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This study analyzes the impact of COVID-19 on agricultural production in South India by evaluating the influence of market channels and socioeconomic conditions on the production decisions of farmers during two key cropping seasons. We base our analysis on primary data from 200 marginal, small and medium farmers, primarily focusing on the key seasonal crops, namely paddy and black gram.

We studied the downstream supply chains of paddy and black gram crops in the district of Villupuram, situated in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Using a Bi-Probit model, we analyzed the production decisions of marginal, small and medium farmers engaged in paddy and black gram cultivation. Various factors are considered, including farmers’ socioeconomic characteristics, gender, market channels accessed and the coping strategies employed.

After the easing of lockdown measures in June 2020, our research revealed substantial disruptions in agricultural production during the critical Kharif and Rabi seasons. Most farmers refrained from returning to their fields during the Kharif season; those who did produced millet as the main crop. Factors such as choice of market channels in previous seasons, economic status, access to all-weather roads, labor availability, gender and coping strategies played an important role in the return to production in the subsequent Kharif and Rabi seasons.

Our data revealed several interesting threads related to price volatility, irrigation and access to markets and their impact on food security. The role of intermediaries and market channels in providing liquidity emerges as an important aspect of farmers' choice of markets. The pandemic impacted all these factors, but a detailed analysis was beyond the scope of this study.

We also find that resilience to economic shocks varies not only by economic status but also by gender and social groups. Farmers with female members are more likely to be resilient, and marginal and small farmers primarily belong to social groups that are economically less developed.

This study contributes to the literature on factors influencing farmer choice and decision-making and provides nuances to discussions by analyzing crop-specific supply chains, highlighting the critical role of socioeconomic factors. It also highlights the role of demographics and infrastructural factors like access to all-weather roads and access to markets that influence farmers’ production decisions.

Output from the Irish Dairy Industry has grown rapidly since the abolition of quotas in 2015, with processors investing heavily in capacity expansion to deal with the extra milk volumes. Further capacity gains may be achieved by extending the processing season into the winter, a key enabler for which being the reduction of duration of the winter maintenance overhaul period. This paper aims to investigate if Lean Six Sigma tools and techniques can be used to enhance operational maintenance performance, thereby releasing additional processing capacity.

Combining the Six-Sigma Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control (DMAIC) methodology and the structured approach of Turnaround Maintenance (TAM) widely used in process industries creates a novel hybrid model that promises substantial improvement in maintenance overhaul execution. This paper presents a case study applying the DMAIC/TAM model to Ireland’s largest dairy processing site to optimise the annual maintenance shutdown. The objective was to deliver a 30% reduction in the duration of the overhaul, enabling an extension of the processing season.

Application of the DMAIC/TAM hybrid resulted in process enhancements, employee engagement and a clear roadmap for the operations team. Project goals were delivered, and original objectives exceeded, resulting in €8.9m additional value to the business and a reduction of 36% in the duration of the overhaul.

The results demonstrate that the model provides a structure that promotes systematic working and a continuous improvement focus that can have substantial benefits for wider industry. Opportunities for further model refinement were identified and will enhance performance in subsequent overhauls.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time that the structure and tools of DMAIC and TAM have been combined into a hybrid methodology and applied in an Irish industrial setting.

The authors assess the development potential of cowpea beyond grain in local markets in Mali by: (1) identifying trader types and types of cowpea products sold; (2) examining trader roles; (3) estimating gross margins and their determinants; and (4) discussing policy opportunities to further develop the value chain.

The authors analyze data collected through observation and semi-structured questionnaires from 487 sellers in 26 markets, including market, seller, and product characteristics. The authors also calculate gross margins and conduct a regression analysis to identify influential factors.

The authors identify several types of cowpea sellers in local markets, including processor-retailers, retailers of fresh leaves and fodder, and grain retailers, collectors and wholesalers. Women dominate the marketing of processed products and fresh leaves. The marketing of boiled cowpeas offers retailers higher margin rates compared to fritters and pancakes. Grain sellers, who are mostly men, have lower margins but sell larger quantities. Processor-retailers bring more value to the cowpea value chain. Specialization of the seller in cowpea, regional location of the market and day of the market fair all influence gross margins.

Future work should explore consumer preferences for different types of cowpea products.

This study of the cowpea value chain in Mali has revealed the multidimensional character of the cowpea plant, which goes far beyond its grain and highlight the important roles played by women.

This study empirically examines the impact of climate change and agricultural research and development (R&D) as well as their interaction on agricultural productivity in 12 selected Asian and Pacific countries over the period of 1990–2018.

Various estimation methods for panel data, including Fixed Effects (FE), the Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS) and two-step System Generalized Method of Moments (SGMM) were used.

Results show that both proxies of climate change – temperature and precipitation – have negative impacts on agricultural productivity. Notably, agricultural R&D investments not only increase agricultural productivity but also mitigate the detrimental impact of climate change proxied by temperature on agricultural productivity. Interestingly, climate change proxied by precipitation initially reduces agricultural productivity until a threshold of agricultural R&D beyond which precipitation increases agricultural productivity.

The findings imply useful policies to boost agricultural productivity by using R&D in the context of rising climate change in the vulnerable continent.

This study contributes to the literature in two ways. First, this study examines how climate change affects agricultural productivity in Asian and Pacific countries – those are most vulnerable to climate change. Second, this study assesses the role of R&D in improving agricultural productivity as well as its moderating effect in reducing the harmful impact of climate change on agricultural productivity.

Everyone is extremely concerned about environmental protection and health safety due to the rise in living standards. Plant-derived natural dyes have garnered much industrial attention in food, pharmaceutical, textile, cosmetics, etc. owing to their health and environmental benefits. The present study aims to focus on the elimination of the use of synthetic dyes and provides brief information about natural dyes, their sources, extraction procedures with characterization and various advantages and disadvantages.

In producing natural colors, extraction and purification are essential steps. Various conventional methods used till date have a low yield, as these consume a lot of solvent volume, time, labor and energy or may destroy the coloring behavior of the actual molecules. The establishment of proper characterization and certification protocols for natural dyes would improve the yielding of natural dyes and benefit both producers and users.

However, scientists have found modern extraction methods to obtain maximum color yield. They are also modifying the fabric surface to appraise its uptake behavior of color. Various extraction techniques such as solvent, aqueous, enzymatic and fermentation and extraction with microwave or ultrasonic energy, supercritical fluid extraction and alkaline or acid extraction are currently available for these natural dyes and are summarized in the present review article.

If natural dye availability can be increased by the different extraction measures and the cost of purified dyes can be brought down with a proper certification mechanism, there is a wide scope for the adoption of these dyes by small-scale dyeing units.

This paper investigates the ways digital media applications in rural areas have transformed the influence of social networks (SN) on farmers' adoption of various climate change mitigation measures (CCMM), and explores the key mechanisms behind this transformation.

The study analyzes data from 1,002 farmers’ surveys. First, a logit model is used to measure the impact of SN on the adoption of different types of CCMM. Then, the interaction term between digital media usage (DMU) and SN is introduced to analyze the moderating effect of digital media on the impact of SN. Finally, a conditional process model is used to explore the mediating mechanism of agricultural socialization services (ASS) and the validity of information acquisition (VIA).

The results reveal that: (1) SN significantly promotes the adoption of CCMM and the marginal effect of this impact varies with different kinds of technologies. (2) DMU reinforces the effectiveness of SN in promoting farmers' adoption of CCMM. (3) The key mechanisms of the process in (2) are the ASS and the VIA.

This study shows that in the context of DMU, SN’s promotion effect on farmers' adoption of CCMM is strengthened.

Disasters and armed conflict often co-occur, but does that imply that disasters trigger or fuel conflict? In the small but growing body of literature attempting to answer this question, divergent findings indicate the complex and contextual nature of a potential answer to this question. The purpose of this study is to contribute a robust cross-country analysis of the co-occurrence of disaster and conflict, with a particular focus on the potential role played by disaster.

Grounded in a theoretical model of disaster–conflict co-occurrence, this study merges data from 163 countries between 1990 and 2017 on armed conflict, disasters and relevant control variables (low human development, weak democratic institutions, natural resource dependence and large population size/density).

The main results of this study show that, despite a sharp increase in the co-occurrence of disasters and armed conflict over time, disasters do not appear to have a direct statistically significant relation with the occurrence of armed conflict. This result contributes to the understanding of disasters and conflicts as indirectly related via co-creation mechanisms and other factors.

This study is a novel contribution, as it provides a fresh analysis with updated data and includes different control variables that allow for a significant contribution to the field.

Living walls (LWs), vegetated walls with an integrated growth layer behind, are being increasingly incorporated in buildings. Examining plant characteristics’ comparative impacts on LWs’ energy efficiency-related thermal behavior was aimed, considering that studies on their relative effects are limited. LWs of varying leaf albedo, leaf transmittance and leaf area index (LAI) were studied for Antalya, Turkey for typical days of four seasons.

Dynamic simulations run by Envi-met were used to assess the plant characteristics’ influence on seasonal and orientation-based heat fluxes. After model calibration, a sensitivity analysis was conducted through 112 simulations. The minimum, mean and maximum values were investigated for each plant characteristic. Energy need (regardless of orientation), temperature and heat flux results were compared among different scenarios, including a building without LW, to evaluate energy efficiency and variables’ impacts.

LWs reduced annual energy consumption in Antalya, despite increasing energy needs in winter. South and west facades were particularly advantageous for energy efficiency. The impacts of leaf albedo and transmittance were more significant (44–46%) than LAI (10%) in determining LWs’ effectiveness. The changes in plant characteristics changed the energy needs up to ca 1%.

This study can potentially contribute to generating guiding principles for architects considering LW use in their designs in hot-humid climates.

The plant characteristics’ relative impacts on energy efficiency, which cannot be easily determined by experimental studies, were examined using parametric simulation results regarding three plant characteristics.

This paper aims to examine the level of economic efficiency and factors that influence economic efficiency among seed potato producers in South-western Uganda.

The paper analyses the economic efficiency of 499 informal and 137 formal seed producers using primary data collected through a structured questionnaire. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select the study sites and specific farmers. A one-step estimation procedure of normalized translog cost frontier and inefficiency model was employed to determine the level of economic efficiency and the influencing factors.

The results showed that mean economic efficiencies were 91.7 and 95.2% for informal and formal seed potato producers, respectively. Furthermore, results show significant differences between formal and informal seed potato producers in economic efficiency at a one percent level. Market information access, credit access, producers' capacity and experience increase the efficiency of informal while number of potato varieties, market information access and producers' experience increase economic efficiency for formal counterparts.

Most seed potato producers, especially the informal ones do not keep comprehensive records of their production and marketing activities. This required more probing as answers depended on memory recall.

Future research could explore panel data approach involving more cropping seasons with time variant economic efficiency and individual unobservable characteristics that may influence farmers' efficiency to validate the current findings.

The paper shows that there is more potential for seed potato producers to increase their economic efficiency given the available technology. This has a direct implication on the economy through increased investment in the production and promotion of high yielding seed potato varieties to meet the growing national demand for potatoes.

The paper bridges the gap in literature on economic efficiency among seed potato producers, specifically in applying the normalized translog cost frontier approach in estimating economic efficiency in the context of potato sub-sector in Uganda.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-10-2021-0641