The ABC method – proposed implementation in a structural steel industry

Nowadays there are a large variety of contributions in the area of costing systems describing a lot of different possibilities. The difficulty lies in choosing the best one for each company. As a matter of fact each company is different from another and it is necessary to “look inside” each one and understand very clearly how their costing structures function. Know where company’s costs lie is the best way to reduce them and to determine the correct price of the product. It is thus essential that the company may have a good costing system that will allow it to possess the highest level of information and will be a support to the decision making process. From among all the new approaches, this paper will analyze the costing system based on Activities (ABC). Its objective is to understand the application of ABC as a costing system and to classify implementation methodologies. The ABC costing system was implemented in Martifer Construções, a Portuguese industrial company that manufactures metallic structures, as an alternative method. Work took place within company production facilities and a check has been carried out of costing problem details and the company’s expenses system. The purpose of this study is to validate the ABC method in this company, to provide a tool to support work and to reach a conclusion about the real advantages and disadvantages of implementing this method. This study will help leaders and managers of the company to make decisions about implementation of the method, as well as helping to increase knowledge of the matter, providing a useful tool to the company

A Biodiverse Rich Environment Does Not Contribute to a Better Diet: A Case Study from DR Congo

The potential of biodiversity to increase and sustain nutrition security is increasingly recognized by the international research community. To date however, dietary assessment studies that have assessed how biodiversity actually contributes to human diets are virtually absent. This study measured the contribution of wild edible plants (WEP) to the dietary quality in the high biodiverse context of DR Congo. The habitual dietary intake was estimated from 2 multiple-pass 24 h dietary recalls for 363 urban and 129 rural women. All WEP were collected during previous ethnobotanical investigations and identified and deposited in the National Botanical Garden of Belgium (BR). Results showed that in a high biodiverse region with precarious food security, WEP are insufficiently consumed to increase nutrition security or dietary adequacy. The highest contribution came from Dacryodes edulis in the village sample contributing 4.8% of total energy intake. Considering the nutrient composition of the many WEP available in the region and known by the indigenous populations, the potential to increase nutrition security is vast. Additional research regarding the dietary contribution of agricultural biodiversity and the nutrient composition of WEP would allow to integrate them into appropriate dietary guidelines for the region and pave the way to domesticate the most interesting WEP

Domestication of Dacryodes edulis: state-of-the-art

Dacryodes edulis is one of the important local fruit tree species of West and Central Africa. This paper reviews the activities of a regional programme to domesticate high-value indigenous fruit trees in the region. This programme is coordinated by the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) and implemented in Cameroon in collaboration with the Institute of Agricultural Research for Development (IRAD), National Agricultural Extension and Research Programme (PNVRA) agents and NGOs and universities of the region. It is based on a participatory approach to domestication that is in marked contrast to that of food crop domestication under the Green Revolution. The participatory process with farmers started with priority setting between species, progressed to germplasm collection and the establishment of village nurseries for clonal propagation of superior trees, and is currently involved in the selection of superior trees for cultivar development. Work is also in progress on post-harvest processing, market development and the integration of cultivars into agroforestry systems

Tree domestication in tropical agroforestry

We execute tree ‘domestication’ as a farmer-driven and market-led process, which matches the intraspecific\ud diversity of locally important trees to the needs of subsistence farmers, product markets, and agricultural environments. We propose that the products of such domesticated trees are called Agroforestry Tree Products (AFTPs) to distinguish them from the extractive tree resources commonly referred to as non-timber forest products (NTFPs). The steps of such a domestication process are: selection of priority species based on their expected products or services; definition of an appropriate domestication strategy considering the farmer-, market-, and landscape needs; sourcing, documentation and deployment of germplasm (seed, seedlings or clonal material); and tree improvement research (tree breeding or cultivar selection pathways). The research phase may involve research institutions on their own or in participatorymode with the stakeholders such as farmers or communities.Working directly with the end-users is advantageous towards economic, social and environmental goals, especially in developing countries. Two case studies (Prunus africana and Dacryodes edulis) are presented to highlight the approaches used for medicinal and fruit-producing species. Issues for future development include the expansion of the program to a\ud wider range of species and their products and the strengthening of the links between product commercialization\ud and domestication. It is important to involve the food industry in this process, while protecting the intellectual\ud property rights of farmers to their germplasm