This title was first published in 2003. he public sector plays a dominant international role in the provision of agricultural extension and services. This role has been the subject of much debate. Some argue for extension's privatization, claiming that a market driven system provides the most rational and efficient means of information delivery. Based on extensive empirical research from the Punjab (Pakistan), this volume examines the comparative effectiveness of public and private extension services from the perspective of farmers. It also focuses on information from extension agents about their respective organizations and work environments. In so doing, the book expands and elaborates on the practical considerations of privatization and information delivery. It then broadens out into a discussion of alternative means of extension delivery, focusing on participatory approaches, education theory and pluralism.

Agriculture plays a pivotal role in the economy and development of Pakistan providing food to consumers, raw materials to industries, and a market for industrial goods. Unfortunately, agricultural production is stagnant due to several barriers including a fixed cropping pattern, reliance on a few major crops, a narrow genetic pool, poor seed quality, and a changing climate. In addition, the high cost of production, weak phytosanitary compliance mechanisms, and a lack of cold chain facilities makes Pakistan agriculturally uncompetitive in export markets. Despite all these issues, agriculture is the primary industry in Pakistan and small farmers continue to dominate the business. Small farmers grow crops for subsistence under a fixed cropping pattern and a holistic approach is required to develop agriculture to improve the livelihoods of the rural populace. This book presents an exhaustive look at agriculture in Pakistan. Chapters provide critical analyses of present trends, inadequacies in agriculture, strategic planning, improvement programs and policies while keeping in view the natural resources, plant- and animal-related agricultural production technologies, input supplies, population planning, migration and poverty, and balanced policies on finance, credit, marketing, and trade.

This book explores how memories are used to re-establish a sense of belonging, analyzing the relationships between migrants' adjustment, assimilation and re-membering home. It considers memories as social expressions as well as the tensions and conflicts in representing and renegotiating memories in literature and cinema.

A unique source of social and economic information on this increasingly important region.

These proceedings provide a summary of the research outputs of a much larger ACIAR project that commenced in 2004. It is remarkable that the Vietnamese researchers in the project were able to complete more than 20 major field experiments studying BioGro.

During the Inca Empire and, indeed, in the previous centuries, the harsh climate and difficult physical environment of the Andean plateau around Lake Titicaca sustained a population many times larger than the one struggling to sustain itself in more recent times. Academics began studying this in the late 1960s and discovered that the Incas and their forefathers had used a complex system of raised fields and irrigation canals to obtain high yields from their crops. This technology seems to have been lost after the Spanish conquest. the Peruvian and Bolivian governments as well as international NGOs, which have set about reintroducing this system of farming, along with the traditional Andean wonder crops such as quinua, canilua and amaranth. This book presents a critical analysis of these raised field projects, setting them in context and taking into consideration factors such as agrarian reforms and counter-reforms, the psychology of aid dependency and the limited remit of the agencies. It shows that very few of the raised field projects have led to permanent cultivation and explains the failures in terms of a variety of standard factors. a more integrated approach, which recognizes the integrated nature of society and economy in the traditional communities and the existence of a rounded Andean technology, of which the raised fields comprise only one part.