Fast Track Land Reform Programme,tenure security and investments in soil conservation: Micro‐evidence from Mazowe District in Zimbabwe

The government of Zimbabwe launched the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) in 2000 as part of its ongoing land reform and resettlement programme which aims to address a racially skewed land distribution. Its goal has been to accelerate both land acquisition and redistribution, targeting at least five million hectares of land for resettlement. This paper investigates the impact of the FTLRP on its beneficiaries' perceptions of land tenure security, and how these subsequently impacted soil conservation investments. Evidence suggests that the programme created some tenure insecurity, which adversely affected soil conservation investments among its beneficiaries. We find support for the contention that households make land‐related investments to enhance security of tenure. The results underscore the need for the government of Zimbabwe to clarify and formalize land tenure arrangements within the programme.     

Adoption of sustainable agriculture practices: Evidence from a semi-arid region of Ethiopia

In the wake of the resource constraints for external farm inputs faced by farmers in developing countries, sustainable agriculture practices that rely on renewable local or farm resources present desirable options for enhancing agriculture productivity. In this study, plot-level data from the semi-arid region of Ethiopia, Tigray are used to investigate the factors influencing farmers' decisions to adopt agriculture practices, with a particular focus on conservation tillage, compost and chemical fertilizer. A trivariate probit model is used to analyze the determinants of adoption of these practices. In addition, stochastic dominance analysis is used to compare the productivity impacts of compost with that of chemical fertilizer based on a six-year cross-sectional farm-level dataset. Our results indicate heterogeneity with regard to the factors that influence adoption decisions of the three practices and the importance of both plot and household characteristics on influencing adoption decisions. In particular, we found that household endowments and access to information, among other factors, impact the choice of sustainable farming practices significantly. Furthermore, the use of stochastic dominance analysis supported the contention that sustainable farming practices enhance productivity. They even proved to be superior to the use of chemical fertilizers — justifying the need to investigate factors that influence adoption of these practices and to use this knowledge to formulate policies that encourage adoption.     

Development and application of microwave assisted extraction (MAE) for the extraction of five polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in sediment samples in Johannesburg area, South Africa

A microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) method was verified and applied for the extraction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in sediment samples. Soxhlet extraction was used as the reference method. The optimum MAE was carried out with 20 mL of hexane/acetone (1:1, v/v) mixture in a 1-g sample at 250 W for 20 min. Soxhlet extraction was carried out with 250 mL of dichloromethane:hexane (1:1, v/v) mixture in a 15-g sample for 24 h in a water bath maintained at 60 °C. The collected extracts were both cleaned up, reduced to 1 mL under nitrogen and then injected into an HPLC fluorescence. To increase the sample throughput, simultaneous MAE was performed. The obtained percentage recoveries ranged from 61 to 93 and 88–98 for MAE and SE, respectively. The optimised MAE method was validated using certified reference material. It was then applied to real sediment samples from in and around the greater Johannesburg area. The sediments from Jukskei River were found to be the most polluted while Hartbeespoort Dam sediments were found to be least polluted. The overall order of concentrations for the studied PAHs per site was as follows: Jukskei River?>?Kempton Park?>?Centurion Dams?>?Natalspruit River (PIT)?>?Hartbeespoort Dam.     

Crop biodiversity,productivity and production risk: Panel data micro‐evidence from Ethiopia

This paper uses data from the Central Highlands of Ethiopia to assess the productivity and production risk impacts of crop diversification. Using count index as a measure of crop biodiversity, results show that increasing crop biodiversity contributes positively to farm level productivity. In addition, the findings suggest that the level of production risk significantly responds to the level of diversity, with the effect highly conditional on the skewness. The major contribution of the paper is that, unlike previous similar studies that tended to focus on intra‐crop diversity, it incorporates the mutual interdependencies across crops within a farm by focusing on inter‐crop diversity. Hence the study adds to the growing empirical literature, particularly in Africa, that tests empirical relationships between productivity, risk and crop diversity. An important policy implication for a diversity rich country such as Ethiopia is that agro‐biodiversity can be used to improve agricultural productivity while promoting in situ conservation.