The Potential of Cacao Agribusiness for Poverty Alleviation in West Sumatra

The cacao industry has played an important role in terms of export earnings and employment opportunities in Indonesia since 1980s. It is the main source of income for more than one million smallholder farmers in Indonesia, who are considered poor. Most planted areas of cacao are in Eastern Indonesia; however, cacao production has developed in Western Indonesia recently, with West Sumatra designated as the area of central production. Due to the importance of cacao industry in the Indonesian economy, there is a big opportunity to explore the potential of the industry in poverty alleviation. The study uses the participatory impact pathway analysis (PIPA) method. It is a new approach to formulate a development strategy and policies proposed by the Institutional Learning and Change. This approach is used because it: (1) covers impact analysis in order to investigate the potential contribution of cacao agribusiness development to poverty alleviation, which is not covered by other participatory approaches; and (2) can be used to identify stakeholders‟ relationships for cacao agribusiness development. The use of PIPA in this study involves various tools: a participatory workshop, surveys and semi-structured interviews. Problems facing the cacao industry were identified through the workshop, including low yields and price and price instability. Lack of knowledge by farmers of agronomic practices and low quality of seedlings were considered to be the main causes of low yields by the participants. Low price of cacao beans was thought to be mainly caused by low quality of cacao beans while lack of cooperation between farmers and the village cooperative and lack of a farmers‟ association were considered to be the main factors affecting price instability. Farmer survey data results show slightly different priorities from the workshop. Most cacao farmers disagreed on the problem of low yields and low price of cacao beans but a high proportion agreed on the problem of price instability and confirmed that cacao farmers face a problem of low quality of cacao beans. Most farmers do not know the cause of price instability, while improper fermentation was agreed as the main factor causing the low quality of cacao beans.agribusiness economics and management, international development, farm management., Agribusiness, Farm Management, International Development,

Assessing risks of invasion through gamete performance: farm Atlantic salmon sperm and eggs show equivalence in function, fertility, compatibility and competitiveness to wild Atlantic salmon

Adaptations at the gamete level (a) evolve quickly, (b) appear sensitive to inbreeding and outbreeding and (c) have important influences on potential to reproduce. We apply this understanding to problems posed by escaped farm salmon and measure their potential to reproduce in the wild. Farm Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) are a threat to biodiversity, because they escape in large numbers and can introgress, dilute or disrupt locally adapted wild gene pools. Experiments at the whole fish level have found farm reproductive potential to be significant, but inferior compared to wild adults, especially for males. Here, we assess reproductive performance at the gamete level through detailed in vitro comparisons of the form, function, fertility, compatibility and competitiveness of farm versus wild Atlantic salmon sperm and eggs, in conditions mimicking the natural gametic microenvironment, using fish raised under similar environmental conditions. Despite selective domestication and reduced genetic diversity, we find functional equivalence in all farm fish gamete traits compared with their wild ancestral strain. Our results identify a clear threat of farm salmon reproduction with wild fish and therefore encourage further consideration of using triploid farm strains with optimized traits for aquaculture and fish welfare, as triploid fish remain reproductively sterile following escape

Experimental Tests for Heritable Morphological Color Plasticity in Non-Native Brown Trout (Salmo trutta) Populations

The success of invasive species is frequently attributed to phenotypic plasticity, which facilitates persistence in novel environments. Here we report on experimental tests to determine whether the intensity of cryptic coloration patterns in a global invader (brown trout, Salmo trutta) was primarily the result of plasticity or heritable variation. Juvenile F1 offspring were created through experimental crosses of wild-caught parents and reared for 30 days in the laboratory in a split-brood design on either light or dark-colored gravel substrate. Skin and fin coloration quantified with digital photography and image analysis indicated strong plastic effects in response to substrate color; individuals reared on dark substrate had both darker melanin-based skin color and carotenoid-based fin colors than other members of their population reared on light substrate. Slopes of skin and fin color reaction norms were parallel between environments, which is not consistent with heritable population-level plasticity to substrate color. Similarly, we observed weak differences in population-level color within an environment, again suggesting little genetic control on the intensity of skin and fin colors. Taken as whole, our results are consistent with the hypothesis that phenotypic plasticity may have facilitated the success of brown trout invasions and suggests that plasticity is the most likely explanation for the variation in color intensity observed among these populations in nature

From the Trenches: Cross-Campus Digital History Collaboration

In September 2015, our team launched The First World War Letters of H.J.C. Peirs (www.jackpeirs.org), a digital history initiative built on collaboration between faculty, students, and library staff. The project is founded on amazing primary source material, but with limited financial support and little dedicated staff time. We leveraged the creativity and hard work of our team members to build a website that is maintained by students and enhanced whenever possible with features and commentary from faculty and staff. Members of #TeamPeirs discussed the evolution of the project, the nature of our collaboration, and the intersection of audiences we have discovered

Probing the PI3K/Akt/mTor pathway using 31P-NMR spectroscopy : routes to glycogen synthase kinase 3

Professor Matteo Zanda and Professor Marcel Jaspars are gratefully acknowledged for the use of the NMR system and Russell Gray for running some of the NMR samples.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

High-frequency information content in end-user foreign exchange order flows

This article considers the impact of foreign exchange (FX) order flows on contemporaneous and future stock market returns using a new database of customer order flows in the euro-dollar exchange rate market as seen by a leading European bank. We do not find clear contemporaneous relationships between FX order flows and stock market changes at high frequencies, but FX flows do appear to have significant power to forecast stock index returns over 1–30 min horizons, after controlling for lagged exchange rate and stock market returns. The effects of order flows from financial customers on future stock market changes are negative, while the effects of corporate orders are positive. The latter results are consistent with the premise that corporate order flows contain dispersed, passively acquired information about fundamentals. Thus, purchases of the dollar by corporate customers represent good news about the state of the US economy. Importantly, though, there also appears to be extra information in corporate flows which is directly relevant to equity prices over and above the impact derived from stock prices reacting to (predicted) exchange rate changes. Our findings suggest that financial customer flows only affect stock prices through their impact on the value of the dollar

From the Trenches: Cross-campus Digital History Collaboration

In September 2015, our team launched The First World War Letters of H.J.C. Peirs (www.jackpeirs.org), a digital history initiative built on collaboration between faculty, students, and library staff. The project is founded on amazing primary source material, but with limited financial support and little dedicated staff time. We leveraged the creativity and hard work of our team members to build a website that is maintained by students and enhanced whenever possible with features and commentary from faculty and staff. Members of #TeamPeirs will discuss the evolution of the project, the nature of our collaboration, and the intersection of audiences we have discovered.In September 2015, our team launched The First World War Letters of H.J.C. Peirs (www.jackpeirs.org), a digital history initiative built on collaboration between faculty, students, and library staff. The project is founded on amazing primary source material, but with limited financial support and little dedicated staff time. We leveraged the creativity and hard work of our team members to build a website that is maintained by students and enhanced whenever possible with features and commentary from faculty and staff. Members of #TeamPeirs will discuss the evolution of the project, the nature of our collaboration, and the intersection of audiences we have discovered

Model-based evaluation of the genetic impacts of farm-escaped Atlantic salmon on wild populations

Acknowledgements. The authors thank R. Gregory and T. Kess for comments on this manuscript. Funding was provided through the Fisheries and Oceans Program for Aquaculture Regulatory Research. This work has benefited greatly from a 3 year Canada-EU Galway Statement for the Transatlantic Ocean Research Alliance Working Group on modelling genetic interactions among wild and farm escaped Atlantic Salmon in the North Atlantic, involving participants from 7 countries. The models applied here were evaluated and discussed as part of this working group.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Correspondence between Scale Morphometrics and Scale and Otolith Chemistry for Interpreting Juvenile Salmon Life Histories

Fish scales have long been used to reconstruct fine-scale habitat transitions such as the movement of juvenile fish from freshwater, estuary, and ocean environments. Despite the importance of life history information to fisheries management and conservation, few studies have validated that scale morphology accurately describes fish movement between these habitats. Therefore, we tested the accuracy of using scale morphometric criteria to identify the movement of juvenile Chinook Salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha from freshwater to marine portions of the Columbia River estuary by comparing scale morphometric classification, scale chemistry, and otolith chemistry. Nearly one-half of all fish collected in the saline portion of the estuary and approximately one-quarter in the freshwater portion exhibited morphometric patterns (i.e., scale checks and intermediate growth) often associated with periods of estuary rearing. Depending upon the criteria used to define scale checks, otolith chemical results indicated that 33–53% of fish would have been misclassified as estuary residents based solely on their scale patterns. Moreover, many individuals who had resided in strontium-rich estuary water did not form a visible check (37%) on their scales to coincide with estuary entry. We estimated from otolith chemistry that these fish had either entered at or near the size at which scale formation occurs (35–42 mm) or had recently migrated to the saline portion of the estuary (<30 d) before new scale material could be formed and calcified. Scale chemistry alone was a good indicator of entrance into the saline portion of the estuary. Scale chemistry responded to the strontium-enriched salt water, and explained 86% of the variation found in otolith chemistry. Scale morphometric classification did not provide the fine-scale resolution that scale and, even more so, otolith chemistry provided for describing the proportion of juvenile Chinook salmon using the saline portion of the Columbia River estuary