Animal, plant and human health and welfare
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Browsing Animal, plant and human health and welfare by Author "Adenuga, Adewale"
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Item Assessing the impact of participatory extension programme membership on farm business performance in Northern Ireland.(MDPI, 2021-09-30) Adenuga, Adewale; Jack, Claire G.; Ashfield, Austen; Wallace, MichaelThis paper evaluates the impact of membership of the Business Development Groups (BDG), a participatory extension programme in Northern Ireland on the economic performance of participating farmers for dairy and sheep enterprise groups. The study employs the conditional difference-in-differences approach which combines a non-parametric matching estimator with a difference-in-differences analytical technique to obtain a credible best-estimates of the causal effect of BDG membership on farmers’ economic performance assuming that BDG participation is as good as random after controlling for observable farm characteristics and that the parallel trends assumption holds between BDG participants and non-participants. The results of the analyses showed that membership in the BDG programme has a statistically significant impact on the economic performance of participating farmers. Specifically, the results showed that farmers who are members of the dairy and sheep BDGs increased their gross margin by £109.10 and £17.10 per head respectively compared to farmers that are non-members of the BDGs. The results of the study provide robust evidence to inform policy development around the area of participatory extension programmes. It also supports the design of efficient agricultural education and extension systems that incorporates the ideas of the farmers themselves through peer-to-peer learning thereby maximising the economic and social benefits accruable from such programmes.Item Farm Diversification: Drivers, Barriers and Future Growth Potential(Wiley, on behalf of the Agricultural Economics Society and the European Association of Agricultural Economists, 2020-10) Jack, Claire; Ashfield, Austen; Adenuga, Adewale; Mullan, ConallFamily farm businesses throughout Europe are facing new economic, environmental and social challenges. In order to deliver a more resilient primary agriculture sector national and regional governments are identifying mechanisms to support farm businesses to adapt to these changing demands. This qualitative study, explored the drivers of and barriers to farm diversification and its potential as a strategy to make farms more sustainable. Although there are a range of farm diversification strategies being pursued regionally, farm diversification is under exploited as an opportunity to achieve additional household income. Areas considered to have the potential for growth included, agri-tourism, care services (including social farming), professional services and developing artisan food products. Beyond the need to generate new income sources, creating employment for other family members was considered an important motivation. Those factors identified as constraints to diversification included internet access, planning, business rates, support around skills development, networks and a farmer’s own fear of failure. For smaller scale, family farm businesses located in more marginal areas, there is a need to identify a range of policy levers which support local farming systems and capture the multifaceted nature of the products and services that these farm businesses could provide and may be asked to deliver in the future.