Farmers’ knowledge and perceptions of sustainable soil conservation practices in Paklay district, Sayabouly province, Lao PDR
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract In the agricultural areas in northern Lao PDR, maize production has become widespread due to intensive agricultural practices. As a result of intensive agriculture, farmers have been affected by soil degradation and increasing production costs. The farmers' knowledge and perceptions of sustainable soil conservation practices (SSCP) have influenced crop production. Importantly, soil conservation practices result in high soil fertility and decreased production costs. This study assessed the farmers' knowledge and perceptions of SSCP on maize production. A survey was conducted of 161 households in three villages (Palay, Boumlao-Phakeo, and Senphon) to gather primary data. Focus group discussions were also conducted to solicit additional data. Data analysis utilized a Knowledge Index and a five-point Likert scale. The results showed that 63 percent of the farmers interviewed were highly knowledgeable about SSCP while 32 percent and 5 percent had medium and low levels of SSCP knowledge, respectively. Regardless of the level of SSCP knowledge, farmers were conversant with the advantages and disadvantages of SSCP. However, farmers who had low levels of SSCP knowledge lacked practical application of soil conservation practices compared to those farmers with medium to high levels of SSCP knowledge. The survey results also showed there was a high level of perception of SSCP with 61 percent of the farmers interviewed positively agreeing with soil conservation practices. Nonetheless, despite the high perceptions of maize farmers in the study area, our findings showed a low take-up rate for SSCP practices. To improve the farmers’ application of SSCP, the government and non-government organizations should provide a range of projects such as programs on the techniques of maize production and the technical practice of SSCP.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".