Vegetable chains in Kenya: Production and consumption of vegetables in the Nairobi metropolis

Vegetable consumption in African countries such as Kenya is low, which has a negative impact on the nutritional condition of the population, and on the production by smallholders. The goals of the project were to determine the potentials for consumption and cultivation in the Nairobi metropolitan region, to analyse the reasons for low consumption and to define strategies to stimulate consumption and production. Vegetable consumption can be increased, especially during the dry season when availability is low, and for low-income groups. Production can be increased through technical interventions and improvement of skills. Important is to improve the leverage of producers in the value chain and the efficiency of the value chain. Key elements are: stimulate urban farming; reduce the cost price throughout the value chain and make the value chain more transparent, accountable, shorter with less transaction costs; reduce post-harvest losses, develop a revenue system that better rewards farmers; improve cold storage and logistics, improve irrigation in the dry season; offer dry-season solutions through food processing; and pay attention to a number of life-style issues. The Netherlands can contribute in the fields of re-structuring the value chain, brokering between parties, food processing, consumer behaviour, production and product quality (irrigation, quality seeds, crop management), and R&D

FIBTEM clot firmness parameters correlate well with the fibrinogen concentration measured by the Clauss assay in patients and healthy subjects

The Clauss assay is the assay most often used for measuring plasma fibrinogen levels. However, the FIBTEM-assay, determined using thromboelastometry (ROTEM) can also be used to estimate fibrinogen levels. A major advantage of the FIBTEM is that it can provide information about fibrinogen levels within minutes, while the Clauss assay needs 30–60 min before the result is available. The aim of this study was to investigate the correlation between fibrinogen levels measured by the Clauss assay and results from the FIBTEM-assay. We included 111 patients 18 years for whom both ROTEM analyses and a fibrinogen measurement using the Clauss assay were available. In addition, ROTEM and Clauss measurements from 75 healthy subjects were included. Spearman correlation was used to determine the association between the results of both assays. The patients included were mostly patients with major trauma or undergoing large surgery (e.g. cardiac surgery or liver transplantation). Strong correlations were found between FIBTEM clot firmness parameters and fibrinogen levels measured by the Clauss assay in patients (Spearman’s correlation coefficients (rs) above 0.80 (p < .001) for all subgroups) and healthy subjects (rs ¼ 0.66, p < .001). The correlation between early FIBTEM parameters (clot firmness at 5 or 10 min) and the maximum clot firmness was almost perfect (rs above 0.96). Also, the correlation between the a-angle a

Vegetable chains in Kenya: Production and consumption of vegetables in the Nairobi metropolis

Vegetable consumption in African countries such as Kenya is low, which has a negative impact on the nutritional condition of the population, and on the production by smallholders. The goals of the project were to determine the potentials for consumption and cultivation in the Nairobi metropolitan region, to analyse the reasons for low consumption and to define strategies to stimulate consumption and production. Vegetable consumption can be increased, especially during the dry season when availability is low, and for low-income groups. Production can be increased through technical interventions and improvement of skills. Important is to improve the leverage of producers in the value chain and the efficiency of the value chain. Key elements are: stimulate urban farming; reduce the cost price throughout the value chain and make the value chain more transparent, accountable, shorter with less transaction costs; reduce post-harvest losses, develop a revenue system that better rewards farmers; improve cold storage and logistics, improve irrigation in the dry season; offer dry-season solutions through food processing; and pay attention to a number of life-style issues. The Netherlands can contribute in the fields of re-structuring the value chain, brokering between parties, food processing, consumer behaviour, production and product quality (irrigation, quality seeds, crop management), and R&D

Primary production and eddy correlation measurements of CO2 exchange over an intertidal estuary

Field measurements by eddy correlation indicate an average CO2 uptake of 1.9 g C m-2 d-1 by the intertidal Wadden Sea estuary in spring 2008. The flux did not show a dependency on the tide and fluxes during high and low tide were comparable. We hypothesize that biological production in the water column and in microbial mats that cover sediments lead to an undersaturation of CO2 that is strong enough to support the observed fluxes. The total carbon uptake by this intertidal estuary from day of the year 101–168 is estimated to be -1.7 Tg C. Extrapolation of this flux over three months in spring suggests that the uptake of CO2 by this estuary over this period is comparable to 24% of the yearly carbon flux over the North Sea and the European estuarie