Doubling Farmers’ Income through Integrated Farming System Approach in Purba Barddhaman District of West Bengal

Integration of different enterprises / crop by utilizing farmer’s available resources is one of the best multidisciplinary approaches to boosting farmers’ income from production and economic point of view. In this context, awareness and dissemination of this farming approach are taken as a priority of work with multidisciplinary interventions. One model has been developed on Integrated Farming System Approach in the farmers’ fields on Crop + poultry + fish or Crop + duck + fish in aquatic based production through conducting awareness camp, trainings, trials and demonstrations. This has been developed in the field of one of the farmers namely Shoyeb Hossain, a marginal farmer-cum-rural youth of Jagulipara village in Purba Barddhaman disrict of West Bengal. Although being a rural youth, he has got a pragmatic view towards latest agricultural technologies and he is keen to learn and as such he was chosen for developing the integrated farming system model in his backyard. He owned one pond of 1 bigha with adjoining 1.5 bigha land including bund area. The pond was mainly used for household purposes like washing with irregular or even no pisciculture while the land area was used for growing seasonal vegetables for meeting household needs and as a result he was hardly having any meaningful income from the resources. He was extensively trained towards developing the integrated farming system in his backyard which he accomplished with success. To start with he was supplied with tissue cultured banana plantlets, vegetable seedlings, poultry chicks, ducklings and IMC fingerlings. A good banana orchard intercropped with vegetables like chili, tomato, brinjal, turmeric etc. was developed. The model with Crop+ fish + poultry farming has proven more remunerative (Benefit-Cost ratio 2.40) and his earning around Rs. 1,50,000 per annum from that farm, thus inspiring other farmers to adopt this kind of intervention. Advantageous aspects such as production potentiality, insurance coverage by other crops / enterprise, flow of return motivated farming community as well as district officials. Study on changes in food security indicated that over 4 years there has been augmentation in food security of the respondents. This is due to increase in income owing to adoption of improved technologies and crop diversification. It was revealed that the annual income of the members increased from Rs.15000/-to Rs. 135000in the 4 eastern clusters but that of Galsi cluster ranged between Rs. 10500/- to Rs 82000/-. The income augmentation was positively correlated with the land holding (0.95) size of the respondents. This model has been identified by district MGNREGA and had been taken up in MGNREGA convergence programme which is being replicated in selected 200 ponds recently excavated under the programme in the district. Many workshops have been conducted on the methodologies for these interventions to all the beneficiaries, Self Help Group (SHGs) and officers of line departments involving in the convergence programme of MGNREGA of the district.

Kyffin Williams online: creating a digital resource for an art collection at the National Library of Wales

When Sir Kyffin Williams, RA died in 2006 he bequeathed a large section of his estate to the National Library of Wales (NLW) – an institution with which the artist, most known for his landscape paintings of north-west Wales, had a long association. Combined with material already in the NLW’s collections, there are now over 200 works in oil, over 1200 works on paper and a comprehensive archive held at Aberystwyth. The collection’s presence in a library rather than museum or gallery raises questions of how the work can be displayed or exhibited. In this essay I will give some background to this collection and the wider art holdings of the National Library of Wales before discussing how geo-spatial approaches are being used to display this collection digitally. This work is being completed as a collaborative Knowledge Economy Skills Scholarship (KESS) PhD project between Aberystwyth University School of Art and the National Library of Wales. KESS is part-funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) through the European Union’s Convergence Programme (West Wales and the Valleys) administered by the Welsh Government.

Wpływ kryzysu gospodarczego na potencjalne członkostwo Polski w trzecim etapie Unii Gospodarczej i Walutowej

The continuous uncertainty concerning the final consequences of the economic crisis in the Eurozone, as well as the level of recession in Poland, increase the risk of introducing the common currency and giving up the monetary policy instruments. However, the Polish economy and the economy of the Eurozone are so much interrelated that an emergence of a deep recession in the EMU which would be able to sidestep Poland is hardly probable. Hence, the influence of the current economic crisis on the Polish membership in the Eurozone should be analyzed mainly from the point of view of Poland's ability to ful%ll the convergence criteria under the economic slowdown. Such an analysis is the aim of this article. The biggest challenge for Poland is a substantial reduction in the budget deficit. In 2010 the budget deficit in Poland - instead of decreasing (as it was planned in the Polish "Convergence Programme") - continued to increase. Growing budget deficit means an increase in the public debt. Furthermore, the inability to fulfill the fiscal criterion leads to the serious problems concerning the other convergence criteria (that is, the level of nominal interest rates and the stability of the exchange rate). Moreover, under such circumstances it would be dificult for the fiscal policy to play the role of so-called stabilizer if Poland decided to enter ERM II (and such a role would be very helpful regarding the limited autonomy of the monetary policy).

A magyar gazdaságpolitika néhány jellemzője a konvergencia programok és a világgazdasági válság tükrében

According to the Treaty of Maastricht only those member states can join the zone of the common money which meet the so-called requirements of Maastricht of which Hungary has not met even one since our joining the European Union. Besides, up to the autumn 2006 we got away from the time of its introduction planned by 2007. In 2002 fulfilment of requirements regarding inflation seemed to be the most difficult one. In addition it appeared rational to reduce deficiency in the state budget under 3% by 2004. It would have made possible for Hungary to meet the requirements even in the first, so in 2004, convergence programme and after a two year-long period, in 2007 - after the parliamentary election of 2006 - to introduce the euro together with Slovenia.