Integrated Pest Management


Book Description

Integrated Pest Management – Dissemination and Impact, Volume 2 is a sequel to Integrated Pest Management – Innovation-DevelopmentProcess, Volume 1. The book focuses on the IPM systems in the developed countries of North America, Europe and Australia, and the developing countries of Asia, Latin America and Africa. One of the major impedimentsin the dissemination and adoption of the IPM innovation is the complexity of the technology and reaching the vast population of farmers especially in the developing countries. The IPM-innovation development process is incomplete without the diffusion and adoption of IPM methods by the end users, and through its consequences. In spite of all the efforts in the developed and developing countries, the adoption of IPM is still low with few exceptions. The book covers the underlying concepts and methodologies of the diffusion of innovation theory and the program evaluation; and reviews the progress and impact of IPM programs implemented in the industrialized, the green revolution and the subsistence agricultural systems of the world. Forty-four experts from entomology, plant pathology, environmental science, agronomy, anthropology, economics and extensioneducationfromAfrica, Asia, Australia, Europe,NorthAmerica and South America have discussed impact of IPM with an interdisciplinary perspective. Each one of the experts is an authority in his or her eld of expertise. The researchers, farmers’education,supportingpoliciesofthegovernmentsandmarketforcesarethe elements of the IPM innovation system to achieve wider adoption of IPM strategy in agriculture.




Poverty and Global Recession in Southeast Asia


Book Description

This book started with an objective to understand the impact of high inflation on poverty and food security in Southeast Asia. However, the global economy moved quickly into recession in 2008. Anticipating that the impact of global recession would be more severe than that of high inflation in Southeast Asia, we re-focused the title of the book to Poverty, Food, and Global Recession in Southeast Asia. By early 2010, people were already optimistic that the global recession was over or would be over soon. However, the evidence was mounting that the poor had suffered and were still suffering from the current global crisis, even if the richer individuals may have recovered. Therefore, an important question arises, Is the crisis really over for the poor? This then became the sub-title of this book. This book aims to contribute a better understanding on poverty and food security in Southeast Asia during the recent global recession considering both recent developments and the previous major crisis of 1997-98.




World Development Report 2008


Book Description

The world's demand for food is expected to double within the next 50 years, while the natural resources that sustain agriculture will become increasingly scarce, degraded, and vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In many poor countries, agriculture accounts for at least 40 percent of GDP and 80 percent of employment. At the same time, about 70 percent of the world's poor live in rural areas and most depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. 'World Development Report 2008' seeks to assess where, when, and how agriculture can be an effective instrument for economic development, especially development that favors the poor. It examines several broad questions: How has agriculture changed in developing countries in the past 20 years? What are the important new challenges and opportunities for agriculture? Which new sources of agricultural growth can be captured cost effectively in particular in poor countries with large agricultural sectors as in Africa? How can agricultural growth be made more effective for poverty reduction? How can governments facilitate the transition of large populations out of agriculture, without simply transferring the burden of rural poverty to urban areas? How can the natural resource endowment for agriculture be protected? How can agriculture's negative environmental effects be contained? This year's report marks the 30th year the World Bank has been publishing the 'World Development Report'.




Agricultural Transformation in a Global History Perspective


Book Description

History teaches us that agricultural growth and development is necessary for achieving overall better living conditions in all societies. Although this process may seem homogenous when looked at from the outside, it is full of diversity within. This book captures this diversity by presenting eleven independent case studies ranging over time and space. By comparing outcomes, attempts are made to draw general conclusion and lessons about the agricultural transformation process.




The World Bank Research Program, 2005-2007


Book Description

This pocket-sized reference on key environmental data for over 200 countries includes key indicators on agriculture, forestry, biodiversity, energy, emission and pollution, and water and sanitation. The volume helps establish a sound base of information to help set priorities and measure progress toward environmental sustainability goals.




Handbook on Poverty + Inequality


Book Description

For anyone wanting to learn, in practical terms, how to measure, describe, monitor, evaluate, and analyze poverty, this Handbook is the place to start. It is designed to be accessible to people with a university-level background in science or the social sciences. It is an invaluable tool for policy analysts, researchers, college students, and government officials working on policy issues related to poverty and inequality.




Tropical Rainforests and Agroforests under Global Change


Book Description

not only for land use systems that depend on the regular supply of rain or irrigation water but also for the future development of natural rainforests as drought stress has been shown to a?ect tree growth and species composition in old-growth forests (Wright 1991, Walsh and Newbery 1999, Engelbrecht et al. 2007). A drought experiment conducted in a cacao agroforestry plantation showed that this plantation was surprisingly resilient to an induced drought of more than a year (Schwendenmann et al. 2009). However, droughts can have a strong impact on household incomes from agriculture, they strongly a?ect the vulnerability to poverty and thus have to be analyzed as important exogenous shocks to households, forcing them to adjust their behaviour and develop strategies to cope with these problems. The stability of rainforest margins is a critical factor in the protection of tropical rainforests (Tscharntke et al. 2007). At present, however, rainf- est margins in many parts of the tropics are far from stable, both in soc- economic and in ecological terms. For example, protected areas may attract, rather than repel, human settlement, which may be due to international donor investment in national conservation programs (Wittemeyer et al. 2008). An alternative hypothesis is that protected areas might be compromised if leakage takes place, that is, if impacts that would take place inside the restricted area are displaced to a nearby, undisturbed area (Ewers and Rodrigues 2008).




Using the Global Positioning System in Household Surveys for Better Economics and Better Policy


Book Description

Distance and location are important determinants of many choices that economists study. While these variables can sometimes be obtained from secondary data, economists often rely on information that is self-reported by respondents in surveys. These self-reports are used especially for the distance from households or community centers to various features such as roads, markets, schools, clinics, and other public services. There is growing evidence that self-reported distance is measured with error and that these errors are correlated with outcomes of interest. In contrast to self-reports, the Global Positioning System (GPS) can determine almost exact location (typically within 15 meters). The falling cost of GPS receivers (typically below US$100) makes it increasingly feasible for field surveys to use GPS as a better method of measuring location and distance. In this paper the authors review four ways that GPS can lead to better economics and better policy: (1) through constructing instrumental variables that can be used to understand the causal impact of policies, (2) by helping to understand policy externalities and spillovers, (3) through better understanding of access to services, and (4) by improving the collection of household survey data. They also discuss several pitfalls and unresolved problems with using GPS in household surveys.




La pauvreté dans une Afrique en essor


Book Description

L’idée que l’on se fait de l’Afrique a radicalement changé. Encore considéré comme le continent des guerres, des famines et de la pauvreté chronique à la fin des années 90, le continent africain est maintenant évoqué sous l’angle de « l’Afrique qui monte » et du « XXIe siècle africain ». Deux décennies de croissance économique sans précédent devaient en principe améliorer sensiblement le bien-être des populations africaines. Il est toutefois difficile de dire si c’est effectivement le cas en raison de la médiocre qualité des données, de la nature du processus de croissance (s’agissant notamment du rôle des ressources naturelles), des conflits qui sévissent dans une partie la région et de la forte expansion démographique. Poverty in a Rising Africa décrit les problèmes de données et analyse systématiquement les informations disponibles sur la pauvreté et les inégalités dans une perspective tant monétaire que non monétaire. Le premier chapitre évalue la disponibilité et la qualité des données nécessaires pour cerner la pauvreté monétaire, examine les mécanismes de gouvernance et les processus politiques qui sous-tendent la production statistique et propose quelques méthodes pour combler le déficit de données. Le chapitre 2 évalue la robustesse des estimations sur la pauvreté en Afrique et brosse à grands traits le profil de ce fléau. Selon les auteurs, la réduction de la pauvreté en Afrique est peut-être légèrement supérieure à ce que les estimations traditionnelles portent à croire. Pour autant, même les estimations les plus optimistes indiquent que davantage de personnes vivaient dans la pauvreté en 2012 qu’en 1990. Le troisième chapitre considère la pauvreté dans une perspective élargie en prenant en compte les dimensions non monétaires du bien-être, telles que l’éducation, la santé et la liberté, en utilisant la méthode d’Amartya Sen (1985) axée sur les notions de capabilities et de functionings. Des progrès ont certes été accomplis dans plusieurs de ces domaines, mais les niveaux de résultats restent obstinément bas. Enfin, le chapitre 4 examine les données relatives aux inégalités en Afrique en analysant non seulement les types d’inégalités monétaires, mais aussi d’autres aspects tels que l’inégalité des chances, la mobilité intergénérationnelle dans le travail et l’éducation et l’extrême richesse.