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Poverty, geographical isolation and being poorly served by agricultural workers, education, health, transport, communication and other services characterise the rural environment in most developing countries. Agricultural productivity and its associated agricultural extension services are important to the livelihood activities of rural communities. As a result rural communities require access to productive services information on input supply, new technologies, early warning systems for drought (pests and diseases), credit, and market prices. Agricultural extension service has been identified as an important part of the intended transformation of the agricultural sector. In South Africa, farmers consider the effectiveness of extension services in relation to receiving technological information and advice for purposes of crop and livestock production. The paper discusses the role of agricultural extension services in agricultural production in Thorndale, situated in the Savannah biome of the Bushbuckridge region in the Limpopo Province, South Africa. A questionnaire survey was used in the collection of data. The results indicated that the majority of the farmers do not have access to the services of extension officers. Yet, some farmers have infrequent contacts with extension officers and information, and the magnitude of extension services have been restricted to verbal instructions rather than demonstrative, innovative and hands on practical guidance to farmers. The majority of the respondents approximately 97% are farmers who engage in agricultural production, consisted of small-scale approximately 97% and commercial 3% farmers. The approximately 38% of households who have had contacts with extension officers indicated that the advice and assistance they received entailed farming practices such as buying seeds needed for crop production and storage of the produce harvested for eventualities such as drought or famine. Others include nursery making, correct crop spacing and fertilizer application, planting, transplanting, herbicide application, timely planting and early weeding. The study concluded that extension officers need to visit and guide rural farmers regularly with improved farming technologies and services. Further, capacity development and logistical assistance should be strengthened towards improving the current extension services to the rural communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the release and proteomic profile of tissue factor microparticles (TFMPs) prospectively (up to 6 months) following a myocardial infarction (MI) in a chronic porcine model to establish their utility in tracking cellular level activities that predict physiologic outcomes. Our animal groups (n = 6 to 8 each) consisted of control, noninfarcted (negative control); infarcted only (positive control); and infarcted animals treated with cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) and a β-blocker (BB) (metoprolol succinate). The authors found different protein profiles in TFMPs between the control, infarcted only group, and the CRT + BB treated group with predictive impact on the outward phenotype of pathological remodeling after an MI within and between groups. This novel approach of monitoring cellular level activities by profiling the content of TFMPs has the potential of addressing a shortfall of the current crop of cardiac biomarkers, which is the inability to capture composite molecular changes associated with chronic maladaptive signaling in a spatial and temporal manner.