Studies done by Oloo et al. showed that the use of permethrin-treated sisal curtains led to the exit of half-gravid mosquitoes from indoors. This could be one of the reasons why there was a high collection of halfgravid mosquitoes, both An. gambiae and An. funestus. This result coincided with the human behaviour study where >50% of the population stayed outdoors after dusk but went indoors by 21.00 h and woke up before dawn to do their daily chores. Similar studies in the lowlands of western Kenya have also reported that the vectors bite throughout the night and mostly indoors. Anopheles funestus feeding habits suggest that transmission is most likely happening indoors, although there is a high risk of outdoor transmission. Findings in the lowland regions show that An. funestus was the most infectious vector while in the highlands; An. gambiae was the main vector of transmission. The ratio of blood-feds to half-gravids was 3:1 and the capture of both blood-feds and halfgravids shows that there was insecticidal excito-repellency. This blood-fed to gravid ratio can be as a result of mortality of the vectors after contact with ITNs or insecticide repellency. The capture of half-gravids and gravid vectors is an indicator of exophily.Under the use of ITNs in Tanzania, the tendency of mosquitoes to exit the indoor environment increased . In Ethiopia, An. arabiensis avoided resting on DDT sprayed surfaces. In western Kenya, the proportion of An. gambiae taking a blood meal before humans slept under ITNs increased after the introduction of ITNs. These shifts in biting and resting behaviour reduce exposure of malaria vectors to the impacts of insecticides thus minimizes their mortality resulting in sustained malaria transmission. Data collected from this study suggests Anopheles funestus may have changed its resting behaviour. In previous studies,indoor plant growing racks where ITNs were not in use, no blood fed females of An. funestus were collected in light traps and exit traps.
Equally, no blood fed female An. funestus were collected in outdoor placed light traps. In the current study, blood fed An. funestus were collected in indoor and outdoor placed light traps suggesting a post blood feeding flight activity and possibly exit to the outdoor environment. Studies being undertaken will test whether the blood fed females had fed on humans or other hosts. Data from this study indicates that the proportion of An. funestus in Iguhu and Marani, where historical data exists, has increased in recent years which suggests that this vector has better survival under the use of ITNS than An. gambiae s.l. this could be explained by increased avoidance of insecticide treated surfaces a behaviour that remains to be studied. There was a difference in the densities of the vectors collected between households that had at least one bed net and households that did not own a bed net. This was seen in Kombewa, a site that had An. funestus as the main vector. Fewer vectors were collected in the households that had at least one bed net. Mbogo et al. reported that after distribution of permethrin-treated bed nets, fewer vectors were collected. This shows that owning a bed net protects the household from malaria vectors, while a high coverage of bed net ownership creates community-wide protection from mosquitoes. Besides owning a bed net and the high distribution in the study sites, there has been a reported increase in the resistance to insecticides both in West Africa and in East Africa, especially in western Kenya. Change in behaviour patterns due to high ownership of bed nets are also reducing the role of An. gambiae s.s. in malaria transmission but not ruling out the role of An. arabiensis.Producers and suppliers seeking to innovate and succeed in the future of agribusiness are keenly aware that sustainability-based purchasing is accelerating, and that more than ever, up-and-coming consumer segments such as millennials and gen Z are driven by the environmental impact, taste and quality of their grocery products . As sustainability increasingly becomes a key differentiator for marketing agricultural products and costs of fertilizers and feed grow, there is increasing interest in integrating pastured poultry and crop farming. Pastured poultry in integrated cropping systems is an opportunity to produce a more diverse array of higher-value animal products such as egg, poultry meat and crops, which maximizes land-use efficiency while reducing producers’ reliance on purchased inputs such as feed and fertilzier .
Grazing animals play an important ecological role in managing vegetation and cycling organic biomass and nutrients into the soil, which in turn sustains rich plant life and healthy ecosystems. Integrated crop-livestock systems utilize agricultural techniques such as rotational grazing—practiced historically and currently around the world—that leverage this beneficial relationship between animals, soils and plants . Rotational grazing is practiced with many different types of livestock including cattle and pigs. In this study we refer specifically to pastured poultry as the rotational grazing of poultry. Rotational grazing is a management technique that entails containing poultry in one portion of the pasture and successively moving them to other portions of the pasture, or removing them from the pasture before they fully denude the vegetation in any given area . The grazed portion of the pasture is then given time to regrow before animals are allowed to graze it again, while the poultry’s brief visitation can ultimately benefit the quality of the soil and pasture in various ways. The term “chicken tractor”, describing bottomless mobile chicken coops used for rotational poultry grazing, has emerged amongst proponents of alternative agricultural production systems as a notable technology specific to rotational pastured poultry systems . Proponents of pastured poultry claim that in contrast to conventional production systems, which contain poultry in stationary housing such as barns, pastured poultry can offer improved welfare conditions wherein poultry can experience more enriched surroundings and natural behaviors such as scratching the ground and catching insects . Properly managed rotational grazing is additionally said to reduce disease pressure on the chickens compared to stationary-housed chickens given access to pasture. For instance, rotating poultry to a new patch of pasture avoids the buildup of excess manure, pathogens and parasites in the land . Although poultry are not ruminants so for the most part cannot obtain calories from forages, forages and insects found in pasture allow them to supplement their diets with vitamins, minerals, protein and fiber . Evidence is emerging that pastured poultry eggs and meat can contain better dietary value in terms of certain vitamins, fatty acids, and cholesterol . Although nutritional benefits depend on the quality of the pasture , some studies have also shown comparable or higher yields from pastured or crop-integrated poultry compared with conventional systems .
Farmers may manage rotational grazing with the goal of maximizing the benefits of pasture for poultry production, or intentionally integrate rotational grazing with the goal of building a mutually beneficial relationship with crop production. While conventional systems produce animals and crops on separate farms, resulting in both soil nutrient depletion related to heavy reliance on costly soil amendments on one hand and excessive manure pollution on the other , integrated farming can create a more resource efficient “closed loop” system wherein pastured poultry consume crop residue,montel grow racks and deposit manure to support crop production. In addition to the benefits derived from pastured poultry alone, integrated cropping systems can purportedly also benefit from improved retention of soil nitrogen, a key nutrient for crops as well as other important soil quality indicators . As poultry forage outdoors, they can provide additional ecosystem services such as weed or insect pest control . These characteristics of pastured poultry contribute to higher crop yields and economic profit . For vegetable producers interested in trialing integrated cropping, poultry requires lower entry costs relative to other livestock, lowering the barriers to development of small-businesses and additional innovation . Despite the longtime existence and renewed interest in pastured poultry and integrated cropping, its scale and popularity are much smaller than that of conventional systems. Although promising examples exist regarding the benefits of integrated poultry-crop systems, research to substantiate the purported benefits remains sparse around certain features of these farming systems. For instance, although consumers commonly perceive that pastured poultry provides welfare benefits as compared to chickens raised conventionally indoors, there is a trade off since poultry raised outdoors experience higher mortality rate associated with potential exposure to extreme elements, predation and disease vectors, that may also result in reduced yield of meat and eggs . Risk of food-borne pathogen contamination is an important concern that is also not yet sufficiently studied in integrated cropping with pastured poultry . Further research is still needed to fully evaluate the potential benefits and challenges. If significant potential to benefit from such farming systems exist, then extensionists should help more agricultural producers gain awareness of it, and support them in overcoming challenges to successful implementation so that the integrated pastured poultry and cropping practices can be utilized at a larger scale to benefit more people. However, the degree of awareness or importance farmers and the public attribute to the benefits and drawbacks of such production systems has not yet been extensively studied. Additional research to gain understanding of the challenges or successes experienced by current practitioners of pastured poultry and integrated farming can help guide the production of scientific knowledge that will strengthen the value that agricultural extension services can bring to farming innovators. For agricultural research and extension to meet the knowledge demands of producers in adopting innovations in rotationally grazed poultry and integrated cropping, as well as to promote awareness of these sustainable production alternatives, it is imperative to incorporate producers’ perceptions into research generation and science communication.
The significance of studying social media and other online user-generated content is two-fold. First, as a means of knowledge dissemination: it has been demonstrated that for farmers with access to online technologies such as smartphones, the use of social media platforms as an agricultural extension tool improves adoption of sustainable agricultural technologies . In fact, the important role of social networks in enhancing adoption of sustainable technologies or natural resource management practices is an established topic of research and online platforms can facilitate this. Second, as prevalent forms of communication evolve, and the global population increasingly seek out online media and online platforms for community and knowledge exchange, online conversations present a unique opportunity for researchers to understand current perceptions of the benefits, challenges, and other motivators around the agricultural innovations in question . This study underlines the importance of understanding social media as platforms for social learning, and ultimately as channels for more productive exchange and understanding between farmers and extension service. Already, corporations and market researchers are targeting social media and other online user generated content as an essential part of their strategy to understand how people converse about certain products or brands . Companies use social media data to understand consumer sentiments on product features, and look to these platforms to gain an advantage in advertising products and disseminating information to the public . In the new age of social media, it is no longer sufficient to reach the public through traditional means that mostly seeks a passive audience, but rather to capture a continuous and active relationship of consumer engagement . Since 72 percent of US adults utilize social media , conversations gathered from these online platforms can represent a larger proportion of individuals in the population than would be feasible with traditional survey tools . Sometimes, associated metadata scraped from the social medial posts also allow researchers to analyze geographic and temporal trends to understand where posts originate, and how online discourse is evolving over time. From a science communication perspective, the auto amplification effects of social networks which allow certain information to “go viral” online, present an opportunity for new practices and technologies to reach an audience with low excess costs . In addition to allowing sampling of a greater portion of the population, researchers are also applying machine learning methods for targeted marketing of specific consumer segments. For instance, Wang et. al’s work presents an approach to customer segmentation by using machine learning models to identify “Sentiment Communities”, defined as “a group of users who are closely connected and highly consistent in their sentiments about one product/service”.