December 2015

Farmer field school and banana xanthomonas wilt management: A study of banana farmers in four villages in Siaya County, Kenya

Banana xanthomonas wilt (BXW) is a primary constraint to smallholder banana production in East and Central Africa. Experiential learning through farmer field schools (FFS) can accelerate the diffusion of integrated pest management (IPM) technologies at community level, consequently rendering production systems more productive, profitable, and sustainable. This paper explores the importance of FFS in successful transfer...

Author(s): Dennis Ochola, Wellington Jogo, William Tinzaara, Michael Odongo, Margaret Onyango and Eldad Karamura

December 2015

Pattern of adoption and constraints to adoption of improved cowpea varieties in the Sudan Savanna zone of Northern Nigeria

A survey was carried out in 10 communities in Musawa Local Government Area of Katsina State to identify the pattern and constraints to adoption of improved cowpea varieties introduced by the Sudan Savanna Taskforce project. The survey was undertaken after three years of project intervention. Results revealed that 35.7% of farmers adopted the improved cowpea varieties, significantly higher than the number of farmers...

Author(s): J. J. Mbavai, M. B. Shitu, T. Abdoulaye, A. Y. Kamara and S. M. Kamara

December 2015

Prioritizing needs assessment techniques for agricultural programs implementation: The case of Northern Region, Ghana

The Northern region is among the poorest in Ghana. The Southern regions possess a lot of natural resources, and at the same time viable for the production of cash crops. The Northern regions however, have agriculture as their most dependable source of livelihood. The proportion of people working as farmers in the region is 73%, making it the highest in the country. In the light of this, most developmental programs in...

Author(s): Abdul-Basit Tampuli ABUKARI, Burak ÖZTORNACI and Dilek Bostan BUDAK