Assessing Community Participation in Promoting Basic Education at the Akorley District Assembly (D/A) Basic School in the Yilo Krobo Municipality - Eastern Region - Ghana

This research examines community contribution in promoting basic education at the Akorley District Assembly (D/A) basic school in the Yilo Krobo Municipality in the Eastern Region of Ghana. The specific objectives of the study were; to identify the contribution of the community towards the improvement in teaching and learning, to identify the challenges that confront the community with regards to the improvement of the school, to investigate the strategies designed to improve on the community’s contribution towards teaching and learning and to recommend strategies that can be implemented to improve on the contribution of the community towards the school. The result of the study indicated that the contribution of the community towards the improvement of the school is generally low, even though some attempts have been made to improve upon teaching and learning in the school. Sharing of information is one of the important recommendations puts forward if community participation should be enhanced amongst the study population. The research further recommends that the sensitization of community members on the need for education, especially girl-child education, should be done on regular basis as well as setting of awards scheme for better performing teachers, good students and better performing girls in the school. Keywords: Academic performance; communication; community participation; education

Development and Examination of Sweet Potato Flour Fortified with Indigenous Underutilized Seasonal Vegetables

Developing nutrient-rich vegetable flour using locally under-utilized food crops in Africa would improve rural house-hold nutrition. This study seeks to develop nutrient-dense vegetable flour from different proportions of Sweet potato (Sp) 40–100%, Avocado pear (Avo) 10–40%, and Turkey berry (Tor) 10–40%, using completely randomized design (CRD) with 14 treatment combinations and three replications. The proximate composition, mineral composition, and functional properties were investigated on the composite flour. The results showed significant differences in all the parameters analyzed for the various composite flours. As the amount of Avo and Tor was added to the Sp, the proximate composition was enhanced except for the percentage carbohydrate, which decreased from 83.92 to 54.59 g/100 g. The mineral composition was also improved by the incorporation of Avo and Tor. Favourable functional properties were also obtained. The optimal composite flour was made up of 40% Sp, 35% Avo, and 25% Tor. The functional properties of the composite flours were better than the control (Sweet potato flour). Fortifying Sp flour with Avo and Tor is feasible and could be an easy and affordable means to improve rural nutrition, as it requires simple logistics for the ordinary rural household to produce the composite of the desired choice

Development and Examination of Sweet Potato Flour Fortified with Indigenous Underutilized Seasonal Vegetables

Developing nutrient-rich vegetable flour using locally under-utilized food crops in Africa would improve rural house-hold nutrition. This study seeks to develop nutrient-dense vegetable flour from different proportions of Sweet potato (Sp) 40–100%, Avocado pear (Avo) 10–40%, and Turkey berry (Tor) 10–40%, using completely randomized design (CRD) with 14 treatment combinations and three replications. The proximate composition, mineral composition, and functional properties were investigated on the composite flour. The results showed significant differences in all the parameters analyzed for the various composite flours. As the amount of Avo and Tor was added to the Sp, the proximate composition was enhanced except for the percentage carbohydrate, which decreased from 83.92 to 54.59 g/100 g. The mineral composition was also improved by the incorporation of Avo and Tor. Favourable functional properties were also obtained. The optimal composite flour was made up of 40% Sp, 35% Avo, and 25% Tor. The functional properties of the composite flours were better than the control (Sweet potato flour). Fortifying Sp flour with Avo and Tor is feasible and could be an easy and affordable means to improve rural nutrition, as it requires simple logistics for the ordinary rural household to produce the composite of the desired choice

Rapid and Nondestructive Determination of Egg Freshness Category and Marked Date of Lay using Spectral Fingerprint

The potential of nondestructive prediction of egg freshness based on near-infrared (NIR) spectra fingerprints would be beneficial to quality control officers and consumers alike. In this study, handheld NIR spectrometer in the range of 740 nm to 1070 nm and chemometrics were used to simultaneously determine egg freshness based on marked date of lay for eggs stored under cold and ambient conditions. The spectra acquired from the eggs were preprocessed using multiplicative scatter correction and principal component analysis (MSC-PCA). Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) was used to build identification model to predict the category of freshness, while partial least square regression (PLS-R) was used to determine the marked date of lay. The performance of LDA model was above 95% identification rate in both calibration and prediction set for the eggs stored under ambient and cold storage. For eggs stored in ambient storage, LDA had 95.54% identification rate at 5 principal components, while at cold storage LDA has 100% identification rate at 5 principal components for determining the marked date of lay, and partial least square regression (PLS-R) gave R = 0.87 and RMSEI = 2.57 for ambient storage and R = 0.88 and RMSEI = 2.66 for cold storage in independent set, respectively. The results show that handheld spectrometer and multivariate analysis could be used for rapid and nondestructive measurement of egg freshness. This provides a novel solution for egg integrity prediction along the value chain

Delivering the Nutritional Needs by Food to Food Fortification of Staples Using Underutilized Plant Species in Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is among the poorest region in the world, and undernourishment continues to be a great challenge although this region is endowed with a lot of underutilized plant species (UUPS), which are rich in nutrients, especially micronutrients that are unavailable in staple foods. The potential for fortifying major staple foods with UUPS could be the remedy. This study seeks to provide an overview of the fortification of staple foods with UUPS in Africa and suggest the way forward for effective nutritional and health benefits. The review revealed that fortification of major staple foods has been investigated: maize with grain amaranth, soybean, and moringa; sweet potato with cowpea, sorghum, bambara groundnut, peanut, and moringa; cassava with African yam bean, breadfruit, pigeon pea, bambara groundnut, moringa, and cowpea; and sorghum with pearl millet and green peas. The others were yam with cowpea, plantain, and moringa, while rice was also fortified with baobab pulp and locust pulp. All these studies were found to be acceptable with dense nutritional properties. Specifically, micronutrients such as magnesium, phosphorous, zinc, potassium, and iron were increased while others showed rise in fibre and protein levels. The fortification of staple foods with UUPS has been shown to be promising; however, more designed feeding trials are required to verify the impact on reducing undernutrition and hidden hunger. To do this, it is recommended that rice fortified with UUPS should be targeted as rice is increasingly becoming the leading and important staple food in Africa

Pesticide Residues and Unauthorized Dyes as Adulteration Markers in Chilli Pepper and Tomato

To assess the contamination of processed chilli pepper and tomatoes, a report over the past four decades since the establishment of the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) was retrieved and analysed. Out of the 887 notification reports assessed for eligibility, 446 were found regarding chilli pepper and tomato contamination. This study identified India as the country of origin with the highest number of reported cases relating to chilli pepper contamination. Italy and Türkiye were the countries with the highest number of reported cases regarding the exportation of adulterated tomatoes to other countries according to the RASFF report. Unauthorized dyes such as Sudan I, III, IV, orange II, rhodamine B, and para red were reported to have been detected in either chilli pepper or tomato in the supply chain. Almost all unauthorized dyes in this study were found to be more than the range (0.5 to 1 mg/kg) of the detection limit of Sudan dye and other related dyes using analytical methods set by the European Union. Unapproved pesticides by the European Union (EU) found in this study were acetamiprid, chlorothalonil, chlorpyrifos, dimethoate, methomyl, monocrotophos, omethoate, oxamyl, and thiophanate methyl. The present study indicates the persistence of chilli pepper and tomato contamination with harmful dyes and pesticide residues despite the ban on the use of certain chemicals in the food chain