An analysis of household farm investment decisions under varying land tenure arrangements in Ghana

Land tenure insecurity is widely perceived as a disincentive for long-term land improvement investment hence the objective of this paper is to evaluate how tenure (in)security associated with different land use arrangements in Ghana influenced households’ plot level investment decisions and choices. The paper uses data from the Farmer-Based Organisations (FBO) survey. The FBO survey collected information from 2,928 households across three ecological zones of Ghana using multistaged cluster sampling. Probit and Tobit models tested the effects of land tenancy and ownership arrangements on households’ investment behaviour while controlling other factors. It was found that marginal farm size was inversely related to tenure insecurity while tenure insecurity correlate positively with value of farm land and not farm size. Individual ownership and documentation of land significantly reduced the probability of households losing uncultivated lands. Individual land ownership increased both the probability of investing and level of investments made in land improvement and irrigation probably due to increasing importance households place on land ownership. Two possible explanations for this finding are: First, that land markets and land relations have changed significantly over the last two decades with increasing money transaction and fixed agreements propelled by population growth and increasing value of land. Secondly, inclusion of irrigation investment as a long term investment in land raises the value of household investment and the time period required to reap the returns on the investments. Households take land ownership and duration of tenancy into consideration if the resource implications of land investments are relatively huge and the time dimension for harvesting returns to investments is relatively long.

Diversity and nutritional properties of Pakistani dates: implications for sustainable value chain and decent living perspectives of rural households

Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) occupies almost three percent of the total worldwide cultivated area, with an annual production of seven million tonnes (t). Pakistan is an ideal place for the cultivation of date palm due to its sandy loam soil and semi-arid climate. In 2012, Pakistan produced 600,000 t of dates, on an area of 95,000 ha. Baluchistan province is the country’s top date producer, followed by Sindh, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) provinces. More than 300 date varieties are known to exist in Pakistan and some commercially important cultivars are: Karbalaen, Aseel, Muzawati, Fasli, Begum Jhangi, Hillawi, Dashtiari, Sabzo, Koharaba, Jaan Swore, Rabai and Dhakki. Six districts from the four provinces of Pakistan (Jhang, Muzaffargarh and Bahawalpur (Punjab), Dera Ismail Khan (KPK), Khairpur (Sindh) and Panjgur (Baluchistan)) with largest area under date palm cultivation were selected to conduct socio-economic surveys including the income sources of date palm growers. A structured questionnaire with open-ended and closed questions was used for face-to-face interviews of 170 date palm growers. At each location after selection of a first farmer through a local guide, the former was requested to provide names and addresses of three other date growers in his area. From these three names, one was randomly selected for the next sampling. Additionally, date palm fronds and fruits of all available cultivars were collected for morphological and nutritional analyses. Soil samples were collected from the groves for subsequent chemical and physical analyses. Almost all farmers used dates as a food item for their families and some were using low quality dates as a feed for their livestock. Apart from dates, other date palm components (trunk, spadix, frond, inflorescence and seed) were used by date palm growers as a raw material for making many by-products for their families. Date palm had a major contribution in the income of households, 24% received 91-100% of their income from date palms. More than half of the surveyed farmers had date palm groves, but scattered plantations, home gardens and intercropping systems with cereal and other fruits were also present. Dhakki, Muzawati, Aseel, and Karbalaen were the most important commercial cultivars grown in the provinces of KPK, Baluchistan, and Sindh. Aseel, Karoch, Haleni, Karbalaen, and Muzawati cultivars had the most firm fruit and good total soluble sugar, calcium and magnesium contents. The amount of magnesium found in dates of studied cultivars ranged from 0.143 to 0.876 mg g-1. A great variation in frond morphology was recorded among the cultivars. Fruit length and fruit weight was highest in Dhakki date, making it visually more attractive for customers in addition to its good nutritional properties. The seed weight of the studied cultivars ranged from 0.7-2.0 g, while Desi dates had largest seed, making them less attractive for marketing. However, in terms of nutritional value and fruit size, most of the investigated varieties can compete with globally important commercial dates.

COMP1205 Legal Perspectives: Information, Data and Living in a Connected World

List of topics and Slides which summarise legal perspectives with suggested methods on how to revise for the exam

Viure a les Illes Balears, vivir en las Islas Baleares, vivre dans les îles Baléares, living in the Balearic Islands, auf den Balearen-Inseln Leben. 'Vivir en las Islas Baleares'.

Este vocabulario con imágenes tiene como objetivo facilitar un primer acercamiento a la lengua catalana. Se encuentran organizadas por temas mil palabras de uso frecuente en las comunicaciones cotidianas y una recopilación de frases corrientes que pueden ser de mucha utilidad. Este vocabulario puede ser una herramienta muy útil para un primer contacto con la lengua de las islas Baleares y animar a utilizar otros recursos como cursos, material de autoaprendizaje, enseñanza a distancia. Los conceptos se encuentran únicamente en catalán pero la presentación y el título de los apartados está también en castellano, francés, inglés, alemán y árabe.

Solid waste management in metropolitan areas: barriers and opportunities for intermunicipal arrangements in Brazil

Municipal solid waste issue has acquired a growing importance into urban management discussions, particularly in metropolitan areas. Although metropolitan regions were created for integrating public functions of common interest, it appears that the structures, in general, are limited to planning  activities. In this context, the democratization process occurred in Brazil during 1980’s led to the  strengthening of inter-municipal arrangements of voluntary cooperation, acquiring great expressiveness  in metropolitan areas, responsible for 60% of waste generated in Brazil. However, despite the  consortia emergence as an alternative management of metropolitan territory, its process of setting up and operation is not free of challenges and dilemmas. This paper starts with the hypothesis that  inter-municipal consortia in metropolitan areas have high strength asymmetry and weak regional  identity among municipalities, conditions that tend to create barriers to its concretization. In this  context, this research aim  to develop a comparative study of inter-municipal arrangements for solid  waste management in the metropolitan areas of Curitiba (pr), Belo Horizonte (bh) and Salvador  (ba), by identifying influence degree of regional identity and strength asymmetry in these arrangements. The multiple case study reveals an inverse proportionality relationship between regional  identity and strength asymmetry among the municipalities, deeply influenced by political interinstitutional  arrangement and the metropolitan area in which they are is inserted.

Socioterritorials forms of appropiation of living and right to the differencial space

The aim of this work is to recover Henri Lefèbvre's methodological contributions for (re)thinking the right to the city, based on the need to know the appropriation of space´s dialectical triad. Empirically, it refers to the urban genesis of Mar del Plata (Argentina), an intermediate Latin American city, and its heterogeneous socio-territorial forms of appropriating inhabitance, or different forms of appropriating goods of use, that lead to think about opening to the transformation of the capitalist social order, and of its urban order, naturalized after the fetischism of private property.

Preparant un viatge en el temps : una experiència a partir del living history. 'Preparando un viaje en el tiempo : una experiencia a partir del living history'.

Resumen de los autores en catalán

Body mass index as a standard of living measure: a different interpretation for the case of Colombia

We analyze the Body Mass Index (BMI) in a distinct way of its traditional use and it lets us use it as a proxy of standard of living for the case of Colombia. Our approach is focused on studying how far the people are from the normal range and not on the score of each one and this lets us to treat equally extreme cases as severe thinness and obesity. We use a probabilistic model (Ordered Probit) that evaluates the probability of being within the normal range or another level. We found that socioeconomic variables have a significant effect on the dependent variable and that there are no linear effects. Besides, people with difficulties for walking and adults have less probability of having a normal BMI.

An approximation to the standard of living index: the Colombian case

El documento busca mostrar las principales propiedades de un indicador de estándar de vida dentro del enfoque teórico de Amartya Sen. Establecemos un puente entre conceptos tales como: bienestar económico, bienestar, logro de agencia y estándar de vida. La metodología del Optimal scaling fue usada para probar las propiedades de Monotonicidad, No independencia de alternativas irrelevantes, Concavidad, informatividad y sustituibilidad.

Fiabilidad y validez del Living with Asthma Questionnaire en una muestra gallega : distribución y relación con parámetros sociodemográficos y clínicos.

Resumen tomado de la revista

Living on the edge.

Adecuado como guía de lectura compartida o independiente tiene diferentes tipos de texto para distintos niveles de comprensión lectora. Muestra cómo algunos pueblos hacen frente a las condiciones ambientales extremas en que viven y trabajan. De qué forma obtienen los alimentos y el agua,y que no solo aprenden del pasado sino también prueban nuevas tecnologías y nuevos materiales. Hay un mapa con datos sobre la densidad de población en los distintos continentes.

Living on other worlds.

Habla de los diferentes medios de exploración del espacio tales como cohetes, telescopios, sondas, y las estaciones espaciales, así como la sostenibilidad de la vida en otros planetas.

Living geography.

Mapas, ríos, océanos y clima son las cuatro secciones exploradas desde el punto de vista científico y desde una perspectiva histórica. Una mezcla de modelo de actividades y experimentos científicos explicados paso a paso proporcionan una nueva e imaginativa experiencia educativa para los jóvenes geógrafos, y los anima a buscar los secretos del planeta. Para explorar cómo los ríos y los océanos prevalecen en la Tierra y afectan al paisaje y la vida cotidiana. Se describen diversos patrones climáticos, y se explica cómo la gente crea mapas para el espacio, para la Tierra y para el fondo submarino. Tiene glosario.

Living geography, book 1.

Reúne los requisitos de la versión revisada del Plan Nacional de Estudios. El material está adaptado a todos los niveles de capacidad: avanza en complejidad del lenguaje, del contenido y del concepto en la etapa de siete nueve años; fácil de gestionar las unidades de trabajo; preguntas para satisfacer todas las capacidades; refuerzo continuo de las principales ideas; hojas de trabajo fotocopiables y evaluación de las hojas de trabajo.