Value chain research and development: The quest for impact

Jason Donovan (2023, [Artículo])

Motivation: For decades, governments, donors, and practitioners have promoted market-based development approaches (MBDA), most recently in the form of value chain development (VCD), to spur economic growth and reduce poverty. Changes in approaches have been shaped by funders, practitioners and researchers in ways that are incompletely appreciated. Purpose: We address the following questions: (1) how have researchers and practitioners shaped discussions on MBDA?; and (2) how has research stimulated practice, and how has practice informed research? We hypothesize that stronger exchange between researchers and practitioners increases the relevance and impact of value chain research and development. Methods and approach: We adopt Downs' (1972) concept of issue-attention cycles, which posits that attention to a particular issue follows a pattern where, first, excitement builds over potential solutions; followed by disenchantment as the inherent complexity, trade-offs, and resources required to solve it become apparent; and consequently attention moves on to a new issue. We review the literature on MBDA to see how far this framing applies. Findings: We identify five cycles of approaches to market-based development over the last 40 or more years: (1) non-traditional agricultural exports; (2) small and medium enterprise development; (3) value chains with a globalization perspective; (4) value chains with an agri-business perspective; and (5) value chain development. The shaping and sequencing of these cycles reflect researchers' tendency to analyse and criticize MBDA, while providing limited guidance on workable improvements; practitioners' reluctance to engage in critical reflection on their programmes; and an institutional and funding environment that encourages new approaches. Policy implications: Future MBDA will benefit from stronger engagement between researchers, practitioners, and funders. Before shifting attention to new concepts and approaches, achievements and failures in previous cycles need to be scrutinized. Evidence-based practice should extend for the length of the issue-attention cycle; preferably it should arrest the cycling of attention. Funders can help by requiring grantees to critically reflect on past action, by providing “safe spaces” for sharing such reflections, and by engaging in joint learning with practitioners and researchers.

Agri-Food Value Chains Issue-Attention Cycles Market-Based Development Approaches CIENCIAS AGROPECUARIAS Y BIOTECNOLOGÍA VALUE CHAINS PRIVATE SECTOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT SMALLHOLDERS

Nitrogen fertilizer application alters the root endophyte bacterial microbiome in maize plants, but not in the stem or rhizosphere soil

Alejandra Miranda Carrazco Yendi Navarro-Noya Bram Govaerts Nele Verhulst Luc Dendooven (2022, [Artículo])

Plant-associated microorganisms that affect plant development, their composition, and their functionality are determined by the host, soil conditions, and agricultural practices. How agricultural practices affect the rhizosphere microbiome has been well studied, but less is known about how they might affect plant endophytes. In this study, the metagenomic DNA from the rhizosphere and endophyte communities of root and stem of maize plants was extracted and sequenced with the “diversity arrays technology sequencing,” while the bacterial community and functionality (organized by subsystems from general to specific functions) were investigated in crops cultivated with or without tillage and with or without N fertilizer application. Tillage had a small significant effect on the bacterial community in the rhizosphere, but N fertilizer had a highly significant effect on the roots, but not on the rhizosphere or stem. The relative abundance of many bacterial species was significantly different in the roots and stem of fertilized maize plants, but not in the unfertilized ones. The abundance of N cycle genes was affected by N fertilization application, most accentuated in the roots. How these changes in bacterial composition and N genes composition might affect plant development or crop yields has still to be unraveled.

Bacterial Community Structure DArT-Seq Bacterial Community Functionality Genes Involved in N Cycling CIENCIAS AGROPECUARIAS Y BIOTECNOLOGÍA AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES MAIZE RHIZOSPHERE STEMS NITROGEN FERTILIZERS

Capability approach and life course cube applied to the migration of skilled women

Lidia Ivonne Munguía Ocampo Arlette Covarrubias (2023, [Artículo, Artículo])

A proposal is developed to integrate Amartya Sen's Capabilities Approach and the study of life trajectories, represented in the life course cube of Bernardi et al. (2019), taking as an empirical example the couple migration the skilled women. The life curse cube allows the visualization of the interdependencies between (1) the temporality of women's life course and the historical moment where the migration process occurs, (2) the individual, social, and environmental conversion factors that provide or restrict their ability to achieve those functionings they consider of value to their lives and how they exercise their agency to achieve their well-being, and (3) the micro, meso and macro levels of interaction that together connect life domains over time from the individual environment, the social relationships and considering external societal structures.

Enfoque de capacidades, migración calificada, cubo de curso de vida, trayectorias de vida, género. CIENCIAS SOCIALES CIENCIAS SOCIALES Capability approach skilled migration, life course cube, life trajectories, gender

Analyzing antifragility among smallholder farmers in Bihar, India: An assessment of farmers' vulnerability and the strengths of positive deviants

Roos Adelhart Toorop Santiago Lopez-Ridaura ML JAT Deepak Bijarniya Jeroen Groot (2023, [Artículo])

Farmers around the world are increasingly vulnerable: climate variability is identified as the primary stressor, but unfavorable biophysical circumstances and disturbances in the socioeconomic domain (labor dynamics and price volatility) also affect farm management and production. To deal with these disturbances, adaptations are recognized as essential. Antifragility acknowledges that adaptations and volatility are inherent characteristics of complex systems and abandons the idea of returning to the pre-disturbance system state. Instead, antifragility recognizes that disturbances can trigger reorganization, enabling selection and removal of weaker system features and allowing the system to evolve toward a better state. In this study, we assessed the vulnerability of different types of smallholder farms in Bihar, India, and explored the scope for more antifragile farming systems that can 'bounce back better' after disturbances. Accumulation of stocks, creation of optionality (i.e., having multiple options for innovation) and strengthening of farmer autonomy were identified as criteria for antifragility. We had focus group discussions with in total 92 farmers and found that most expressed themselves to be vulnerable: they experienced challenges but had limited adaptive capacity to change their situation. They mostly made short-term decisions to cope with or mitigate urgent challenges but did not engage in strategic planning driven by longer-term objectives. Instead, they waited for governmental support to improve their livelihoods. Despite being confronted with similar challenges, four positive deviant farmers showed to be more antifragile: their diverse farming systems were abundant in stocks and optionality, and the farmers were distinguished in terms of their autonomy, competence, and connectedness to peers, the community, and markets. To support antifragility among regular farmers, adaptations at policy level may be required, for example, by shifting from a top-down toward a bottom-up adaptation and innovation regime where initiative and cooperation are encouraged. With a more autonomous orientation, farmers' intrinsic motivation is expected to increase, enabling transitions at the farm level. In this way, connected systems can be developed which are socioeconomically and biophysically adaptive. When practices, knowledge, and skills are continuously developed, an antifragile system with ample stocks and optionality may evolve over time.

Autonomy Adaptive Capacity Smallholder Farmers CIENCIAS AGROPECUARIAS Y BIOTECNOLOGÍA POLICIES SMALLHOLDERS AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES

Pathways from information to the adoption of conservation agriculture practices in Malawi and Tanzania

Paswel Marenya Dil Bahadur Rahut (2023, [Artículo])

To reduce agriculture's carbon, land and water footprint, the diffusion of conservation farming methods is one commonly cited proposition. Yet the process of translating available information on new conservation farming methods into farmers' practices is often a black box in many studies. This understanding is critical to inform strategies for scaling these complex, knowledge-intensive, but necessary practices for improving agriculture's resource and climate balance sheet. By implementing a series of mediation analysis using data from 700 households in Malawi and 930 households in Tanzania, this study examines how an improved understanding of conservation agriculture (CA) principles is an important mediator in the pathway from extension contact to the adoption of two of the CA practices examined. For the adoption of conservation tillage, the share of the mediated treatment effect was in the 31.5–34.4% range, while it was 31.6–46.9% for the adoption of soil cover (mulching). Our results suggest that unless learning from external sources strongly correlates with improved farmers' technical understanding of new farming practices, private learning by doing must be a critical adjunct to other avenues of learning. Beyond the basic promotional goals, improving farmers' technical know-how needs to be the centerpiece of holistic efforts in support of conservation farming and similar knowledge-intensive practices necessary for agriculture's sustinability goals.

CIENCIAS AGROPECUARIAS Y BIOTECNOLOGÍA CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE SMALLHOLDERS AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES FIELD EXPERIMENTATION

Conservation agriculture practices towards regenerative agriculture

ML JAT (2021, [Objeto de congreso])

CIENCIAS AGROPECUARIAS Y BIOTECNOLOGÍA CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES REGENERATION

Reciprocal recurrent selection based on genetic complementation: An efficient way to build heterosis in diploids due to directional dominance

GIOVANNY COVARRUBIAS-PAZARAN Christian Werner Dorcus Gemenet (2023, [Artículo])

Selection Strategies Reciprocal Recurrent Selection Dominance-Based Heterosis CIENCIAS AGROPECUARIAS Y BIOTECNOLOGÍA GENETICS HETEROSIS MAIZE HYBRIDS FOOD SECURITY COMBINING ABILITY

Análisis de las conexiones matemáticas en la enseñanza y aprendizaje de la derivada basado en un networking of theories entre la Teoría de las conexiones y el Enfoque ontosemiótico.

CAMILO ANDRES RODRIGUEZ NIETO (2021, [Tesis de doctorado])

Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología No. 602990

In research in Mathematics Education, models have been reported to analyze mathematical connections in which specific connection categories are considered. In the literature, it was identified that the most used model is the Businskas with contributions from other researchers. However, the problem refers to the fact that some categories of connections limit the analysis of mathematical activity and, therefore, the research suggests that the established categories are validated and, if possible, new categories of connections are reported. Other investigations focused on exploring mathematical connections and understanding the derivative reveal that high school students, pre-service teachers, and some in-service mathematics teachers have difficulty connecting multiple representations of the derivative (e.g., algebraic, or symbolic, verbal, graphic, tabular) and establish connections between partial meanings about this concept.

Networking of theories Mathematical connections Onto-semiotic approach semiotic function derivative teacher students HUMANIDADES Y CIENCIAS DE LA CONDUCTA PEDAGOGÍA TEORÍA Y MÉTODOS EDUCATIVOS TEORÍAS EDUCATIVAS

Alternative cropping and feeding options to enhance sustainability of mixed crop-livestock farms in Bangladesh

Timothy Joseph Krupnik Jeroen Groot (2024, [Artículo])

We investigated alternative cropping and feeding options for large (>10 cows), medium (5–10 cows) and small (≤4 cows) mixed crop – livestock farm types, to enhance economic and environmental performance in Jhenaidha and Meherpur districts – locations with increasing dairy production – in south western Bangladesh. Following focus group discussions with farmers on constraints and opportunities, we collected baseline data from one representative farm from each farm size class per district (six in total) to parameterize the whole-farm model FarmDESIGN. The six modelled farms were subjected to Pareto-based multi-objective (differential evolution algorithm) optimization to generate alternative dairy farm and fodder configurations. The objectives were to maximize farm profit, soil organic matter balance, and feed self-reliance, in addition to minimizing feed costs and soil nitrogen losses as indicators of sustainability. The cropped areas of the six baseline farms ranged from 0.6 to 4.0 ha and milk production per cow was between 1,640 and 3,560 kg year−1. Feed self-reliance was low (17%–57%) and soil N losses were high (74–342 kg ha−1 year−1). Subsequent trade-off analysis showed that increasing profit and soil organic matter balance was associated with higher risks of N losses. However, we found opportunities to improve economic and environmental performance simultaneously. Feed self-reliance could be increased by intensifying cropping and substituting fallow periods with appropriate fodder crops. For the farm type with the largest opportunity space and room to manoeuvre, we identified four strategies. Three strategies could be economically and environmentally benign, showing different opportunities for farm development with locally available resources.

Ruminant Feed Pareto-Based Optimization Farm Bioeconomic Model CIENCIAS AGROPECUARIAS Y BIOTECNOLOGÍA RUMINANT FEEDING BIOECONOMIC MODELS MIXED CROPPING FARMS LIVESTOCK

Urban muralism in cities and towns of Chiapas. Configuring collective experiences and recovering urban spaces

Maria de Lourdes Morales Vargas (2023, [Artículo, Artículo])

This article expresses some reflections on the practice of urban muralism and the result of the approach to urban muralism projects or initiatives that have taken place in some cities, towns and villages in the state of Chiapas. This approach has made it possible to describe the dynamics, forms of participation, processes and agents that participate in the configuration and collective expression of urban murals in these spaces. From descriptive ethnography and its tools it was possible to approach the experiences of urban intervention that coexist with the community, in streets, parks, business walls, houses. This has made it possible to understand the practice of urban muralism as an artistic, collective, community process, a project of regeneration or urban recovery and as a practice of symbolic production of incidence in the space where it is implanted, configuring multiple experiences.

URBAN MURALISM URBAN MURAL YOUTH CREATIVE PRACTICES RECOVERY OF URBAN SPACES muralismo urbano, mural urbano, arte calle, practicas creativas juveniles, proceso artístico. CIENCIAS SOCIALES; HUMANIDADES Y CIENCIAS DE LA CONDUCTA CIENCIAS SOCIALES HUMANIDADES Y CIENCIAS DE LA CONDUCTA