Protein and energy contribution of African indigenous vegetables: Evidence from selected rural and peri-urban counties of Kenya

Although positive steps have been taken towards reducing food insecurity, it remains a serious and recurrent issue, especially in developing countries. Food insecurity is aggravated by the world’s growing population and global ecological changes and calls for novel agriculture-based hunger eradication strategies. It is argued that production and consumption of indigenous vegetables (IVs) enhances accessibility and availability of nutritious food in households. Indigenous vegetables (IVs) contain significant amounts of macronutrients and high levels of micronutrients. As their agro-economic advantages make them relatively easy for uptake by resource-poor households, they represent a direct solution to ‘hidden hunger’. Household-based survey data collected from 1232 IV producers in rural and peri-urban areas of five selected counties in Kenya in 2014 were used to examine the dietary contribution of IVs. Five priority indigenous vegetables were analysed: amaranth, cowpea, African nightshade, spider plant and Ethiopian kale. Quantitative analysis was performed using food security indicators from the ADePTFood security Module data analytical software. This study’s findings indicated African nightshade was the most consumed indigenous vegetable, providing the largest share of dietary energy consumption (average of 43 kcal/person/day). Amaranth was found to provide the highest share and cheapest source of dietary protein consumption, an average of 4.9 g/person/day, thus meeting 8% of the adult daily protein requirement. These results showed the clear dominance of indigenous vegetables over exotic vegetables in terms of protein contribution, achieved both by amaranth’s high protein content compared tocabbage, as well as the low per unit cost of protein in indigenous vegetables compared to exotic vegetables. Given that, IVs have a significant protein content that adds variety to staple diets at comparatively low median dietary unit values and that they are important sources of dietary energy, efforts should be made to increase their consumption by undertaking further research, raising awareness and instituting policies

Seismic detection of rockslides at regional scale: examples from the Eastern Alps and feasibility of kurtosis-based event location

Seismic records can provide detailed insight into the mechanisms of gravitational mass movements. Catastrophic events that generate long-period seismic radiation have been studied in detail, and monitoring systems have been developed for applications on a very local scale. Here we demonstrate that similar techniques can also be applied to regional seismic networks, which show great potential for real-time and large-scale monitoring and analysis of rockslide activity. This paper studies 19 moderate-sized to large rockslides in the Eastern Alps that were recorded by regional seismic networks within distances of a few tens of kilometers to more than 200&thinsp;km. We develop a simple and fully automatic processing chain that detects, locates, and classifies rockslides based on vertical-component seismic records. We show that a kurtosis-based onset picker is suitable to detect the very emergent onsets of rockslide signals and to locate the rockslides within a few kilometers from the true origin using a grid search and a 1-D seismic velocity model. Automatic discrimination between rockslides and local earthquakes is possible by a combination of characteristic parameters extracted from the seismic records, such as kurtosis or maximum-to-mean amplitude ratios. We attempt to relate the amplitude of the seismic records to the documented rockslide volume and reveal a potential power law in agreement with earlier studies. Since our approach is based on simplified methods we suggest and discuss how each step of the automatic processing could be expanded and improved to achieve more detailed results in the future.</p

Supporting Innovation in Organic Agriculture: A European Perspective Using Experience from the SOLID Project

Organic farming is recognized as one source for innovation helping agriculture to develop sustainably. However, the understanding of innovation in agriculture is characterized by technical optimism, relying mainly on new inputs and technologies originating from research. The paper uses the alternative framework of innovation systems describing innovation as the outcome of stakeholder interaction and examples from the SOLID (Sustainable Organic Low-Input Dairying) project to discuss the role of farmers, researchers and knowledge exchange for innovation. We used a farmer-led participatory approach to identify problems of organic and low-input dairy farming in Europe and develop and evaluate innovative practices. Experience so far shows that improvements of sustainability can be made through better exploitation of knowledge. For example, it is recognized that optimal utilization of good quality forage is vitally important, but farmers showed a lack of confidence in the reliability of forage production both in quantity and quality. We conclude that the systems framework improves the understanding of innovation processes in organic agriculture. Farmer-led research is an effective way to bring together the scientific approach with the farmers’ practical and context knowledge in finding solutions to problems experienced by farmers and to develop sustainability

Feasibility studies for the measurement of time-like proton electromagnetic form factors from p¯ p→ μ+μ- at P ¯ ANDA at FAIR

This paper reports on Monte Carlo simulation results for future measurements of the moduli of time-like proton electromagnetic form factors, | GE| and | GM| , using the p¯ p→ μ+μ- reaction at P ¯ ANDA (FAIR). The electromagnetic form factors are fundamental quantities parameterizing the electric and magnetic structure of hadrons. This work estimates the statistical and total accuracy with which the form factors can be measured at P ¯ ANDA , using an analysis of simulated data within the PandaRoot software framework. The most crucial background channel is p¯ p→ π+π-, due to the very similar behavior of muons and pions in the detector. The suppression factors are evaluated for this and all other relevant background channels at different values of antiproton beam momentum. The signal/background separation is based on a multivariate analysis, using the Boosted Decision Trees method. An expected background subtraction is included in this study, based on realistic angular distributions of the background contribution. Systematic uncertainties are considered and the relative total uncertainties of the form factor measurements are presented

Theoretischer Bezugsrahmen und empirische Untersuchungen zu Entscheidungsablaeufen in der gaertnerischen Produktion

SIGLETIB Hannover: RA 1851(63)+a-b / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman

Can Cooperative Membership and Participation Affect Adoption Decisions? Issues for Sustainable Biotechnology Dissemination

Biotechnology has become the dominate technology in the agricultural environment globally, possessing the capacity to address issues related to food insecurity and low productivity. Developing countries therefore cannot afford to be left behind. Despite how beneficial biotechnology is portrayed, the major task hinges on how to ensure that farmers in developing countries adopt it amid various controversies and perceptions surrounding its application. This article studies the effects of cooperative membership and participation on adoption decision of agricultural innovations in the states of Kaduna and Borno in Nigeria. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to obtain empirical data from 1,120 respondents. Results revealed that the majority of farmers belonged to cooperative organizations due to several reasons, including the need for information and social capital. Participation in cooperative activities was frequent and information disseminated was adjudged relevant to members' needs. The level of trust ascribed to information from cooperative activities was higher than other sources. Farmers became aware of recently adopted innovations through cooperatives. Willingness to adopt biotechnology was higher if disseminated through cooperatives than other channels. Intuitively, disseminating biotech information through cooperatives will ensure increased awareness levels in less time than other approaches

Regional competitiveness of fresh vegetable production in Europe \u2013 a cluster and value chain perspective

We focus our analysis on the coordination of relationships in horticulture business and its impact on competitiveness. Special attention is given to the question how tighter relations between retailers and their fresh vegetable suppliers interact with the organisation of the local production cluster. This paper cites results from two case studies in Germany/Palatinate and Italy/Emilia-Romagna/Veneto. In-depth interviews with central business participants (producers, cooperatives, traders, retail, breeding companies, research) allow to uncover multifaceted aspects about imbalance in retailer-supplier relationships, the influence of mentality and tradition on cooperative capability and the influence of external events on chain governance. The aim is to assemble a complex-variable causal model to find regularities of regional horticulture business and value chain coordination in different socio-cultural contexts. This causal model is expected to provide starting points for further research about the interplay of local production networks and value chain coordination