Mountain agricultural systems (MASs) are multifunctional and multidimensional sociocultural systems. They are constantly influenced by many factors whose intensity and impacts are unpredictable. The recent Hindu Kush–Himalayan Assessment Report highlighted the need to integrate mountain perspectives into governance decisions on sustaining resources in the Hindu Kush–Himalayan region, emphasizing the importance of sustainable MASs.
High elevation páramo (wetland) ecosystems in the Andes are important water sources for local communities and downstream agricultural and urban users. These headwater catchments, however, are often impacted by human activities (eg agricultural production) that affect both stream water quality and flow. Knowledge about water availability, quality, and use is essential for effective management but is often lacking, particularly in smaller mountain communities.
The agricultural industry is getting more data-centric and requires precise, more advanced data and technologies than before, despite being familiar with agricultural processes. The agriculture industry is being advanced by various information and advanced communication technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT). The rapid emergence of these advanced technologies has restructured almost all other industries, as well as advanced agriculture, which has shifted the industry from a statistical approach to a quantitative one.
The creation of commercialization opportunities for smallholder farmers has taken primacy on the development agenda of many developing countries. Invariably, most of the smallholders are less productive than commercial farmers and continue to lag in commercialization. Apart from the various multifaceted challenges which smallholder farmers face, limited access to extension services stands as the underlying constraint to their sustainability.
Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) proposes environmental policies developed around action-based conservation measures supported by agri-environment schemes (AES). High Nature Value (HNV) farming represents a combination of low-intensity and mosaic practices mostly developed in agricultural marginalized rural areas which sustain rich biodiversity. Being threatened by intensification and abandonment, such farming practices were supported in the last CAP periods by targeted AES.
The process of adopting innovation, especially with regard to precision farming (PF), is inherently complex and social, and influenced by producers, change agents, social norms and organizational pressure. An empirical analysis was conducted among Italian farmers to measure the drivers and clarify “bottlenecks” in the adoption of agricultural innovation. The purpose of this study was to analyze the socio-structural and complexity factors that affect the probability to adopt innovations and the determinants that drive an individual’s decisions.
Several posters have been created on the occasion of the 5th TAP Partners Assembly (Laos, 20-22 September 2017) to show recent activities and achievements in the eight pilot countries of the CDAIS project.
For many years, rural women have been creating their own agri-food processing companies, that promote local agriculture by bringing to the market original foods in products that are accessible to urban populations. The aim of CDAIS is to support their development by strengthening their capacities to experiment and learn together, as well as to negotiate and make contracts with suppliers and traders. And Dakoupa in Bobo Dioulasso is one of many small family businesses supported by CDAIS through the women-led agri-food processing microenterprise innovation partnership.
Depuis de nombreuses années, des femmes créent leurs propres entreprises de transformation agro-alimentaire en valorisant des produits agricoles locaux et en mettant sur le marché des aliments originaux et accessibles aux populations urbaines. L’objectif du projet CDAIS est d’appuyer leur développement en renforçant leurs capacités à expérimenter et apprendre ensemble, ainsi qu’à négocier et contractualiser avec leurs fournisseurs et distributeurs.
On 5 May 2018, the Association for Integrated Development of the Altiplano became formally established, and avocado farmers celebrated. “Today, we are so happy to have consolidated our consortium of eight producer associations from different municipalities in Sololá” explains Don Andrés, community leader and lifelong farmer. “Farmers from San Andrés Semetabaj and other communities around Lake Atitlán began to talk about growing a new variety of avocado some time ago. But since the CDAIS project came, so many things have changed.