Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of media and social network in the development of farmers land consolidation (LC) awareness, perception and adaptation intention decisions. Design/methodology/approach: A face-to-face interview was carried out with randomly selected farmers from three districts (Neijiang, Ya’an and Dujiangyan) of Sichuan province, China. A structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was used to test the conceptual framework of this study. The SEM was set to confirmatory factor analysis of the measurement and structural models for maximum likelihood estimate by means of IBM-AMOS to capture the models goodness-of-fit. Findings: The result indicates that social network contributes a significant role in the development of farmers LC awareness, perception and adaptation intention decisions than media. The total (direct and indirect) effect of social network and media toward the farmers LC adaptation intention is 56.7 and 14 percent, respectively. When farmers are aware and perceived of LC and rehabilitation program, their adaptation intention improves significantly. Therefore, social network is a useful tool in improving the awareness, perception and adaptation intention decisions of Sichuan farmers compared to media. Originality/value: This study tests the applicability of SEM techniques to understand the farmers LC adaptation intentions; and synthesizes the impact of social network and media in the development of the farmers LC awareness, perception as well as adaptation intentions. This study serves as an outline for assessing the adaptation intention of farmers toward sustainable land management.

70 percent of the world and 80 percent of China’s tea production produced by smallholder farmers. However, the tea production per unit area significantly unchanged in the past decades. Understanding factors affecting the technical efficiency of smallholder tea producers is very important to maximize tea production. Aimed at examining the impact of land tenure security and land certification on smallholder tea producers’ technical efficiency, this paper employs the Cobb- Douglas Stochastic Production Frontier (CD-SPF) and Translog Stochastic Production Frontier (TL- SPF) methods for Maximum Likelihood Estimate (MLE) with cross-sectional data collected from 161 randomly selected tea farm plot households in Ya’an city, China. We found that an 1 mu (0.067 ha) increase in the tea farm size will produce a 1.086 tea yield advantage for smallholder tea farmers. We also found that the values of input-output elasticity of land size, household income and labor decrease in turn with 0.144, 0.105 and 0.010 respectively. The results show that farm size is a more crucial input for tea production than income and labor. Moreover, we identify the determinations which enhance the technical efficiency of smallholder tea producers such as land certification, land tenure security age, education, farming experience, total farm size holding, chemical fertilizer, plot steepness and plot distance from home and find that the elimination of land tenure insecurity through land registration and certification makes a clear difference in that. We therefore recommend that tea farmland need to expand and enlarge for better production through comprehensive land consolidation program. We also suggest endorsing the land certificates of all land holders as this will help improve land tenure security, enhance technical efficiency and promote the tea production of smallholder producers.

Land use, which is use of land by human for different purposes, is influenced by two broad sets of forces human needs (socio-economic) and environmental features and processes (biophysical). The study was carried out at Andit Tid watershed one of SCRP research unit founded in 1982, located on 390 43’E 9048’N. This research has aimed to assess the trend and main driving force of land use and land cover change (LULCC) within the catchment / watershed during the last two decades and its impact on soil erosion. Structural questioner was used to collect social data from 8% of the total household. Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM) and supervised image classification used to identify land use/ land cover change of the study area for 1994 and 2014 years, respectively. TESTMAIN and SPSS version 16 Statistical software’s were used for Soil loss calculation and social data analysis, respectively. The result indicates that, there is expansion of cultivated land by 11.33% (44.55ha) while reduction in natural shrub lands by 7.3 % (35.73ha). The main driving forces of land use land cover change are high number of family member, small land holding size and minimum asset own per household, lower educational level of the household, the household mainly occupied on agriculture and there is lack of animal feed. This change forced farmers to collect cereal crops based on suitability area, sale livestock, use organic and inorganic fertilizer and use improved variety due to low crop productivity. The LULC change has an impact on decline soil fertility, cause serious soil erosion problem with in farmland/watershed. The result also indicated that soil loss reached 3655 ton per annum from the watershed. Therefore, proper handling and land use system need to be implemented, rainwater harvesting structures and soil and water conservation practice need to be encouraged in order reduce soil loss.

Globally, fourteen types of Moringa species are discovered. Among these species Moringaoleifera and Moringastenopetala potentially use for nutritional purpose, medicinal and feed values. In addition to these, Moringa leaf juice is being use in the form of a foliar spray that causes the plants to be stronger, more resistant to pests and disease and enhances plant growth. Plants treated with Moringa juice spray produce more and larger fruit and consequently have higher yield. The study conducted at “Kewet” district, Shewa Robit site with the objective of evaluating the contribution of Moringa leaf juice on grain yield and biomass production of sorghum. The result indicated that there was no significant difference observed among treatments on grain yield. However, foliar spray of Moringaoleifera with fertilizer and Moringastenopetala with fertilizer was obtained 25% and 34% of grain yield advantage as compare to only chemical fertilization application. Hence, at Shewarobit condition, foliar spray of Moringa leaf juice is not recommended for sorghum grain yield production. However further study is required across different soil type and agro climatology.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to investigate the inter-sectorial linkage of economic sectors and their contribution to the economic growth using time series data from 1978-2014 and 1992-2014. Design/methodology/approach: This study employed a Johansen cointegration test and Ordinary Least Square (OLS) model. Findings: The Johansen cointegration and multiple regression results indicate that all economic sectors have strong, positive and significant long-run and short-run relationship with economic growth during the study period in both countries. The result revealed that MNF giant is an engine for Chinese economic growth while agriculture took the lion-share for Ethiopian economy. The MNF has bi-directional Granger cause with economic growth, agriculture and SRV for China, while GDP and AGR are the only bi-directional Granger causes variables for Ethiopia. Implications: Therefore, from a policy perspective, Ethiopian policymakers need to formulate agro-processing industries to ensure the transformation of the AGR to the MNF as well as maintain inter-sectorial linkage and sustain the country’s economic growth.

Land fragmentation is a common phenomenon in Ethiopia, particularly in the Central Highlands of Ethiopia and it affects the agricultural production systems. Understanding the private adaptive intention-behavior towards land fragmentation is very crucial for policymakers to plan alternative comprehensive land management tools. Taking the advantage of Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and utility of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), this study aimed to: 1) understand farmers’ perspective and adaptive intention-behavior towards land fragmentation and, 2) test the applicability of TPB on land fragmentation adaptive intention through SEM techniques. The findings indicated that farmers perceived of land fragmentation risks, social pressure and social incentives are 1) the more favorable to perform decision-making to comprehensive land consolidation and modern agricultural mechanization, and 2) the more inspiration to use recommended farm inputs. Therefore, this is the right time for Policymakers to shift from voluntary basis for comprehensive land consolidation in order to improve the agricultural production as well as to achieve sustainable rural development in Ethiopia. The TPB and SEM are useful tools to understand the farmers’ perspectives and adaptive intentions towards land fragmentation. However, further study is required to promote and disseminate the efforts of land consolidation in Ethiopia.