International Farming Systems Collection

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The International Farming Systems Digital Collection within the University of Florida Digital Collections includes teaching, research, and extension resources related to the Farming Systems approach to international agricultural development.

The collection materials come from the personal library of Peter E. Hildebrand who is a founder of Farming Systems. The collection's focus includes materials that supported putting farmers first and increasing number of smallholder farmers and their heterogeneous livelihood systems on a global scale. One of the two core areas covered is the development over time of methods that help development professionals understand the livelihood of smallholder farming and its limited resource households. The second core area includes literature describing the diverse livelihood strategies of the households living in various parts of the world. These limited resource households represent nearly a billion people struggling to survive on a daily basis.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Family farm</span> Farm owned or operated by a family

A family farm is generally understood to be a farm owned and/or operated by a family; it is sometimes considered to be an estate passed down by inheritance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Subsistence agriculture</span> Farming to meet basic needs

Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow crops to meet the needs of themselves and their families on smallholdings. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements, with little or no surplus. Planting decisions occur principally with an eye toward what the family will need during the coming year, and only secondarily toward market prices. Tony Waters, a professor of Sociology, defines "subsistence peasants" as "people who grow what they eat, build their own houses, and live without regularly making purchases in the marketplace".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center</span> International plant breeding organization

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center is a non-profit research-for-development organization that develops improved varieties of wheat and maize with the aim of contributing to food security, and innovates agricultural practices to help boost production, prevent crop disease and improve smallholder farmers' livelihoods. CIMMYT is one of the 15 CGIAR centers. CIMMYT is known for hosting the world's largest maize and wheat genebank at its headquarters in Mexico.

Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (DACAAR)(Danish: Den danske komité for hjælp til afghanske flygtninge) is a non-political, non-governmental, non-profit humanitarian and development organization working to improve the lives of the Afghan people since 1984.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smallholding</span> Small farm, often for a single family

A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technology, involvement of family in labor and economic impact. Smallholdings are usually farms supporting a single family with a mixture of cash crops and subsistence farming. As a country becomes more affluent, smallholdings may not be self-sufficient, but may be valued for the rural lifestyle. As the sustainable food and local food movements grow in affluent countries, some of these smallholdings are gaining increased economic viability. There are an estimated 500 million smallholder farms in developing countries of the world alone, supporting almost two billion people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Non-timber forest product</span> Commodities obtained from forests other than timber

Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are useful foods, substances, materials and/or commodities obtained from forests other than timber. Harvest ranges from wild collection to farming. They typically include game animals, fur-bearers, nuts, seeds, berries, mushrooms, oils, sap, foliage, pollarding, medicinal plants, peat, mast, fuelwood, fish, insects, spices, and forage. Overlapping concepts include non-wood forest products (NWFPs), wild forest products, minor forest produce, special, minor, alternative and secondary forest products – for further distinctions see the definition section below

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kwale County</span> County in Kenya

Kwale County is a county in the former Coast Province of Kenya. Its capital is Kwale, although Ukunda is the largest town.

Information and communication technology in agriculture, also known as e-agriculture, focuses on the enhancement of agricultural and rural development through improved information and communication processes. More specifically, e-agriculture involves the conceptualization, design, development, evaluation and application of innovative ways to use information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the rural domain, with a primary focus on agriculture. ICT includes devices, networks, mobiles, services and applications; these range from innovative Internet-era technologies and sensors to other pre-existing aids such as fixed telephones, televisions, radios and satellites. Provisions of standards, norms, methodologies, and tools as well as development of individual and institutional capacities, and policy support are all key components of e-agriculture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BASIX (India)</span>

BASIX is an institution concerning the promotion of livelihood established in 1996 in India. It is headquartered in Hyderabad, Telangana.

Peter E. Hildebrand earned his PhD from Michigan State University in 1959 in Agricultural Economics. He joined the University of Florida faculty in 1979 and retired on July 1, 2003. During that time, he served as Director and Professor for IFAS International Programs, Agricultural Economics (1972-1999), and as a professor of Food and Resource Economics. Hildebrand's international background encompasses work in over 31 countries over 35 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Farm Radio International</span>

Farm Radio International, or Radios Rurales Internationales, is a Canadian non-profit organization that was founded in 1979 by CBC Radio broadcaster George Atkins. The organization is headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario and works with radio broadcasters to improve food security and agricultural methods for small-scale farmers and rural communities in African countries.

Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is an organisation that seeks to transform African agriculture from a subsistence model to strong businesses that improve the livelihoods of the continent’s farming households.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women in agriculture in India</span>

India has an economy bound to its historical agricultural tradition. In the North, the Indus valley and Brahmaputra region are critical agricultural areas with water supplied by the Ganges and monsoon season. Agriculture is a way of life for the majority of India's population; based on 2011 World Bank data, only 17.5% of India's gross domestic product (GDP) is accounted for by agricultural production. Women are an important but often overlooked population involved in India's agricultural production—they represent the majority of the agricultural labor force in India. Women's participation in the agrarian labor force plays out in various ways, impacting their economic independence, their decision-making abilities, their agency and access to education and health services. Many women in farming communities suffer poverty and marginalization, and issues of gender inequality.

International Institute of Rural Reconstruction, also known as IIRR is a non-profit organization that helps empower rural communities by making them self-sufficient. By offering programs across health, education, environment, and livelihood, its goal is to have rural communities take charge of their own success. The organization has delivered programs to more than 40 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and directly impacted the lives of over 19 million people as of 2019.

Digital Green is a global development organization that empowers smallholder farmers to lift themselves out of poverty by harnessing the collective power of technology and grassroots-level partnerships.

The World Cocoa Foundation is a non-profit membership organization with almost 100 member companies, including chocolate manufacturers like Nestlé, The Hershey Company and Mars, Inc. cocoa producers and suppliers such as Barry Callebaut, Olam International and Cargill, shipping companies and ports and retailers such as Starbucks. The World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) represents 80% of the global corporate market. Members are private companies from the chocolate industry. The WCF's charter is broadly stated as energizing public-private partnerships to achieve cocoa sustainability and faces challenges such as child labour in cocoa production, cocoa farming-related deforestation and extreme poverty impacting many of the West African cocoa smallholder farmers.

Contract farming involves agricultural production being carried out on the basis of an agreement between the buyer and farm producers. Sometimes it involves the buyer specifying the quality required and the price, with the farmer agreeing to deliver at a future date. More commonly, however, contracts outline conditions for the production of farm products and for their delivery to the buyer's premises. The farmer undertakes to supply agreed quantities of a crop or livestock product, based on the quality standards and delivery requirements of the purchaser. In return, the buyer, usually a company, agrees to buy the product, often at a price that is established in advance. The company often also agrees to support the farmer through, e.g., supplying inputs, assisting with land preparation, providing production advice and transporting produce to its premises. The term "outgrower scheme" is sometimes used synonymously with contract farming, most commonly in Eastern and Southern Africa. Contract farming can be used for many agricultural products, although in developing countries it is less common for staple crops such as rice and maize.

Werner Doppler (born December 15, 1941 in Oberlustadt, Germany is an Agricultural Economist. His areas of teaching and research have been Farming Systems, Rural Development and Socioeconomics in the Tropics and Subtropics. He was Dean of Faculty at the University of Hohenheim.

Digital agriculture, sometimes known as smart farming or e-agriculture, is tools that digitally collect, store, analyze, and share electronic data and/or information in agriculture. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has described the digitalization process of agriculture as the digital agricultural revolution. Other definitions, such as those from the United Nations Project Breakthrough, Cornell University, and Purdue University, also emphasize the role of digital technology in the optimization of food systems.

Nucleus estate and smallholder (NES) is a farming system for commodity crops, often oil palm, practised in different world regions. It is most famous today for its application in the palm oil sector in Indonesia. The nucleus is the part of such a plantation that is under concession and management of the company, while another part of the plantation is operated by smallholders typically on their own land but planted by the company. NES farming is a particular form of contract farming.