Catalog

This course is intended for field workers and practitioners who are working with rural communities that are affected by climate change and seeking sustainable solutions to its impacts. The conservation of nature, including natural resources and natural processes, is based on a clear understanding of Indigenous communities and their strong relationship with nature. Indigenous practices and traditions preserve nature because they are based on respecting and adapting to natural cycles and local climate conditions. Understanding and acknowledging Indigenous community rights also contributes to human respect for nature. Indigenous communities have age-old traditions and practices that signify a spiritual and emotional connection to the natural environment. Adapting certain Indigenous practices will help to support other conservation efforts. We can implement and adapt small but steady steps based on Indigenous practices and traditions at a local level. If we are to change our behaviours and attitudes towards the conservation of Earth, we must understand the rights and traditions of Indigenous Peoples both locally and globally. This course contains both individual and group exercises to develop the learner’s skills in total biomass utilisation.

This course is intended for field workers and practitioners who are working with rural communities that are affected by climate change events and are looking to innovation as the key climate-responsive action to address community resilience. The course will explore alternative sustainable livelihoods to better manage natural resources as a result of innovation in climate resilience. Existing innovations can be tailored to suit local situations. Successful implementation of the innovation depends on institutional support, access to markets, skills and capacity enhancement and the availability of local/traditional knowledge. The concept of total biomass use will help the learner to understand best practices in natural resource management and conservation at a local level. The course will identify types of institutional support, networks and skills required to implement total biomass use and explore a climate-responsive livelihood through the innovation model that is adapted.

Gender inequality makes it more difficult to fight climate change. When women have the same opportunities as men, communities are better able to adapt to the impacts of climate change and build a more sustainable future.

This course is designed for people who work with communities at the grassroots level. It:

• provides a comprehensive overview of gender-sensitive livelihoods and how to develop them;
• encourages people to share their own ideas about and experiences of gender-sensitive livelihoods;
• explores ways of designing livelihoods that are gender-sensitive and protect the natural environment to help communities become more resilient to climate change; and
• encourages people to come up with new ideas about how to protect the environment, reduce the effects of climate change and create jobs that will last into the future.

This course looks at some of the causes of climate change and its effects on food security and food justice in particular. It discusses food and nutrition in relation to the geography of community spaces and presents various food insecurity scenarios at individual and community levels.

It also looks at:

• coping mechanisms that have helped people and communities to become resilient — for example, innovations in sustainable agriculture and subsistence food production to counter threats to livelihoods
• traditional best practices and the alignment with location-specific conservation of natural resources
• small-scale and traditional food processing techniques for preserving food for sustenance and survival

This course explores gender and the different roles and perceptions associated with men and women and how these affect women’s ability to mitigate risks associated with climate change. The course will describe how women and children suffer the most from the impacts of climate change and will focus on women as food growers and producers. Examples of successful, women-led conservation projects will be shared as best practices and as methods for mobilising other family and community members in building resiliency and sustainable livelihoods.

Climate change affects all of us to varying degrees. Shifting weather patterns that affect food production, rising sea levels that increase the risk of severe flooding and extreme weather events — for example, heat waves, hurricanes, storms, floods and droughts — are all indicators of major climate change around the world. The environmental, social and economic impact is enormous, and vulnerable communities, especially women and children, are particularly affected.

This course explains climate change and its impact on human lives from a local context, including local trends in severe weather and the impact of climate change on livelihoods. It has a particular focus on agriculture, water and food security. The activities and readings will help you to anticipate the impact of climate change in your own context, examine policies that are relevant to your location and develop a relevant advocacy strategy. You will learn to identify key strategies for climate action such as mobilisation and community-based conservation, identify critical conservation issues in a local context and align various climate actions and policies to support conservation efforts.

Livestock especially ruminants play a significant role in global food security, rural livelihoods and economies of developing nations. They are providers of income and employment for farmers besides providing diverse range of products such as milk, meat, hides, wool, heat and energy.  The milk and meat from ruminants are also an important source of calories, high quality proteins and micro-nutrients. Under-consumption of animal proteins is linked to malnutrition and stunting with serious health outcomes globally. 17% of calories and 33% proteins consumed worldwide comes from animal sources. This necessitates to maintain good health of ruminants by adopting the best health management practices. Fluid therapy is an important component of management for many diseases that affect cattle and small ruminants. Dehydration and hypovolemia can occur due to decreased fluid intake or excessive fluid loss due to diarrhoea, haemorrhage, excessive salivation etc.

This agMOOCs course will enhance the knowledge and skill of the veterinarians across Asia and Africa to save animals and sustain productivity thereby enabling them to institute appropriate treatment protocol for the sick ruminants at field level thereby making the animal productive and enhancing the livelihood and increasing the economy of farmers.

Animal Husbandry is making a significant contribution to the national economy and socio-economic development of most developing and under developed countries. Dairying contributes significantly to the sustainable development goals proposed by the United Nations. The average milk production per crossbred and indigenous cow is 7.6 litres/day and 3.8 litres/day respectively in India. Currently the average coverage of Artificial Insemination breedable population is 28% in India. Dairy cows should calve once every year to maximize the production to have economic efficiency. Infertility among dairy animals continues to be major bottleneck in achieving this target.

Similar situation prevails in other Asian and South African countries. Practicing veterinarian can directly make a change in the livestock sectors by improving fertility in bovines. This series of lectures covers six topics of infertility problems faced by the field vets. This agMOOCs has focused all the aspects of managing infertility and its current approaches to the specific topics. Hence the vets across Asia and Africa can get benefited and make the difference in their performance in achieving greater fertility in animals to improve the farmers’ economy.

The course will cover economic importance, etiology, diagnosis and treatment of repeat breeding syndrome in cows. Anestrum – its types, diagnosis, treatment and prevention. Endometritis – types, incidence, etiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, therapeutic approach and prevention. Cystic ovarian degeneration – predisposing factors, classification, pathogenesis, clinical signs, diagnosis, treatment and prevention. Congenital and acquired defects – defects of ovary, oviduct, uterus, cervix, vagina and external genitalia, segmental aplasia of mullerian duct and hereditary forms of infertility. Estrus synchronization – principles, benefits, criteria for controlled breeding, synchronization using prostaglandin and progesterone and synchronization of ovulation.

Design Thinking is an introduction to the process of generating creative ideas and concepts. It aims at finding ways and intellect used by the designers in order to initiate the method to finally develop a robust and sustainable product. Agribusiness looks towards innovation to counter the pressures due to drastic variations in climate and population density. Design thinking in building agricultural equipment emphasize on understanding the needs of the customers, farmers, workers and machine operators, to convert the ideas through a usable approach to develop a problem-solving activity or machine. The current course covers the step by step procedure to make agricultural equipment.

Information and communication technologies have revolutionized the process of communication. Extension Education and Extension Service activities are largely involved in the dissemination of innovations among various stakeholders. Changing climate and other natural factors, widening extension worker to farmer ratio, farmers demand for specialized information services, etc. force the adoption of e-Mediated extension services. Since the beginning of ICT revolutions, experiments are being conducted to exploit the potentials and make its effective utilization in extension service mechanism. As a student of agriculture and allied sciences or as an extension professional it is essential to know the historical aspects of e-Extension, how the journey was made to arrive at the current status. Understanding the favourable as well as limiting conditions to exploit the potentials of ICTs for extension services are also essential for stakeholders. How education and extension services can be extended beyond the limits of four walls and in such exercises how information technology can act as a tool are the key issues. Development of appropriate content suitable for the specific stakeholder is the challenge for the agricultural researchers and extension service providers. Extension educationists are creating such platforms wherein professionals can come together and using IT tools provide e-Extension services to the communities. This is the video book version of lectures in the MOOC on the same topic.