Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
2) Can you identify disciplinary and multi-disciplinary activities?
The following disciplines were actively involved in the project:
•
Marketing researchers
•
Agriculture economists
•
Soil scientists
•
Entomologists
•
Pathologists
•
Agronomists
•
Hydrologists
•
Environmental scientists
For the identification of key constraints to productivity, profitability and sustainability
a multi-disciplinary approach was needed. This was also needed for the design of the
improved production practices experiments.
D) General project outputs
1) What are the scientific contributions of the project (to RDSA methodology or
more general scientific contributions)?
•
The individual disciplinary scientific contribution for developed countries was
not innovative, but both the multi-disciplinary approach and farmer participatory
research approach has been very innovative, especially in the context of horticul-
ture in developing countries.
•
Farmer participatory research was introduced by the VEGSYS project for the
first time in Sichuan province. In Northern Vietnam this was also a relatively
new concept.
•
The pesticide leaching studies in China and Vietnam where the first of its kind.
The in depth quantitative and qualitative studies of vegetable marketing in Sichuan
Province were the first which had ever taken place.
•
The expansion of the NUTMON tool to monitor:
- Individual farmer marketing strategies;
- Pests and diseases; and
- Active ingredients of pesticides.
•
The development of NUTMON into a Participatory Learning Tool for farming
through its production of individual farm reports, in which farmers are
benchmarked for various financial, agronomic and environmental indicators.
2) What are policy-relevant findings of the project for Dutch and for Southern
policymakers?
•
The Rapid Diagnostic Appraisals clearly demonstrated the needs of farmers for
improved services by local and national governments. These needs were:
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