Kofyar cash-cropping: Choice and change in indigenous agricultural development

Amid discussions of an agricultural crisis and the failure of largescale, mechanized, capitalintensive development schemes in Nigeria, the Kofyar of Plateau State provide a case study of farmers spontaneously expanding food crop production for the market, using indigenous lowenergy technology. Temporary, followed by permanent, migration from the Jos Plateau homeland to frontier settlements on the fertile Benue plains has been accompanied by a change from initial shifting cultivation in forest clearings to permanent, intensively tilled and fertilized homestead fields. Labor is organized primarily in households that have grown in size and complexity. Cooperative and exchange work groups are also important for meeting seasonal bottlenecks and providing the careful, disciplined cultivation that intensive agriculture requires. Kofyar now devote up to 50% of their labor to cash crops, and they purchase considerable quantities of manufactured goods and medical services. Their uncoerced adaptation to an environment of new land resources and market incentives suggests both the advantages of indigenous development with a minimum of state control or interference and the limitations of a conventional dependency theory perspective.     

Changing household composition,labor patterns,and fertility in a highland New Guinea population

The European demographic transition of the nineteenth century is often proposed as a model for demographic change in twentieth century developing nations, and economic development is seen as leading to an inevitable reduction in total fertility in these nations. This paper examines data from the Gainj of Papua New Guinea, a natural fertility population with very low reproductive output, and suggests that the effects of development on fertility change are much more complex than a simple demographic transition model would suggest. Looking at two variables known to contribute significantly to low total fertility among the Gainj, late age at first birth for women and long interbirth intervals, the paper suggests that households, in their recruitment and allocation of labor, may exert a mediating influence in the relationship between economic development and fertility.     

Pithouse Architecture and the Economics of Household Formation in the Prehistoric American Southwest

Changes in prehistoric Southwestern architecture have been interpreted as the result of increasing dependence on agriculture through time which promoted greater sedentism. Recent archaeological research has produced data that point to changes in labor organization rather than agricultural productivity as the factors that most likely favored new forms of domestic architecture. In fact, some of the most striking temporal shifts in residential architecture may have been associated with declining agricultural productivity.     

Evaluating the role of livelihood assets in suitable livelihood strategies: Protocol for anti-poverty policy in the Eastern Tibetan Plateau,China

Although numerous studies have been conducted on the relationship between livelihood assets and strategies, only a few quantitative studies exist on the topic for anti-poverty policies with regard to the Tibetan Plateau. This study investigated 357 households in the upper reaches of the Dadu River watershed in the Eastern Tibetan Plateau, China, using the participatory rural appraisal method. Then, applying a multinomial logistic regression model, we quantitatively analyzed the relationship between livelihood assets and livelihood strategies, the findings of which have implications for local agricultural policy interventions. The preliminary results indicate that of the four classifications of livelihood strategies used in this study, the main livelihood strategy is that of the non-farming-dependent household type (i.e., Type III in our study) that combines agricultural and non-farm activities or practices self-employment for wages. There are significant differences in the livelihood assets owned by households with different livelihood strategies. Human, natural, and financial assets have significant influences on livelihood strategies, and the choice of livelihood strategy varies by livelihood assets. Further, with improvements in household labor capacity and cash income per capita, the livelihood strategies of non-agricultural and non-farming households may shift away from agriculture, while an increase in farmland cultivated per capita, cash income per capita, and household labor capacity may encourage households to adopt agriculture-dependent livelihood strategies. These findings contribute to research on livelihood and related development strategies and anti-poverty policies in not only the Eastern Tibetan Plateau but also other regions with similar livelihood strategies.     

Developmental status of the French consumer home product information database

Summary The purpose of this study is, first, to perform a national data bank cellecting as many data as possible for various household products with attention to the frequency of their use and, secondly, to determine their volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions.     

The consumption of wood by rural households in Gokwe Communal Area,Zimbabwe

The objectives of this paper are to quantify the annual household consumption of wood for different purposes and to investigate the types of wood used for each purpose. Households in part of Gokwe Communal Area, a rural Zimbabwean study area in which wood is considered plentiful, use a mean 4.8 tons per household per year (t hh ^–1 yr ^–1 ) of wood for fuel, comprising 4.0 t to meet day-to-day requirements and 0.8 t for special occasions and beer brewing. In addition, building and repairing wooden structures require 3.5 t hh ^–1 yr ^–1 The total annual consumption is at most 8.3 t hh ^–1 yr ^–1 depending on the amount of wood in wooden structures that is recycled into new structures or as firewood. Wide variation around the mean annual consumption is expected because of differences among households and errors associated with calculation. The different purposes to which wood is put require wood of different types. Firewood for day-to-day use consists of small dead pieces collected in headloads. For brewing and special occasions large logs are used. Poles and small branches are freshly cut for wooden structures, with poles of particular girths and lengths being used for different components of the structures. Species is also taken into account in the collection of wood for fuel and construction. Disaggregation of the yearly consumption by site and species is important to the assessment of supply and demand of wood.     

Reproductive numbers, epidemic spread and control in a community of households

Many of the studies on emerging epidemics (such as SARS and pandemic flu) use mass action models to estimate reproductive numbers and the needed control measures. In reality, transmission patterns are more complex due to the presence of various social networks. One level of complexity can be accommodated by considering a community of households. Our study of transmission dynamics in a community of households emphasizes five types of reproductive numbers for the epidemic spread: household-to-household reproductive number, leaky vaccine-associated reproductive numbers, perfect vaccine reproductive number, growth rate reproductive number, and the individual reproductive number. Each of those carries different information about the transmission dynamics and the required control measures, and often some of those can be estimated from the data while others cannot. Simulations have shown that under certain scenarios there is an ordering for those reproductive numbers. We have proven a number of ordering inequalities under general assumptions about the individual infectiousness profiles. Those inequalities allow, for instance, to estimate the needed vaccine coverage and other control measures without knowing the various transmission parameters in the models. Along the way, we have also shown that in choosing between increasing vaccine efficacy and increasing coverage levels by the same factor, preference should go to efficacy.     

Domestic Transitions, Desiccation, Agricultural Intensification, and Livelihood Diversification among Rural Households on the Central Plateau, Burkina Faso

ABSTRACT   Understanding how and why domestic groups alter their function and form has long been a theme within anthropology. Numerous accounts have detailed the processes that drive household transformations and their underlying mechanisms. Mostly, these studies describe how domestic groups fission and fuse between extended and nuclear forms. In recent years, scholars have emphasized that these transformations should be understood within larger contexts of social and environmental change. Mossi communities on the Central Plateau of Burkina Faso provide an excellent opportunity to explore such processes because the large extended households documented 30 years ago were predicted to decline and eventually disappear. In this study, I examine dynamics of household transformations and test the validity of this prediction. I use perspectives from sustainability science and computer-simulation modeling to understand how regional desiccation, agricultural intensification, and livelihood diversification articulate with domestic transitions.     

Organochlorines and organophosphates susceptibility of Aedes albopictus Skuse larvae from agricultural and non-agricultural localities in Peninsular Malaysia

Aedes albopictus larvae obtained from different types of agricultural and non-agricultural localities in Peninsular Malaysia were subjected to several larvicides at World Health Organization (WHO) recommended dosages. Upon 24 h of WHO larval bioassay using two organochlorines and six organophosphates, high resistance against dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), temephos, chlorpyrifos and bromophos were demonstrated among all larval populations. Aedes albopictus larvae from both paddy growing areas (92.33% mortality) and rubber estates (97.00% mortality) were moderately resistant to dieldrin while only Ae. albopictus larvae from dengue prone residential areas (89.00% mortality) showed high resistance against dieldrin. All Ae. albopictus larval populations also developed either incipient or high resistance to both malathion (33.67%–95.33% mortality) and fenitrothion (73.00%–92.67% mortality). Only Ae. albopictus larvae from fogging-free residential areas that were tolerant to fenthion (97.33% mortality), whereas Ae. albopictus larvae from dengue prone residential areas were highly resistant to the same organophosphate (88.33% mortality). Cross resistance between intraclass and interclass larvicides of organochlorines and organophosphates were also exhibited in this study. The present study provided baseline data on various susceptibility levels of Ae. albopictus larval populations from different types of agricultural and non-agricultural localities against organochlorines and organophosphates at WHO recommended dosages. Nevertheless, further susceptibility investigations are suggested using revised doses of larvicides established from the local reference strain of Ae. albopictus to prevent the underestimation or overestimation of insecticide resistance level among Ae. albopictus field strains of larvae.     

北方农牧过渡带农户农业生产系统模式的生态评价和改良研究

农牧过渡带 (或农牧交错带、半农半牧区 )是指我国传统种植业区和传统畜牧业区的镶嵌结合地带。近世纪以来 ,由于人口剧增 ,垦草种粮面积不断扩大 ,滥垦、过牧、滥樵 ,使草地植被大面积消失 ,沙漠化和荒漠化日趋严重。据报道 ,目前我国北方农牧过渡带荒漠化土地面积已达 1 6 7×10 5ｈａ ,占土地总面积的 5 2 73% ,年增长率约为1 39% [3] 。赤峰市是我国北方农牧过渡带较典型、分布面积较大的地区。该地区资源类型丰富 ,互补优势明显 ,特别是农牧结合的潜力巨大。但长期以来这里区域生态环境恶化加剧 ,导致严重的贫困化。解决这一问题的关…