Search
Now showing items 1-10 of 54
Aufsatz
Emerging Development Pathways of Urban Livestock Production in Rapidly Growing West Africa Cities
(2016-11-19)
In this study, we try to capture the degree of specialization or integration, and of intensification or extensification, of (peri-) urban livestock production, along with the factors that influence such decisions and their impact on natural resource uses. A total of 181 and 187 structured questionnaires were completed in livestock-keeping households in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) and Tamale (Ghana). Categorical principal component and two-step cluster analysis were used to identify homogenous groups of livestock-keeping ...
Aufsatz
Urban Agriculture Oriented towards Self-Supply, Social and Commercial Purpose: A Typology
(2016-08-17)
Urban agriculture, a dynamic multifunctional phenomenon, affects the spatial diversification of urban land use, its valorization and its governance. Literature acknowledges its contribution to the development of sustainable cities. The dimension and extent of this contribution depends significantly on the particular form and function of urban agriculture. However, the complexity of interests and dimensions is insufficiently covered by theory. This paper proposes a typology for urban agriculture, supporting both theory ...
Aufsatz
Spatio-temporal patterns of herbage availability and livestock movements: A cross-border analysis in the Chinese-Mongolian Altay
(Springer, 2016-07-04)
Due to increasing population and the recent implementation of policies to intensify the use of land and water resources, the transhumant pastoral systems in the Chinese-Mongolian Altay-Dzungarian region are rapidly changing, leading to modifications of herd size, herd composition and spatial distribution of livestock grazing. This may have major consequences for the supply and quality of rangeland biomass. Despite similar topographic settings, the socio-political framework for Chinese and Mongolian pastoralists differs ...
Aufsatz
High-Quality Solid Fuel Production from Leaf Litter of Urban Street Trees
(2016-11-30)
Leaf litter is a growing concern for cities. Due to adherent dirt such biomass is rarely utilized nowadays but may constitute a renewable energy source for communities or private households. Leaf litter from main roads, residential areas and city centres collected by the vacuum technique or the sweeper technique was sampled and analysed for ash content and chemical composition. Ash content of leaf litter collected by the sweeping technique was higher (21.6%–40.1% dry matter, DM) than in material collected by the ...
Aufsatz
Applying Least Absolute Shrinkage Selection Operator and Akaike Information Criterion Analysis to Find the Best Multiple Linear Regression Models between Climate Indices and Components of Cow’s Milk
(MDPI, 2016-07-23)
This study focuses on multiple linear regression models relating six climate indices (temperature humidity THI, environmental stress ESI, equivalent temperature index ETI, heat load HLI, modified HLI (HLI new), and respiratory rate predictor RRP) with three main components of cow’s milk (yield, fat, and protein) for cows in Iran. The least absolute shrinkage selection operator (LASSO) and the Akaike information criterion (AIC) techniques are applied to select the best model for milk predictands with the smallest ...
Aufsatz
Evaluation of breeding strategies for polledness in dairy cattle using a newly developed simulation framework for quantitative and Mendelian traits
(2016-06-29)
Background: Intensified selection of polled individuals has recently gained importance in predominantly horned dairy cattle breeds as an alternative to routine dehorning. The status quo of the current polled breeding pool of genetically-closely related artificial insemination sires with lower breeding values for performance traits raises questions regarding the effects of intensified selection based on this founder pool.
Methods: We developed a stochastic simulation framework that combines the stochastic simulation ...
Aufsatz
Socio-economic characterisation of date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) growers and date value chains in Pakistan
(Biomed Central, 2016-08-02)
Increasing food production to feed its rapidly growing population is a major policy goal of Pakistan. The production of traditional staples such as rice (Oryza sativa L.) and bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) has been intensified in many regions, but not in remote, drought-ridden areas. In these arid, marginal environments dates and their by-products are an option to complement staples given their high nutritive value and storability. To fill knowledge gaps about the role of date palm in the household (HH) income ...
Aufsatz
Ensuring community and agricultural resiliency to climate change: Ceremonial practices as emic adaptive strategies
(Department of Organic Food Quality and Food Culture at the University of Kassel, Germany and Federation of German Scientists (VDW), 2016-12-23)
This paper is an analysis of emic versus etic approaches to climate change resiliency, taking as a case study the traditional ceremony performed by farmers in eastern Flores, Indonesia to rid their fields of rats. This paper begins by providing a theoretical framework discussion on the dominant etic and emic academic research on monsoons and climate change impacts on agriculture. The rat ceremony performed in villages throughout East Flores is a local custom used to rid agricultural fields of pests—often rats—that ...
Aufsatz
Assessing the impact of agricultural drought on maize prices in Kenya with the approach of the SPOT-VEGETATION NDVI remote sensing
(Department of Organic Food Quality and Food Culture at the University of Kassel, Germany and Federation of German Scientists (VDW), 2016-12-23)
The high cost of maize in Kenya is basically driven by East African regional commodity demand forces and agricultural drought. The production of maize, which is a common staple food in Kenya, is greatly affected by agricultural drought. However, calculations of drought risk and impact on maize production in Kenya is limited by the scarcity of reliable rainfall data. The objective of this study was to apply a novel hyperspectral remote sensing method to modelling temporal fluctuations of maize production and prices ...
Aufsatz
Role of microfinance to support agricultural climate change adaptations in Indonesia: Encouraging private sector participation in climate finance
(Department of Organic Food Quality and Food Culture at the University of Kassel, Germany and Federation of German Scientists (VDW), 2016-12-23)
The demands of mitigation and adaptation policies are important to understanding a country’s climate change preparation by providing microfinance in the agricultural sector. This could be seen as a strategy to fight against the challenges of future food security. In 2014, Indonesia established climate change adaptation policies. This legislation aims to pave the way for making actions on climate change adaptation mainstream in national and local development planning. Public and private finance have supported the ...