Scavenging Poultry for Poverty Alleviation: A review of experiences with a focus on Bangladesh

Report prepared for International Livestock Research Institute.Food Security and Poverty, Livestock Production/Industries,

Consumer preferences and demand for livestock products in urban Bangladesh

Also available in the ILRI Repository on Livestock Research at http://hdl.handle.net/10568/3009demand, quality, safety, livestock products, Bangladesh, Consumer/Household Economics, Livestock Production/Industries,

Consumer preferences and demand for livestock products in urban Bangladesh

Demand for animal products has been increasing rapidly in Bangladesh due to urbanization and increases in per capita income. There are rudimentary indications that demand for improved food quality and safety has also been increasing and that consumers were willing to pay higher prices for such attributes of products. However, there is little empirical evidence on the criteria and indicators of quality and safety that consumers use in their buying decisions, or that suppliers use in differentiating products to promote sales, or the extent to which consumers are willing to pay for such attributes. This study is the first attempt to comprehensively characterize and quantify Bangladeshi urban demand for animal products with a focus on quality and safety. Based on a multi-stage sample survey of 900 households from Dhaka and Mymensingh cities, successive analyses present statements of preference based on ratings, identified quality criteria, stated sources of supply and recent purchasing behaviour both at home and away from home, and econometric analysis of relationships between price ratings and quality ratings across attributes, so as to generate willingness to pay for those attributes. The findings show that officially defined grades and quality standards of livestock products are either absent or poorly defined and enforced. On the other hand, producers and consumers in the market use specific attributes or criteria and indicators to differentiate quality and safety of livestock products and they also charge and pay different prices based on those attributes. Although targeted at urban populations, considerable variation between locations in terms of the product preferences and attributes used to differentiate quality was identified. Establishment of standards and grades will become necessary to meet consumer demand on the one hand and facilitate producers and market agents to respond to consumer demand on the other. Whether smallholders will have any comparative advantage in supplying an expanding market requiring more homogenous and better quality and safer products need to be studied regularly along with studies on consumer demand because of the dynamic nature of the emerging and evolving market, the industry and the sector

Sustainable Agricultural Management Practices and Enterprise Development for Coping with Global Climate Change

This book chapter provides an insight into the synthesis of climate change vulnerabilities across various regions of the globe, recent trends, issues and prospects of climate smart agribusiness, the skill, efficiency and sustainable management practices of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of the globe in the context of climate change, addressing the needs of emerging markets, industries and regional trades through a transformation with development in the areas of technology, value chains, management of environmental and social risk in the supply chains, compliance of food quality and safety regulations, market linkages of smallholders, corporate social responsibility and institutional development. There is a growing concern on food safety regulation and certification as part of sustainable management practices that firms and industries should cope. Sustainable management practices in business prove to be more profitable as they tend to adapt and grow with the changing markets, providing a competitive advantage over other firms. This chapter also focused on the challenges in sustainable business practices as well as suggested a number of development options, institutional and policy issues

Studies on the induced breeding and post-larval rearing of shing (Heteropneustes fossilis Bloch)

An experiment was conducted on induced breeding and fry rearing of shing, Heteropneustes fossilis (Bloch) in the Department of Aquaculture, Bangladesh Agricultural University for a period of four months from April to July 1994. Hatching rate was calculated at 21.50h and was found to be 45 to 55 % and the survival rate of larvae was 30 to 40 % at 26 to 29°C. Survival rate and growth rate of post larvae were found to be 50 to 60% and 96.6 to 117.2% respectively. Feed-3 (F3) showed the highest survival rate and growth rate of post larvae

Multi-level supervisory emergency control for operation of remote area microgrid clusters

Remote and regional areas are usually supplied by isolated and self-sufficient electricity systems, which are called as microgrids (MGs). To reduce the overall cost of electricity production, MGs rely on non-dispatchable renewable sources. Emergencies such as overloading or excessive generation by renewable sources can result in a substantial voltage or frequency deviation in MGs. This paper presents a supervisory controller for such emergencies. The key idea is to remedy the emergencies by optimal internal or external support. A multi-level controller with soft, intermedial and hard actions is proposed. The soft actions include the adjustment of the droop parameters of the sources and the controlling of the charge/discharge of energy storages. The intermedial action is exchanging power with neighboring MGs, which is highly probable in large remote areas. As the last remedying resort, curtailing loads or renewable sources are assumed as hard actions. The proposed controller employs an optimization technique consisting of certain objectives such as reducing power loss in the tie-lines amongst MGs and the dependency of an MG to other MGs, as well as enhancing the contribution of renewable sources in electricity generation. Minimization of the fuel consumption and emissions of conventional generators, along with frequency and voltage deviation, is the other desired objectives. The performance of the proposal is evaluated by several numerical analyses in MATLAB®

RIA Analysis of Unprotected TRIGA Reactor

An RIA (reactivity initiated accident) analysis has been carried out for the TRIGA Mark II research reactor considering both step and ramp reactivity ranges within 0.5 % dk/k (< $1) to 2.0$2). The insertion time was set at 10 s. Based on the fact that a reactor becomes unprotected if scram does not work at the event of danger, to define unprotected conditions, the time to actuate scram (trip) was taken as close to total simulation time. In this long duration of scram inactivity, it is obtained from the present analysis that the reactor remained safe to up to 1.8 % dk/k ($2.57) for step reactivity and 1.99$2.84) for ramp reactivity. In addition to negative temperature coefficient of reativity, probably the longer time of reactivity insertion keeps TRIGA safe even at larger magnitudes of reactivity during unprotected reactor transients. Coupled point kinetics, neutronics, and thermal hydraulics code EUREKA-2/R has been utilized for this work. It appears that EUREKA-2/RR predicts the sequence of unprotected transient scenario of TRIGA core with good approximation and the results will definitely be helpful for the reactor operators

Smoothing of wind farm output by prediction and supervisory-control-unit- based FESS

This paper presents a supervisory control unit (SCU) combined with short-term ahead wind speed prediction for proper and effective management of the stored energy in a small capacity flywheel energy storage system (FESS) which is used to mitigate the output power fluctuations of an aggregated wind farm. Wind speed prediction is critical for a wind energy conversion system since it may greatly influence the issues related to effective energy management, dynamic control of wind turbine, and improvement of the overall efficiency of the power generation system. In this study, a wind speed prediction model is developed by artificial neural network (ANN) which has advantages over the conventional prediction schemes including data error tolerance and ease in adaptability. The proposed SCU-based control would help to reduce the size of the energy storage system for minimizing wind power fluctuation taking the advantage of prediction scheme. The model for prediction using ANN is developed in MATLAB/Simulink and interfaced with PSCAD/EMTDC. Effectiveness of the proposed control system is illustrated using real wind speed data in various operating conditions

Experimental investigation on the properties of concrete containing post-consumer plastic waste as coarse aggregate replacement

The consumption of various forms of plastic has been increased in recent days due to the boost in industrialization and other human activities. Most of the plastic wastes are abandoned and require large landfill area for storage. More importantly, the low biodegradability of plastic poses a serious threat to environment protection issue. Various methods have been followed for the disposal of plastic in an attempt to reduce the negative impact of the plastic on the environment. Recently, various types of plastic have been incorporated in concrete to minimize the exposure of plastic to the environment. The aim of this study is to investigate the properties of concrete containing polyethylene terephthalate (PET), and high density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic that were used as partial replacement of coarse aggregate (CA). In this study, four compositions of stone aggregate(S): plastic waste ratios have been used by volume basis: 100% S: 0% Plastic (control concrete), 90% S: 10% PET, 90% S: 10% HDPE, and 90% S: 5% PET+5% HDPE. The effects of waste plastic addition on the mechanical properties of concrete are presented in this paper. Test results reveal that minimum reduction in compressive strength has been found 35% in case of 10% PET plastic replaced concrete whereas splitting tensile strength for 10% PET replaced concrete has been increased by 21% while compared to control concrete. In addition, fresh unit weight of concrete containing plastic waste has been decreased by 4% in comparison to control concrete