This study aimed at conducting a semi-participatory assessment of simple biomass carbonization techniques and available feedstocks and measured the agronomic benefits for urban vegetable farmers in Tamale, Ghana, where urban horticulture is an important component of the local economy. The paper objectives were firstly to evaluate the potential of on-farm biochar production from crop residues and secondly to investigate the relevance of this technology to farmers’ economic realities

Horticulture is one of the fastest growing subsectors of agriculture in Tanzania. Gender relations in vegetable-producing and vegetable-trading households need to be understood to make value chain development equitable. This study, carried out in northern and central Tanzania, is based on data from surveys, focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews. The perceptions of men and women traders and producers are investigated with regard to labour participation in traditional vegetable value chains and gains (income and expenditure) from it.

This paper applies the framework for pro-poor analysis to welfare changes from a CGE-microsimulation model to analyze what are the better or worse models for agriculture modernization, and to estimate the contribution of growth and redistribution to changes in poverty in DRC. The findings indicate that labor-using technological change generates absolute and relative pro-poor effects whereas capital-using technological change leads to immiserizing growth.

The paper discusses issues related to Design, User experience Usability involved in designing the interface to be used in rural areas. This study analyses the problems based on tests done on the interface in the villages of Punjab, Pakistan. Rural development is based on economic, social and human development. Whereas, Software Requirement Engineering focuses on how requirements can be gathered to achieve better end product. We aim to discuss software requirement gathering process in rural areas and attempting to elicit requirements from Pakistani rural woman.

Global technology education is largely dominated by Western universities. Students from developing countries face an enormous challenge when moving from their local education system into the competitive international education market. Their local knowledge gets lost in a foreign education system where the students are required to acquire a new set of skills. This paper presents a survey among international technology students that highlights the differences.

Timely availability of reliable information on weather conditions, agro-advisories, and market information can help to minimize losses in agriculture. This paper presents a scientific and integrated approach to identify areas of high agriculture vulnerability to climate change and availability of ICT services for dissemination of Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) information in the vulnerable areas. This study was illustrated for India where the majority of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihoods, and this sector is highly vulnerable to climate change.

This paper examines the possibilities of developing agri-environmental policy measures in Israel, focusing on market-oriented instruments. A conceptual framework for developing agri-environmental policy measures is presented, first in very broad lines (mandatory regulations, economic instruments and advisory measures) and subsequently focusing on economic instruments, and specifically, on market-oriented ones. Two criteria of choice between the measures are suggested: their contribution to improving the effectiveness of the policy; and the feasibility of their implementation

In this paper, a novel method to collect symptoms of the disease, as observed by the farmers, using a mobile phone application has been presented. A cumulative composite risk index (CCRI) obtained from more than one existing disease forecast models is validated from the actual late blight queries received from the farmers. The main contribution of the paper is a protocol that combines the symptoms based diagnostic approach along with the plant disease forecasting models resulting in detection of Potato late blight with higher accuracy.

Agriculture in South Asia is vulnerable to climate change. Therefore, adaptation measures are required to sustain agricultural productivity, to reduce vulnerability, and to enhance the resilience of the agricultural system to climate change. There are many adaptation practices in the production systems that have been proposed and tested for minimizing the effects of climate change. Some socioeconomic and political setup contributes to adaptation, while others may inhibit it.

The development of information and communication technologies (ICT) has to meet the needs of farmers and sustainably support the competitiveness of agriculture in a rapidly changing digital world. Under certain conditions of use, digital tools could facilitate the application to agriculture of the historical, methodological and socio-economic principles defining agroecology. This chapter is composed of four sections. In the first section we define a framework to study agricultural IC tools.