Describes the Global Programme on Occupational Safety, Health and Environment of the International Labour Office (ILO). The inculcation of a safety culture, access to knowledge…
Abstract
Describes the Global Programme on Occupational Safety, Health and Environment of the International Labour Office (ILO). The inculcation of a safety culture, access to knowledge, standard setting and self‐regulation are key points of the ILO Programme.
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Obadia Okinda Miroro, Douglas Nyambane Anyona, Isaac Nyamongo, Salome A. Bukachi, Judith Chemuliti, Kennedy Waweru and Lucy Kiganane
Despite the potential for co-operatives to improve smallholder farmers' livelihoods, membership in the co-operatives is low. This study examines factors that influence smallholder…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the potential for co-operatives to improve smallholder farmers' livelihoods, membership in the co-operatives is low. This study examines factors that influence smallholder farmers' decisions to join agricultural co-operatives.
Design/methodology/approach
This study involved a survey of 1,274 smallholder chicken farmers. The data were analysed through a two-sample t-test of association, Pearson's Chi-square test and binary probit regression model.
Findings
The results suggest that farming as the main source of income, owning a chicken house, education attainment, attending training or accessing information, vaccination of goats and keeping a larger herd of goats are the key factors which significantly influence co-operative membership. However, gender, age, household size, distance to the nearest agrovet, vaccinating chicken and the number of chickens kept do not influence co-operative membership.
Research limitations/implications
The survey did not capture data on some variables which have been shown to influence co-operative membership. Nevertheless, the results show key explanatory variables which influence membership in co-operatives.
Practical implications
These findings have implications for development agencies that seek to use co-operatives for agricultural development and improvement of smallholder farmers' livelihoods. The agencies can use the results to initiate interventions relevant for different types of smallholder farmers through co-operatives.
Originality/value
This study highlights the influence of smallholder farmers' financial investments in farming and the extent of commercialisation on co-operative membership. Due to low membership in co-operatives, recognising the heterogeneity of smallholder farmers is the key in agricultural development interventions through co-operative membership.
Peer review
The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-03-2022-0165.
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Bosco, Liu, and West's chapter on underground lotteries in rural China is one that begs permission to cross the boundaries between parts of this volume, for it deals with the…
Abstract
Bosco, Liu, and West's chapter on underground lotteries in rural China is one that begs permission to cross the boundaries between parts of this volume, for it deals with the integration of the Chinese economy with others, and it also poses certain moral questions about the nature of markets and rationality in economic exchanges (see also Suarez, this volume). But the authors, after reviewing the evidence, ultimately conclude that China's underground lotteries must be viewed in relation to that country's phenomenal economic development in recent decades. They show that the rise of illegal underground lotteries in China is tightly connected to the development of the modern capitalist economy there, and that although it seems at first glance to be powered by irrationality and superstition, it actually functions according to capitalist principles – at least as viewed by the participants. They also argue that rural villagers who place bets in them are not mere victims of nonsensical beliefs or of opportunistic “outsiders,” but rather that they are participating in their own way in a system in which luck clearly plays a very large role, but one over which they have little control, and one that is grounded in the historical commercialized economy of China (see also Richardson, 1999). It is interesting to note the way that participants rationalize the lottery and their actions through their assumption that it is rigged – their approach to it is markedly different from that of someone from, for example, Japan or the United States, where such a lottery is assumed from the start to not be rigged. Bosco and co-authors well demonstrate here the importance of viewing a cultural phenomenon as part of a greater whole, and one in a constant state of flux.