Agriculture

According to the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis, (2009) Kenya’s poverty levels are estimated to be on the decline, while the number of those living below the poverty line is estimated to have increased from 13.4 million in 1997 to about 16.6 million in 2006. The incidence of poverty is higher in rural areas at 49.1 per cent compared with 33.7 per cent in urban areas. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of linkages on small scale livestock farming in Baringo County. The study adopted the stakeholder’s theory by (Friedman, 1984) which states that the organization itself should be thought of as grouping of stakeholders who manage their interests, needs and viewpoints. He posits that the parties involved in an enterprise, includes governmental bodies, political groups, trade associations, trade unions, communities, financiers, suppliers, employees, and customers, who play a significant role in enterprise success. The research employed stratified random and simple random sampling for data collection. A structured questionnaire using interviews was administered to a representative sample of 67 small-scale livestock farmers. Data was collected on types of links, incidence of links and function of identified link formations. The study hypothesis was tested using Chi-square at 0.05 level of significance. Study findings showed a significant relationship between linkages and small scale livestock performance. The study recommends that agricultural stakeholders such as KVDA, KARI, KLMC and MLFD should partner with the farmers in providing relevant information, so as to facilitate better management of their livestock, training on better technologies, breeding options, and ensure enterprise growth for sustainable economic development. Research on the establishment of community ranches and a meat processing firm within the county be carried for the benefit of the farmers and provide ready market with less exploitation from middlemen.

Soil samples were collected from charnockitic soils of Ekiti state, Nigeria by random sampling using the soil map of Ekiti state as a guide. Surface samples and sub surface samples were dug covering about 100ha. The soils were sandy to loamy sand on the surface to sandy clay in the sub-soil. All the pedons, show consistently increasing clay with depth, pointing to argillic horizon development. Chemical analysis shows that the soil are characterized by high base saturation (>35% by NH4 OAc). The CEC, organic carbon, available phosphorus (Bray1) and total nitrogen were generally low. Most of the nutrient elements decreased with increase in depth.

This study assessed the involvement of rural children in farming activities in Odeda local government area of Ogun state. Interview schedules were used to obtain information from 80 children from the study area. The study revealed that the mean age of the respondents is 14 years with more than half (55%) between 13 and 15 years. Majority (92.5%) of the children are schooling. Also, about three out of every four children (76.25%) are involved in about 13 farming activities. Boys are more involved at a higher level in farming activities than girls. Chi-square analyses revealed that there is significant difference at p<0.05 in male/female involvement in land clearing (?² = 13.265), ridging (?² = 19.163), planting (?² = 23.474), fertilizer application (?² = 9.172), staking (?² = 10.889), harvesting (?² = 26.000), transporting (?² = 11.607) and marketing (?² = 9.053). It can further be deduced from the study that farming in the study area by the children cannot be regarded as child labour as most of their involvement is done on weekends. The study concluded that children should be involved in farming at a low to medium level depending on age as this serves as means through which a child can acquire basic survival skills that will be needed for the child’s personal development and, in the long run, resulting in sustainable national development.

This study was performed to evaluation of inoculated sulfur with Thiobacillus sp on some growth traits of marigold under salinity condition. Experimental design was split split plot with 3 replications. First factor was sulfur (200 and 400 kg/ha) also second and third factor included bacteria (inoculated and no inoculated) and salinity stress (0, 15, 35 and 55 mm/L), respectively. After the experiment, some morphological characters and morphological of marigold were evaluated such as height, yield of fresh and dried flowers, number of flowers per plant, grain yield, petals, seed weight. Totally, result showed that 400kg/ha had best effect on studied characteristics, It was also found that with increased stress levels from 0 to 16 dS, the height, fresh yield of flowers, yield of flower dry weight, number of flowers per plant, grain yield, petals and seed weight, showed 45, 65, 64, 20, 78, 17 and 39 percent of reduction, respectively. On the other hand, it was determined that the use of bacteria and sulfur can reduce the effects of stress.

Feed restriction is one of the methods used in commercial treatment in poultry breeding industry to reduce the cost of production. This study was carried out to examine the effect of feed restriction on growth performance characteristics of broiler chickens. A total of sixty Anak broiler chicks were used. The birds were allotted into four dietary treatments in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD). Each treatment was replicated three times with five birds per replicate. The dietary treatments were identified as T1, T2, T3 (which was commercial diet from Vital feed industry) and T4. The study lasted for a period of 8 weeks which includes 2 weeks of acclimatization prior to the starting of experiment. Birds on T1 were on ad libitum feeding throughout the experimental period, T2 were on 70% ad libitum for the first 21 days followed by ad libitum feeding for the last 21 days, T3 were on 70% ad libitum throughout the experimental period and T4 were on 70% of commercial diet + 30% sun-dried maize sievette throughout the experimental period. Analysis of data showed that the final body weight of T1 and T4 were significantly difference among other treatments (p<0.05). Feed intake values of T1 and T4 were significantly (p<0.05) higher than T2 and T3. Feed efficiency did not differ between treatments. Result on carcass quality revealed that there was a significant difference between the slaughtered weight of T1 and other treatments. But similarities existed between T2 and T4. No significant differences were found between T1, T2 and T4 for the breast, drum stick/thigh, wing and gizzard weight but T3 remains the lowest among the treatments. From the result, birds on T1 had the highest feed intake followed by T4, T2 and T3. T3 had the least net return. Based on this experiment, T4 was found to be of more economic value.

The reckless release of cassava effluent into the environment has posed diverse environmental challenges. Its effects on phytotoxicity, nutrient quality and stability on compost were assessed under windrow composting method. There were two carbon (Rice bran and Sawdust) and nitrogen (Poultry manure and Cow dung) sources. Each of the carbon and nitrogenous feedstock were combined in ratio 1:3 with or without cassava effluent applied at 15 litres per pile. There were two replications. Ambient temperature and those of the composting piles were taken daily. Turning and moisture content were monitored. At compost maturity, composite compost samples were subjected to proximate analysis and phytotoxicity assessment by raising cowpea seedling in the compost extracts in the dark for 72 hours. There were four compost types and two compost extract concentration levels including 50 and 100 %. Two checks including distilled water and raw cassava effluent were considered for comparison. There were two replications laid out in completely randomized design. Data assessed showed that cassava effluent significantly reduced Mn and Fe concentrations in the compost. It further reduced number of days to attain stability by 9 and 19 days in rice bran and sawdust based compost respectively. It also increased the nitrogen content and alkalinity in the compost. Feedstock decomposition rate was increased by 54% in sawdust based compost. Its ability to greatly improve germination index of cowpea with values above the 100 % from distilled water growing medium at both concentrations levels showed the possibility of cassava effluent under aerobic composting condition to release growth stimulating substances into the growing medium.

In recent years, fuzzy modeling technique has been successfully employed to model complex systems, where classical methods e.g. mathematical and model-free methods are inapplicabe due to the lack of sufficient information. Generally model free-methods such as neural networks are prefered when a significant amount of data exists as they provide more robust means to identify and reproduce the existing patterns in the available data. However, when limited amount of data exist but ambiguous or imprecise information are available, fuzzy reasoning provides a way to understand system behavior. Before Bouma (1989) introduced the term pedo-transfer functions (PTFs), described as translating data we have into what we need, some hydraulic properties’ PTFs had been developed in modeling water movement and solute transport in soil due to the increasing of computational speed and expanding of models’ complexity (Gupta and Larson, 1979). Many studies related to modeling various soil parameters using different types of PTFs has been conducted (Schaap et al., 1998; McBratney et al., 2002; Vos et al., 2005).

Bovine blood/rumen content mixture (BBRCM) is an abattoir by-product that provides a cheap source of livestock feed. It is a source of protein which is readily available at the slaughter house. This experiment was conducted to evaluate the performance of broiler chicks fed bovine blood/ rumen content mixture (BBRCM) as partial replacement for soybean meal. Experimental diets T1 which served as the control contained 0% BBRCM, diets T2, T3 and T4 contained 20%, 40% and 60% BBRCM respectively. Sixty (60) five weeks old Anak 2000 broiler chicks were randomly assigned to the four dietary treatments in a completely randomized design (CRD). Each treatment was replicated three times with five birds per replicate. The experiment lasted for 35 days. Results showed that there were significant differences in the growth performance of the birds on the treatment groups in all the measurements recorded. Birds fed T4 diet had the highest weight gain and the best feed conversion ratio. There was a significant (p<0.05) increase in weight gain as the inclusion level increased. The feed intake of birds fed diet T1 was significantly (p<0.05) higher than those fed other treatment diets while T4 recorded the least. There were significant (p<0.05) differences on the feed conversion ratio of the birds fed diets T1, T2, T3 and T4. T1 had the poorest feed conversion ratio. Organ weights were not significantly affected (p>0.05). The result of the experiment showed that bovine blood/rumen content mixture can replace soybean meal in the diet at up to 60% level without any negative effect. Economics of production showed that bovine blood/rumen content mixture were profitable as regards to the cost of feed per kg weight gain and thus cost savings. Key note: BBRCM (Bovine Blood Rumen Content Mixture), carcass characteristics, economics of production.

This study was performed to evaluation of Water Stress and Organic matter simultaneously on some morphological characteristics of German chamomile under two mineral and biological N fertilizer treatments. Experiment done as RCBD Experimental design in split split design with 3 factors and 3 replications. First factor included organic fertilizer (application and no application), second factor was biologic nitrogen (application and no application) and third factor included drought stress (80%FC and 50%FC). At the end of study some properties were evaluated such as: Height, Stem diameter, Branch stem number, Flower number, Dry yield of flower and Essential oil%. Using organic matter led to increasing 22, 25, 28, 18, 4 and 9 percent of Height, Stem diameter, Branch stem number, Flower number, Dry yield of flower and Essential oil% respectively. Application of biologic fertilizer had significant on all characteristics, significant reductions were observed by application of drought stress, So Height, Stem diameter, Branch stem number, Flower number, Dry yield of flower and Essential oil% were decreased 22, 23, 35, 50, 60 and 4% in compare to control.

Six periods of English agriculture namely: prehistoric, historic, agricultural revolution, post agricultural revolution, green planet and post green planet were identified. Their previous and current land management practices were reviewed with reference to East Anglian Region (EAR), the food basket of the nation. The current land management practices at EAR with Writtle College Research and Teaching Farm as case study included: grassland on permanent pasture; one on 5 y ley to stocking, the other sown with red clover a y before stocking; the third treated with N fertilizer a y before stocking; the fourth on arable crop (barley); with pristine woodland as control. By aid of CENTURY 4.0 Model, simulation of soil carbon (C) storage was generated for the past, present and future (8050 yrs). The validity of the model was tested by fitting measured with simulated C. The closeness of data fit in deciduous woodland shows the accuracy of the prediction; while the variations in other sites show the effects of management. The assumed practices during different historical and future periods led to the following predictions and conclusions. All the current land management practices including woodland do not sequester enough C. Integrated approaches like agroforestry, silviculture are required. Nevertheless, given the current land management soil C sequestration will be moderate (0.02 ± 0.003 t ha-1 y-1) up to 2055 before impacts that will require other sustainable options will be noticed.