Posts Tagged ‘Agriculture’

Deforestation, biofuel and agrarian reform

Posted in Forest on August 7th, 2009 by iip – Be the first to comment

Today deforestation always linked to some issues : biofuel demand, settlement development and agrarian reform. A recent news from Brazil informs causes of deforestation in Amazon forest region is linked to agrarian reform implemented by government.

In Indonesia,most deforestation are linked to agriculture expansion and settlement development. In recent years, tropical forests also threatened by the expansion of oil palm plantation as world’s demand on biofuel is raising. In fact, oil palm plantation are built close to forests areas or degraded forest areas. Government of Indonesia has reserving some forests areas called conversion forests to be converted to other land uses including plantation.

Now, more countries are moving up to halting deforestation using global mechanism called REDD (Reducing Emissions from deforestation and degradation). Although the mechanism is still testing in some places, the mechanism has potential advances to limiting the impact of deforestation on climate change. Deforestation is known as a significant contributor of carbon emission.

Global warming issues and agroforestry adoption

Posted in Earth on May 23rd, 2009 by iip – 1 Comment

Promoting agroforestry could be better option for rural poor in combating global warming issues. Agroforestry have been practiced for ages but less recognized by many governments. In agroforestry practice, farmers are benefits farm yield as well as from trees planted. They manage such tree based farm system to meets their needs of food and energy.

Agroforestry innovations have been introduced as an effort of development on market based agricultural commodities. It changes technological factors in production process to increase their productivity and enhance quality of agricultural commodities. Questioning how the impact of such innovations will lead to the process of new technological factors adopted by farmers.

Promoting agroforestry practice request better understanding on adoption process.

Adoption is wide-range term that describing changes process from mental perspective to practical agricultural economics. In farm-level, according to Feder et al (1985) economist defined adoption as the degree of use of a new technology in long-run equilibrium when the farmer has full information about the new technology and its potential.

Is there any view to examine the technology adoption? read more »

Tips for conserving water

Posted in Earth on April 19th, 2009 by iip – Be the first to comment
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Did you know there are about 1.2 billion people live in river basins with absolute water scarcity? And a further 1.5 billion people suffer from inadequate access to water because of a lack of infrastructure. The numbers are taken from World Development Report 2008 published by the World Bank. Some areas face the greatest water shortages such Middle East, North Africa and Asia.

Because of climate change, there are more frequent droughts and increasing water scarcity throughout the world. People in developing countries providing food from agriculture must deal with climate change. And what happen to people in more developed countries? Do they really aware on water issues?

If so, how they deal with water consumption? Alex leigh has tips to save water consumption as well as cut its bill. I summarized it for you:

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