Tag: hydroponic

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Shrimp farming plays a vital role in the economic uplift of coastal populations in Bangladesh

The dataset collected farmers’ opinions based on seven factors from the TPB-NAM integration model.In particular, TPB has been accepted and widely used in studies with the purpose of predicting individual intentions and behavior, empirical studies have shown the relevance of this theory in the study of farmers’ intentions/behavior.NAM is derived from a pro-social context and has been widely used in many studies to explain not only pro-social intentions/behavior but also pro-environmental intentions/behavior in a wide range of contexts.The data set was collected through a 2-part survey: the first part explores the respondents’ characteristics including: gender, age, educational qualification, farming experience and farming annual income ; the second part explores respondents’ consent to statements related to factors affecting the intention to produce organic agriculture ; Table 3 shows more detailed results between the variables.It took the farmer about 20 minutes to complete the entire survey.The survey was conducted directly at the farmer’s residence or farm in October 2019.The survey team received the support from Department of Science and Technology in Hanoi to list and approach the target farmers.Respondents were farmers who were practicing conventional farming in Hanoi, Vietnam.Respondents were selected at random but still ensured their representativeness in some regions that were promoting the conversion to organic farming such as Soc Son, Chuong My, Ba Vi,…in Hanoi.Each farmer participating in the survey received a support of 2 US dollar after completing all the contents of the questionnaire which were distributed directly and collected by the survey team.The survey team designed a survey of 38 items, of which 5 were about respondents’ characteristics, the remaining 33 items, are designed on a 5-point Likert scale , focus on 7 factors: intention, ebb and flow bench attitude, subject norms, perceived behavioral control, personal norm, awareness of consequences and ascription of responsibility.

All items in the survey are inherited from previous studies and the replying is complete mandatory to ensure that the collected data does not contain missing data.The questionnaire did not use the reverse question, which was conducted directly by the survey team, with detailed observations and assisting farmers in the answer process.All responses of the respondents were imported into Excel software before importing to SPSS 22.Before the analysis, the variables were encoded and the data were checked to ensure the validity of each questionnaire.After discarding invalid questionnaires, the final dataset contained 318 questionnaires.Bangladesh is ranked as the fifth-largest aquaculture-producing nation.The shrimp culture contributes 71.4 % to the total national production.The aquaculture industry has shown rapid growth with a critical role in Bangladesh’s economy, becoming the second-largest export industry after garments.It started to grow slowly in a commercial mode of aquaculture in the middle 1970s due to increasing demand in the international market.Shrimp culture mainly practices in Khulna, Satkhira, Bagerhat, and Cox’s Bazar districts of Bangladesh.It is safe to say that shrimp culture in these areas richly supports the sustainability, resilience, and social-economic status of the coastal shrimp farmer communities.The fisheries sector contributed approximately 2.73 % of the total export earnings and 22.21 % to the agricultural industry.Export earnings from the fisheries sector have increased from USD 151,244,659 in 1995–1996 to USD 356,707,522 in 2009–2010 , which is more than double, hence shows a promising potential in this sector to uplift the poor farming communities.The booming shrimp farming industry generated diverse employment opportunities, with the 87,000 persons directly involved in farming activities, while other 5000–6000 families working in the shrimp processing and ancillary industries.The latest estimates illustrate that a large area of saline land is under shrimp cultivation in Bangladesh , making it a reasonable stakeholder in the national economy and bringing profitable usage of the uncultivable land.Currently, shrimp farming and allied industries are the primary income sources for the rural communities of south-western and southeastern coastal areas of Bangladesh.

Among the aquaculture types, shrimp aquaculture has shown rapid growth with a critical role in Bangladesh’s economy.The United Nations Development Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization have reported approximately 2.1 lac hectares of the land went under shrimp farming.Out of which, 93,799 shrimp farms are Bagda , and Golda are cultured in 67,644 farms.Previously, the area under brackish water prawn culture was 128,274 ha, while freshwater prawns culture has grown to 28,411 ha, making 156945 ha.It represents about 80 % of the total area under shrimp cultivation in Bangladesh.Among the essential shrimp species, brackish water shrimp farming is currently one of the most popular concerning the national economy.In Southern Bangladesh, thousands of farmers have transformed their none-profiting paddy fields to ’gher’ to start as a profitable shrimp culture practice.The P.monodon culture in Bangladesh is practiced in the ponds situated alongside a river.This modification entails the construction of higher dikes by excavating a deep enough canal inside, and the periphery of the dikes facilitates entry of the water during the dry season.The commercial shrimp culture began in the 1970s and radically expanded in the ensuing decades.Furthermore, it has taken place mainly on the reclaimed mangrove forest areas in the Sundarban region at Shyamnagar Upazila of Satkhira District.We planned this study to highlight how modern shrimp farming practices could have improved and influenced the livelihood patterns, social-economic status, household structures, and overall living standards of the coastal communities in Southern Bangladesh as they are directly involved in shrimp farming.We expected that the study could provide better insights into promoting sustainable shrimp farming in southwest coastal Bangladesh.The main objectives of our study include the understanding of potential changes in shrimp farming in the southwest coastal Bangladesh.Therefore, we assessed shrimp farming’s major social-economic status indicators, indicating the significant phases and present shrimp farming situation.We also surveyed for income and satisfaction levels among the shrimp farming communities.

The study area map denoting three wards is showing in Fig.1.The study was conducted in three wards of Ishwaripur Union under Shyamnagar Upazila, Satkhira District, located near the Sundarbans in southwest coastal Bangladesh.We randomly selected the survey respondents among the shrimp farmers located in the study area.The total population of the Ishwaripur Union is 45,202 , with 49 % male and 51 % female inhabitants.Muslim community dominates as 74 %, while the rest of them are other religios communities.The literacy rate is reported at 55.04 percent with limited educational institutions.Please see the supplementary material Table 1 for detailed information on educational institutions present in the study area.In Shyamnagar Upazila, a large number of farmers are involved in shrimp farming.The respondents were selected from three different locations, i.e., location 1 , location 2 , and location 3 in Ishwaripur Union under Shyamnagar Upazila of Satkhira, Bangladesh.A total of 50 respondents were interviewed by questionnaire method, and 2 case studies were conducted among the respondents.In these case studies, the sample size was determined by a stratified proportionate sampling method through the total shrimp farming household.The total number of households and sample size in each ward in the study area are shown in supplementary material Table 2.The distribution of frequency and percentage of respondents were categorized based on the land size in their farms is shown in supplementary material Table 3.A questionnaire was designed to survey the social-economic issues due to shrimp farming and its implications on local livelihood.The preliminary survey focused on the shrimp farmers current social-economic status.During this survey, the data were collected by the pre-tested draft questionnaire from the two respondents of each category.Then the questionnaire was finalized for collecting the necessary data through the interview method.The survey method was conducted through direct interviews with the different stakeholders.The information was also collected about the earlier traditional social structure and livelihood status of shrimp farming stakeholders, and we checked they changed or not due to shrimp farming.We also analyzed the intragenerational changes in the sustainability of livelihood framework such as age group, educational status,4x8ft rolling benches alternative occupation, social status, financial capital assets were also analyzed by DFID for determining the impacts of shrimp farming development at the coastal area of Bangladesh and financial capital assets to determine the effects of shrimp farming development in Bangladesh’s coastal region.

The data was collected through direct observation and transect walk toolkit.The primary data were collected through the questionnaire survey group discussion and interview.However, all the data were crosschecked to ensure the accuracy of data collected from the respondents.The Focus Group discussions were conducted to identify the problems and collect fishermen’s recommendations regarding the issues identified to develop an effective solution.We performed the data error analyses, management, standardization, scaling, and other procedures.According to the total response value of open-ended answers, the information was categorized during data processing.The tabulation was performed by using the Statistical Package for Social Science , while Microsoft Excel was used to prepare the illustrations.The leading percentages of shrimp farmers age groups comprised of the middle age, i.e., 36–40 years old and above 40 years.Less than 30 years old farmers made up only 6%, with 31− 35 years old as 18 %.The previous studies have shown that most 16–30 aged displayed the highest involvement in this occupation.The shrimp farmers age distribution provides valuable insights into the decision-making and profitable farming operations ability.It is critical to notice that the younger people displayed no interest in shrimp fishing , which alludes to looming crises if the situation prevails.On the other hand, the respondents educational status was categorized into six categories.The 24 % of the farmers obtained SSC and upper-level education, while 76 % did not enter high school, with 14 % as illiterates.It is alarming to note only 8% of farmers with university level education.Das et al.reported that 75 % of the fishing community was illiterate.However, our study exhibited a different trend believed to be improving due to the uplift of the shrimp farming communities social-economic status.Rahman reported that the fishermen are socially, economically, and educationally disadvantaged and lack sufficient financial resources to invest in education.Karim and Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council revealed low or no education as the characteristic feature in rural life in some villages.Owing to higher financial stress, the shrimp farmers relied on alternative occupations to meet their financial demands.This study showed the tendency of alternative careers among the shrimp farmers.We found that people in the study area were involved with diverse professions.Fishing , agriculture , and private businesses remained the most preferred primary sources of income among the shrimp farmers, while personal business was the most preferred secondary source of income.It indicated that a considerable percentage of shrimp farmers relied upon various alternative sources to meet their financial demands.Due to the higher subsistence level, the seasonal and sometimes professional fishers are engaged in multiple earning activities on a part-time basis, especially during the low season for fishing.Many fishers were also involved in agricultural activities.The increasing percentages of executive involvement are noticeable in the study area, a promising sign for the shrimp farming community.The quality of life and living standard depend on the adequacy of living resources, education status, industrial production, and agricultural practices.More or less, electricity is inevitable to maintain sustainable living standards.Our data revealed that 34 % of the farmers have no access to electricity.For the rest of the inhabitants, the primary sources of electricity are the Rural Electrification Board and solar energy , with other sources including battery and oil engine generators.However, compared to the preceding reports, the mainstream shrimp farmers can use electricity and allied facilities in their households and farming units.It denoted significant development and improvement in the coastal communities living standards directly linked to shrimp farming in Bangladesh.Most of the people used pond sand filter facilities for drinking water.However, fewer people have to use rainwater after harvesting it while the rest use water directly from the pond without any filtration.Hossain et al.and Ali et al.observed that a large share of collected water was brought from the government groundwater tube well and neighboring tube-well in Bangladesh.Due to the critical and demanding nature of natural water supply, most of the population is concerned about drinking water safety, with a moderate population of people opined having no idea.Only 10 % pronounced it as unsafe for drinking purposes.The provision of safe drinking water for livestock animals was not considered during this study.Safe drinking water is of paramount importance for the human populations as well as sustainable management of drinking waters is equally essential as it is liable for health and public safety.

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The development of biogas technologies are mainly affected by technical key performance indicators

Solar and biomass technologies are reportedly the widest adopted renewable energy technologies in the country with potential yearly solar irradiation and large amount of biodegradable waste available from farming facilities. However, there is still a lot of efforts to be done to meet the national electricity targets access of 100 % by 2030. These efforts mainly depend on financial resources availability and electrification strategies to be put in place through public private partnerships like in most Sub-Saharan African countries. The PPPs in the energy sector usually address the energy deficit in two ways : by refurbishing existing energy infrastructures such as power plants, transmission, and distribution networks in connected urban and rural arears in SSA and, by investing in the development and installation of RETs in existing disconnected localities. As such, since most disconnected localities in Africa have a proven untapped agricultural potential, many private power developers are promoting the implementation of de-centralized mini-utilities, also called mini-grids. These minigrids are used as alternative cost-effective energy solutions using locally available resources, specifically solar and abundant biomass. From this perspective, this paper briefly presents and encourages the development of a pilot Biogas-Solar Photovoltaic Hybrid Mini-grid in the town of Palapye. In fact, BSPVHM addresses power shortage by using sunlight and bio-waste to generate eco-friendly energy at a lower installation and operating cost. Through an autonomous energy management system, the BSPVHM allows to generate electricity while managing the supply of power from various sources. Apart from electricity, the BSPVHM produces fertilizers from the remaining digestate after anaerobic digestion that occurs in the bio-digester. These fertilizers can be used after treatment to increase the production of crops through soil enhancement techniques,vertical grow rack allowing farmers to have greater harvest, become energy independent and boost the local economy.

The purpose of this pilot project is to serve as a road map for a waste management and electricity supply in African localities with the similar context like the city of Palapye. This is achieved through the review of the state of the art, the assessment of available solar and waste ressources in Palapye, the preliminary design of the configuration of the BSPVHM, and future recommendations based on the projected limitations of this pilot project.The use of traditional fossil fuel technologies is largely adopted in many African countries. These technologies allow them to quickly address the existing lack of power in their underserved areas. For this reason, various industries use diesel / heavy fuel oil gensets to meet their daily energy demand. However, diesel and HFO are not affordable for everyone and not ecofriendly. Apart from electricity, pollution is another source of sicknesses such as lung infections in rural arears. Studies show that most women suffer from lung infections due to the use of charcoal that are used for cooking. Africa reportedly releases more than 1.3 billion tons of CO2 on a yearly basis from various industries. To alleviate this pollution, a clean energy revolution in Africa is essential especially in SSA. In addition to environmental benefits offered, clean energy sources can unlock sustainable economic growth, improve human health, and empower women and children to live more productively. Mini-grid systems powered by RETs sources such as solar PV and biomass energy are adequate energy solutions for African disconnected areas with high agricultural potential. Even though solar PV and biomass are both RETs and biomass has a greater installed capacity in the world than solar PV, the latter is the most widely used form of energy generation source in the world nowadays. Solar PV is a mature technology that converts solar radiation energy into electricity by means of different equipment, principally solar modules, and power inverters. This kind of technology is currently amongst the most adopted energy sources due to its reliability and capacity to produce electricity at reasonably low cost despite its intermittencies. One of the main drivers considered to analyze the suitability of solar PV generation for a specific location is the solar irradiation level of that proposed site. SSA has one of highest irradiation levels in the world and is seen as the best place to develop and install such solar RETs.

The main limitations of solar PV are its inability to produce electricity in absence of solar radiation and the intermittency of its production, caused by weather disturbances. Solar energy is produced during the central hours of the day, which depends on the time that the sun raises and sets across the different periods of the year. The production of the solar plant is highly dependent on the altitude of the sun, weather disturbances during each season, the orientation towards the North, seasonal variations that affects the productibility. Biomass technologies include gasification, pyrolysis, AD, landfill, ethanol fermentation, photobiological process, dark fermentation, microbial fuel cell and microbial electrolysis cell . Biomass gasification is the most widely adopted waste-to-energy technologies technique for hybrid mini-grid set-up with solar PV. Generally, the gasifier is fed with wastes such as maize cobs and rice husks with a combustion process at 150°C to produce syngas that is filtered and converted to electricity by means of a multi-stage gasifier generator. In addition, bio-char which is a process by-product is used in the briquette making. These hybrid set-ups are largely found in Bangladesh, India and Uganda. The advantage of gasification is that it operates with a large diversity of wastes compared to AD that only works with organic waste with high moisture content and cellulose. The main disadvantage of this technique is that gasifier requires a lot of energy, release more carbon CO2 in the atmosphere and does not offer a competitive business model for agricultural communities like AD. AD produces biogas to generate electricity, heat, fuel and fertilizers from agricultural wastes and organic fraction of municipal solid wastes. Unlike solar PV that is intermittent, biogas power plant is base-load and can generate power at any time of the day depending on the feed stock intake in the digester. One of the challenges is that waste to energy technologies are more costly than solar PV in terms of installation and operations and Maintenance costs during asset lifespan.These KPIs are the design of the power plant, availability and quality of feed stocks, biomethane potential of substrates to be used, type of digestions that is selected, temperature conditions of the process , capacity factor of the biogas power plant, electricity conversion factor of the generator, viability of the tariff at which electricity will be sold and market profitability of by-products such as biofertilizer from AD digestate that accounts for 90% of the remaining digestate after power generation. These KPIs are the reasons as to why it is not as widely adopted as other RETs such as solar PV or onshore wind technologies . The current food regime has created a number of persistent environmental problems, such as climate change, environmental degradation and biodiversity loss, while it has also driven many farms to the verge of financial profitability.

Addressing these problems through a fundamental reorientation of the food system—a sustainability transition—calls for substantial changes taking place at the level of farm systems. However, farmers have been frequently described as being amongst the least powerful actors in food systems, acting mostly as price-takers, which makes them ill-equipped to act as transition agents . The contemporary food system is pushing farms towards more specialisation, intensification and growth to keep up with the cost-price squeeze , while the pressures for a fundamental reorientation in farming are mounting for the sake of environmental sustainability. The traditional approach to confronting sustainability problems as related to production practices and farm management has been advocated for decades through, for example, agri-environmental policies within the European Union. However, critics argue that many such strategies do not challenge the systemic features that contributed to the problems in the first place and are thus inadequate to address the root causes of sustainability problems. The consumption approach takes a different position, attributing the environmental crisis to consumption patterns, especially over-consumption of high-impact animal-based products . Under this approach, a dietary transition towards more plant-based consumption is the most critical solution to address the sustainability problems of the food system. However, the dietary transition translates as a threat to the livelihood of especially many peripheral regions where farms and farmers lack feasible production and employment alternatives due to unfavourable growing conditions and paucity of non-agricultural jobs . The problem with both production- and consumption-oriented perspectives is that they do not address questions of power and agency that are fundamental elements of the unsustainability of the contemporary food system . Accordingly, as Garnett states: “The concern lies not just with production, and not just with consumption: it is the outcome of unequal relationships between and amongst producers and consumers, across and within countries and communities.” Yet the questions of power, agency and social justice have received limited research interest in relation to initiatives promoting sustainability and climate change mitigation amongst food systems . To this end, an emerging area of ‘just transitions’ research has been gaining a stronger foothold amongst the sustainability transitions literature . In the context of food systems, research on just sustainability transitions draws from existing scholarship on food justice,vertical grow tables which is devoted to studying power and agency in food system, food system transformation, and distribution of harms and benefits of food system activities across various social groups and spatial scales .

Despite the urgency of efforts to promote sustainability transition within the food systems, and the observations related to farmers’ weak power position, there is very limited understanding about farmers’ capacities to transform . In this study, we examine the transformative capacities of farmers in a peripheral context to understand how they are positioned relative to the prospective sustainability transition. We operationalise farmers’ transformative capacities through the concept of resilience: by referring to resilience as persistence, adaptability, and transformability,we analyse the ‘fit’ of farms with the external system, characterised by rigidity and path-dependency on the one hand and mounting pressures for a disruptive transition on the other. The concept of resilience allows us to move beyond analysis of production lines or practices to be promoted or debilitated and analyse the position of farms as parts of the food system: whether and under which conditions peripheral farms can participate in the main function of food systems—food production. We discuss our findings in the context of just transition, which addresses social inequalities and tensions related to transition processes along the dimensions of distributive, procedural, recognitive, cosmopolitan and restorative justice . While the uneven consequences of transition processes are usually analysed in terms of distributive justice , we argue that the concept of restorative justice offers a theoretically unelaborated but promising pathway to understand the ways forward from the detected inequalities: how to compensate or restore the actors’ positions shaken by the transition processes . In particular, we elaborate on the recently developed proactive elements of restorative justice and argue that restoration should go beyond only reacting and compensating for harm created but also promoting the actors’ resilience in transition processes. Our empirical context is Finland, particularly its eastern, peripheral regions, where the livelihoods of many farmers and, partly, regional economies are dependent on cattle production. This is due to the region’s climatic conditions and soil properties being particularly suited for grass production, whereas crop cultivation suffers from profitability problems or from a short growing season . Furthermore, crop production does not offer possibilities for full-time employment in peripheral areas, which also lack the abundant job markets of economically prosperous regions . We base our findings on representative survey data retrieved from farmers in eastern Finland in 2018 . Social systems, such as food systems, may accommodate several stability domains. These stability domains are analogous with regimes as temporally stable configurations of a social-ecological or socio-technical system.We understand regimes as dynamically stable configurations of social systems prevailing over specific time frames. Sustainability transitions can thus be conceptualised as regime shifts or moves into new stability domains. These systemic transformations affect the subsystems residing within larger-scale systems, such as farms as parts of food systems.

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Its small size and the lack of need for battery make the passive EID well suited for sheep farming

In addition, these included many beneficial bacteria with antimicrobial features, degraders of contaminants and producers of extracellular polymeric substances which are known to improve soil structure and to promote plant growth and drought tolerance. In addition, results are comparable with earlier findings that Firmicutes, including well-known pathogenic Clostridium species, are typical of organically managed plots and are most likely linked to manure fertilization. In general, actinobacterial representatives were more prominent in the organic system for cereal crop rotation and in rotations with manure fertilization. Indeed, high abundance of actinobacteria have been reported in root samples from organic managed soils. Interestingly, our results showed that actinobacterial genus Nocardioides may have benefited from some other organic system specific practice than manure in the cereal rotation. Indeed, actinobacteria have been found to be indicators for no-tilled organic farming systems, and suggested as producers of exopolysaccharides and lipopolysaccharides, and to have relevance in soil aggregate stability in reduced tillage systems. Furthermore, genus Bosea which contains root-nodule endophytic bacteria capable of dinitrogen fixing was specific for the organic cereal rotation system with legumes. There were fewer changes in fungal representatives in the conventional system for the cereal crop rotation between farming systems compared to changes in bacteria. These fungi included soil saprotrophs and mycoparasites which are general opportunists that either benefit from or tolerate synthetic fertilizers or tilling or both. In general, conditions in autumn may favour fast-growing saprotrophic fungi that effectively make use of harvest residues. Conversely, mycelia of AMF are dependent on living plants but as spores AMF may persist in soil even after harvesting. Here, Archaeospora trappei and Archaeospora sp., Glomus mosseae, and Pacispora sp. were indicative mycorrhizal fungi for the cereal crop rotation.

Most of the specific fungi for the organic system for cereal crop rotation were typical of both seasons, indicating certain seasonal stability in the fungal communities in studied arable soils. Furthermore,hydropnic bucket the majority of these specific fungal representatives were the same as the species specific for the manure fertilized plots. Most of them affiliated to ascomycetes and especially to the order Sordariales. Thus, the indicative fungal representatives in both the organic system for cereal crop rotation and manure fertilized plots consisted of functionally a wide mixture of soil and litter organisms, including molds and yeasts acting as saprotrophs, pathogens and predators of other organisms. However, a species of Arthrinium serenense was indicative for both organic rotations but not to manure plots, indicating that it could benefit from some other organic farming practice than manure fertilization. Endophytic genus Arthrinium has been suggested to have various roles in extreme temperature tolerance, production of substances against other fungi and herbivores, as well as acting saprotrophic and pathogenic. Other taxa linked to organic cereal rotation included representatives of Apiosporaceae and Helotiales detected in spring, and the pathogenic Fusarium oxysporum and its antagonist mycotoxin producing Glarea lozoyensis in autumn. These fungi may have the ability to grow quickly and benefit from the second cut of the grass and clover ley which was left on the field as a green manure in the organic system for cereal crop rotation. Precision livestock farming is the application of the precision agriculture concept to livestock farming using a variety of sensors and actuators in order to improve the management capacity for big groups of animals. The PLF is based on real-time data collection and analysis which can be used for animal/flock management .Other innovative tools used for this goal include automats and new technologies . Such innovations become increasingly important as farms grow bigger and single animal monitoring is no longer possible without technological aid .

In intensive farming facilities, the systems achieve this goal through single animal monitoring, environmental microclimate management, feed efficiency rationing, treatment planning and software decision-making aids for the farmer . In the modern farming world of highly industrialized systems with extremely low ratio of farmers to farm animals, it provides a crucial component in the ability of the stock person to keep track of its animals . The levels of monitoring provided by electronic tags and animal-based sensors for a single animal improve the ability of stock persons to manage each animal individually and respond to health problems or welfare issues faster than manual detection . The efficiency granted by the application of PLF and other technologies is also important to the reduction of farm waste and the reduction of the number of animals needed in order to produce the same amount of product increasing farm environmental and economical sustainability. In the farming of ruminants, PLF application has seen the highest implementation in the dairy cow sector as farm intensification took place in the developed world. This sector also enjoys a high level of competition between PLF developers which tends to improve PLF products as well as technical services. Dairy cow farmers nowadays are aware of the variety of management tools at their disposal and of the need to understand and implement those products in an increasingly competitive market . Other ruminants, especially ones kept in the pasture, are less likely to benefit from such systems. An extensive pasture environment is more difficult to control in comparison to a closed barn, especially in regard to infrastructures and communication options . Extensive farmers prioritize methods of grazing with low financial investment and relative simplicity of management which provide a level of economic resilience to market fluctuations. Therefore, adding PLF systems would inevitably increase production costs and would add another layer of technological complexity to farm management . Nevertheless, technological solutions are being gradually incorporated in extensive pasture farming of cattle and small ruminants . A particular sector of extensive sheep farming is the dairy sheep farming around the Mediterranean which has unique characteristics tied to its climate and cultural conditions. This led to the development of a variety of local breeds specialized in milk, with yields more than double the world average.

The production supports a diverse consumption market of sheep dairy products with global exports and known trademarks such as the Greek ‘Feta’ or the Italian ‘Pecorino’. The market and farming systems of the area were recently described in a review by Pulina et al. which highlights the global relevance of the sector: around the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions are concentrated roughly 27% of the world milk yielding ewes, providing more than 40% of total sheep milk production. Almost half of it is concentrated in 4 south European countries – France, Italy, Greece and Spain with over 15 million ha of land used for grazing . From the farmer’s perspective, Mediterranean flocks are usually small to medium size with high levels of specialization for milk yield where meat production is usually limited to light lamb consumed during traditional events. Fibre production for wool is negligible and the income ratio of the production is usually 38:62 of meat: milk clearly favouring milk production . The FIGS production includes modern characteristics, with breed selection programmes, commercial processing and Protected Designation of Origin nominations for their traditional cheese products . Farming systems include traditional extensive farms based on pasture as well as intensive systems that take advantage of modern technologies and precise nutrition management. While the intensive systems are favoured for their higher yield, extensive systems are not neglected due to their lower maintenance costs and better resilience to milk price fluctuations. While the integration of PLF and new technologies is accruing, it is associated with intensive farms which adopt systems similar to ones practiced for dairy cows . Extensive dairy sheep farming is a unique farming system, where animals are grazed outdoors, while maintaining contact with the farmer during daily milking for 120–240 days a year. This intensive handling process has no equivalents in the meat and wool production process where animals are handled only in specific occasions. This contact can be used for data collection by dedicated technological solutions, data that could aid in the feeding,stackable planters breeding and management of the flock. The current paper aims to present the technologies currently developed for extensive sheep farming and their potential to be incorporated in a small to medium scale dairy specialized farming system typical to the Mediterranean area. Also discussed in this paper are the current trends of PLF implementation as well as sheep farmers’ attitudes towards innovation, technology and systematic management due to their inherent influence on the adoption of any new technology in the field.A literature review was performed in order to evaluate the current state of PLF and new technologies that can be adapted to the Mediterranean extensive dairy sheep farming sector.

Literature was reviewed in order to identify PLF systems, innovative technologies and automats available and under development. The search was carried out in a manner similar to Lovarelli et al. on Web of Science®, Google Scholar® and Scopus® databases, focusing on studies carried out in the last 20 years . The following keywords were matched for the search: ‘PLF’, ‘sheep’ and ‘dairy sheep’, ‘PLF’, ‘extensive farming’. As the search yielded various PLF systems, each one received a further search, for example, ‘RFID’, ‘sheep’ and ‘extensive’ or ‘WOW’, ‘sheep’ and ‘management’. This process was performed for each one of the described technologies. Articles regarding precision medicine, precision diagnosis, as well as advanced bacteriological and parasitological diagnostics were excluded from the evaluation process. Following this selection process, a total of 154 articles were included into the initial database. A panel of three independent evaluators were given 52, 51 and 51 of the articles respectively. The lists of articles were then exchanged until each panellist covered all the 154 initial articles, and each article had three independent evaluations. Technologies and PLF systems were therefore grouped and described according to the collected conclusions of the three panellists. The further search focused on technology adoption by farmers. As the number of articles for exclusively sheep farming is limited, other farming sectors were also considered. When Mediterranean references were not available, articles regarding the applicability of systems in other places were discussed. This included EU member states, as well as very different farming systems . Consideration regarding PLF and new technologies future role included financial, cultural and environmental trends. Market prices of products and commercial data were collected from official sites of the producers, distributors, online stores and local selling agents . Financial information was obtained from consultant websites dedicated to farmer finances while Common Agricultural Policy and payment schemes were obtained from extension services of farmer’s co-operative associations. The CAP payments are a result of a common policy for all EU member states, funded by EU’s budget while the management is mostly delegated to local authorities .Electronic identification systems are a key component in PLF setting of farms and the only technology currently mandatory under EU laws . Radio-frequency identification systems allow each animal to be identified independently and the data to be stored and used for various decision-making processes. It is also a key component in animal identification for other PLF systems such as the weighting scale or AD. Passive EID tags are based on the storage of simple information code and a copper coil which briefly charges the transmitter through the energy passed from an active reader .Under the EU legislation, the use of EIDs is obligatory for all sheep and goat farmers, and currently represents an opportunity for introduction of PLF system into extensive management systems. The RFID operates on different radio frequency levels which determine their transition distance and ability to pass materials : low frequency , high frequency and ultra-high frequency . In farming , three significant differences can be distinguished between them: while the HF and UHF are working in the upper level, allowing anti-collision, longer distance, less noise and stable connection they hindered by materials . The LF is less stable but allows better passage through obstacles with the disadvantage for the need of larger antenna. In some cases, farm metal can act as an antenna itself and have multiple reading . It is the most common method of application. Its ease of use and application makes the method very appealing to farmers.

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The system is deployed on the Puerto de La Luz seaport and applied to data from two system sensors

The degree that farming systems follow the principles of OA can be represented as continuous scale, however, a clear line can be drawn between farmers who complied with the minimum requirements of organic standards and those who do not . On this scale, also conventional farmers can be by the extent to which they come close to the boundary of organic compliance, based on the amount and frequency of chemical inputs they use . Furthermore, organic farmers can be grouped according to whether they practice organic farming because they do not have access to chemical inputs or whether they practice organic farming intentionally . In our case studies, organicby-default farmers, which were in the control and not in the intervention groups, were rather uncommon, as most farmers used chemical inputs from time to time, even though some used them only in small quantities. Both groups practice organic farming intentionally and can be further distinguished as farmers who manage their farm only passively and those who manage their farm organically in an active way. Among the latter group, we can further distinguish between farmers who merely substitute conventional inputs by organic ones and those who actively follow agroecological principles and design their farm accordingly for a sound organic nutrient and pest management. While the latter group can be considered closest to implementing the principles of OA, according to our data it is the absolute minority among smallholder farmers in SSA. This emphasises the necessity to view organic agriculture as a farming system that requires a systemic shift beyond the view of single practices that is increasingly taken up by agroecology or regenerative agriculture . Cultivating soil, producing crops, and preparation and distribution of the resulting products is a practice that dates back thousands of years, aeroponic tower garden system and since has been playing a vital role in contributing to the global economy.

In many developing countries, agriculture is a major source for income and employment in rural communities which constitute 45% of the world’s population. Around 26.7% of the world population secure their livelihoods from agriculture. Yet, despite its historical impact on food security, employment and socioeconomic development and stability, the sector still faces structural weaknesses and challenges. These include, but not limited to, pests, vulnerability to climate change, inadequate farming practices and uninformed decision making related to planning, support and protection. The lack of effective support for farmers to adopt good agricultural practices and prevention methods are yet another factors that hinder both the productivity and food security in large scale rural communities. Farmers need up-to-date advice on crops’ diseases, crop patterns and adequate prevention actions to face developing circumstances. Currently, farmers’ access to such information is limited due to current support system being inconsistent, unreliable and often not timely – hence delivered advice can become irrelevant. Over the last two decades, advancements in the agricultural industry has been made through the application of data analytic tools and decision support systems , with noticeable impact in irrigation management, precision agriculture and optimal farming. Though these systems are very useful in offering structured analysis and information to the farmers in a step by step manner, difficulty in usage due to their sophisticated nature, especially for farmers with low literacy in developing countries is often times a challenge. Several systems exist, including related informal forums, social networks, and interactive voice response systems where peers and experts interact with each other and exchange suggestions and opinions on issues raised by farmers. Governments have also tried to handle enquiries and concerns raised by farmers via establishing agri-centres at rural hubs where experts provide suggestions on farmers’ complaints and enquiries by telephony. Whilst this approach seems to facilitate reasonable results, nonetheless, due to the high user demand, it is practically not feasible to provide effective response to extremely large numbers of phone calls, and does not offer a structured way to keep track, and use, of the historic record of enquiries made, resolved and otherwise.

Moreover, providing adequate responses for farmers’ queries is difficult for domain experts as comprehensive information regarding the context of the problem and underlying issues may not be adequately communicated through conventional phone calls. For a sustainable farming practice, the development of an automated query/complaint management system is still an open problem. Mohit Jain et al. proposed a conversational agent for resolving farmer queries by using IBM Watson Speech-based system and Google Translator. However, there is still a high demand for efficient query/complaint management system to enhance the usability and acceptability aspects for farmers with limited literacy while keeping the system highly scalable, available around-the-clock and have manageable overheads. This study aims to resolve the problem of support and advice for farmers in place of the current manual system, deployed in Egypt, by presenting a framework for Complaint Management and Decision Support System for Sustainable Farming . It is based on the application of knowledge discovery and analytics on agricultural data and farmers’ complaints, deployed on a Cloud platform. The automated system is to provide adequate and timely advice for farmers upon their enquires/ complaints, and also to foresee near future development of circumstances by the experts. Consequently, enabling agricultural experts to broadcast early warning signals of threats, mainly pests and disease, and the needed prevention actions to be undertaken by farmers. The system can be deployed to serve villages around farming fields in Egypt and will aim at improving welfare and development in rural parts of the country, and open opportunities for further research and development in the field. The rest of the paper is structured as follows: In Section 2, a literature review of decision support and expert systems in agriculture is presented. Section 3 describes the system requirements and applications constraints. Section 4 presents the system architecture with an illustration of the services/features offered by AgroSupport Analytics system. In Section 5, we present the software application architecture.

The N-tiered architectural representation of the proposed system is described in Section 6. Section 7 offers the subsystem layering and component-level functionalities details. Section 8, presents the Applications of the AgroSupport Analytics system along with a brief case study of farmer query and complaint response that serves as a demonstrative proof of system. Section 9 concludes the paper.Agriculture in Egypt absorbs over 30% workforce and provides livelihood to more than 50% of rural population, but contributes only 11% to national GDP in 2019. This is mainly because each year a large portion of crops are wasted due to pests and diseases and also due to obsolete farming practices. It is believed, therefore, that timely farmers’ complaint resolution and access to information and expertise advice is vital to achieve sustainable and quality agriculture production. The existing farmers’ complaint management process follows a conventional query submission approach where farmers deliver, usually manually, their complaints and needs for support to their respective ‘agricultural associations’ distributed across Egypt. These, being in Arabic text, are received and then submitted to one of the national ‘centers’ distributed over the country to offer support for farmers in their villages. Several agricultural experts working at these centers subsequently process farmers’ enquiries, either instantly or by consulting the Agricultural Research Center via an interface designed for the purpose. A recommendation is usually provided. Most of the times, however, a ‘no known solution’ is delivered ‘ usually via phone calls. The portal provided by ARC offers access to a database of complaint-support pairs, which can sometimes features issues of inconsistency, redundancy, lack of structure, or missing value. The flow of the existing manual querying system is shown as Fig. 1. Even with a swift ‘‘round” of consultancy provided by the system, response from experts can get significantly delayed, mainly due to a large number of sent queries . Consequently, farmers, get an answer when it is too late for them to act. Similarly, the support provided by experts deals only with farmers’ instant complaints, lacking near future perspective on developing circumstances, and thus advice.For nearly two decades, decision support systems and data analytics have become efficient tools for providing precision agriculture and farming. Recently, Big data technologies are being widely adapted in agriculture domain mainly because the agriculture related data sets are becoming extremely large and complex that it is becoming difficult to process them using on–hand data management tools and/or traditional data processing applications.

CropSyst is a DSS developed into a suite of programs, including a crop simulator, a weather forecast generator, GIS modeler program, and a watershed utility program. CropSyst aims to simulate and optimize features like the soil water budget, soil–plant nitrogen budget, crop canopy and root growth, and yield. The AquaCrop model evaluates the production of maize crop under semi-arid climate conditions. García-Vila and Fereres later combined an economic model with the Aqua Crop simulator to optimized farm-level irrigation. Paredes et al. analysed and predicted the impact of irrigation management strategies against yield and economic returns of maize crop. Giusti and MarsiliLibelli introduced an inference based fuzzy DSS to optimally find irrigation actions based on the crop and site characteristics and conserving the water usage. Perini and Susi discussed the design and development aspects of a pest management DSS that can be used by the members of advisory services including pest experts and technicians. Xu et al.introduced an agricultural ecosystem management systems to extracts,dutch buckets for sale manage and analyze data regarding terrain, land utilization and planting. Kurlavicˇius et al. introduced a DSS for sustainable agriculture to predict the optimal crops grown and animals kept in particular regions, The system also predicts the resources required to carry out these activities under the varying environmental conditions. Antonopoulou et al. introduced a Web-based DSS to let farmers find the appropriate crops based on their regional and environmental conditions and also provide the best cultivation strategies and periods.Kaloxylos et al. later, proposed implementation of a cloud-based FMIS for managing a greenhouse. Fountas et al., Tayyebi et al. and Tan proposed perspectives of cloud computing as the key drivers in future development of FMIS and precision agriculture. Big data mining can facilitate the extraction of useful information from complex, variable, and large volume of the dataset, therefore can improve a DSS’s accuracy in various fields. The Millennium Project; for example, has identified many interesting challenges related to clean water, sustainable developments, climate changes, population and resources etc. This project has advocated the use of big geospatial data to save energy with eco-routing, i.e., avoiding congestion, stopping at red lights, turning points, and identifying elevation changes. Furthermore, a fuel consumption minimising technique has been proposed to achieve best travel time with reduced travel distance.

Recently, an unprecedented growth of Data Force Analytics enabled utilisation of big data technologies and digital sensors to manage data efficiently. Adopting such an approach in the field of agriculture can bring many benefits to support decisions. Nevertheless, data analytics still faces many challenges of handling extensive data and diverse data sets like semi-structured, unstructured, and streaming data. Therefore, in such Data Force Analytics developments there will be a strong need to effectively utilise datasets to facilitate users in finding their needs efficiently and effectively e.g. a qualitative study in points out a co-evolving tool to understand such needs/skills. Recently, organisations have started to use the concept of SelfService Analytics to encourage professionals or workers to perform queries with IT support and generate reports independently. The framework proposed in provides matrix called the governance of Self-Service Analytics , which uses the power of business intelligence tools and platform to support ITenabled analytic content development to help experts find the best solutions and get the decision rapidly. The geodatabase contains a visual analysis of tabular data to achieve the primary utilisation of practising BI system and GISs in data analytics. The Puerto de la Luz is a SmartPort solution, enabling real-time monitoring and collection of sensor data in a seaport infrastructure. It is a web-based GIS application, which uses an open-source big data architecture to achieve its functionality. The Spatial Decision Support System is an extension of DSS application, which supports an improvement in decision-making compared to non-spatial data. In particular, SDSS in agriculture has a positive impact on improving decision making.

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Farmers did not appear to pay much attention to the geographical average of bTB to guide their purchase

Nevertheless, whilst findings should be interpreted in the context of the game, the context squares played an important role in keeping the game situated within the challenge of bTB. Moreover, participants commented that they found the process enjoyable and a helpful way of talking about cattle purchasing, and it was notable that the game play prompted conversations about why a decision had been taken between participants. Farmers were encouraged to talk through their purchasing decisions as they made their choices and explain their reasons after each purchasing event. Farmers were asked about each of the behavioural interventions during and at the end of the game. These discussions were recorded within Zoom, transcribed and cross-checked with notes taken during the game. Analysis of in-game cattle purchases identified and recorded each factor mentioned by farmers in their explanation of their purchase choice. Similar factors were grouped together and organised into five main categories. Transcripts were analysed thematically within Nvivo to elicit the key similarities between participants in relation to their views of the information provided and the rationales for their purchasing. Overall, the most frequently mentioned factors were the vaccination status of the animal and its status in relation to production diseases other than bTB. When purchase factors are aggregated into categories, the most important factors were related to aspects of the animal on sale and production diseases, followed equally by bTB and management factors. Farmers were particularly heavily swayed by the Johne’s disease2 status of each purchase choice, acting as an anchor or reference point for all other adverts. Around half of all disease factors were specifically about the vaccination status. This suggested that purchasing decisions were not multi-factorial but could be based on one criterion. As Player 3 commented for all his purchases, “Vaccination for major diseases, that’s what I am really looking for”. Years free from bTB was the third most frequently mentioned factor. This is likely to reflect the fact that it featured in every sale advert and suggests that information on bTB at the point of sale may provide a limited cue to some purchasers. Similarly, strawberry gutter system bTB compensation was only ever discussed in relation to adverts where compensation was mentioned.

Whilst the frequency of these factors is likely to be influenced by the information displayed in the adverts, results reflect previous research that has sought to identify the most influential factors in cattle purchasing . Table 3 shows how these factors vary between different purchase scenarios. For replacement dairy cows, production diseases were the most significant factor, followed by animal factors and then bTB. For purchases of calves, bTB was the least important factor, whilst management factors were the most important. For purchases of in-calf heifer calves the most popular factors were related to the animal, whilst bTB related factors were third. In contrast to the purchasing factors, adverts with high bTB ratings were chosen more frequently. In total, 39 in-game purchase choices were made which involved considering adverts with different bTB statuses. Over half of these in-game choices were of cattle with a high bTB rating . Fourteen in-game purchases were of cattle with the lowest bTB status . One further choice was of cattle whose status was on the midpoint and between the lowest and highest options. For all game players, ten consistently chose purchase options with the highest bTB rating, five the lowest, and three chose a range of options.Farmers suggested that the comparison needed more context to be valid: parishes could vary in size and by number of farms. A more reliable and standardised denominator may have more salience. However, discrepancies between parish and herd bTB ratings prompted some farmers to indicate that this was something that they would follow-up with the vendor to get an explanation. 20 of the 37 in-game cattle purchases involved cattle that would receive 100% of statutory compensation if the purchase was subject to a post movement test. Comparing choices made in each scenario reveals that most farmers did not have a preference for higher or lower compensation, five always chose options with higher compensation, and 3 chose options with lower compensation. Of the 18 in-game purchases, only four were of purchase options that had the highest rating or 95% satisfaction. The remainder were purchases of cattle with lower purchaser satisfaction. In scenario 4, the good farmer information featured on half of the purchase choices. Participants chose an advert featuring a good farmer logo in 14 out of 18 purchase choices. Choices were distributed equally between the highest and lowest good farmer ratings .

In reflecting on their purchasing choices and the information that was most salient to them, farmers articulated a purchasing strategy best described as ‘fitting the system’. This strategy aims to fit or match new cattle purchases to the farm system to ensure its continuity. When faced with a range of purchasing options, ‘fitting the system’ therefore acts as a kind of ‘radar’, honing on those factors that are most pertinent to the system. In-game purchases reflected the need to match systems in a number of ways. For dairy cows, players commented that cows that were cubicle trained were preferred. Information on what cows were being fed was not contained in any adverts, but players suggested that they would want to know that information to ensure a match to their own systems when possible. For calves, Player 16 chose advert 2, justifying the purchase because from the advert, it appeared that the ‘set up was very similar to what we’ve got in terms of the conditions, the vaccinations and the colostrum management’. The importance of a similar setup was to minimise the stress placed upon animals when they are moved and for them to have similar levels of immunity, so that they are not susceptible to illness. Whilst fitting the system provided an overall framework for cattle purchasing, dimensions of good farming were important in shaping how decisions were made. The challenges of fitting the system meant that trust and reliability in the seller became key factors in deciding what to buy. This was evident when farmers were asked to choose between an agent supplying cattle or buying from their neighbour. In this scenario, farmers highlighted the importance of local knowledge. For example, Player 3 commented that, “if it’s the same cow then you go for the neighbour, you know more stuff from driving past”. Similarly, Player 12 suggested that they “would walk away [from the dealer] and look at the neighbours’ [cows] because we know their farming system and they are in tune with what we are doing”. Other dimensions of local knowledge included the ability to draw on vets’ knowledge and their connections with other vets. Player 9, for example, suggested that their vet could speak to the vendor’s vet to “get into the nitty gritty and find out why the animals are on sale”. The effect of providing information on the good farming status of the vendor had a mixed effect. Firstly, purchase choices with high good farmer scores were not widely chosen, indicating that other systemic factors took priority. Nevertheless, farmers reacted positively to this rating, comparing it to ‘Amazon-style’ ratings and demonstrating the face-validity of this good farming metric. However, whilst farmers thought the principle of articulating vendors’ qualities in this way was good, it prompted further questions about what precisely the rating would mean, who would organise it, and how reliable it could be. Satisfaction of previous sales was generally seen as appropriate, but there were concerns about how easily this could be manipulated by ‘fake’ or misleading reviews arising from a genuine mistake by the vendor or purchaser.

Similarly, farmers were concerned about the ability to compare between vendors if one had fewer sales than the other. However, it was not always easy to elicit from the pictures the quality of the animal, farmer or farm, hydroponic fodder system prompting players to comment that they would prefer to be able to visit the farm. This offered farmers to gauge the trustworthiness and reputation of the vendor by being able to ask additional questions and determine from their answers whether they were ‘good farmers’ or not. This could include, for example, vendors’ knowledge of the animal’s history, and the records they keep. In this sense, purchases would partly be based on the farmer and the farm. Farmers commented that they would like to see that the farm was clean and tidy, the housing was of good quality and that the vendor had the ‘right’ attitude. Secondly, the challenges of ‘fitting the system’ also impacted upon the relevance of bTB information and its ability to reflect good farming. Whilst farmers generally preferred high status bTB cattle, their choices reflected their attempts to match cattle to their own circumstances based from other information available. In general, farmers valued purchases with a higher number of years bTB free. However, they also viewed the bTB test as an indication that an animal was ‘saleable’ and there was no real consensus on the threshold of what constituted a ‘safe’ herd. Five or more years was generally seen as good, although some farmers suggested lower. In each case, however, the scarcity of available cattle with high bTB status meant that a better guide was to buy no lower than their current status. The significance of bTB varied between purchase types and each players’ experience of bTB. Where farmers had experienced many outbreaks and farmed in expectation of an outbreak, information on bTB was less important. This reflects fatalistic attitudes towards bTB described in Enticott . However, where players had experienced a recent bTB outbreak, which had caused significant farm management problems, information about bTB was more important. Information on bTB was more likely to be salient when it was timely: farmers who were restocking following a bTB incident particularly valued this information. However, it was not the only factor: Player 9, for example, suggested bTB accounted for 50% of the purchase decision, and other factors could over-ride its significance. In this sense, fitting the system could reflect the wider epidemiological picture surrounding the farm. For example, Player 9 commented that “the closer geographically you are then closer to the same TB situation, [its best to] stick with the problems you know”.

However, for some animals, such as calves, some farmers suggested these dimensions of local fit were not important. Player 2, for example, suggested that “young calves spend so little time in the environment to pick up the disease”. In general, information on bTB appeared to play an ‘arbitrating role’ helping to differentiate between two equally ‘good’ animals for sale. This seemed to be most relevant for compensation incentives. Where adverts appeared to be of similar quality, the potential for additional compensation could sway the decision, all other things being equal . As full compensation was linked to the completion of post-movement testing, the attractiveness of this incentive also depended on the relative ease of completing this test. Where farmers were already frequently testing, the requirement to post-movement test was not considered onerous, meaning animals with full compensation were more attractive. Equally, the extent to which information could arbitrate between two adverts depended on the value of compensation itself. This paper has investigated the salience of different behavioural interventions to influence farmers’ cattle purchasing decisions. In this section, we consider the wider implications of our research. Firstly, the development and use of a scenario-based game has much to offer studies of bio-security and other land-use policy issues. Participants enjoyed playing the game and reported that it helped them to think and talk about their cattle purchasing decisions. Following Quine et al. , our purchasing scenarios were realistic, prompting some participants to reflect on times when the scenarios had played out in real life. Importantly, the use of the game also highlights the need for methodological triangulation when considering the impact of behavioural interventions within farming. Results from the game varied according to methodological and analytical techniques. Based on the analysis of purchasing rationales, results suggested that purchasing was primarily related to production factors. Analysis of the in-game purchases suggested that farmers preferred cattle from farms at a low-risk from bTB.

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Chemosit and Kipsonoi rivers traverses through different land use types

Soil pH was determined using a pH meter. In this case, six distinct land use activities were identified along based on their dominant land uses and characteristics. Generally there is a variation in land use activities from upstream to downstream. Upstream is dominated by indigenous forest characterized by dense network of trees and bushes with little human disturbance. From the edge of the forests towards midstream, the land opens up to a rich upland agricultural area of extensive and intensive farming characterized by tea plantation and few human settlements. Moving downstream, grazing and mixed agricultural farming predominate with more permanently settled small scale farmers and urban set-up with high population and economic activities.Upstream riparian vegetation was least disturbed with native vegetation present on both sides of the river, intact canopy and with continuous woody vegetation along the riparian zone, dense ground cover and river banks in natural condition.

Midstream riparian vegetation is in poor condition characterized by isolated woody vegetation, limited ground cover and disturbed banks. In addition there is a high disturbance of the riparian zone by stock or through the intrusion of exotic species, although some native species remain. Valley vegetation is clearly agriculture with native vegetation clearly disturbed and with a high percentage of introduced species present. Downstream riparian vegetation is severely disturbed on both sides as indicated by reduced and absence of riparian vegetation.During the study period, significant differences were observed in Water pH and Total Nitrogen between sampling sites. Tukey’s test showed that the mean water pH at upstream sampling site differed significantly from that recorded at downstream of Chemosit river. Along Kipsonoi river, the mean water pH differed significantly between midstream and Downstream sampling sites. In both rivers, the mean value for water pH ranged from 6.9 to 7.2 . However these values fall within the pH range associated with most natural waters of 6.5 to 8.5 . Most ecosystems are sensitive to changes in pH while certain organisms prefer different ranges of pH . The reported land use activities in SWMF do not seem to modify the pH of the water. Indeed soils and land use activities affect the proportion of major ions in water bodies and hence the water pH . On the other hand, along Chemosit river significant differences were observed in total nitrogen between upstream and midstream sampling sites and between upstream and downstream along Kipsonoi river, respectively.

The high Total Nitrogen concentrations of 6.7 mg/l and 5.7 mg/l observed midstream of the two rivers could be associated with adjacent urban and agricultural land use activities. According to agricultural activities can lead to an increased flux of nitrogen into water bodies while use of fertilizers on agricultural land has been associated to high nutrient levels at such sites . Further, total suspended solids, potassium, total phosphorous, cadmium, lead and copper did not however show any significant differences. Total Suspended Solids were highest midstream on both rivers. This variation could be associated to the different land use activities reported for these sites, run-off from agriculture, soil erosion as well as in- stream activities such as car washing. Presence of indigenous forests, absence of agricultural activities, intact riparian zones characterized by dense vegetation explain the low levels of Total Suspended Solids in the upstream of the two rivers . However total suspended solids in SWMF ranged from 24 – 84 mg/l which is below WHO limits of 1000 mg/l of suspended solids of drinking water. Total phosphorous concentrations increased downstream with the highest concentration recorded at midstream and lowest at upstream on both rivers. Natural concen-trations of phosphorous in surface waters usually range from 0.005 to 0.02 mg/l, while the Environmental Protection Agency recommends a 0.1 mg/l for aquatic systems to prevent accelerated eutrophication . Low concentrations of total phosphorus recorded upstream of Chemosit and Kipsonoi rivers is linked to the undisturbed dense network of trees.

In undisturbed forested areas, streams are believed to have good water quality with low concentration of nutrients . The dense riparian vegetation within the forest land use are effective buffers in filtering out most of the nutrients from the surface run-off . These findings mirror previous studies that concluded that water quality is greatly linked to land use in a catchment and confirms several studies that have shown agriculture and urban land use as a primary predictor for nitrogen and phosphorous in stream water . The amount of heavy metals represented by Cd, Cu and Pb did not differ significantly across sites and their concentration did not follow any trend from upstream to downstream. These results agree with previous study that metal concentrations at sites located relatively high up in the catchment were comparable to, or higher than concentrations of these metals downstream. These values are linked to effluent discharge, agricultural and urban run-off, washing and bathing activities by local inhabitants and livestock access to the rivers. In addition degradation of the forest cover and other anthropogenic activities going on inside the forest, atmospheric deposition and geology weathering are potential sources of these metal ions . The low soil pH upstream might be due to the presence of slightly higher organic carbon content in the soil. Variability in total organic carbon along the two river systems is linked to the reduction in organic material being returned to the soil system due to decreasing vegetation cover downstream and oxidation of soil organic matter as a result of continuous cultivation along the riverbanks, uncontrolled grazing and browsing, loss of organic matter by water erosion and removal of green materials.

These results are in agreement with other studies that reported that the soil organic content differed with different land use types . The higher organic matter content upstream may be attributed to a higher accumulation of organic matter due to high inputs from root biomass . Variability in total nitrogen is linked to difference in soil organic matter content, intensities in cultivation and erosion, application of manures, pesticides and fertilizers rich in nitrogen content in the soils.In this study , soil pH ranged between 4.42 and 5.56, implying the soils are strongly acidic and suitable for tea production which was consistent with previous studies carried out in tea plantations . Soil pH was lowest in soils obtained Upstream on both rivers, with significant differences across the sampling sites. Tukey’s test showed that soil pH at upstream differed significantly from soil pH recorded midstream and downstream of Chemosit and Kipsonoi rivers.