Climate-smart practices for improvement of crop yields in mid-hills of Nepal

Farming in Nepal mostly represents the hill farming system with the dominance of small-holder farmers. In recent days, farmers in the country are impacted by climate change. Events of surface runoff, landslides, and soil erosions, along with changes in rainfall pattern and intensity have elevated a decline in crop productivity and soil fertility. Considering the situation, a pilot project on Resilient Mountain Village was implemented in Kavrepalanchowk district of Nepal from 2014–2016 with a participatory approach to demonstrate climate-smart practices. These practices include the application of locally prepared bio-fertilizer (named as “jholmal”), green manuring in rice (Oryza sativa L.) and mulching in bitter-gourd (Momordica charantia L.) to determine crop yields compared to farmers’ business as usual practice. The results showed that there was a significant effect of jholmal in rice production during 2015–2016 when compared to farmers\u27 business as usual practice. Likewise, green manuring also showed a significant difference in rice yield compared to farmers’ usual practice in 2015–2016. Bitter-gourd yields were significantly higher in mulching treatment compared to the farmers’ business as usual practice in 2015 and 2016. Rice yield increased by at least 10.1% and 8.1% while using jholmal and green manuring, respectively, whereas bitter-gourd yield increased by 18.1% with mulching practices. Our findings show that farmers have adopted these practices and minimized the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, thus moving forward to producing safer food using a climate-friendly approach

Climate-smart practices for improvement of crop yields in mid-hills of Nepal

Farming in Nepal mostly represents the hill farming system with the dominance of small-holder farmers. In recent days, farmers in the country are impacted by climate change. Events of surface runoff, landslides, and soil erosions, along with changes in rainfall pattern and intensity have elevated a decline in crop productivity and soil fertility. Considering the situation, a pilot project on Resilient Mountain Village was implemented in Kavrepalanchowk district of Nepal from 2014–2016 with a participatory approach to demonstrate climate-smart practices. These practices include the application of locally prepared bio-fertilizer (named as “jholmal”), green manuring in rice (Oryza sativa L.) and mulching in bitter-gourd (Momordica charantia L.) to determine crop yields compared to farmers’ business as usual practice. The results showed that there was a significant effect of jholmal in rice production during 2015–2016 when compared to farmers\u27 business as usual practice. Likewise, green manuring also showed a significant difference in rice yield compared to farmers’ usual practice in 2015–2016. Bitter-gourd yields were significantly higher in mulching treatment compared to the farmers’ business as usual practice in 2015 and 2016. Rice yield increased by at least 10.1% and 8.1% while using jholmal and green manuring, respectively, whereas bitter-gourd yield increased by 18.1% with mulching practices. Our findings show that farmers have adopted these practices and minimized the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, thus moving forward to producing safer food using a climate-friendly approach

Investigating a Potential Causal Relationship Between Maternal Blood Pressure During Pregnancy and Future Offspring Cardiometabolic Health

Observational epidemiological studies have reported that higher maternal blood pressure (BP) during pregnancy is associated with increased future risk of offspring cardiometabolic disease. However, it is unclear whether this association represents a causal relationship through intrauterine mechanisms. We used a Mendelian randomization (MR) framework to examine the relationship between unweighted maternal genetic scores for systolic BP and diastolic BP and a range of cardiometabolic risk factors in the offspring of up to 29 708 genotyped mother-offspring pairs from the UKB study (UK Biobank) and the HUNT study (Trøndelag Health). We conducted similar analyses in up to 21 423 father-offspring pairs from the same cohorts. We confirmed that the BP-associated genetic variants from the general population sample also had similar effects on maternal BP during pregnancy in independent cohorts. We did not detect any association between maternal (or paternal) unweighted genetic scores and cardiometabolic offspring outcomes in the meta-analysis of UKB and HUNT after adjusting for offspring genotypes at the same loci. We find little evidence to support the notion that maternal BP is a major causal risk factor for adverse offspring cardiometabolic outcomes in later life

Disinterested agents or mismatched plans? : Public administration capacities and climate change responses in the least developing countries

Purpose: Developed countries agreed at COP15 to pay US$100bn annually for adaptation and mitigation in developing countries. This paper aims to evaluate how prepared are donors and recipients to spend this money well by analyzing institutional and organizational capabilities for climate change adaptation in least developed country (LDC) administrations using the case of Nepal, a country which can be considered to be an archetypal LDC. Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted over 100 in-depth structured qualitative interviews with government officials from across the organizational chain in the ministries concerned with climate change, ranging from

Comparison of pre- and post-bronchodilator lung function as predictors of mortality:The HUNT Study

Background and objective Post‐bronchodilator (BD) lung function is recommended for the diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, often only pre‐BD lung function is used in clinical practice or epidemiological studies. We aimed to compare the discrimination ability of pre‐BD and post‐BD lung function to predict all‐cause mortality. Methods Participants aged ≥40 years with airflow limitation (n = 2538) and COPD (n = 1262) in the second survey of the Nord‐Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT2, 1995–1997) were followed up until 31 December 2015. Survival analysis and time‐dependent area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUC) were used to compare the discrimination ability of pre‐BD and post‐BD lung function (percent‐predicted forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV1) (ppFEV1), FEV1 z‐score, FEV1 quotient (FEV1Q), modified Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) categories or GOLD grades). Results Among 2538 participants, 1387 died. The AUC for pre‐BD and post‐BD ppFEV1 to predict mortality were 60.8 and 61.8 (P = 0.005), respectively, at 20 years' follow‐up. The corresponding AUC for FEV1 z‐score were 58.5 and 60.4 (P < 0.001), for FEV1Q were 68.7 and 70.1 (P = 0.002) and for modified GOLD categories were 62.3 and 64.5 (P < 0.001). Among participants with COPD, the AUC for pre‐BD and post‐BD ppFEV1 were 57.0 and 58.8 (P < 0.001), respectively. The corresponding AUC for FEV1 z‐score were 53.1 and 55.8 (P < 0.001), for FEV1Q were 63.6 and 65.1 (P = 0.037) and for GOLD grades were 56.0 and 57.0 (P = 0.268). Conclusion Mortality was better predicted by post‐BD than by pre‐BD lung function; however, they differed only by a small margin. The discrimination ability using GOLD grades among COPD participants was similar

Proteome-wide Mendelian randomization in global biobank meta-analysis reveals multi-ancestry drug targets for common diseases

Proteome-wide Mendelian randomization (MR) shows value in prioritizing drug targets in Europeans but with limited evidence in other ancestries. Here, we present a multi-ancestry proteome-wide MR analysis based on cross-population data from the Global Biobank Meta-analysis Initiative (GBMI). We estimated the putative causal effects of 1,545 proteins on eight diseases in African (32,658) and European (1,219,993) ancestries and identified 45 and 7 protein-disease pairs with MR and genetic colocalization evidence in the two ancestries, respectively. A multi-ancestry MR comparison identified two protein-disease pairs with MR evidence in both ancestries and seven pairs with specific effects in the two ancestries separately. Integrating these MR signals with clinical trial evidence, we prioritized 16 pairs for investigation in future drug trials. Our results highlight the value of proteome-wide MR in informing the generalizability of drug targets for disease prevention across ancestries and illustrate the value of meta-analysis of biobanks in drug development

Global Biobank analyses provide lessons for developing polygenic risk scores across diverse cohorts

Polygenic risk scores (PRSs) have been widely explored in precision medicine. However, few studies have thoroughly investigated their best practices in global populations across different diseases. We here utilized data from Global Biobank Meta-analysis Initiative (GBMI) to explore methodological considerations and PRS performance in 9 different biobanks for 14 disease endpoints. Specifically, we constructed PRSs using pruning and thresholding (P + T) and PRS-continuous shrinkage (CS). For both methods, using a European-based linkage disequilibrium (LD) reference panel resulted in comparable or higher prediction accuracy compared with several other non-European-based panels. PRS-CS overall outperformed the classic P + T method, especially for endpoints with higher SNP-based heritability. Notably, prediction accuracy is heterogeneous across endpoints, biobanks, and ancestries, especially for asthma, which has known variation in disease prevalence across populations. Overall, we provide lessons for PRS construction, evaluation, and interpretation using GBMI resources and highlight the importance of best practices for PRS in the biobank-scale genomics era.</p

Linkages among forest, water, and wildlife: a case study from Kalapani community forest in Lamahi bottleneck area in Terai Arc Landscape.

Forest and water are important entities for sustaining life on earth. In a terrestrial ecosystem, linkages between the entities creates a mosaic benefiting the wildlife by creating the suitable habitat. In turn, communities get benefits stemming up from ecosystem services such as fodder, fuelwood, and water. We present a case study from a forest restoration project to assess the linkages between forest, water and wildlife across Lamahi bottleneck area in Terai Arc Landscape. We used combination of surveys such as forest area and canopy cover change (2001-2016) analysis followed by household questionnaire, water hole, camera trapping including process documentation. Forest area has increased by ~20 km2 in last 16 yrs. followed by number of water spouts along the identified tributaries. Water spouts are conserved in the form of conservation pond by the communities living downstream and utilized in the vegetable farming. Communities have benefited financially (~ US$ 1,252) contributing to their income level from the sale of fresh season vegetables in nearby market. Camera trap survey including the assessment of historical records showed presence of wildlife including elephant, hyena and other small carnivores in and around bottleneck forest. Both, motivation and enthusiastic support from local communities followed by the conducive government policies led to improve condition of natural resources over the period. This has also created a mosaic habitat for wildlife forming functional connectivity along the linear Terai Arc Landscape