Private-sector engagement in greenhouse gas mitigation in Africa’s ruminant livestock value chains: a perspective based on illustrative examples

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and livestock production are topics that are increasingly intertwined. While livestock production is frequently presented as harmful to the environment, this perception fails to consider the carbon sequestration that takes place in livestock grazing systems and the role that grazing ruminants have in maintaining healthy grassland ecosystems. Grazing lands, which are often unsuited to row crop agriculture, are estimated to account for 25% of the global soil sequestration potential for soil carbon storage. Grazing livestock producers are often overlooked in the GHG reduction conversation, despite over 70% of beef GHG emissions being attributed to the cow-calf sector, which is primarily grazing. Furthermore, there is a relative lack of data surrounding the implementation of climate-smart agriculture practices on grazing operations and a lack of cost-effective methods to measure carbon/GHG sinks and sources on these landscapes. The potential climate benefits are considerable, with nearly 940 million acres of rangelands in the U.S. supporting forage-based livestock production. South Dakota State University recently received funding to support a large-scale climate-smart project focused on grazing beef and bison. For this project, we are utilizing the Cottonwood Field Station that has over 80 yr of historical grazing data, along with six grazing beef and bison ranching operations in the Northern Great Plains. The work on these ranches will focus on measuring and monitoring the impacts of climate-smart NRCS land practices, including cover crops, improved pasture and range seedings, prescribed grazing, and prescribed burning. A significant focus will be extensive, annual soil sampling across these operations to continuously monitor changes in soil organic carbon, bulk density, texture, pH, and soil microbiome community profiles. Each operation will have GreenFeed methane pasture units deployed for 5 yr to monitor changes in beef cattle and bison methane emissions in response to climate-smart practice adoption. We are also assessing biodiversity pre and post climate-smart practice adoption, as biodiversity improvements may be one of the most overlooked and yet most important responses to climate-smart land practice implementation. Over the duration of this project, a large-scale, comprehensive data collection will be achieved and used to refine GHG and carbon sequestration estimates associated with range livestock systems. Data resulting from this project will be used to inform research protocols and prediction models, fill knowledge gaps, and shape science-based discussions and marketing strategies for climate-smart agricultural commodities.

Knowledge can add value to organizations through intangible assets, defined as Inte llectual Capital. Em ployees' health and well-being is a very valuable asset, since it is possibly the most influential precondition for Intellectual Capital. The general aim of the research is to compare organizational health between nonprofit and public organizations, formulating the following hypothesis: Employees in public sector organizations show a lower level of organizational health than those of nonprofit organizations. The Multidimensional Organizational Health Questionnaire (MOHQ) was administered to 787 participants; 312 (39.65%) worked in public sector organizations and 475 (60.35%) in nonprofit organizations. The MOHQ measures organizational health through twelve independent dimensions. The results show that nonprofit employees have significant higher levels of organizational health compared to employees from the public sector organizations. In particular, higher mean scores are in favor of nonprofit employees in nine out of the twelve dimensions: objectives, valorization, active listening, conflict, personal relationships, operativity, organizational justice, innovation, and positive indicators. The paper identifies areas with a strong need of intervention in order to improve the organizational health of the employees of public sector organizations and to promote the development of Intellectual Capital.

The current water scarcity situation in South Africa is a threat to sustainable development. The present paper has assessed the water footprint of milk produced and processed in South Africa using the procedures outlined in the water footprint assessment manual. The results show that 1352 m3 of water is required to produce one tonne of milk with 4% fat and 3.3% protein in South Africa. The water used in producing feed for lactating cows alone accounts for 86.35% of the total water footprint of milk. The water footprint of feed ration for lactating cows is about 85% higher than that of non-lactating cows. Green water footprint accounts for more than 86% of the total water footprint of feed ration for lactating cows. Green and blue water footprints are the highest contributors to the total water footprint milk production in South Africa. Water used for feed production for both lactating and non-lactating cows accounts for about 99% of the total water footprint of milk production in South Africa. Particular attention should be given to feed crops with low water footprints and high contribution to dry matter to provide balanced ration with low water footprint. Water users, managers and livestock producers should pay attention to green and blue water consumption activities along the milk value chain and design strategies to minimize them. Corn, sorghum and lucerne production under irrigation in the greater Orange River basin is sustainable, whereas oats production for silage in the same catchment area is not sustainable. Our findings provide the rationale for dairy producers and water users in the dairy industry to get an understanding of the degree of sustainability of their input and output combinations, production choices, and policy interventions, in terms of water use.

The recent economic conditions continue to draw significant attention to the multitude of risks organizations face as they pursue strategic goals. Public and non-profit organizations (NPO) are not an exception when it comes to risks that can challenge their service delivery system and growth sustainability. Their unique features and limited resources require them to adopt and adapt different risk management tools and methods as compared to the corporate organizations. Specifically, the risk management approach adopted in public organizations and NPOs has not been significantly addressed. Hence, this paper aims to explore the development of risk management in public organizations and NPOs. By conducting a systematic review of literature, 12 papers published in the Scopus and Web of Science from 2010 until recent year have been selected and analyzed. Findings from the literature analysis found various types of risks occur in these organizations and demonstrate the factors and importance of adopting risk management practices. However, a holistic approach is still not diffused nor sufficiently developed in both public and not-for-profit sectors. Research on the successful delivery of risk management is still dearth, which creates a huge research gap thus still an area worth researching. The findings from this literature analysis suggest that an instrument or tool to evaluate the practices of the risk management system is required. Thus, this paper serves as the basis for further empirical research on risk management practices of public and non-profit organizations.

Around the world, dairy production continues to intensify, with farmers increasing stocking rates, feeding more supplements, and transitioning into fully housed systems. Dairy production in Victoria is no exception and farmers are starting a move towards intensive (i.e. permanently housed) dairy operations. Challenges associated with these transformations have included difficulties, or failure, to obtain planning approval and public concern around the effect of intensive developments on environmental degradation, animal welfare and industry image. We examined current land-use planning provisions, environmental requirements, animal-welfare regulations, industry guidelines and codes of practice for their applicability and suitability to the implementation of intensive dairy-production operations, particularly large-scale ones, in Victoria, Australia. Our aim was to clearly identify factors that have the potential to hinder the growth and expansion of existing dairy-production systems into intensive operations, and the establishment of new intensive dairy enterprises. The majority of legislation examined posed no obstacles to the development of large-scale intensive dairy operations. New definitions for intensive livestock production and the inclusion of an intensive dairy-farm category in the State planning provisions will reduce current confusion across and within planning departments. A standard methodology to determine separation distances is required and a code for intensive dairy farming would greatly assist with the planning-approval process. Many advisory publications fall short when applied to intensive dairy operations as they are currently written for pasture-based farms with limited infrastructure for regularly feeding or housing large herds of >700 cows.

Influencing public policy through advocacy is an essential strategy used by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association (AHA/ASA) to achieve its health impact goals and programmatic objectives, which include helping all Americans lead healthier lives and reducing the incidence and consequences of cardiovascular disease and stroke. This advocacy work involves and engages the association's national officers, researchers, volunteer advocates, staff, and the general public and is a core strategy and key work process of the AHA/ASA. The organization's strategic approach to influencing public policy and leveraging its science and evidence base is not well known. This article provides the historical context of AHA advocacy, the organizational and legal structure under which these activities are carried out, the process used to develop the association's public policy positions and goals, the approaches used to achieve these goals, and the methods that have been developed to evaluate progress. This statement also examines the various tools and tactics that advocacy organizations use to influence public policy and specifically how the AHA/ASA conducts policy research, legislative and regulatory lobbying, coalition building and grassroots mobilization, and media advocacy. Finally, the ways that AHA/ASA evaluates the impact of its advocacy efforts are discussed, highlighting specific case studies and a brief summary of the association's 2010 to 2013 public policy agenda. The AHA's efforts to translate the science of cardiovascular disease and stroke into meaningful public policy began in earnest in the early 1980s. The association established a full-time office in Washington, DC, in early 1981 that was initially focused on increasing federal research funding administered by the National Institutes of Health.1 Other early policy priorities included tobacco control and support for programs that increased access to automated external defibrillators (AEDs), new clinical preventive benefits in the Medicare program, and nutrition policy. The commitment and involvement of …

As with meat production in much of the Global South, beef production in South Africa has become increasingly industrialised. What does this entail for governance and power relations in meat value chains, and what are the implications for widely shared aspirations to build ‘inclusive’ value chains that incorporate smallholder livestock farmers? The paper finds that the mid-sections of the chain have become increasingly concentrated, with vertically integrated industrial feedlots emerging as powerful actors. These exert not only forms of dyadic bargaining power, but also demonstrative power shaping farming norms. New biosecurity imperatives and farmer capability requirements accompany the intensification of industrial meat production, which is accelerated in this case by a drive for export-led growth and competition with cheaper proteins. These elevate barriers to value chain participation, and may generate important tensions with the institutional, ecological and social conditions of smallholder cattle farming.

Development of livestock production in the tropics: farm and farmers’ perspectives

Smallholder farmers in South Africa have not been linked successfully to sustainable agro-processing value chains. This study aimed to identify factors influencing smallholder farmers’ decision to participate in the agro-processing industry, as well as the extent of their participation in the Gauteng Province. Data was collected through a structured questionnaire that was administered face-to-face to respondents in a randomly purposive selected sample of 102 smallholder farmers. A double-hurdle model was used to analyse factors influencing the decision to participate and the level of participation in agro-processing. The results show that very few (19%) smallholder farmers participate in the agro-processing industry of the Gauteng Province. The results also revealed that factors such as educational level, land tenure, agro-processing training and information have a positive influence on the decision to participate. Distance to market and off-farm income negatively influence the decision to participate. The level of participation is influenced by socio-economic factors such as age, household size, level of education, grain and livestock producers, farm size and access to training. The study recommends that smallholder agro-processing policy instruments be adjusted to facilitate effective participation in the agro-processing industry and participation in other high market value chains. There is a need to build up local agro-processing plants as a strategy of lowering the costs of transportation and storage when farmers take their farm produce to distant manufacturers or processors.

The Steyn and Puth (2000) model for strategic communication management has been applied bystudents and other project participants to non-profit organisations (NPOs), government institutionsand small and medium enterprises in South Africa, but organisations’ communication practiceshave not been measured against the model. This paper reports on the strategic communicationmanagement practices of NPOs in the adult-literacy sector in South Africa, as compared withthe strategic steps in the Steyn and Puth model. The aim of this study was to analyse currentcommunication practices in the adult-literacy sector of South African NPOs in terms of the normative,theoretical Steyn and Puth model for strategic communication management. The purpose wasto understand the participating NPOs’ operational and strategic communication managementcontext, since little research in this regard has to date been conducted. Recommendations forstrategic communication management and relationship building by NPOs are also made.

This study systematically reviews the peer-reviewed literature on livestock production and food security in urbanizing environments of developing countries to synthesize the existing evidence and identify priorities for future research. Specifically, a systematic literature review was undertaken using PubMed, ISI Web of Science and Scopus databases over the period 1980–2017, resulting in a final number of 72 articles meeting our selection criteria. The results revealed a fragmentation in the literature, which draws from a very small number of studies, and is positioned in widely varied research areas, environments, livestock systems and consumption patterns. With such heterogeneity, drawing generalizations from the literature may be unreachable. Furthermore, the literature is largely qualitative in nature, with very few comprehensive models to capture and integrate empirical evidence. Food security was typically found to be narrowly defined, focusing primarily on interlinks with livestock supply. Considerably less attention has been given to other relevant dimensions of food security, such as accessibility, utilization and stability. Another important finding of relevance to food security is a need to address the “missing middle” in livestock value chains since the literature has customarily concentrated extensively on the two ends of the livestock value chain, i.e., on production and consumption, while widely ignoring other elements and actors along the value chain. A further focus on the interrelationships between livestock production, food security and urbanization in developing countries through a holistic and interdisciplinary approach is recommended. Particularly, future research aiming to understand livestock systems in the context of rapid urbanization should put more emphasis on addressing the full continuum of the livestock value chain and the four dimensions that drive food security in developing countries and how they possibly interrelate.

A Unique Opportunity for Education Policy Makers Jenna Conway (bio) When it comes to solving problems and measuring impact, public education organizations primarily rely on two approaches—using civil service to hire personnel directly or using competitive procurement to hire outside experts on contract. These two approaches can limit such organizations' efforts to gain insights, to incorporate cutting-edge research into policy and practice, and to develop innovative solutions quickly, nimbly and affordably. In this commentary, I discuss how public education organizations can use research-practice partnerships (RPPs), especially partnerships with public higher education institutions, to tackle new, unique, and complicated education problems and thereby help children. Consider how traditional approaches can inadvertently limit public education organizations. In civil service, most jobs are full-time, classified positions with very specific descriptions that are subject to a range of restrictions to protect the rights of employees. It can be hard to gain new insights without procuring outside experts whose rates are significantly higher than most government pay scales. Similarly, public education organizations may have a research director or team, but they usually don't have the capacity to analyze all the available data or measure the impact of everything the organization does. For new initiatives or pilot programs, public education organizations rarely have the internal research or analytical capacity to conduct rigorous, real-time research on interventions as they are implementing them. Instead, they typically rely on outside research. Doing so entails a lengthy grant application or procurement process and requires an extended time period to collect and analyze data and produce findings. Finally, with procurement, a public organization must specify both the problem and proposed solution up front, establish constraints, and require bidders to define precisely what they will do and provide and how much it will cost. This can inhibit an iterative design process where prototypes can be tested and improved. To top it off, the procurement process itself can take a year or more. Procurement may work well for well-established projects and services, but it proves more challenging when a state is [End Page 157] designing a new service, intervention, or tool, especially one that will be used by a large and diverse set of users. In contrast, RPPs, particularly those involving public higher education institutions, offer a unique opportunity for policy makers to expediently and cost-effectively gain expertise, integrate real-time research into their policies and practices, and design and build innovative solutions in an iterative manner that better meets their needs. First, RPPs allow public education organizations to gain cutting-edge expertise without having to hire full-time staff or procure expensive consultants, which may not be economically feasible. When I was assistant superintendent of early childhood for the Louisiana Department of Education, we established a multi-year partnership with Daphna Bassok at the University of Virginia School of Education. In an ambitious transformation of its birth-to-five early childhood system, Louisiana unified its child care, Head Start, and school-based prekindergarten systems. Specifically, over five years, Louisiana established uniform expectations across programs, supported local networks in every community, measured interactions in every classroom, offered incentives for quality improvement at the classroom level, and coordinated enrollment locally to make it easier for families to choose the best option for their children. Louisiana's approach, which was different from that of most other states, entailed significant change for early childhood educators and for the department. Operating from the hypothesis that teacher-child interactions are what matters most for child outcomes, Louisiana rapidly gathered classroom data from thousands of child care, Head Start, and school sites across the state. It would have been hard to hire staff or craft a contract with specific targets when we were unsure what the data would reveal and when no other state or entity had done what we were doing. In exchange for our collaborating on research projects (and the grant proposals that preceded them), helping them safely and securely access appropriate data, and offering their graduate students valuable internship opportunities, UVA helped Louisiana make sense of large volumes of new classroom data, offered insights on how to encourage improvement, designed new approaches to engage families through enrollment, and...

This research paper explores the administrative challenges faced by non-profit organisations (NPOs) operating in Durban, South Africa, through the insights of NPO founders. Using a qualitative methodology, the study employs semi-structured interviews with NPO leaders across sectors, including education, health, and community development. Findings reveal that NPOs in Durban face significant obstacles, particularly in sustaining funding, addressing human resource constraints, meeting regulatory compliance requirements, and building capacity. Many NPOs struggle to secure adequate financial support due to intense competition for limited grant funding and reliance on unpredictable government funding, thereby affecting their operational effectiveness. Additionally, high staff turnover and reliance on volunteers exacerbate human resource challenges, hindering service delivery. Regulatory burdens further complicate operations, as navigating complex compliance requirements demands significant time and resources. The study underscores the need for enhanced training and capacity-building initiatives to equip NPO leaders with essential management and administration skills. The paper concludes with recommendations to foster the digital transformation of the administrative process among NPOs. By addressing these administrative challenges collectively, NPOs in Durban can enhance their effectiveness in serving the local communities.

Forging a Strategic and Comprehensive Approach to Evaluation Within Public and Nonprofit Organizations

This study explored the food security status of peri-urban livestock farmers in the township of Botleng, Delmas, South Africa, and sought to determine whether livestock production has contributed to the food security of farming households in the area. The specific objectives were to determine: (i) the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of farmers in the township of Botleng, Delmas, South Africa, (ii) the food security status of farmers in the area, (iii) the contribution of peri-urban livestock farming to food accessibility of farmers in the area, and (iv) other contributions acquired through livestock production in the study area outside of those which affect food security. Primary data were collected from 108 farmers who were randomly selected and were subsequently interviewed through the administration of a questionnaire, which contained the standard Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS). Demographic and socio-economic information was collected to better understand the dynamics of the livestock farmers in the area. The HFIAS is a standardized questionnaire, used to acquire household food security information and give an idea of the food security status of a household. A descriptive analysis was performed, and the results showed that the area only had black farmers, the majority of which were elderly males. It was further found that 86.1% of the households were food secure and that 99.1% of the households showed that livestock production contributed financially to the household. Furthermore, of those that indicated that they received income from livestock sales, 99.07% of them indicated that the money they received was used to buy food, amongst other things. This showed that livestock production contributed to food security in the households of the farmers through increasing food access. It was recommended that livestock production be encouraged in more households especially among youth and women and that capacity building of farmers is essential, especially in enhancing their earning potentials in livestock farming. Key words: Food security, Livestock farmers, Food security status, Peri-urban South Africa