This item was digitized as part of the Million Books Project led by Carnegie Mellon University and supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Cornell University coordinated the participation of land-grant and agricultural libraries in providing historical agricultural information for the digitization project; the University of Arizona Libraries, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and the Office of Arid Lands Studies collaborated in the selection and provision of material for the digitization project.

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Thesis (M.Dev.) --University of Limpopo, 2013 / This research project unfolds within the Shigalo wa Muhunguti Communal Property Association farms at Tshitungulu, (Levubu) area, under Makhado Municipality in Vhembe District of the Limpopo Province, with the purposes to evaluating the sustainability of that Land Restituted farming project. This is a case study research project where both the qualitative and the quantitative research strategies were used. Data was collected through structured and semi-structured interviews. The analysis reveals that while the Land Reform programme has managed to restore land rights to the legitimate owners, the sustainability and continued productivity of such properties in the hands of the new owners remains a cause for major concern. The findings reveal among other things the low literacy level, lack of farming skills, low interest and passion for farming, and high level of dissatisfaction of employees. Poor marketing of produce is also a cause for great concern. Recommendations to address the above findings suggest that the Department of Agriculture should implement massive training programmes on beneficiaries, young farmers should be exposed to modern production system, regular meetings with employees could reduce their dissatisfaction, while the executive members could undergo vigorous training to get marketing skills to negotiate the sale of their produce.

To complement the Inabanga Watershed Project (BSWM, 2005), the study reported here was conducted to assess erosion and water resources degradation focussed on the Upper Inabanga Watershed using the Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) erosion model and geographic information system and GIS tools. The study was divided into two sections. The first section was the assessment of the impact of land uses and farm management practices using five runoff experimental plots and two watersheds. The second section of the study was an application of the WEPP and GeoWEPP erosion models. Except for most of the crop management parameters, local climate, soil and topographic parameters were determined and used as inputs to run the model. The WEPP-GeoWEPP watershed simulations predicted that any increase in agricultural areas increased on-site soil loss and sediment yield from the watershed. / Master of Science (Hons)

Bibliography: p. 119-126. Discusses factors which affect the increase of small holdings output in and effort to increase the farmers income.

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This thesis examines the use of precision agriculture data, specifically yield maps, for makingsite-specific economic decisions for improved farm management. The adoption of precisionagriculture on farms has allowed producers to collect a greater quantity and more specificinformation about production than ever before. With such information, site-specific decisions canbe made. Incorporating economic data with yield map data, two primary decision examples aredeveloped: defining areas of production and nonproduction and managing temporal risk spatiallyacross a field. Included with the production/ nonproduction decision are the effects that landtenure arrangements and risk aversion levels have on the decision. The risk maps are developedusing break-even analysis, the coefficient of variation, and a mean-variance framework, all based ona twenty year average of temporal net returns, measured spatially. The risk maps are repeatedincorporating a crop insurance option, a commonly used risk management tool. Results show thatdeveloping these maps can be used by agricultural producers to help with their decision making. Byincorporating these maps into the decision-making process, decisions can be made to increase farmprofitability.

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This study employed qualitative research methods to explore the motivations, perceptions, and regional contextual factors that influence the management decisions of small-scale farmers in East Central Indiana (ECI). In-depth, semi-structured interviews with 15 key informants and 29 farmers were recorded, transcribed, and coded using content analysis to understand the factors most relevant to small-scale farming in the region. Several important themes and subthemes arose in the data related to farming motivations, barriers to farm sustainability, and farmer learning and education. The results of this study complement the findings of previous work that describe the complex framework farmers navigate when making decisions on the farm. Still, this study identifies subtle regional factors (i.e., market conditions, farming culture, local economy)that significantly impact farmers’ decisions, and emphasizes the importance of local context in crafting agricultural policies and outreach efforts. Implications and recommendations for East Central Indiana are discussed. / Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management