Red River Delta (RRD) ist einer von zwei gröÿten Flussmündungen in Vietnam. Das Gebiet ist der Ursprung des Reises in diesem Land. Die Landwirtschaft spielt eine entscheidende Rolle für die Wirtschaft Vietnams besonders im Red River Delta. In den vergangenen Jahren hat die Adoption von Neuerungen in der Landwirtschaft die Qualität und Menge der Produktion deutlich erhöht. Neue Getreidesorten wurden entwickelt, Management-, sowie Produktionsmethoden wie Integriertes Pest-Management (IPM) wurden verbessert, und Standards wie z. B. VIETGAP eingeführt. Das Forschungsprojekt konzentriert sich auf die Frage, welche Möglichkeiten bestehen, den Prozess der Übernahme von Neuerungen durch Landwirte zu verbessern. Dabei sind die sozioökonomischen Bedingungen des Gebiets zu berücksichtigen. In dem Projekt wird das vorhandene Innovationssystem bewertet um daraus die Empfehlungen für Verbesserungen abzuleiten. Das interdisziplinäre Forschungsprojekt verwendet An sätze der Diusionstheorie, des kollektiven Handelns, und einzelne Erklärungsfaktoren (z. B. kulturelle Bedingungen) um das individuelle Übernahmeverhalten erklären zu können. Die empirischen Ergebnisse der Arbeit beruhen auf 15 Experteninterviewsund 85 ausführlichen Befragungen von Kleinbauern. Die Zusammenarbeit zwischen Bauern, Beratern, Servicedienstleistern, S&T Organisationen, landwirtschaftlichen Unternehmen und NGOs wird beschrieben. In vielen Fällen geschieht der Transfer an die Bauern, durch (1) von vertraglichen Vereinbarungen zwischen den Partnern, (2) durch Anreize, oder (3) durch Lernprozesss im Anschluss an die Verbreitung der Information durch Informationsnetze. Die Rolle von Bauern in diesen Prozessen ist sowohl durch eine aktive oder passive Teilnahme gekennzeichnet. Die Landwirte werden in Gruppen eingeteilt: frühe Adopter, Imitatoren (späte Adopter) und Nichtadopter, um das Adoptionsverhalten besser erklären zu können. / The Red River Delta (RRD) is one of two biggest deltas in Vietnam. The region is the origin of paddy rice in the country. Agriculture plays a crucial role for Vietnam''s economy, especially in the RRD. Recently, adoption of innovations in agriculture has enhanced the quality and quantity of production. Old varieties of crops have been replaced, and improved management practices as well as production methods such as Integrated Pest Management (IPM), VIETGAP have been implemented. This research project focuses on the question, whether there is a need to enhance the process of innovation transfer to farmers. Socioeconomic conditions of the region have to be taken into account. The project will evaluate the existing transfer system and tries to nd out if it is possible to improve the innovation transfer by interfering into the process. The interdisciplinary research project uses the theory of diffusion of innovation, theory of collective action, and other explanations such as the cultural inuence and individual behavior. The results of this report are based on 15 expert interviews and 85 detailed questionnaires of smallholder farmers. The cooperation between farmers and agents of extension services, S&T organizations, agricultural enterprises, NGOs will be described. In some cases, the process of innovation transfer to farmers happens directly because of agreements in a contract between partners, or motivated by incentives, or simply pursuant to a learning process following diffusion of information through networks. The role of farmers in these processes is also directly observed as an active or passive participation. Farmers are classifed in groups of adopters (potential adopters, early adopters), imitators (later adopters) and non-adopters and factors to explain the adoption behavior are discussed.

M.A. / South Africa has thousands of destitute children without families to care for them. The bulk of such children are, at this time, born to impoverished and destitute African women. Many such children have been abandoned. In the years to come we must in addition expect a huge influx of children whose parents have died from or become incapacitated by Aids. These children will also need families to care for them. Adoption is an effective way of creating permanent homes for these children. However, there is currently a dearth of prospective African adopters in the Gauteng Province. Numerous assumptions have been put forward to explain this problemsituation. Some people think that it may be related to traditional norms of the African culture which emphasize the importance of blood ties when it comes to family building. In traditional African culture it was inconceivable that blood ties could be extinguished, or that someone totally strange, let alone someone from a different clan, could parent your child. The majority of modern, western adoptions, involve the legal adoption of children who are not related in any way to the people adopting them. An adoption order vests the parental rights and duties in the adopters and is irrevocable. The adoption order extinguishes natural parental rights with respect to any other person vis-a'-vis the child. Mother cause for concern, is the fact that when African adopters legally adopt children, the majority tend to very secretative about the whole affair. They usually do not acknowledge the adopted child's biological origins because they wish to protect the child and themselves from a negative response by the general community. It is important to tell children they are adopted because children have a right to the truth about themselves. Enduring relationships are built on honesty, not deception. When there has been secrecy in a family about adoption, everyone suffers. The community has a responsibility to provide support and resources to families formed by adoption. Recognizing that support from the community for an adoption service will not be forthcoming unless the community is positively oriented towards such a service, this study seeks to explore and describe the contemporary attitudes of an African community towards the concept of modern, western adoption. The Soweto community is the largest African community in South African. In order to explore the attitudes of people in this community towards the concept of modern, western adoption, a descriptive survey has been conducted. A sample of 163 people was drawn from the Vista University and the Soweto Home for the Aged. A selfadministered questionnaire was used as the method for data collection. Although generalizations to the greater African population cannot be made because a non-probability sampling method was used in this study, findings indicate that the majority of community members in Soweto probably have a positive attitude towards the concept of modern, western adoption. It is hoped that this attitude will have a directive influence on their future behaviour. There must thus be an ongoing effort to expand adoption opportunities for African children in need of permanent homes and members of the community must be directly involved in these efforts.