Livestock industrialization, trade and social-health-environment impacts in developing countries: a case of Indian poultry sector

This paper presents the results of an empirical study of the Indian Poultry Industry which is specially focused on the social and environmental outcomes generated by the rapidly increasing scale of egg and broiler production in India. Among the effects of these rapid changes that occurred in the poultry industry include increased risk for animal health, changes in demand patters in terms of amount, quality, and food safety, higher prices for high value items; but there is also a threat to smallholders that they will be excluded from more demanding markets. There are important questions, which have arisen with the industrialization of poultry activity in India. Is the scaling up of production driving small producers to disadvantage on account of high transaction costs, policy distortions and environment externalities? Why do some poultry farms have higher incomes than others? Do large farms earn more profit per unit of output than small farms? What explains the differentials in efficiency? An attempt is made here to take stock of these changes and to assess their social and environmental outcomes particularly those that affect the welfare of poor. The paper starts by examining the state of the Indian Poultry Industry, and then it goes in dealing with selected socio-economic, health, and environment changes that affect the competitiveness of livestock production including domestic institutional arrangement of food safety standards.Indian poultry sector; livestock industrialization; competitiveness; transaction costs; environmental externalities; contract farming

Processed food products exports from India: an exploration with SPS regime

[Conclusion]: This exploration into the application of the SPS regime in the processed food products in India was focussed on five processed product lines, each from a different segment of the wide spectrum of available products. It was observed that all selected processed food products were assisted by the policy liberalisation regime of the early 1990s. But, in the post-WTO period, particularly since 1996/97, the complexity of the SPS regime seems to have significantly constrained market access in developed countries for Indian processed food products. The poultry product (e.g., egg powder) and marine (Shrimps) product exports to EU and USA reveal contrasting scenarios. Egg powder plants in India that were dedicated to produce exports to the EU markets closed down because of the imposition of stricter food safety standards. On the other hand, the EU approved plants for processing marine products, many exporters could not understand or cope with the shifting safety standards, and they explored alternative markets. As a result, the realized unit value of these exports declined. The hiatus between scientific merit and trade economics is further brought home, when the application of SPS measures to Peanuts/Groundnuts, Mango Pulp and Mushrooms export lines are examined. The case studies confirm the untenability of higher and stricter food safety standards in EU and USA, given emerging trends in dietary preferences and living standards. Although India has a competitive edge in production, market outcomes appear to have been dominated by the impact of SPS as a major non-tariff barrier. This development bodes ill for the successful continuation of multilateral trade arrangements visualised in the WTO agreement. We have repeatedly seen in all five case studies that SPS norms are used by manufacturers of the processing industry machinery in the developed countries to process food exports from the developing countries. The ingenuity, if any, of the importing nation in crafting non-tariff measures to thwart greater access to processed food exports from the developing countries has become more explicit and transparent. Detention of food consignments on grounds like unapproved, not listed, does not demonstrate the maturity of the dominant developed country trading partners. (It was shown that a large number of Indian poultry consignments got rejected due to the following specification targets: (i) Filthy, (ii) Salmonella, (iii) Not-listed, (iv)Unapproved and (v) Insanitary.) Similarly, actions like the insistence on the use of the Turtle Extruder Device (TED), a particular sampling techniques for Aflatoxin testing, and the practice of frequently changing sensitivity levels for testing results, and the resort to emergency notification clauses are indeed trade distorting. To conclude, the case studies highlight the crucial issues of maintaining quality norms, from a developing country perspective, and attempt to link issues of SPS barriers and broader economic issues related to international trade. Our preliminary investigation reveals that SPS affects Indias (and possibly other developing countries) exports differently than is generally believed. Besides, the push for use of highly capital intensive technologies to gain compliance with SPS regulations leads them to becoming, in practice, non-tariff barriers for the developing countries exports. Though the developed countries present a picture of genuine concern for the welfare of developing countries through different arrangements and programmes like preferential market access through the Lome Convention, the preliminary investigations undertaken in these case studies show a contrasting picture. In the final analysis, processed food exports must become a viable instrument to sustain and enhance social welfare in developing countries through poverty alleviation. This is possible if all trading partners work towards making the trinity of science, safety and trade of food products blend to form a harmonious unity

Studies on solid matrix priming of seeds in bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.)

A study was carried out to evaluate the effect of solid matrix priming of seeds on emergence (%), growth and fruit yield characters of bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.) cultivar ‘Solan Hara’. The Experiment comprised of two vigour groups of seeds viz., ‘V1’ (High vigour seeds) and ‘V2’ (72 hours accelerated aged seeds/low vigour seeds) and five seed priming treatments viz., ‘P1’ (Solid matrix priming with Cocopeat), ‘P2’ (Solid matrix priming with Perlite), ‘P3’ (Solid matrix priming with Vermiculite), ‘P4’ (Seed soaking in water), ‘P5’ (Control -Without treatment).Investigation proved that low vigour seeds were inferior in respect of high vigour seeds in terms of seed physiological quality, emergence, growth and yield characteristics. Seed priming with Perlite for 72 hours proved its potential over other priming treatments, seed soaking and control (non-primed seeds) in both high vigour and low vigour seeds for agronomic attributes under study. High vigour seeds primed with Perlite ‘V1P2’ was found to be the best treatment for most of the traits understudy recording highest total field emergence (76.60%), fruit yield per plot (16.12 Kg) and per hectare (250.35 q). Similarly, Low vigour seeds primed with Perlite also recorded enhanced and improved total field emergence (73.83%) fruit yield per plot (9.28 Kg) and per hectare (143.26 q) compared to other low vigour treated and non treated seeds. From the present investigation it was inferred that that the extent of improvement w.r.t. attributes studied was more in low vigour seeds (V2) and seed priming with solid matrix carrier ‘Perlite’ can be used as a beneficial pre-sowing treatment to enhance the seedling emergence, growth and yield characteristics in bitter gourd

Effect of head decapitation and planting density on quality seed production of sprouting broccoli (Brassica oleracea var. italica L.)

A study was carried out to evaluate the effect of head decapitation and planting density on plant growth, seed yield and quality of sprouting broccoli, Brassica oleracea var. italica L. using cultivar ‘Green Head’. The twenty treatments comprised of combinations of four head decapitation methods viz., D1 (decapitation of primary head at appearance and harvesting seeds from secondary heads), D2 (decapitation of primary head at marketable stage and harvesting seeds from secondary heads), D3 (removal of secondary heads at appearance and harvesting seeds primary head) and ‘D4’ (No decapitation- control) and five planting densities viz., S1 (60x60 cm), S2 (60x45 cm), S3(45x45 cm), S4 (60x30 cm), and S5 (45x30 cm). Decapitation of primary head at appearance and harvesting seeds from secondary heads (D1) and planting density S3 (45x45 cm) independently as well as in combination gave highest seed yield per plot and per hectare. This combination was also found comparable to other combinations for other characters like days to 50% flowering, days to seed harvesting, plant height at harvesting (cm), number of branches per plant, number of siliqua per plant, siliqua length (cm), number of seeds per siliqua and seed quality parameters. Therefore, it is suggested that decapitation of primary head at appearance and harvesting seeds from secondary heads (D1) in combination with plant spacing of 45x45 cm i.e. D1S3 can be recommended for commercial seed production of sprouting broccoli

An Empiric Analysis of Wavelet-Based Feature Extraction on Deep Learning and Machine Learning Algorithms for Arrhythmia Classification

The aberration in human electrocardiogram (ECG) affects cardiovascular events that may lead to arrhythmias. Many automation systems for ECG classification exist, but the ambiguity to wisely employ the in-built feature extraction or expert based manual feature extraction before classification still needs recognition. The proposed work compares and presents the enactment of using machine learning and deep learning classification on time series sequences. The two classifiers, namely the Support Vector Machine (SVM) and the Bi-directional Long Short-Term Memory (BiLSTM) network, are separately trained by direct ECG samples and extracted feature vectors using multiresolution analysis of Maximal Overlap Discrete Wavelet Transform (MODWT). Single beat segmentation with R-peaks and QRS detection is also involved with 6 morphological and 12 statistical feature extraction. The two benchmark datasets, multi-class, and binary class, are acquired from the PhysioNet database. For the binary dataset, BiLSTM with direct samples and with feature extraction gives 58.1% and 80.7% testing accuracy, respectively, whereas SVM outperforms with 99.88% accuracy. For the multi-class dataset, BiLSTM classification accuracy with the direct sample and the extracted feature is 49.6% and 95.4%, whereas SVM shows 99.44%. The efficient statistical workout depicts that the extracted feature-based selection of data can deliver distinguished outcomes compared with raw ECG data or in-built automatic feature extraction. The machine learning classifiers like SVM with knowledge-based feature extraction can equally or better perform than Bi-LSTM network for certain datasets

Livestock industrialization, trade and social-health-environment impacts in developing countries: a case of Indian poultry sector

This paper presents the results of an empirical study of the Indian Poultry Industry which is specially focused on the social and environmental outcomes generated by the rapidly increasing scale of egg and broiler production in India. Among the effects of these rapid changes that occurred in the poultry industry include increased risk for animal health, changes in demand patters in terms of amount, quality, and food safety, higher prices for high value items; but there is also a threat to smallholders that they will be excluded from more demanding markets. There are important questions, which have arisen with the industrialization of poultry activity in India. Is the scaling up of production driving small producers to disadvantage on account of high transaction costs, policy distortions and environment externalities? Why do some poultry farms have higher incomes than others? Do large farms earn more profit per unit of output than small farms? What explains the differentials in efficiency? An attempt is made here to take stock of these changes and to assess their social and environmental outcomes particularly those that affect the welfare of poor. The paper starts by examining the state of the Indian Poultry Industry, and then it goes in dealing with selected socio-economic, health, and environment changes that affect the competitiveness of livestock production including domestic institutional arrangement of food safety standards