Economic Viability of Mushrooms Cultivation to Poverty Reduction in Bangladesh

Mushroom is an important vegetable usually grows in the forest with its nutritive and medicinal value. It can also be cultivated domestically in a small scale by landless people. The climate of Bangladesh is highly favourable for high volume of mushroom production. The cultivation of mushroom is one of the lucrative agricultural job. In our study the profitability of mushroom cultivation was found comparatively higher than that of rice and wheat, the most popular cash earning crops in Bangladesh. As funding to promote the production and consumption of mushrooms is limited, local government and NGOs can play vital role to develop mushroom agriculture to arise at industrial level which can create ample employment opportunities both in semi-urban and rural areas. This result suggests that the potential of mushroom cultivation could be a possible offer to alleviate poverty and develop the life style of the vulnerable people in Bangladesh

Incorporation of trees in smallholder land use systems: Farm characteristics, rates of return and policy issues influencing farmer adoption

One of the main causes of tropical deforestation is conversion to agriculture, which is continuously increasing as a dominant land cover in the tropics. The loss of forests greatly affects biodiversity and ecosystem services. Tree-based farming, in a range of agroforestry systems, has been proposed as a mechanism for sustaining both biodiversity and its associated ecosystem services in agricultural areas, by increasing tree cover, while maintaining agricultural production. The main aim of this thesis is to assess the rate of return resulting from incorporating trees into food-crop-based smallholder agricultural systems, in order to assess the economic potential of agroforestry systems that may also help protect local forest, the barriers to their widespread adoption, and how the landscape approaches (land sharing and land sparing) work best in the study sites in eastern Bangladesh and West Java, Indonesia. The four papers included in the thesis specifically address the following issues. 1. The types of agroforestry practiced, in order to characterize their differences in basic structure, management and associated crop plant diversity, and the problem of classifying them into a specific land-use category (i.e. agriculture or forestry). 2. The economic and social potential of agroforestry systems and the barriers to their widespread adoption, as a land use alternative to swidden cultivation, which may potentially help protect local forest. 3. The trade-offs between income and tree cover when incorporating trees into food-crop-based smallholder agricultural systems, and the associated factors that influence farmers’ choice of tree-based farming in place of seasonal cultivation. 4. The major challenges facing farmers using current local land-use systems, the conditions and policy context that could facilitate smallholder tree farming, and how landscape-scale approaches work best in a local perspective to reconcile agricultural and environmental goals. Data were collected through rapid rural appraisals, focus group discussions, field observations, semi-structured interviews of farm households and key informant interviews of state agricultural officers. Data have been analysed through narrative qualitative methods, and through quantitative methods such as descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, and cost-benefit analysis. x Five main agroforestry systems (homegarden, fruit tree, timber tree, mixed fruit-timber, and cropping in the forest understory) exist in the Java study area, and can be categorized into two main types, i) integral, rotational and ii) integral, permanent, both of which exhibit a noticeable diversity in terms of both species composition and utilization. In both Java and Bangladesh the inclusion of tree crops in seasonal agriculture improved the systems’ overall economic performance (NPV), even when it reduced understorey crop production. In the Java study area, tree ownership was associated with more permanent rights to farmland and was prestigious in the community, which also helped strengthen social cohesion when the products (fruit, vegetables, etc.) were shared with neighbours. In the Java study area, agroforestry farmers were less involved in forest clearing and forest product collection indicating that agroforestry may contribute positively to reduce pressure on local forests. However, seasonal agriculture (food-crop-based monoculture agriculture in Java, and swidden in Bangladesh) has a higher income per unit of land area used for crop cultivation compared with the tree establishment and development phase of agroforestry systems. There is thus a trade-off between short-term loss of agricultural income and longer-term economic gain from planting trees in farmland. However, constraints of local food crop cultivation traditions, insecure land tenure, insufficient investment capital, lack of knowledge, lack of technical assistance, and perceived risk of investing in land due to local conflict (in Bangladesh) limit farmers’ willingness to adopt this land use alternative. Various conditions can facilitate tree farming, including a carefully designed landscape approach, with the elements of both segregation and integration of land uses, supported by competent government policies and local communities having sufficiently high social capital. In land-use classifications agroforestry systems are not recognized as forestry, but like forests they provide tree products and services. Classification will always be problematic if a binary system is applied, thus a more sophisticated approach should be adopted that incorporates the economic and environmental characteristics of a wider range of systems

Restoring Land and Growing Renewable Energy: Opportunities, Challenges, and the Future Steps

Primary energy demand in Indonesia has rapidly increased, i.e., 43.33% between 2005 and 2016, while domestic energy supply failed to fulfill these needs leading to the reliance on the energy import. Meanwhile, a vast area of degraded land in Indonesia also created an opportunity for biofuel production, fulfilling energy demand, as well as restoring the land with environmental and socio-economic benefits. This paper provides an overview of identified potential and challenges associated with biofuel production from degraded land in Indonesia. Our preliminary findings highlighted that some biofuel species in Indonesia are suitable to grow in degraded land and potentially restore the land that may not be suitable for current agricultural production and/or reforestation. The initial finding also shows that culturally familiar species and stable markets are favorable terms of biofuel-species selection for the landowners. Supportive agricultural-extension services such as knowledge and technology for honey production can provide an added value in this concept, in addition to social (e.g., strengthening social solidarity and employment opportunities) and environmental (e.g., carbon storage, soil moisture, erosion control, and biodiversity) benefits. Meanwhile, to create this overall initiative to be successful, a supportive measure from the policymakers is needed. Further research on the capacity of biofuel species to restore degraded lands in different biophysical profiles. Analysis of biofuel production feedstocks and potential co-benefits viable business models, and the stable market is necessary to maximize benefit from biofuel production and to restore the degraded lands in Indonesia.   Keywords: biofuel production, renewable energy, restorin

Water-soluble Fraction of Abelmoschus esculentus L Interacts with Glucose and Metformin Hydrochloride and Alters Their Absorption Kinetics after Coadministration in Rats

This study was done to investigate the effects of water-soluble fraction (WSF) of the fruits of Abelmoschus esculentus L (okra/lady's fingers) on absorption of oral glucose as well as metformin from the gastrointestinal tract in the Long Evans rats. WSF of A. esculentus significantly (P < 0.05) reduced the absorption of glucose as studied in the 24 hrs fasting rats. The effect of WSF of A. esculentus on metformin absorption was studied in alloxan-induced diabetic rats. Significant differences (P < 0.05) were observed in the average blood glucose level from 2 to 24 hours after metformin therapy in presence (33.6 to 34.2 mmol/L) or absence (15.2 to 20.2 mmol/L) of oral WSF of A. esculentus. In both of the experiments, Na-carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) was used as positive control. The results of this study indicate that A. esculentus may improve glycemic control but should not be taken concurrently with metformin hydrochloride in controlling diabetes mellitus

Antibacterial Activities of Actinomycete Isolates Collected from Soils of Rajshahi, Bangladesh

This study was performed to isolate actinomycete colonies having antibacterial activity from soil samples collected from different places around Rajshahi, Bangladesh. Thirty actinomycete colonies were isolated in pure culture from five soil samples using Starch-casein-nitrate-agar medium. The isolates were grouped in five color series based on their aerial mycelia color and screened for their antibacterial activity against a range of test bacteria. Sixteen isolates (53.3%) were found to have moderate to high activity against four gram-positive and four gram-negative bacteria. Since many isolates showed inhibitory activity against indicator bacteria, it is suggestive that Bangladeshi soil could be an interesting source to explore for antibacterial secondary metabolites

Integron gene cassettes harboring novel variants of D-alanine-D-alanine ligase confer high-level resistance to D-cycloserine

Antibiotic resistance poses an increasing threat to global health. To tackle this problem, the identification of principal reservoirs of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) plus an understanding of drivers for their evolutionary selection are important. During a PCR-based screen of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) associated with integrons in saliva-derived metagenomic DNA of healthy human volunteers, two novel variants of genes encoding a D-alanine-D-alanine ligase (ddl6 and ddl7) located within gene cassettes in the first position of a reverse integron were identified. Treponema denticola was identified as the likely host of the ddl cassettes. Both ddl6 and ddl7 conferred high level resistance to D-cycloserine when expressed in Escherichia coli with ddl7 conferring four-fold higher resistance to D-cycloserine compared to ddl6. A SNP was found to be responsible for this difference in resistance phenotype between the two ddl variants. Molecular dynamics simulations were used to explain the mechanism of this phenotypic change at the atomic scale. A hypothesis for the evolutionary selection of ddl containing integron gene cassettes is proposed, based on molecular docking of plant metabolites within the ATP and D-cycloserine binding pockets of Ddl