World Bridge University · Institutional Repository

Archive of Scholarly Works

Search and access the full holdings of the WBU Institutional Repository, comprising peer-reviewed journal articles, doctoral dissertations, master's theses, conference proceedings, and supervised student research.

11 records found in the repository

Journals

The Economics of Sustainable Agriculture: Financing Market Access and Farmer Livelihoods

Sustainable agricultural practices generate private benefits for farmers and public benefits for society, but their costs and returns occur at different times and are distributed unevenly. This article examines profitability, risk, transition finance, market access, value addition, certification, and public policy. Practices that conserve soil and water may improve long-term productivity and resilience, yet their adoption can be constrained by initial investment, delayed returns, insecure tenure, limited credit, weak infrastructure, and volatile markets. Price premiums can help but are neither universal nor sufficient, while certification costs may exclude small producers. The article argues that economic evaluation should move beyond single-season yield to include income stability, labour, input dependence, natural-capital change, and exposure to shocks. Blended finance, patient credit, guarantees, insurance, payments for verified ecosystem services, farmer organizations, and public investment can reduce transition risks. Sustainable agriculture becomes economically durable when farmers capture a fair share of value and public policy rewards genuine public benefits without creating inaccessible bureaucracy. Keywords Agricultural economics; sustainable finance; market access; value chains; smallholder livelihoods; ecosystem services.

Dr. Olanrewaju Peter Abraham·World Bridge University·Agribusiness Management

Faculty of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences15 Sep 2026

Journals

Policy, Technology and Climate Adaptation in the Future of Sustainable Agriculture: Governing Innovation for Resilient and Equitable Food Systems

The future of agriculture will be shaped by climate change, ecological limits, digitalization, biotechnology, automation, urbanization, and changing diets. This article examines how policy can govern innovation so that new technologies strengthen rather than weaken sustainability and equity. Precision agriculture, remote sensing, artificial intelligence, improved breeding, controlled-environment production, renewable energy, and digital traceability can improve diagnosis, timing, resource efficiency, and risk management. Their benefits depend on data quality, infrastructure, maintenance, interoperability, affordability, and farmers’ capabilities. They may also deepen concentration, surveillance, exclusion, and dependence if ownership and accountability are neglected. Climate adaptation requires portfolios that combine technology with diversity, soil and water stewardship, social protection, finance, and locally legitimate institutions. The paper proposes a mission-oriented policy framework based on public value, participatory assessment, open standards, data rights, precautions proportionate to risk, and outcome monitoring. Innovation should be judged by its contribution to resilience, nutrition, livelihoods, and ecological integrity rather than novelty alone.

Dr. Olanrewaju Peter Abraham·World Bridge University·Agribusiness Management

Faculty of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences15 Sep 2026

Journals

The Economics of Sustainable Agriculture: Financing Market Access and Farmer Livelihoods

Dr. Olanrewaju Peter Abraham·World Bridge University·Agribusiness Management

Faculty of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences15 Sep 2026

Journals

Sustainable Livestock Management: Balancing Productivity, Animal Welfare, and Environmental Protection

Livestock contribute to food production, household income, savings, manure, agricultural labour, and the cultural values of many communities. However, poorly managed livestock systems can increase greenhouse gas emissions, land degradation, water and nutrient pollution, biodiversity loss, antimicrobial resistance, and concerns about animal welfare. This narrative review examines sustainability across grazing, intensive, mixed crop-livestock, and smallholder production systems. It evaluates feed efficiency, pasture management, manure utilization, animal health and welfare, breeding, integrated production, and responsible consumption. No single livestock-production system performs best across all economic, environmental, and social indicators. Sustainable improvements must therefore be assessed according to local resources, land availability, production costs, nutrient flows, farmer livelihoods, and overall environmental pressure. Although efficiency improvements are necessary, they may be insufficient when they encourage continuous herd expansion or conceal animal-welfare and social-equity concerns. The review argues that sustainable livestock policies should combine context-specific productivity improvements with responsible land-use practices, proper antimicrobial stewardship, transparent animal-welfare standards, circular nutrient management, and support for pastoralists and smallholder farmers adapting to climate change. It concludes that a just transition must protect the food-security and livelihood contributions of livestock while reducing avoidable environmental damage and animal suffering.

Dr. Olanrewaju Peter Abraham·World Bridge University·Agribusiness Management

Faculty of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences15 Sep 2026

Journals

Agroecology and Permaculture as Pathways to Sustainable Food Production: Areas of Convergence, Differences, and Conditions for Scaling.

Agroecology and permaculture are influential approaches to redesigning food-production systems around ecological processes, agricultural diversity, local knowledge, and reduced dependence on external inputs. This narrative review examines their areas of convergence and important differences. Agroecology functions as a scientific discipline, a collection of agricultural practices, and a social movement, while permaculture primarily provides a design framework for organizing relationships among land, water, crops, animals, buildings, and people. Both approaches emphasize careful observation, biodiversity, resource recycling, multifunctionality, ecological balance, and adaptation to local conditions. Research supports several practices associated with these approaches, including intercropping, agroforestry, permanent soil cover, integrated crop-livestock systems, organic soil management, and biological pest control. However, claims concerning the overall effectiveness of complete agroecological or permaculture systems sometimes exceed the available comparative evidence. Expanding these approaches requires more than reproducing individual farming techniques. Successful scaling depends on secure land tenure, effective knowledge networks, supportive markets, appropriate public policies, fair labour conditions, accessible financing, and participatory governance. The paper advocates evidence-informed pluralism that preserves the systems perspective and ethical commitments of agroecology and permaculture while assessing their outcomes transparently across productivity, environmental protection, farmer livelihoods, food security, and social equity.

Dr. Olanrewaju Peter Abraham·World Bridge University·Agribusiness Management

Faculty of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences15 Sep 2026

Journals

Sustainable Water Management in Agriculture under Increasing Climate Uncertainty: Efficiency, Resilience, and Governance

Agriculture is the largest user of freshwater globally and is increasingly exposed to drought, changing rainfall patterns, declining groundwater levels, salinity, and growing competition for water from cities and ecosystems. This narrative review examines sustainable agricultural water management from field, farm, watershed, and governance perspectives. It evaluates soil-moisture conservation, rainwater harvesting, deficit and precision irrigation, drainage, water-quality protection, crop selection, and water-allocation institutions. Although improved irrigation technologies can reduce water losses at the field level, they do not necessarily produce basin-wide savings when farmers expand irrigated land or increase overall water consumption. Sustainable management therefore requires proper accounting for water withdrawals, consumption, return flows, environmental requirements, equity, and water quality rather than focusing exclusively on irrigation efficiency. The paper emphasizes climate-informed planning, farmer participation, transparent water rights, maintenance capacity, and complementary agronomic practices. It concludes that resilient agricultural water management requires an integrated combination of measures that reduces demand, captures variable rainfall, protects water quality, preserves aquatic ecosystems, and ensures that scarce water resources are governed fairly.

Dr. Olanrewaju Peter Abraham·World Bridge University·Agribusiness Management

Faculty of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences15 Sep 2026

Journals

Restoring Soil Health for Sustainable Agricultural Production: Practices, Benefits, and Barriers

Soil degradation threatens agricultural productivity, water regulation, biodiversity, food security, and climate resilience. This narrative review examines soil health as a functional property influenced by physical structure, chemical fertility, and biological activity. It evaluates essential soil-restoration practices, including organic amendments, cover cropping, crop rotation, reduced soil disturbance, erosion control, integrated nutrient management, and agroforestry. These practices can improve soil aggregation, water infiltration, nutrient cycling, carbon storage, and resistance to drought. However, their effectiveness varies according to soil type, climatic conditions, management history, available resources, and the quality of implementation. Significant barriers to adoption include delayed economic returns, competing uses for crop residues, limited access to soil testing and organic inputs, insecure land tenure, inadequate technical knowledge, and agricultural policies that prioritize short-term input use over long-term soil restoration. The review recommends locally adapted combinations of practices, consistent monitoring of soil-health indicators, farmer education, secure land rights, accessible financing, and institutional support to reduce transition risks. It concludes that healthy soil should be regarded as essential productive infrastructure requiring deliberate and sustained investment rather than merely an incidental outcome of crop production.

Dr. Olanrewaju Peter Abraham·World Bridge University·Agribusiness Management

Faculty of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences15 Sep 2026

Journals

Sustainable Agriculture and Global Food Security: Principles, Challenges, and Emerging Directions.

Sustainable agriculture has moved from a peripheral environmental concern to a central requirement for global food security. This narrative review examines how ecological integrity, economic viability, and social equity interact within agricultural systems and explains why progress in one area cannot compensate indefinitely for deterioration in another. Evidence from global assessments and recent studies indicates that diversified production, improved soil and water management, climate adaptation, and supportive institutions can stabilize agricultural productivity while protecting natural resources. However, adoption is constrained by insecure land tenure, limited financing, unequal access to knowledge and technology, poorly aligned incentives, and small-scale farmers’ exposure to climate and market shocks. This review argues that sustainable agriculture should be approached as a comprehensive systems transformation rather than a checklist of isolated farming practices. Effective transitions require context-specific farm management supported by investment in research, extension services, infrastructure, inclusive markets, and accountable governance. The paper concludes that achieving food security depends not only on increasing food production but also on strengthening resilience, improving access to nutritious food, and enhancing the adaptive capacity and livelihoods of farming communities.

Dr. Olanrewaju Peter Abraham·World Bridge University·Agribusiness Management

Faculty of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences15 Sep 2026

Journals

A Review of the Contribution of Each Geo-Political Zone to Agricultural Exports within the Non-Oil Sector of the Nigerian Economy

This review combines data (2013–2023) on how Nigeria’s six zones contribute to non-oil agricultural exports and forecasts trends for 2026–2035. Leveraging official trade statistics, macro-economic data, FAO production/ trade data, and peer-reviewed literature, we track the main export products (cocoa, sesame, cashew, fisheries, rubber), identify the key producing states and their zones, and assess the sector’s recent export performance. Within the period 2013 and 2023 Nigeria’s agricultural exports fluctuated but trended upward until it peaked around 2021-2023. 2022 data shows non-oil exports at USD 4.82 billion, with agriculture constituting approximately 30 % (≈ USD 1.45 billion) of the total. Cocoa, sesame and cashew constitute the bulk of agricultural export income, with cocoa predominantly sourced from the South-West and South-South zones, sesame from the North-Central and North-West, and cashew in clusters within South-West and North-Central. A projection with three scenarios (low, baseline, high) for the decade 2026–2035 reveals export growth prospects (baseline ≈ 4 % p.a., high-case > 7 % p.a.), with value-addition and processing capacity as key drivers of upside. Major challenges include weak processing, inefficient logistics, SPS gaps in compliance, and insecurity in supply zones; huge potentials lie in expanding sesame and cashew markets, harnessing regional agro-processing zones, and entering new markets through trade agreements. The review ends with policy and investment recommendations aimed at boosting zone-specific strengths, growing non-oil agricultural exports for steady foreign cash and rural development.

Remi Isaac Oyedotun·Financial Economics

Faculty of Economics6 Aug 2026

Journals

A Review of the Contribution of Each Geo-Political Zone to Agricultural Exports within the Non-Oil Sector of the Nigerian Economy

Remi Isaac Oyedotun·Financial Economics

Faculty of Economics27 Jun 2026

Journals

Stigma and Willingness to seek Mental health Counseling: A Qualitative Study of Cultural and Religious Influences in Odessa, Texas USA.

Stigmatization of mental health across diverse cultures stands as the major barrier to professional help-seeking. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of stigmatization on human responses to mental health counseling in Odessa, Texas, and to explore these responses within the cultural and religious contexts. The study employed a qualitative design and conducted semi-structured interviews with 27 adults aged 21-60. The thematic finding revealed three major forms of stigma, such as public stigma motivated by societal judgment, self-afflicted stigma through internalized shame, and structural or cultural stigma influenced by religion and community norms and values that discouraged people from counselling. The help-seeking maybe a serious stigma through avoidance tactics, delay, and disclosure of individual identity, gender, age, and cultural background in such that men who need help appear to be strong, women avoid disclosure to prevent being judged, while other participants reported religious interpretation and the limiting factor.As parameters for addressing stigma challenges, a need for community-based education, religious leaders'involvement in counseling, confidentiality to speak out, sensitivity to community culture in service provision, and allowing people to make public testimony about how they successfully navigated the W B U J O U R N A L O F S C I E N T I F I C R E S E A R C H trauma of stigmatization. The finding revealed that stigma, cultural norms and values, and counselling provision as undeniable factors in seeking mental health. The study contributes to knowledge through the identification of faith based inclined stigma as the salient obstacle within the context of mental health , advocating for effective policy implementation, culturally sensitive interventions, integration of mental health literacy into community and educational programs, and partnership with faith communities.

Olanrewaju Abraham ·Counseling Psychology

Faculty of Leadership, Psychology, and Behavioral Sciences29 May 2026