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I
was just reading a summary of the document " What's different
about agricultural SWAps" (see http://www.livelihoods.org/static/mfoster_NN122.html)
and I do agree that unlike other sectors, agriculture poses
a lot of limitations to many approaches for sustainable livelihood.
I do not know the parameters used in the SWAp approach but
I would like to share with you the difficulties that am facing
in my current project. While most of the rural people depend
on agriculture for their livelihood, statistics on agricultural
production in many developing countries are reported in broad
terms at district level. With the heterogeneous nature of
most farming systems, it becomes almost unrealistic to base
approaches to sustainable development on such undetailed statistics.
It is indeed expensive to invest money in a project related
to agriculture because crop production is dynamic over the
growing season and data has to be collected seasonally. In
my current study, I try to deaggregate crop area statistics
and map them into possible areas of major crop production.
The general idea is to generate maps of the areas where crops
are possibly grown such would serve as an improved method
to tackling problems related to agriculture for many governments
in developing countries. Such information can probably be
used to modify your approach.
Edith
Birungi Kahubire
Private Box No. 204
International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth
Observation
Hengelostraat 99
P.O.Box 6
7500 AA Enschede
The Netherlands
Email: kahubire@yahoo.co.uk
Telephone: 31 612 689 047
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