Browsing by Author "Kusiluka, Lughano J. M."

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Eliciting smallholder farmers’ tradeoffs and preferences on the attributes of climate smart agriculture in the breadbasket areas of Tanzania using a conjoint experiment method
(Science Publishing Group, 2015-11-13) Mussa, Kassim R.; Saria, Josephat A.; Kusiluka, Lughano J. M.; Jiwaji, Noorali T.; Gwambene, Brown; Pauline, Noah M.; Msofe, Nangware K.; Tegeje, Juma A.; Messo, Innocent
While policy and decision-makers are striving to enhance food security amidst maddening impacts of climate change, climate smart agriculture is thought of as a promising breakthrough for responding to climate change impacts in Tanzania and elsewhere in the world as it strives to increase food productivity; build resilience of agricultural systems to climate change impacts and reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emission. Studies show that agricultural sector is both, a cause and a victim of climate change. It significantly contributes greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. However, achieving climate change mitigation through agriculture without compromising food security is a huge policy and research challenge, some scientists say, it is practically impossible. This study sought to determine tradeoffs and preferences of smallholder farmers on the attributes climate smart agricultural practices, specifically modeling choices of smallholder farmers using choice experiment method. Upon estimating three different models, positive utilities were observed in high productivity, Moderate and low GHG emission as well as on moderate and high resilient farming systems. Smallholder farmers showed a complete disutility on low and moderate agricultural productivity, high GHG emission and low resilient farming systems. The models therefore justified the fact that, attaining more yield without a compromise in greenhouse gas emission reduction targets is a blue-sky dream. In order to concisely inform policy, more research on farmers’ preference and tradeoff on the attributes is needed to establish a scientific and logical progression about the tradeoffs people are willing to make with regard to the attributes of climate smart agriculture practices.
Towards one health disease surveillance: the Southern African centre for infectious disease surveillance approach
(2012) Beda, Eric.; Karimuribo, Esron D.; Sayalel, Kuya; Short, Nick; Wambura, Philemon; Mboera, Leonard G.; Kusiluka, Lughano J. M.; Rweyemamu, Mark M.
Africa has the highest burden of infectious diseases in the world and yet the least capacity for its risk management. It has therefore become increasingly important to search for ‘fit-for- purpose’ approaches to infectious disease surveillance and thereby targeted disease control. The fact that the majority of human infectious diseases are originally of animal origin means we have to consider One Health (OH) approaches which require inter-sectoral collaboration for custom-made infectious disease surveillance in the endemic settings of Africa. A baseline survey was conducted to assess the current status and performance of human and animal health surveillance systems and subsequently a strategy towards OH surveillance system was developed. The strategy focused on assessing the combination of participatory epidemiological approaches and the deployment of mobile technologies to enhance the effectiveness of disease alerts and surveillance at the point of occurrence, which often lies in remote areas. We selected three study sites, namely the Ngorongoro, Kagera River basin and Zambezi River basin ecosystems. We have piloted and introduced the next-generation Android mobile phones running the EpiCollect application developed by Imperial College to aid geo-spatial and clinical data capture and transmission of this data from the field to the remote Information Technology (IT) servers at the research hubs for storage, analysis, feedback and reporting. We expect that the combination of participatory epidemiology and technology will significantly improve OH disease surveillance in southern Africa.