing by academy so as to a better development for the agricultural publications. The research results provide some useful suggestions to agricultural science publishers and those who want to engage in the publication work.

Thesis (M.A.)--Marshall University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains v, 85 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 78-85).

Tyrimo objektas - ūkininkų konsultavimo priešgaisrinės saugos klausimais organizavimas. Tyrimo dalykas – ūkio priešgaisrinė sauga. Darbo tikslas - nustatyti ūkininkų konsultavimo priešgaisrinės saugos klausimais organizavimo ypatumus ir parengti konsultavimo organizavimo gerinimo planą. Uždaviniai : 1. Surinkti, susisteminti ir išanalizuoti literatūrą apie konsultavimo priešgaisrinės saugos klausimais organizavimą. 2. Ištirti ūkininkų konsultavimo priešgaisrinės saugos klausimais organizavimą Lietuvoje 3. Nustatyti ūkininkų konsultavimo priešgaisrinės saugos klausimais organizavimo būklę, principus ir metodus. 4. Parengti ūkininkų konsultavimo priešgaisrinės saugos klausimais organizavimo gerinimo priemonių planą. Tyrimo metodai : loginis, indukcijos, dedukcijos, analizės, sintezės, palyginimo, grafinio vaizdavimo, focus grupių interviu. / Research object - advising farmers on the fire safety aspects of organization. Research subject - agricultural fire safety. Research aim - Farmers set fire safety advice on the organization of special features and advisory organization to develop a plan to improve. Objectives: 1. Collect, codify, and analyze the literature on fire safety advice on the organization. 2. Investigate the farmers' advice on fire safety in the organization of Lithuania. 3. Set of advising farmers on the fire safety aspects of the organization of the state, the principles and methods. 4. Develop farmers' advisory organization on matters of fire safety improvement plan Research methods: logic, induction, deduction, analysis, synthesis, comparison, and graphic imaging, focus group interviews.

Tyrimo objektas: tarpininkavimo įdarbinant paslaugos organizavimas Tyrimo laikotarpis: 2003-2008 metai. Tyrimo tikslas - parengti darbo biržos paslaugų organizavimo įdarbinant darbuotojus žemės ūkio sektoriuje gerinimo priemonių planą Šiam tikslui pasiekti, buvo suformuluoti tokie uždaviniai: 1. Išanalizuoti mokslinę literatūrą paslaugų organizavimo srityje. 2. Išanalizuoti teritorinės darbo biržos tarpininkavimo paslaugų organizavimo įdarbinant darbuotojus žemės ūkyje ypatumus. 3. Ištirti ūkininkų naudojimosi darbo biržos tarpininkavimo įdarbinant paslauga poreikį ir tenkinimo galimybes. 4. Pateikti teritorinių darbo biržų tarpininkavimo paslaugų organizavimo gerinimo priemones. Tyrimo metodai: mokslinės literatūros ir dokumentų analizė ir sintezė tiriant tarpininkavimo paslaugų organizavimo esmę ir reikšmę, ūkininkų teikiamų paslaugų ypatumus; anketinė apklausa, antrinių duomenų analizė, statistiniai matematiniai bei grafinio vaizdavimo metodai. Tyrimo rezultatai: • pirmoje darbo dalyje siekiant tikslo išnagrinėti mokslinės literatūros šaltiniai apie tarpininkavimo paslaugų organizavimo esmę ir reikšmę, darbo biržos teikiamų paslaugų ūkininkams ypatumus. Taikyti mokslinės analizės ir sintezės metodai. • antroje darbo dalyje siekiant ištirti paslaugų teikimo procesą buvo panaudoti antriniai duomenys – Lietuvos teritorinių darbo biržų duomenys, Lietuvos statistikos departamento duomenys bei Lietuvos žemės ūkio statistikos duomenys. Pirminei informacijai surinkti naudotas... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Research subject: finding employment for the service organization. Research period: 2003-2008 years. Work objective – analyze the theoretical aspects of the service organization and service organization of recruitment in the agricultural sector to the improvement plan Tasks for this objective: 1. To analyze the scientific literature in the field of services; 2. Develop local employment services in the organization of the study methodology and conduct the investigation; 3. To analyze the local labor exchange brokerage services in the recruitment of staff for the organization of agricultural features; 4. Provide regional labor mediation services provided by the organization to improve. Research methods: scientific literature, analysis and synthesis, logical thinking, and comparison of methods, comparison, clustering, and graphical display techniques, questionnaire survey. The results of the study: • the main target of state public job giving agency is to grow up the ability of people to represent themselves, study, find right job, organise the cooperation with employer. In the first part of study I studied the scientific literature in job giving service area, specialities of job giving in agricultural market. I used methods of scientific analysis. • the second part of the work to investigate the service process was used as secondary data - Lithuanian territorial labor data, the Lithuanian Department of Statistics data and Lithuanian agricultural statistics. Used to... [to full text]

This thesis is an investigation into the frames and implicit concepts that drive the current trend of corporate-led agriculture, now known as the Third Food Regime. I consider whether this neoliberal regime is hegemonic in rural Ontario, that is, whether the dominant ideology of the corporate ruling class is reflected in and perpetuated by our farmers, despite it being against their best interests. I employ a critical approach, using mixed methods – participant observation of general farm organizations, content analysis of the farm media in Ontario and in-depth interviews with farmers in Wellington County – and find strong evidence of a free market frame in rural Ontario. This thesis outlines the dimensions and dangers of the existing frame in hopes that alternative agricultural models can again be considered. / SSHRC

The research project focused on studying the effectiveness of placemaking initiatives to promote social, physical and economic improvements. The case of study is the Central Park neighbourhood in Winnipeg, Manitoba, named after its major public space. The research indicated placemaking initiatives were capable of contributing to increasing safety, promoting community development and enhancing opportunities for social interaction. However, the capacity of placemaking to achieve positive improvements is directly determined by the involved stakeholders. The Central Park initiatives were successful due to the emphasis on engaging the residents and neighbourhood organizations. The residents were given the opportunity to meaningfully share their experience and aspirations with external stakeholders. The collaborative approach to placemaking contributed to the development of a sense of ownership. The residents saw their input reflected in the amenities and programming offered in Central Park. The planning profession can benefit from using placemaking practices to engage in comprehensive planning.

The aim of this study is to find out the main psychological problems of inner migrants’ children in Guiyang and to give some suggestions to treat these problems. Compared to other social groups, inner migrants’ children meet specific psychological issue in migrate processing. It is a world-wide issue, especially in the developing countries today. In this research, both qualitative method and quantitative one are used. The research result shows that there are three aspects that influence the psychological condition of the inner migrants’ children most. They are social-economic condition of the family, school environment, and social policy.

The South African poultry industry is a large part of the agricultural industry and a very important contributor to the Agriculture’s Gross Domestic Product. Furthermore, this industry is expanding and very good growth is predicted for the next decade. This growth will take place in the formal as well as the informal segments of the industry. The informal segment holds a lot of potential for suppliers to supply in their growing needs. Due to the fact that broiler feed is seen as a large contributor to the total cost of broiler production, it is considered very important factor. If feed suppliers want to focus on the informal market, they need to understand the differences between commercial farmers and small–scale farmers and specifically the different needs of small–scale farmers. To develop a strategy to utilize the opportunities in the informal market, it is necessary to understand all the factors that influence the purchase behaviour of these farmers. A model of stimulus response is used to define the factors that may influence purchase behaviour. The factors that seemed important from the literature study are market and other stimuli. The market stimuli consist of product, price, promotion and place. The product aspect could further be divided into quality aspects, brand equity, and additional services that accompany the product. Other stimuli that could influence purchase behaviour are economic conditions, special event, climatic condition and the influence of culture. Data was collected by means of a questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and factor analysis were used on the data to determine which factors influence the small–scale farmers’ purchase behaviour. While the Kaiser Meyer Olkin measure, Bartlett’s test of shericity and Cronbach Apha were used to determine if the data is suitable to do a factor analysis on. Factor analysis was done to determine which factors are the most important. The seven significant factors that influence the purchase behaviour of small–scale farmers are: * Value for money and opportunity. * Perceived brand value. * Customer support and service. * Consensus on available quality. * Brand loyalty. * Feed price at the reseller. * Bag size. More research on this topic in a larger geographical area is required. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.