CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
ABSTRACT
Crop and animal production and marketing are the means of livelihood for millions of households in Kenya. It is the single largest sub-sector within Kenyan economy, far exceeding all others in terms of its share in rural employment, land use and contribution to the national income. However, crop production and animal rearing in Kenya is constrained by technical and socio economic factors. Among the technical factors, diseases and pests are the major contributing factors to the low yield. This problem needs sufficient and knowledgeable experts to identify the diseases and describe the methods of treatment and protection at early stage of infestation. The aim of this research is to develop knowledge based system
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The country’s economic development will depend, in large part on sustainable improvements in agriculture. Agriculture remains by far the most important sector in the Kenyan economy for the following reasons: (i) It directly supports about 85% of the population in terms of employment and livelihood; (ii) It contributes about 50% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP); (iii) It generates about 80% of the export earnings. Agriculture is also the major source of food for the population and hence the prime contributing sector to food security (ICARDA, 2010). In addition, agriculture is expected to play a key role in generating surplus capital to speed up the overall socio economic development of the country. A high rate of agricultural growth has far reaching positive implications for economic development of low income countries in terms of increasing employment and accelerating poverty reduction (Mellor and Dorosh, 2010). Even though 85 percent of the country’s Population lives in the rural areas, the performance of the agricultural sector in Kenya has remained weak and it is heavily influenced by weather condition (Mulat, 2009). Furthermore, the productivity of the sub-sector is decreasing as a result of poor management systems, shortage of skilled experts who provide advice for farmers at county level. Despite the importance of agriculture in its economy, Kenya has been a food deficit country since the early 1970s. A closer look at the performance of the Kenyan agriculture reveals that over the last three decades it has been unable to produce sufficient quantities to feed the country’s rapidly growing human population (Kassa and Degnet,
The situation could be changed by developing new farming techniques or better machinery that destroys the pests in a non-toxic way to humans. I don’t see to many changes though in the future to the current use of pesticides, it is a well-known and proven
Swidden agriculture also known as slash-and-burn is depicted in a negative light because of myths that has been created from people who are not familiar with its practice or do not understands its purpose. One of the narrative is that it creates a useless and unsustainable land. This could be easily misunderstood as the image of the land after being burned can be seen lifeless and barren. People tend to associate a fertile land with lush greens with the sun in the background and not the image of swidden agriculture. Furthermore, media portrayal of wildfire only puts the idea that wildfire are harmful and should be put out which only makes swidden agriculture seem destructive.
Although his tone is persuasive and formal, he is straightforward with the tragic events he describes that take place in the underdeveloped countries. Throughout the essay, he makes a connection with his audience. In the beginning of the essay, he directly gets to the problem that he wants to discuss and establishes the message he wants to pass to his readers through his thesis statement. He presents a logical argument with the numerical data, along with dates and numbers that strongly support his claim of a global food problem. By referencing to recent events such as the “World Food Crisis” article of 2008 and the review of “environmental performance of agriculture”, that was published in 2008, he alerts readers that what he is discussing is currently happening, and is going to be a much larger impact on the world in the future.
The plague is most effective because in 1331, the plague broke out in three different country’s china, asia, and Europe. In the book of “Tiny Invader” it states that ,”As many as 200 million people died in the pandemic,”(P.248). The plague is caused by bacteria like viruses, bacteria is a type of germ that kills many people. If one person had the plague and you could catch it by caring for the person or touching them. Christophe
The Civil War had already ended when agriculture began to develop, bringing about changes across the country, particularly in the West. American agriculture began in rural regions that were urbanized, resulting in a surge of people in the fields and cities where employment and hard labor were supplied manually. It has grown significantly as a result of advanced economic and social changes towards its industrialization for expansion. It increased production among the families of farmers, who served through hard and difficult situations. Throughout the period of 1865-1900, American agriculture changed rural inhabited areas, expanding prospects for migration and urbanization, industrialization growth with advanced machinery, and evolved farming
Second Harvest is an organization that has been providing food for families, kids, and seniors in Central Florida. Twenty-seven percent of the people they feed are under the age of 18 and eleven percent are seniors. Second Harvest’s distribution of donated food to 550 local emergencyfood assistance programs is the primary way that Second Harvest Food Bank gets food to the people who need it the most. These partners include emergency food pantries, soup kitchens, shelter programs, senior programs and more. By the donations of major companies and people from the community, Second Harvest is able to donate food to the hungry.
“The vision of a huge fertile garden extending from the Appalachians to the Pacific Ocean had inspired Americans since the early days of the republic” (Out of Many - A History of the American People, pg. 622). Since its beginning, the American ways of farming had always been gradually evolving, but in the time between 1865 and 1900, it transformed like never before. The American tradition of agriculture would experience dramatic changes, as the growth of production and agribusiness would ensue from revolutions in technology, massive increase in population, and alterations in government policies. A major factor in changing the way of agriculture was the new technology being developed in farming and transportation.
In old days, agriculture or other primary industries were the main pillar of Michigan state’s economy. “Most Native American settlements in the Great Lakes region were along river valleys or near the shoreline of the Great Lakes, and most of the population located in the southern half of the Lower Peninsula. Tribal settlements were not permanent, with groups moving to new locations every few years. Although agriculture was limited by soil conditions and dense forest, the Native Americans of this region did cultivate crops. Corn, beans, and squash were grown and wild apples, berries, nuts, game, fish, honey, and wild rice provided other sources of food.
One way of working on treating it was the discovery that rats carried it, this cause a mass control of the rat population, which in turn made the plague much less common (“Plague” 1). A more recent discovery was the invention of a vaccination to fight against the plague and make it very hard to contract, although it is still a bit common in poorer countries (“Plague Occurs”). One of the first effective methods of preventing plague was making all arriving ships wait off shore for X amount of days until the plague would have passed (Dobson 10). This was known as ‘quarantine’ and is a method still used today (“Plague
Exclusion is one of the strategies of plant disease management, which prevents the entrance and establishment of the disease-causing agent (pathogen) into a non-infested area. The principle of exclusion is to prevent the spreading of the communicable disease among the living organisms such as plants animals or even human beings. Human being has been practiced this principle of exclusion a long time before the germ theory was ever accepted. Many years ago, visitors in city gates have been excluded and checked for bubonic plague and other communicable diseases and ships were detained and quarantine for about 40 days for detecting the signs of latent small pox, cholera and other diseases. Today, quarantine refers to a law that restrict the movement
Pesticides and How it Works Abstract: A pest is "a plant or creature unfavorable to people or human concerns". Pesticide is Chemical or natural substance intended to slaughter or retard the development of pests that harm or meddle with the development of products, bushes, trees, timber and other vegetation coveted by people. Keywords: Antimicrobials, Antimicrobials, Herbicides Introduction:
The Controversy on Agricultures Mankind has gone through numerous changes that have defined life today. Humans have developed technology and discovered resources that are essential to ones everyday life. Some of the changes weren’t for pleasure but vital to survive on Earth. These changes may not benefit humans but allow us to survive: agriculture. Jared Diamond explains in the article “The worst mistake in the history of the Human Race” stating that “…the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered.”
(Batino and Waswa, 2011) assert that over 90% of sub-Saharan African agriculture is rain-fed, and mainly under smallholder management. In Ghana, agriculture has been the backbone of the economy since independence (McKay and Aryeetey, 2004) and account for about 73.5 percent of the rural households (Ghana Statistical Service, 2010).
Agriculture is the modification of Earth’s surface through the cultivation of plants and animals through the cultivation of plants and animals to obtain economic gain. It was also a key development for the rise of the domestication of animals. Although, its origins cannot be documented for certainty because agriculture began before recorded history, scholars believe that it was started in Southwest Asia. Also, agriculture entails selective breeding of animals with combinations of inherited characteristics that benefits humans. Around the world, agriculture’s steps are the same, but the type of animals that were raised or cultivated differently.
Introduction: “Sustainable agriculture is the efficient production of safe high quality agricultural products, in a way that protects and improves the natural environment the social and economic conditions of farmers their employees and local communities and safe guard the health and welfare of all farmed species“ There are three main principles of sustainable agriculture, the three principles are: 1. Economic sustainability 2. Environmental sustainability 3. Social sustainability With the human population continuing to rise, it is vital that the agricultural industry becomes more sustainable to meet the needs of the growing population. One of the impacts of this growing population is an increase in land usage for settlement purposes.