Nature Ecrogrow

It is the fifth largest forest country in the world and the African country has the largest area of forest, with 47% of Africa’s forest formations. From a regional point of view, there are more than 60% of all forests in the Congo Basin. In addition, forests cover 67% of the national territory. Dense wet forests occupy nearly 99 million hectares, of which just over 83 million are low-lying. It is estimated that 60 million hectares of these forests would be suitable for timber production, roughly equivalent to all other forest countries in Central Africa. These forests are located mainly in the central basin .Through to the analyzed data we obtained the results presented in Table 2. This development points to a risk of the country slipping in the forest transition curve, which would result in a very strong acceleration of the dynamics of loss of forest cover in the coming years, like other tropical countries . The result of the forest cover estimate in 1990 and the detection of negative change in 2018 give an annual deforestation rate relative to forest area of 2.12% ± 0.07%. Poverty, population growth, weak local  governance and scarcity of infrastructure  and energy, fuel rural exodus, and are the indirect causes of deforestation. Agriculture and charcoal production: Currently, the main drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in the Democratic Republic of Congo are food agriculture and charcoal production, which alone destroy more than 90% of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s forests. Firewood collection and logging and mining operations also have an impact. Democratic Republic of Congo’s deforestation rates are closely linked to population growth, with nearly two-thirds of the population living in rural areas and producing nearly half of their own food. Small-scale agriculture appears to be the main driver of deforestation in the Democratic Republic of Congo and other countries in the Congolese basin.

However, researchers warn that a “new wave” of industrial deforestation could emerge. If the Congolese basin does nothing to reduce deforestation rates, all forest cover is likely to pass through. Illegal logging is the second largest factor in deforestation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is mainly fuelled by small-scale logging for national and regional markets, and has played a key role in financing the current conflict. Although itinerant cultivation does not necessarily indicate expansion in the primary forest,stackable flower pots growing populations can intensify agricultural practices, reducing fallow periods when trees naturally regrow. In 2017, 3% of the total loss of tree cover occurred in protected areas and 10% in forest concessions. Watershed degradation in the developing countries due to anthropogenic activities is increasingly becoming a threat to the natural water resources . As a result, most rural areas are undergoing rapid and far reaching land use changes. Many researchers including Olson and Matina  concur that most of the changes are mainly associated with intensification of agriculture and expansion of mixed-crop livestock systems into former grazing land and other natural areas. In addition there is increased deforestation and encroachment of the forests hence reduced forest cover . Changes in land use patterns in Kenya are linked to a rapidly increasing population in rural areas . This growth rate translates to an increased pressure and demand for land resources especially in the watershed regions such as Mau Forest Complex. As a result, there is continuing watershed degradation reflected through diminishing forest cover, reduced water quality, soil productivity, loss of riparian vegetation and wetland areas leading to a decline in the ecological stability of these systems .

SWMFC is considered the most important of the five main watershed areas in Kenya because of its immense economic, social and environmental contributions to the country . It is the main source of Chemosit and Kipsonoi rivers among other major rivers that drain into the Lake Victoria Basin. Despite the critical role in supporting environmental, socio-economic and biological processes, South West Mau Forest Complex has been greatly deforested through excision and encroachment for settlement and farmland . This high rate of vegetation loss has led to decline in the ecological and hydrological changes that may threaten the sustainable future of areas downstream, biodiversity conservation and livelihood support systems . Riparian areas are essential for diminishing negative impacts of land use activities on rivers . However, the riparian areas in SWMFC are experiencing diverse development initiatives likely to have also considerably reduced the biodiversity and increased threats to these river systems . This study set out to determine how land use activities have affected riparian structure, water and soil qualities along Chemosit and Kipsonoi rivers in South West Mau Forest Complex. Adjacent land use activities were obtained through direct observation and photographs. Information on major crops was collected using a structured questionnaire administered to the sampled households living in the immediate vicinity and within 1 km on either side of the river bank. Local land use in every sampling site was recorded. Physical parameters , chemical parameters  and heavy metals  was done according to the standard procedures as described in APHA . These are as follows: Total suspended solids were estimated gravimetrically, water pH using a pH meter, Total Nitrogen determined by Kjeldahl digestion. Total phosphorous was determined using the ascorbic acid method  while analysis for potassium, copper, cadmium and lead was carried out using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer . Before analysis, calibration standards of different concentrations were prepared. In this particular analysis, each replica representing samples from the middle and the two edges were mixed separately to form a composite sample.

A total of 18 composite samples were obtained for the entire water samples collected. Soil samples were separately air-dried at room temperature, crushed, homogenized and passed through a 2 mm sieve. Soil organic carbon content was determined by the Walkey Black titration method . Total Nitrogen was determined using the Kjeldahl distillation method . Potassium, Sulphur, Phosphorous, Cadmium, Copper, and Lead were analyzed using inductivity couple plasma spectrophotometer . Soil pH was determined using a pH meter. Chemosit and Kipsonoi rivers traverses through different land use types. In this case, six distinct land use activities were identified along based on their dominant land uses and characteristics. Generally there is a variation in land use activities from upstream to downstream. Upstream is dominated by indigenous forest characterized by dense network of trees and bushes with little human disturbance. From the edge of the forests towards midstream, the land opens up to a rich upland agricultural area of extensive and intensive farming characterized by tea plantation and few human settlements. Moving downstream, grazing and mixed agricultural farming predominate with more permanently settled small scale farmers and urban set-up with high population and economic activities. From our results, farming plays an important role in South West Mau catchment and is in agreement with findings by Calamari et al., 1995; Jaetzold and Schmidt, 2009. Figure 2 reports the overall riparian biodiversity disturbance in South West Mau catchment. Upstream riparian vegetation was least disturbed with native vegetation present on both sides of the river, intact canopy and with continuous woody vegetation along the riparian zone, dense ground cover and river banks in natural condition. Midstream riparian vegetation is in poor condition characterized by isolated woody vegetation, limited ground cover and disturbed banks. In addition there is a high disturbance of the riparian zone by stock or through the intrusion of exotic species, although some native species remain. Valley vegetation is clearly agriculture with native vegetation clearly disturbed and with a high percentage of introduced species present. Downstream riparian vegetation is severely disturbed on both sides as indicated by reduced and absence of riparian vegetation.During the study period, significant differences were observed in Water pH and Total Nitrogen between sampling sites. Tukey’s test showed that the mean water pH at upstream sampling site differed significantly from that recorded at downstream of Chemosit river. Along Kipsonoi river, the mean water pH differed significantly between midstream and Downstream sampling sites. In both rivers, the mean value for water pH ranged from 6.9  to 7.2 . However these values fall within the pH range associated with most natural waters of 6.5 to 8.5 . Most ecosystems are sensitive to changes in pH while certain organisms prefer different ranges of pH . The reported land use activities in SWMF do not seem to modify the pH of the water. On the other hand, along Chemosit river significant differences were observed in total nitrogen between upstream and midstream sampling sites and between upstream and downstream along Kipsonoi river, respectively. The high Total Nitrogen concentrations of 6.7 mg/l and 5.7 mg/l observed midstream of the two rivers could be associated with adjacent urban and agricultural land use activities.

According to  agricultural activities can lead to an increased flux of nitrogen into water bodies while use of fertilizers on agricultural land has been associated to high nutrient levels at such sites . Further, total suspended solids, potassium, flower pots for sale total phosphorous, cadmium, lead and copper did not however show any significant differences. Total Suspended Solids were highest midstream on both rivers. This variation could be associated to the different land use activities reported for these sites, run-off from agriculture, soil erosion as well as in- stream activities such as car washing. Presence of indigenous forests, absence of agricultural activities, intact riparian zones characterized by dense vegetation explain the low levels of Total Suspended Solids in the upstream of the two rivers . However total suspended solids in SWMF ranged from 24 – 84 mg/l which is below WHO  limits of 1000 mg/l of suspended solids of drinking water. Total phosphorous concentrations increased downstream with the highest concentration recorded at midstream and lowest at upstream on both rivers. Natural concentrations of phosphorous in surface waters usually range from 0.005 to 0.02 mg/l, while the Environmental Protection Agency  recommends a 0.1 mg/l for aquatic systems to prevent accelerated eutrophication . Low concentrations of total phosphorus  recorded upstream of Chemosit and Kipsonoi rivers is linked to the undisturbed dense network of trees. In undisturbed forested areas, streams are believed to have good water quality with low concentration of nutrients . The dense riparian vegetation within the forest land use are effective buffers in filtering out most of the nutrients from the surface run-off . These findings mirror previous studies that concluded that water quality is greatly linked to land use in a catchment  and confirms several studies that have shown agriculture and urban land use as a primary predictor for nitrogen and phosphorous in stream water . The amount of heavy metals represented by Cd, Cu and Pb did not differ significantly across sites and their concentration did not follow any trend from upstream to downstream. These results agree with previous study that metal concentrations at sites located relatively high up in the catchment were comparable to, or higher than concentrations of these metals downstream. These values are linked to effluent discharge, agricultural and urban run-off, washing and bathing activities by local inhabitants and livestock access to the rivers. In addition degradation of the forest cover and other anthropogenic activities going on inside the forest, atmospheric deposition and geology weathering are potential sources of these metal ions . The mean values and standard deviation of soil physico-chemical variables at different sampling sites along the two rivers of Chemosit and Kipsonoi are presented in Table 3 below. The low soil pH upstream might be due to the presence of slightly higher organic carbon content in the soil. Variability in total organic carbon along the two river systems is linked to the reduction in organic material being returned to the soil system due to decreasing vegetation cover downstream and oxidation of soil organic matter as a result of continuous cultivation along the riverbanks, uncontrolled grazing and browsing, loss of organic matter by water erosion and removal of green materials. These results are in agreement with other studies that reported that the soil organic content differed with different land use types .

The molecular phylogeographical investigations on the European members of Aretia by amplified fragment length polymorphism  markers revealed a strong genetic divergence between the Italian and the Montenegrin populations. The study led to the establishment of a new species called A. komovensis sp. nov., which morphologically resembles A. mathildae Levier from the Abruzzo mountains , but differs in the persistent, dense and regular indumentums of the leaf margin. Furthermore, molecular phylogenetic data indicate that A. komovensis is not closely related to A. mathildae Levier, but instead it is a sister species to the Eastern Alpine endemic A. hausmanni Leyb..We invested great effort in a comprehensive study about this Primulacea in order to describe its morphological and ecological characteristics. A number of experiments to obtain callus induction and neomorphogenesis were conducted to identify suitable procedures for in vitro preservation of A. mathildae. This in vitro material will be useful in cryopreservation and improvement of restocking activity.More than half of the vascular plant flora may become endangered by the year 2080 as a result of climatic changes. The Red List evaluations represent the first unfavourable trends in the threat status of plant species , as it is in our study case. As specified in Secretariat of the CBD 2002, the success of conservation must be based on a solid knowledge to understand the value of plant diversity. Our study aimed at deepening the morphological analysis of the plant. SEM observation of Androsace, performed in our work for the first time, allows us to describe the structural characteristics of a high altitude plant species. The pollen grain is oblate-spheroidal, the exine is foveolated without echine suggesting that pollination might be ambophily by insects and wind.

The androceo consists of five stamens, connate with the corolla tube, and as many carpels welded consisted the ovary, which is overcome and unilocular. The tests we carried out with the TTC on the collected seeds indicate that pollination is successful because the seeds are vital showing mitochondrial respiration. The tracts of humic acids. This condition in nature is replicated from the decomposition of the lower leaves of A. mathildae which welcome the seeds fallen from the plant’s floral mature peduncolate capsule. Androsace mathildae can be found in the cracks of limestone at an altitude above 2500 m, with a little substrate, hydroponic fodder system therefore the success of germination is due to the presence of organic material consisting of the same basal rosette decomposition. On the aerial portion of the plant we identified Pyrenophora bromi, never reported at these altitudes, as an agent of leaf decomposition. The results obtained by in vitro treatments show that the highest percentage  of sprouted seeds was obtained on media with NAA  and BAP  pre-treated with a solution containing humic extracts. Callus induction was obtained from cotyledons of in vitro germinated seeds on a medium containing 0.5 mg∙l−1 6-benzylaminopurine and0.25 mg∙l−1 α-naphthalene acetic acid. The frequency of calli formation is about 93%, they presented a colour tending to green, solid mass, excellent growth and strong neomorphogenesis response.Positive results were obtained in culture media containing 0.5 mg∙l−1 BAP and 0.25 mg∙l−1 NAA; we obtained an extremely high frequency  in callus, buds and shoots formation.Water is also a key element of the Persian Garden and at least three conceptual, functional and aesthetic aspects are present in the garden. These aspects can easily be followed in topics such as the presence of water in garden and its movement and cycle, water supplies and garden irrigation. In most cases, aqueducts or fountains were the main sources of water supply for gardens and in many cases, the water and its management and division which were done precisely in past, determined the area of garden. How to irrigate the gardens, which is in direct contact with the shape and type of land in Persian Garden, is important and of course due to the water shortage in most parts of Iran as well as the sanctity and respect for water in the past and Iranian great interest in the use of water in gardens, has caused them to move water in various ways in the garden and add on its beauty and elegance. Plants in Persian Garden, besides the genus and species, are very impressive in terms of location, planting design, beauty and usefulness and even play a role in the protection of garden against destructive natural factors.

For a long time, human beings are always trying to meet their needs through exchange of information, visually, auditory and written and for realization of dialogue between human beings, which prerequisite is the existence of common subject and language, the principle of mutual understanding should be considered . So, classifying articles to different types makes each person find his own audience. In a classification, reports are included in two social and professional categories which the first is the inclusion of reasoning and critical forms and the latter covers research and review. Thus, this paper is in expert and review area. In fact, each system of search includes general structure and partial techniques. There should be coherence and continuity among all of those areas. With this interpretation, the research methodology is qualitative-descriptive.Persian Garden is the oldest and most important gardens in the world. Persian garden is mostly indicative of psychological needs and less measurable with water requirements. Since ancient times, it was an essential part of Iranian life and its architecture and contributed in the presence of large temples and their symbolic strength. Since Sumerians, gardens surrounded the temple and the royal palace. Life in Iran is dependent on water and the water is in fact the main factor of life. Iranians have drawn a tree with running water which is the most favorable views in a dry land. After water, trees play the most important role in the formation of Persian Garden. Ancient Iranians believed in a sacred angel called Aororoza that hurting the plants would made her upset and angry. Much earlier than other nations, Iranian found that creating gardens is the basis for agriculture and achieved the best practices of building gardens since ancient times. In the Islamic era, huge gardens surrounded the palace, and were considered as part of its architecture, so that the garden covered all main aspects of the building symmetrically. The area was divided into rectangular pieces that small streams passed through them. The gardens were built according to the Iranian predecessors and from the first centuries AD, Iranian-style garden goes beyond borders and widens its scope over time. The garden building method in the eastern countries were inspired by Iranian garden building, in Islam, planting trees was good and unnecessary cut them was considered reprehensible and there are many verses and narrations in this case.In Iranian garden, special attention is paid to geometric shapes and square which shows the distance between the components simple and clear, was of great importance.

At the time of planting a tree, the first step is precise in determining the distance from each side and thus forming squares that looking from each side, rows of trees could be seen. Therefore, the general pattern of most Persian gardens consisted of a rectangular space which is quartered by intersecting streams and pathways. The common irrigation system of the time has been known as another effective factor in the formation of geometric garden structure besides the impact of Persian beliefs and morals. This is in addition to directing the flow of water and avoid wasting it, results in rise of the exact order of how planting trees. So, aeroponic tower garden system outer boundary of the garden, water flow paths, fountains’ location, terracing, the planting system of trees and plants, the location of the palace and garden buildings, have been determined based on precise geometrical structure. Beginning to water from inside the palace to garden and its extension in space seems that one feels the main route of water passed through the pavilion. Sound of water in garden space was done by fountains, small waterfalls and ripple marks.Building gardens have a long history in our country and have been considered in all eras, especially the Islamic period. Gardens had several performances in general and in some eras, public gardens were constructed for travel and leisure time of residents. During the Islamic period, creation of gardens and woodlands was also of interest for inhabitants of this old land. In addition to large and magnificent gardens out of the cities, phenomenon of building gardens in and around cities has been special for this land for centuries. In Islam, tree planting is good and its unnecessary cutting is reprehensible, and there are various traditions in this case. On the other hand, due to climatic differences in various regions of Iran, especially in tropical regions, garden is particularly important. These two issues and other issues caused the tree to be respected as a plant and vital factor by the people. In fact, the Iranian culture doesn’t separate man from nature, but sees him along with evolution of natural elements to discover the signs of God.In the gardens, or in other words, discipline is the elements of natural, manmade and put together and how the use of natural elements, and select characteristics of their discipline, how to take advantage of them, and their relation with everyday life of people, play a central role.In this way, other elements may be used in the creation of the gardens, which are minor elements or component parts, and the effects of the main elements of garden .

Water is a world used in speaking always and everywhere and if someone asks us to define, we say it is a colorless liquid which is the source of life, but is it really the definition of water in architecture and only in terms of the physical aspect, it is an interface between man and architecture? Or like the two hides something within itself to be beyond their origin and material? To answer this question, we first examine the human psyche and then the architectural spirit and then we examine the water hidden side and the way it affects humans and architecture, so by contemplating in them, the question can also be answered. Water in the art has a high status and is remembered as a symbol of life, purity, joy and light and is of great importance in rituals of grief and joy. Different states of water create different feelings of the inhabitants of the planet and everyone according to his age takes his own psychological advantage. Arts from the water are apart from the thoughts and beliefs of Iranians. Understanding the concept of water in architecture or water architecture, depends on understanding of water physical laws, our feelings to interactions of water, and most importantly, the role, allegory and communication with human life. Water symbolizes all things that exist potentially. Interpretations and meanings in relation to water somewhat has a close bond with its inherent meaning and its vital role. Water is the messenger of light and purity and is of great value. In addition that water moves people beyond, but also wherever it appears, it reflects the architects’ perception of nature. Water makes human sees the nature around and feels it by simulating the visual, auditory and tactile powers and understands the concept of place precisely with composition and the conflicts with the nature.Water is the most important and critical element which forms garden because birth and life of garden will be meaningless without its presence. After water, plants play the most important role and their flow is rooted in water. Shape and presence, movement and flow of water in the garden have a special system coordinated with geometry and its architectural structure. Water has always no identical state, and every time, it finds a new look. Change of seasons and hours in every moment makes water in a different color. While character of water particles is involved in determining its color. Water is the source of all the sounds and each is the creator of a different feeling in man’s heart . Inspired by nature, man enters these different musical rhythms of water into the architectural space of his life and made it the music of his soul. The music not only caused spirit gratification but also was used as treatment.

Moreover, collectively, emergence time, height and RCD are considered factors of growth and fitness. This result suggests that relative performances of white birch populations in the field, to some extent, could be estimated from germination and pre-planting performances. We expected that survival among the populations would be influenced by cold winter temperature at the common garden site because most of the populations in the experiment were from climates that are warmer than the common garden climate: That was not the case. Surprisingly, most of the populations with good performances in common garden were from locations with warmer climates. However, a study has shown that it is possible for species to perform differently at different climatic extremes. For instance, in a 6 year provenance study of white ash, the provenances with tallest height in the coldest climate were the shortest in a relatively warmer environment and vice versa. The authors pointed out that such result underpins the genetic basis for trade-off between growth and cold tolerance. However, white birch appears to be a generalist with regards to frost tolerance . Mortality was only observed later in the spring and could not be attributed to frost damage. More importantly, mortality was lowest among the populations from Western Canada where the climate is much warmer than in Northern Ontario. Nonetheless, we exercise caution here because short-term growth investment may lead to future mortality when populations from warm climates are transferred to cold climates.Also in this study, summer temperature proved to be a strong predictor of climatic distance to which white birch populations may be transferred. This was consistent with the parallel factorial experiment that we conducted in the greenhouse. We used two temperatures  and two water regimes . Seedlings in the high temperature environment outperformed those in the low temperature environment .

In theory, it implies that white birch populations will benefit from transfers to warmer climates. However, successful transfer is most probable if the climate of the test site matches that of the populations. This is because there is a potential risk of maladaptation when transferring species along climate or geographic range. Also, nft hydroponic system populations might express adaptation to their original environments even when planted in common gardens. For these reasons, a conservative climatic distance will be more appropriate. Out of the populations tested, the closest matches for the common garden site were populations from Timmins  in Northern Ontario and St George’s in Newfoundland. Although St George’s is a climatic match for the common garden site, the population’s performance was not very impressive. Apart from being a match, in the absence of a population from Thunder Bay  in this experiment, populations from Timmins invariably serve as surrogate for the test site. Timmins is located in Northern Ontario with similar cold northern climate as the test site. However, this is not a conclusive outcome because the performances of the remaining two populations from Timmins are less than average even though they were from locations which are a few kilometers apart. This poses a question of how much influence do seed sources have on the post-planting performance of white birch. Also, it should be pointed out that white birch has different ploidy levels with polyploids being generally more tolerant than the diploids. It is difficult to know if there is a confounding effect of ploidy level in addition to population effects. Growth and survival is controlled by many factors other than climates and it is important to understand genotype performance from both genetic, developmental and growth viewpoints to adequately capture the dimension of variations among the populations. However, the prediction of the transfer functions is not trivial. The models summarized the important climate variables relevant to the species transfer and aided the matching of populations with the test site. This will provide a useful guide in the decision making process.

At this stage of this experiment, we use the term “match” with caution and we are itching to know what the populations’ performances might be in a few years from now.Ex situ living collections of socio-economically important plant species are an important resource for sustainable development research and use. Globally, botanic gardens propagate and grow a third of all known higher plant species.This means they have the potential to provide the scientific community with plant material and a wealth of knowledge about how to grow plants successfully, the starting points for their study and sustainable use. Although botanic garden and arboretum collections are acknowledged as important ex situ conservation repositories in FAO’s Second Global Plan of Action for Plant Genetic Resources in Food and Agriculture and their State of the World’s Forest Genetic Resources report, botanic garden collections remain largely unknown and under-utilised by the crop and forestry communities. For example, Khoury et al. recently published a paper entitled “Comprehensiveness of conservation of useful wild plants: An operational indicator for biodiversity and sustainable development targets”. This paper concludes that 70% of these taxa are conserved ex situ, and only 33.5% are adequately conserved ex situ in 11 or more collections. However, their analysis did not include data on ex situ living collections and seed bank collections in botanic gardens. This despite the fact that many botanic gardens and arboreta were established with a strong focus on economic botany, and historically were largely responsible for the establishment and the global distribution of valuable plant-based commodities such as rubber, tea, coffee and cinchona. Furthermore, plant conservation efforts led by botanic gardens over recent decades have included a strong focus on socio-economically important plant species, including crop wild relatives, wild food plants and timbers. Botanic Gardens Conservation International , a network of botanic gardens and arboreta in >100 countries, maintains a database of the plants that are grown and conserved in more than 1100 botanic gardens and arboreta around the world. In this paper, we compare this dataset with the dataset of 6941 socio-economically important plants taken from the analysis carried out by Khoury et al. to assess whether botanic garden and arboreta collections contain a significant proportion of socio-economically important plant species, and whether they have a role in contributing to future research and use of such species.

We also examine the reasons why botanic garden/arboreta collections are under-utilised, and make recommendations for increasing their visibility and use.PlantSearch does not provide accession-level data. It is a database of the names of plants in the living collections and seed banks of the world’s botanic gardens. It is therefore not possible to assess the uniqueness or diversity of accessions for any given species, and therefore their genetic representation in ex situ collections. However, PlantSearch does record how many collections a taxon is held in . These data are a useful surrogate for the diversity of accessions for a species and for genetic representation. Therefore, for each species, the number of collections they are held in was used to assess the genetic representation of all collections with 11 or more having comparatively good representation.The comparison between Khoury et al.’s WEP dataset and Plant Search showed that 6017  of the species identified as of socio-economic importance by Khoury et al. are currently conserved within the living and seed collections of the botanic gardens and arboreta in BGCI’s network. Using data from the crop and forestry communities as recorded in Genesys, Khoury et al reported that 30% of socio-economically important plant species  are not currently conserved in any ex situ collections. However, when taking into account species in that list that are found in at least one botanic garden collection, hydroponic nft system our study reduces this number to 732 taxa. BGCI’s Garden Search database currently lists 2952 botanic gardens globally. Since BGCI’s Plant Search database currently contains accession records from 1157 botanic gardens, arboreta and similar institutions, despite it being the most comprehensive database of its kind, this means that 61% of gardens have not made their collections data available through Plant Search. The figures in Table 1 are therefore likely to be an underestimate of the coverage of socio-economically important plants in botanic garden ex situ collections. In addition, PlanSearch and the WEP dataset on which the Khoury et al. study is based use different phylogenies and taxonomies. It is therefore likely that, due to synonymy, this analysis, which is based on direct name matches, is an underestimate of the taxa the two databases share in common, and therefore of the representativeness of botanic garden collections.Of the 6941 useful wild taxa included in the Khoury et al. WEP dataset, 6748 were assigned a medium or high conservation priority by Khoury et al. This analysis shows that only 924 of these taxa are currently not present in any BG collection, and 3238 taxa are comparatively well conserved in 11 or more ex-situ collections. Of the 3017 taxa to which Khoury et al. assign a high conservation priority, their analysis suggested that 1407 are not in ex situ collections. However, this analysis shows that just 544 of these taxa are currently not present in any BG collection. In addition, 911 of the 1407 taxa Khoury et al. suggest are not in any ex situ collection can be found in at least 1 botanic garden and 161 can be found in 11 or more collections each. Finally, a more objective measure of conservation priority is provided by BGCI’s ThreatSearch database, which is the most comprehensive database of threat assessments for plant species available. Of the taxa assessed by Khoury et al. as of medium or high conservation priority, 5253 have threat assessments included in ThreatSearch but only 1153 of these are classified as “Threatened”. The breakdown of threat status categories is in Table 3 below. Of the threatened species that are also medium or high conservation priority according to the Khoury et al. analysis, currently 86% are found in at least 1 ex situ botanic garden collection and 41% are found in 11 or more ex situ botanic garden collections.

Our analysis confirms this supposition. However, they go on to say, “Some information on these holdings likely exists in additional, scattered online databases or in off-line datasets, while other conservation repositories may not yet have digitized their data.” PlantSearch is a public facing meta-database, which is well known in the botanic garden and arboretum community that contributes data to it. In addition, BGCI, the global membership body that maintains PlantSearch, GardenSearch and several other global plant databases is well known to the crop and forestry communities. It is therefore likely that the reasons for not taking the collections of botanic gardens into account are more complex than the lack of available data. One obvious problem is that, with a few exceptions, the botanic garden community does not share its collections level data with Genesys and the crop and forestry sectors. This is in part because the botanic garden sector has no equivalent data portal that enables the sharing of accessions level information. Instead, botanic gardens maintain their own accessions databases  and currently only share the names of those accessions on PlantSearch. Accession-specific information, such as collection number, date of collection, origin and so on, is not recorded in PlantSearch. This is about to change in that BGCI is developing an accessions-level module on PlantSearch which will enable responsible and informed exchange of plant material between institutions and which will be compatible with Genesys. This will greatly facilitate import of accessions level data from PlantSearch into Genesys. A second problem is cultural rather than technical. Botanic garden collections are often grown or conserved for different reasons from those of the crop or forestry communities. These reasons include public display, conservation and scientific research. In addition, botanic garden collections are far more taxonomically diverse than the crop or forestry sectors are. Mounce et al. estimate that, as a minimum, botanic gardens grow over 105,000 flowering plant species, increasingly collected from the wild. To this can be added several hundred thousand  cultivars but, in general, botanic gardens do not cultivate or conserve large amounts of infra-specific genetic diversity. In contrast, crop and forestry gene banks conserve relatively few species but concentrate their efforts on conserving a huge diversity of landraces and cultivars of those species of greatest utility for food security, timber production and other human uses. This means that collection priorities, data and methodologies are not always comparable.

Most of the older people in the country are suffering from many basic human problems such as lack of sufficient income and employment opportunities, absolute poverty, senile diseases and absence of proper health and medical facilities, exclusion, negligence, deprivation, socio-economic insecurity, etc. Health is one of the important human rights that strengthens the persistence of human being and help them to increase basic capabilities. The breakdown of traditional family pattern, changes in traditional norms and values, innovation of modern medical facilities and increasing the rate of older people. For these changes, the older people face difficulty to meet their physiological, psychological and social needs. They are mostly vulnerable in terms of living arrangement, food consumption and possessions on wealth, participation in decision making of the family and social attitude and values. In Bangladeshi context because of traditional norms and religious and social values most of the older people are living with their offspring but at the same time it should be elicited that how easier this co-residency. Because of wide spread poverty and socio-economic change, living together is no guarantee of economic well-being of the older people. Old age brings both physical ailments and social problems. Major social problem of the old people is their adjustment to their surrounding social world in general and their immediate families in particular. Old people very often feel neglected and forgotten. This gives rise to anger, sorrows and frustration leading to tension in the family. In low-income societies, very few older people have access to any comprehensive care, and there is little or no emphasis on the importance of understanding the contextual reality of the older people’s life.

Social support for the older people mostly comes from the informal networks, often with a little support from semiformal network. The tea garden older people avoid seeking health care from a formally qualified doctor due to high costs. Familiarity and accessibility of health care providers play important roles in health-seeking behavior of older people in tea garden areas. Flexibility of health care providers in receiving payment is a crucial deciding factor of whether or not to seek treatment, ebb flow table and even the type of treatment sought. Most significantly, old age is found to be an accepted explanation of ill health and the decisions taken to seek health care are influenced by factors such as perception of severity of illness, familiarity and accessibility to health care providers, and financing of health care. In the absence of specialized knowledge in geriatric health care, multiple sources of health care, such as allopathic care, kabiraji and homeopathic care are sought by the elderly people as also reported in an earlier survey on health-seeking behaviour of adults in rural Bangladesh. It is very important to understand the health needs of the older people and so solicit their opinion in improving the existing health care and hygiene system in the country. Therefore, this study was undertaken to understand the health care and hygiene practices of older people and to gather some information about their perceive health needs using the information and over of Lackatoorah tea garden in Sylhet district.For the purposes of the study, the following operational definitions of the key terms were used. Old age is considered the closing period of human life of an individual. The Constitution of Bangladesh in its clause 15  clearly declares to introduce the Social Security Programme in 1998 for the older people who is 65 years or above for man and 62 years or above for woman. The government, through the Public Servants   Ordinance, 2012, promulgated on Dec 6, 2012, increased the retirement age of the public servants to 59 years from 57 years and the freedom fighter public servant will enjoy one more year in job before going on retirement.

Therefore the inclusive criteria were to become Bangladeshi citizens living in the tea garden areas in Sylhet District and having the age of sixty years and above. The area around Sylhet is a traditional tea growing area. In the tea garden area, most of the land is hill slopes and tea garden worker and their family live in hilly place. They have no their own land for building their houses. So, they live in small and soil made houses. In this study tea garden refers to a place where disadvantage indigineous people live with poverty, poor healths and nutritions, densely, inadequate lighting, lack of safe drinking water, water logging during rains, absence of toilet facilities and non-availability of basic physical and social services. Particularly older people suffer more in tea garden areas. Health care is generally used to indicate the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in humans. In this study health care was used to refer to the government health care services, NGO, voluntary and family health care related services etc. In this study Sylhet district was used to refer the area of Sylhet district including the all tea garden in this region. Health seeking behavior was used to refer the way of seeking health care and their attitudes about health care. Hygiene is a set of practices performed for the preservation of health. Hygiene refers to conditions and practices that help to maintain health and prevent the spread of diseases. Social support was used to refer the services and allowances for older people and their health care and it was statutory and non-statutory support. The term attitude was used to refer the treatment behavior, thinking pattern and outlook of family members and community people towards older people in tea garden areas.This study was based on qualitative research method with various data collection procedures, such as interview, focus group discussion  were employed to collect necessary information. Although the study was based on primary data, a number of secondary sources, such as policy documents, journal articles, academic books, official documents were used to conduct the study. In this study Lackatoorah tea garden was selected for collecting information about health care and hygiene practices of older people. This tea garden has eleven villages  and all tea garden workers live in that area with their older people. The older people live in soil made small houses with their other family members.

The researchers were selected those villages purposely because Lackatoorah tea garden was near to researchers resident and had proper knowledge about the study area. The primary population of the study was comprised the aggregate number of older people living in Lackatoorah tea garden area of Sylhet District who belong to the age of sixty and above. The total older population of the above eleven villages were 108 and among them 67 female and 41 male person. Purposive sampling procedure was used to access the data necessary to address the research objectives. A number of 20 samples were purposively selected and collected information from each of them. In addition two focus group  were formed with eight participants in each group. The methods/techniques of data collection were semi-structured interview schedule and focus group discussion . Apart from primary sources of data secondary source was used in order to understand the present situation of older people in slum areas.Validity in research is concerned with the accuracy and truthfulness of scientific findings. In this study, it was demonstrated what actually exists and a valid instrument or measure actually measured and what it was supposed to measure. Reliability is concerned with the consistency stability and repeatability of the informant’s accounts as well as the investigators’ ability to collect and record information accurately. In this study the consistently of the same results over repeated testing periods was checked. During study period, hydroponic grow table the researcher using the same or comparable methods obtained the same or comparable results every time and used the methods on the same or comparable subjects. The researcher developed consistent responses or habit. The researcher collected information from the respondents through in-depth interview and focus group discussion and observed their present health conditions personally. Whenever needed, responses were cross-checked with the respondents over telephone. In case of content analysis, principle of authenticity and subjectivity was maintained. So data were credible and reliable as possible.Qualitative analysis of data requires an interpretive approach concerned with understanding the meaning which people attach to phenomena  within their social world. The recorded interviews and focus group discussions were transcribed in full and the accuracy was checked against the original recording and noted by the researcher. The transcripts were analyzed using thematic analysis, derived deductively from the research questions and inductively from meanings or actual phrases used by the participants. The trustworthiness of the data analysis process was enhanced by the researcher.

Triangulation of data was ensured by comparing focus group discussions and interviews data for identifying consistency and contradictions and eventually inconsistencies were examined and interpreted. In contrast, semi-structured interviews provided a great deal of information concerning personal issues. Interview and focus group discussion participants talked about their health and hygiene status, hospital experiences and the issues of general wellbeing. They were confident to talk about family matters including personal experiences of care, evaluation of self, and attitude towards diseases, treatment and future planning.When we talk about ethics in social research we are addressing those issues that concern the behavior of social researchers and the consequences that their research brings to the people they study. As such ethical issues have the potential to impact at every stage of the research process and within any research project. This is particularly important issue in qualitative research where there is significant potential for misleading people to be genuinely interested, using contacts to gain confidential information, betraying confidences, and consequentiality. Participation in the study was voluntary and relied on the ethical principal of consent. At the start of interview and focus group discussion, the study purpose and nature were explained. Although the written consent was not taken from the respondent but verbal consent was taken from them. Since the most of the participants were illiterate in Bengali and English; their presence at the interview or focus group was taken to be consent. It was further explained that while the anonymity of individual participants were preserved that their verbatim may be published, although action was taken to prevent them being identified.The demographic information of the population living in the studied area is important to understand the health care and hygiene practices characteristics of older people in the tea garden area. From the study it was seen the average age of respondents in tea garden areas in Sylhet District was 70.25. In the tea garden areas most of the older people live with their son’s and daughter family. It was revealed that the thirty six percent respondents live in joint family with their sons and sixty four percent of respondents live single family with one son or daughter. Education is the backbone of the nations. Education is considered as an important factor of the socioeconomic characteristics of the household. It reveals from the collected information that only fifteen percent respondents completed primary schooling and other dropped out due to poverty of their parents and lack of educational facilities in the tea garden areas. Most of the older people are unemployed and they spend their time in home. Although a few numbers of older people work in tea garden but their income is very law. Twenty three percent respondents earn one thousand taka per month through picking tea leaf and planting in the garden. Older people in tea garden areas suffer various diseases, so, for their treatment and livelihood they need money. Their expenditure is high in respect of their income. It is seen that monthly expenditures of the respondents are three to four thousand taka and eighty five percent respondents depend on their offspring for daily food and medicine. Bangladesh is a multi-religious country. Mainly four types of religious people live in this country but in the tea garden they are indigenous and mainly belong to sanatan/hindu religion. Marital Status of the respondents was shown that thirty three percent of the respondents are widow and widower. The high proportion of widowhood among the older women and who live with their son or daughter’s family.

There are no suitable alternatives to replace livelihood and income bound to extractive forest behaviour for timber and firewood charcoal supply. The only source for securing livelihoods in the country is subsistence farming and extraction from the forest reserves, not only because of poverty but also because of the lack of sustainability regulations adapted to the reality of this population. Moreover, the increase of areas allocated to the settlements revealed basic subsistence needs as the main drivers of the natural resources utilization, but also the need to build houses for this growing population. The built infrastructure and private settlements are consuming space for many other causes.The selected protected areas reported the presence/absence of plants/animals and the survey of the management agent’s : In the Oti-Keran reserve, 80% of these local respondents agreed to the protected area regulatory structure, while many farmers continue to grow crops and graze domestic animals inside the PA. Some villagers recognized that several animal populations disappeared from protected areas because of human pressure through uncontrolled hunting. Animals like buffaloes, antelopes, lions, and elephants are no longer extant in the area, as historical populations have diminished. Forest species such as Vitelleria paradoxa, Anogeissus, Terminalia lactiflora are present while Khaya, Pterocarpus, Accacia albiob, Deterium microcarpum, Gardenia termifolium disappeared from the area. Farmers have argued that some factors, such as bush fires and tree logging, have been contributing to climate change, and seasons come late or earlier between years. At the time the survey was conducted, no effective structure or proactive management system existed. The past reductionist view management approach of PA from the policymakers has resulted in conflicts and distrust arising from the local population. In the protected area of Togodo North, there is a high richness of plant and animal diversity. Tree species such as Ciba pentandra, Milicia excelsa, Pterocarpus, Afzelia africana, Diospyros mespiloformis are present in the PA. Many young people feel disenfranchised from the management of this diverse and species-rich area. In the Abdoulaye faunal reserve, villagers reported various issues with local wildlife. Many animals destroy crops, such as foxes, baboons. African elephants, which were very abundant in the past, are no longer extant. Farms continue to expand at the expense of the reserve area, causing a lack of appropriate wildlife habitat and subsequent movement over the boundaries to the Benin Republic.

The forest resources found are mainly Pterocarpus and Anogeissus. Resource use comprises firewood, charcoal, and timber. Many honey producers recognized a decrease in the honey harvest, which is an important activity that benefits the local populations of the reserve. Effective implementation of sustainable management plans of this rich and useful area for animal biodiversity conservation and the surrounding populations’ needs would be of great importance. The contradiction between terrestrial protected areas increasing and the savannahs and forests decreasing demonstrates the challenge of strategizing the protected areas. The conception of management regulations for protected areas is very important,vertical farming racks but not sufficient without PA models suitable for each area. Indeed, results Oti-Keran National Park in the north showed that there were anthropogenic settlements in the PA coupled to farming activities and hunting, and these observations also exist in the south part of the country in Abdoulaye fauna reserve and Togodo national reserve.At the national level, trends in driving factors showed that while terrestrial protected areas are increasing, forest and savannah land covers are decreasing alarmingly. This contrast showed that the implementation of a protected area strategy encounters some difficulties especially in the management process and system. The Togolese government’s efforts to protect biodiversity showed remarkable growth and multiplication of protected areas in Togo since 2000  with positive trends in the equation reflecting this parameter increase. However, these efforts have not prevented certain protected areas from being subjected to strong socio-economic pressure. Indeed, it has been insufficient to focus solely on avoiding biodiversity losses as the protected area strategy, where proactive measures are necessary to confront the needs of the local population and their vulnerability. Therefore, faced with the degradation of plant and animal biodiversity and compounding environmental problems, protected areas appear as an all-terrain solution adopted by several countries. Their effectiveness is not the same everywhere as previously implemented. This analysis has shown that despite the status of classified areas, the protected areas suffer the same degradation as all other forests due to uncontrolled tree logging for timber production by the surrounding local population. If the status of the PA cannot preserve the environment from degradation, then effective interventions can confront any local population misunderstandings about the purpose of the protected area and also address improvements to the management plan that reduce the protected area into the core area only. A reductionist view of protected areas should be replaced by a model which will reduce conflicts between man and nature. Protected areas can aim to provide all the needs of the human population while maintaining diverse species richness if the Viable Strategy Approach is implemented .

A protected area would be effectively benefiting both the officials and the local population if the PA satisfies the triple basic needs of sustainable management, including social, economic and environmental, in such a way that the resources remain available from generation to generation through sustainable use. For example, since the local economy bases sales and income from agriculture and the wood products, then if these were extracted primarily from protected areas, this situation would be normal and non-antagonist. If protected areas divided into areas able to satisfy agricultural and other anthropogenic needs and managed on a systembased approach, then it would bring integrated activities such as education, monitoring, research and any human settlements in a useful circle . These findings were not consistent with the work of  on the OTA which found that agricultural activities were the main drivers of forest ecosystem degradation around a protected area. This research shows that agriculture was not planned to take place in the buffer zone, and was absent from the management plan that had conceptually opposed agriculture encroaching the protected area. In previous research, in the OTA national parks, many think that tree logging and hunting are illegal activities without proving the legitimacy of these activities, which helped those populations to survive from generation to generation. Thus, the zonation of the PA attempt to mitigate the challenge of local populations’ opinion of a PA as restricted or otherwise hostile to man’s freedom to benefit nature’s services freely. In these villages surrounding a protected area, the population depends on farming and forest resource use. No other professional activities nor governmental financial support or subsidies in the form of economic incentives are available to the local population to mitigate these problems. These findings are also consistent with the results found by previously in the Rumpi Hill in Cameroon. Social factors and lack of structured government programs seriously impact the natural resources despite the effective implementation of a protected areas strategy. These examples testify for the need to redefine the “notion” of a protected area , which should not be perceived as a “forbidden area” ruled strongly as a gold mine. The PA should be able to be divided and managed synergistically to benefit both local populations and as non-local people, such as academic workers, tourists and officials, based on the principle of sustainable use and renewal of the zoned PA. Indeed, sustainable development stands in the background of the present generation to meet basic needs without forgetting the future generation.As long as the present generation’s basic needs are in jeopardy, then it is impossible to think of future sustainability.

Moreover, for  in 1998, the “triple bottom line principle” of sustainability requires three pillars; economic , social  and environmental  to sustain any PA’s aim to be a model of sustainability. Many researchers think that local government policies are inefficient in classified forest management for African regions, especially West Africa. Policies lack economic facilities to put regulations into action that would alternatively stimulate the economy in the region, and consequently, vertical rack system these protected areas management policies lack cooperation with the local population. Unaddressed social needs become the drivers that negatively impact vegetation coverage and the biodiversity in and around a protected area. The biggest challenge of PA resource management is not only the absence of concrete regulations to account for the basic needs of the surrounding population but their understanding and total participation in the protected area management process . Henceforth, the community management strategy can be developed in these protected areas to find a suitable period to enjoy the resources wisely and to renew them for the achievement of sustainable management principles. In many protected areas, researchers have shown that the management rules and enforcement are nearly absent, thus inadvertently permitting the uncontrolled access of the surrounding populations to natural resources, especially forests or faunas. In Togo, for example, Law No. 2008-009 of June 2008 provides for provisions concerning the forest regime, testifying to the desire of the Togolese government to involve, at all stages, local governments in the process of setting up and managing sustainable-use forest and animal resources . Thus, despite the insufficiency of the efforts of the Togolese local authorities to preserve the ecosystems for the well-being of the current and future generations, these efforts are promoted and encouraged by the national government. It is therefore imperative to be part of the logic of multi-scale sustainable development principles, the most basic of which involve participatory or community management to take into account the different socio-economic and environmental needs of the local area and the mutual sharing of the services provided by the PA. The principles established within a protected area are derived from the specific goals and reasons for implementation. Setting limits to avoid using any resources has been a popular strategy in many countries and areas, and serves as a method to perpetuate the existence of natural resources. Natural resources should be available not only for the present generation but also for the future ones; therefore, this is the foundation of sustainable management. The reason why an area establishes boundaries was originally only for plants, animals, or biodiversity purposes. As this goal is facing real challenges related to the supply of ecosystem services to supply basic human needs, then policymakers realized that this paradigm of focusing only on biodiversity preservation was not effective. Thus, the concept of protecting nature and profiting wisely from it becomes unavoidable for a balanced supply of ecosystem services and also for biodiversity preservation. This equilibrium becomes the solution for the survival of the protected area and is based on the background of sustainable principles.

PA should reconcile man with nature through new viable management approaches based on the zonation of these protected areas, as suggested by UNESCO. These models are consistent with those used by   in tropical forests. The Biosphere and Man concept includes the principle of integrated protected areas that are managed sustainably without contradiction or exclusion of human settlements and accompanying activities such as education, monitoring, research, and tourism in the limits of the PA. Those who reject ideology for the inclusion of protected areas towards progressive openness to the public will continue to face challenges and conflicts between natural resources conservation and fundamental anthropogenic land cover change and disturbances. The protected area does not belong only to the local people living locally, as it is a model of sustainable development that seeks to harmonize biodiversity conservation and anthropogenic needs. Alignment with sustainable development is a long process with many uncertainties, although, when managed with the wisdom of sustainability clearly defined, then it becomes understandable and accepted by all the actors involved in the management from the beginning to the end. Moreover, many previous studies on the topic of PA in Togo pointed out that anthropogenic pressure due to socio-economic and political troubles consequences as serious drivers of PA resources degradation. Therefore, monitoring unavoidable activities such as agriculture to be predicted and previewed for integration into the management process by dividing the PA into different areas that supply several services for a peaceful and symbiotic relationship between PAs and residents.

Watts’s paper focused on the trade in fresh vegetables and said that this sector has become one of the most vibrant sectors in international trade, and during the l990s, imports of fruit and vegetable products by EU countries surpassed all other categories of agricultural products . Gereffi  reported GCCs  novel in increasingly organizing international production and trade in strategic decision making and economic networks at global scale by industrial and commercial firms. Gereffi  classified the commodity chains are producer-driven and buyer-driven. Producer-driven commodity chains are governing by transnational firms and buyer-driven commodities govern by retailers, importers and brand-name companies. These firms link overseas factories and traders with evolving product niches in their main consumer markets. India is one of the largest agrarian economies of the world. In the context of economic liberalization, it promotes export led growth. The Indian National Agriculture Policy  focuses more on demand driven agricultural growth in domestic and export markets. Of late, WTO trade liberalization and multilateral negotiations also focus more on international agricultural commodity markets in the light of improvement of market access and limitation of export subsidies. Horticulture marketing define as finding out what your customers want and supplying it to them at a profit therefore involves: identifying buyers, understanding what they want in terms of products and how they want to be supplied, operating a production-marketing chain that delivers the right products at the right time and making enough profit to continue to operate. Horticultural sector contributes 54% of agricultural Exports and 28% of AgGDP in India. Over the last decade this sector grown at the growth rate of 3.6 percent. NHB, 2011 reported that India is second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world next only to China. This tremendous production potential offers India’s greater opportunities for exports. India produced in 2010-11, 146.55 MTs of vegetables and 74.88 MTs of fruits.

And its requirement is 175.2 MTs vegetables and 74.40 MTs fruits. In 2011-12, India exported vegetables and fruits worth Rs. 4801.29 crores. The consumption basket is changing towards fruits and vegetables. National Horticultural Mission started in 2005, Foreign Trade Policy  advocating to boost export growth and promotion of horticultural products. XI & XII Plans also emphasizing accelerated horticultural growth. India is one of the world’s leading producers of finest tea 23 per cent share by volume in 2013. Its contribute 12 per cent share in world tea exports in 2013- 2014. The CIS countries accounted for 19.8 per cent of total exports in 2013- 2014 with US$ 152.46 million. India registered exports of 225.7 million kg. for approximately 78 per cent of total exports during 2013-2014 . In 2013-2014, the Russian federation was the topmost importer of Indian tea, dutch bucket for tomatoes followed by UAE and Iran respectively. Coffee Board, 2014 reported that India ranked in coffee production seventh largest in the world and third largest Asia. India exported coffee during 2013- 2014, 313,025 metric tonnes and earned foreign revenue 793.22 US$ million. India exports coffee to over 45 countries, over 50 per cent of to Europe. Italy is the largest importing more than 25 per cent from India . We are living in multi-speed world economies.World Development Report  reported that markets are central to the lives of poor people and World Bank, World Development Report  framed institutions that support the development of markets. UNCTAD  study revealed that India’s exports to world are income elastic and found that 1% decline in GDP growth of world will lead to 1.88% decline in India’s growth of exports. Singh and S. K. Singla  found from their study  that India has been unable to diversify its exports as well as export destinations. Export from India has experienced instability primarily in the developing countries. Demand for India’s exports was found to be elastic to both relative prices and income of the importing countries. Traill  predicts that by 2015 supermarket’s share of the retail food market will reach 61% in Argentina, Mexico, and Poland, 67% in Hungary and 76% in Brazil. IFPRI’s  research shown that agricultural Market reforms liberalization programs adopted by many developing countries in the past had limited success in developing private, efficient, and competitive agricultural markets. Dastagiri and Immanuelraj  advocates reforms needed to shift Indian farming from traditional farming to an agribusiness sector and develop linkages farmers to super markets and export markets is a key driver for industrialization of agriculture. Alberto and Stefano  estimated import price demand elasticity in the destination markets of Italian exports found that Italy has a relatively low elasticity of substitution in main specialization sector , while has higher substitution elasticity for traditional goods like textiles, jewelry and leather.

Reardon and Hopkins ; Minton  found that super markets and retailers competing om price, convenience, quality of the products and safety. Mithofer et al.  found that smallholders were linked to the export market by middlemen in Kenya. Galanopoulos et al.  reported that though Mediterranean countries are traditional growers of fruit and vegetables but unable to competitive in the global market. Dastagiri et al.  estimated and found that for all vegetables the NPC is less than 1 indicating they are competitive in the international markets. Lenné & Ward  found that the export vegetable subsector as a role model for improving the efficiency, growth and economic value of domestic vegetable marketing systems in East Africa. Dastagiri et al.  reported that most of the Indian horticultural commodity markets were operating efficiently and producer-consumer was the most efficient channel. Diego et al  found in Niamey, Niger for market retailers net profit  for amaranth and lettuce on marketplace, whereas the NP of cabbage and tomato strongly depended on season and marketplace. This paper examines the position of Indian producers and exporters in the horticultural export trade from the perspective of the global supply chain analysis. There are limited studies on market research of horticulture commodity global supply chains and identification of major global markets. This study analyses Indian horticultural commodities export markets linking to global supply chains and price trends, elasticity’s and instability & identification of their destinations. Finally, the study will suggest multispeed strategies for improvement of global supply chains, prices, production, and trade.The study analyses the marketing of horticultural commodities exports with global supply chain perspective. India’s major export horticultural commodities were selected. It includes fruits, nuts, vegetables, flowers, coffee and tea. Study Period is 1990-1991 to 2012-2013. Data on quantity, values, and prices of exports, international prices and destinations of fruits, vegetables, flowers coffee and tea were collected. India is exporting these commodities to maximum 130 countries. Data sources are Agricultural Produce Export Development Authority , Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence ,National Horticultural Board , FAO Stat, Centre for monitoring on Indian economy , Foreign Trade Year Book, Planning commission reports, National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development , EXIM Bank, export companies, Tea & Coffee Boards. Compound annual growth rates and trends of quantity exports, prices, and price elasticity’s of exports were estimated. For each commodity, the countries classified in to the top 10 countries based on major share of exports and rest as other countries. Finally top 3 countries of India’s exports for each commodity are identified. India’s horticultural commodities global supply chains traced with the help of experts of export companies, growers and literature. The compound growth rates, price elasticity’s, instability index of exports were estimated using the following formulae’s.The forward linkages of producers to exporters in India and backward linkages of importer to consumers in importing countries channels are discussed in this section. The Flow of Indian horticultural commodities to Europe, UK and US Shown in Figure 1 and to Middle East shown in Figure 2 and to South Asia, Africa and South East Asia shown in Figure 3.

The supply chain channel to Europe, UK, US shows that growers – exporter – importer – supermarket – consumer. It is highly developed model and no middlemen involved in importing countries. Similarly,blueberry grow pot the same type of channel found for Middle East countries. In case of South Asia, Africa and South East Asia importing countries supply chain channels lengthy and middlemen involved. The farmers in Developed countries like UK, US, Europe felt the importance of connecting directly customers of domestic and exporters. This helped them to avoid middlemen as these are no way useful in value addition, quality and economic gains. Scientific, planned and organizing came to fore see and predict market signals and demand and supply position in international and local markets. This has increased their income and living standard. South Asia, East Asia, Latin America and Africa  the supply channels are lengthy and middlemen are involved. This is major limitation in these countries farmers to realize high income. There is a need to start data harmonization and single window processing. In this connec-tion Digital India will help exporter to access various resources available at government level. Climate change, trade of ornamental alternative hosts in circulation and air, water, soil, plant and plant products exacerbate the pathogen proliferation and epidemiology of the dieback disease caused by Phytophthora ramorum  in Japanese larch  resulting in Sudden Oak Death  in the UK  and Europe . Containment of the outbreaks of this disease normally involves early detection, removal and destruction of infected plants, clear-felling of the infected trees and fungicidal treatments; all such operations have environ mental and forest soil health implications. The life cycle of Phytophthora ramorum is complex depending on the host, and tend to persist in dead or dying tissues in soil for very long periods  and the soil phase itself is a critical mass in determining the survival and host root infections. New non-chemical measures to combat this devastating soil oomycetes are desirable worldwide for both woodland and horticulture industry. Recent reviews  summarise the current trends accentuating in alternative natural biocontrol methods of using medicinal extracts  or forest microbes for phytopathogens including Phytophthora spp. In natural habitats such as forests, field inoculated basidiomycetes  for mineralization purposes encounter limitations due to impact emanating from competing forest soil microorganisms. However, antimicrobial potentials of forest resources remain a hot pursuit and poorly understood. Little is known on the efficacy of clusters of naturally evolved antagonists that may take on forest pathogens. Literature is scarce on natural resource expeditions seeking natural remedies for tree pathogens that may exist in their own habitat. Recently we have been actively scouting for natural resources comprising extracts of herbaceous plants including elderberry  exotic mushrooms such as shiitake  for antimicrobial complimentary therapies for human bacterial and fungal pathogens. In one of the expeditions, we stumbled across, a forest “fairy ring” forming mushroom—Clitocybe nebularis, and non-pathogenic tree-rhizospheric bacteria – Bacillus licheniformis, Bacillus pumilis producing unique enzymes, rare antibiotics  and exhibiting in vitro inhibition  of environmental pathogens. C. nebularis belongs to Tricholomatoid clade of Agaricales basidiomycetes, comprising ~50+ species including commercial Tricholoma matsutake  fairy ring forming mushrooms found in diverse ecological niches  as ectomychorrhizae or thrive as saprobic ground fungi . Prompted in part by the prevalence of formidable natural cohabitant antagonists in the forest soil, we set out to examine if natural resources may be conservatively manipulated towards the suppression of invasive forest pathogens.

We present in vitro scoping study examining antagonistic performance of forest resources comprising aqueous extract of , ring forming fungi, Clitocybe nebularis, culture suspensions of  bacteria , together with non-forest prospective candidates such as garlic extract and aqueous extracts of native medicinal plant for their antifungal efficacy against dieback Phytophthora species. The area covered by each culture was measured and recorded using the bio-imaging technique  to assess inhibition/growth promoting properties of novel agents on moulds, using the Autochemisystem UVP Bioimaging system , supported by LabWorks software package. Compared to recording clearance zones by bacterial lawn in the traditional antibiotic assays, the irregular contours of fungal growth is problematic in our bioassays. The emerging irregular progression of fungal hyphal growth from the culture plug at the centre of the Petri dish would resemble an undulated marine coastline. Initially the instrument was set on white light and to an exposure ratio of 490:500, with a constant focus of 47% calibration. Using the “Area Density” tool,  the entire “area of individual plate” was measured first, recorded, and then using freehand “draw” tool followed on by the “area of irregular contours” of fungal growth co-integrated within the Cartesian coordinates estimated to reflect inhibition effects  as seen in culture plate. Reproductive soil is essential.

The interviewees were also asked about the impression they had about their auditory health, in regards to right ear hearing, 87% reported it being good; 8.7% that is regular and another 4.3% that is bad. In regards to left ear hearing, 100% of respondents stated that it was good.. In addition to the noises inherent in their activity in the coffee and tomato plantations, it was sought to know if they are exposed to other types of noise outside work noise and 100% said they are not exposed. In order to have a better view on the auditory health of these workers, meatoscopy and audiometry exams were performed, the results of which are presented in Table 3. According to Table 3, it can be observed that no rural worker presented lesion of the auricular pavilion, thus presenting normal diagnosis for meatoscopy. In relation to the audiometry, auditory loss was found in 34.78% of the patients evaluated, of whom 21.74% had a conductive type lesion and 13.04% had sensorineural auditory loss. As for the affected ear, it was found that in 21.74% of the sample both ears were affected, 8.69% presented auditory loss only in the right ear and 4.35% in the left ear. Considering the audiological opinion, it wasobserved that in 65.22% normal results were obtained, in those who presented some lesion, 17.39% were diagnosed with mild auditory loss in both ears, only in the right ear  or only in the left . Other degrees of impairment were also diagnosed as severe auditory loss in the right ear  and profound auditory loss in both ears . Considering the data obtained in the audiometry referring to the frequency in HZ and the possible involvement among those rural workers exposed to the pesticide, the results shown in Figure 1 were obtained.

According to the data recorded in Figure 1, considering the initial observation in the loss of the conductive type, it is observed that for the right and left ears, low sound frequencies  percentages were greater than when compared to what was seen in the higher sound frequencies . Considering also the conductive loss and the impairment of the frequencies nft growing system, it is observed that the right ear presents greater percentages for alterations in the higher frequencies than the left ear. Analyzing the results of the workers with neurosensory loss, the impairment of lower frequencies for both right and left ear was not recorded; however, 100% of them had a higher frequency, ranging from 4 kHz to 8 KHz for the right ear and, from 3 kHz to 6 kHz for the left ear. The possible associations between several factors such as socioeconomics, the use of PPE, the working period, the auditory loss and the signs and symptoms reported by the workers are recorded in Table 4. Considering the socioeconomic factors, only significant associations between age and the symptom of intoxication were observed, with higher percentages  in individuals aged over 30 years when compared to those under 30 years of age . Another association established through statistical analysis was between the use of PPE and the occurrence of ringing in ears and dizziness, with a higher percentage  for the absence of these symptoms among workers who claimed to use the equipment. The presence of ringing in the ears and dizziness was reported with percentages  in the group of those who stated that they did not use PPE and those that used it sometimes . The time of work and the otorrhea symptom were also significantly associated, with greater frequency  among those with less than 3 years of work in comparison with the other scales of working time, since the absence of this complaint was more frequent in individuals with time worked greater than 15 years . Otorrhea is also significantly associated with auditory loss, being more frequent in those diagnosed as having hearing loss , however, the same percentage is observed in other workers who had hearing loss, but who did not report otorrhea .The sample of rural male workers who were evaluated in the present study, were characterized by the mean age of 36.7 ± 9.3 years, with a low level of schooling, with a monthly income of minimum wage, with a daily working period of 8 hours and with work time greater than 15 years, being that the majority do not smoke despite the predominance of alcohol among them. Nunes when analyzing the occupational-environmental and health conditions of vegetable farmers exposed to pesticides in the district of Patrocinio de Caratinga  which stated that they were all males, predominantly from 15 to 21 years of age , education from 1 to 4 years , service time from 61 to 120 months  and the salary range up to a current minimum wage .

These results suggest that olive growers are younger than the individuals surveyed here, which is possibly related to a shorter service life when compared to the sample in this study; however, the educational level and salary range are similar to our findings .Considering also the presence of young people in the application of pesticides in crops, small and medium-sized farmers seem to have knowledge about the risks of pesticides to their health. So, they admit that in a few years of applying the products, it is necessary to hire younger employees for the activity, because they do not feel able to do so any more. According to this author, these young people are “hired” at around 17 and when they turn 25, or 26, they are no longer able to continue in the “service” . Rural workers of Teresópolis were analyzed in a sample of 18 individuals in a study on ototoxicity promoted by pesticides. In the socioeconomic profile, the authors describe the study population as composed of individuals with a mean age of 39.6, similar to the one described here, who worked for more than 21 years and with a workday of 10 hours or more . In the case of tobacco producers from Povoado Colônia Treze, Lagarto County  exposed to pesticides, the mean age was 33 ± 12.045 years and a working period of 16 years . This is similar to that found in our results. The findings regarding the use and management of pesticides along with the use of PPE and the hygiene measures of the interviewees show a disturbing picture. It is observed that the association of Roundup®, mainly, or Vertmec®, classified as class III, with others characterized as class I such as Manzate®, Meotrin® and Tamaron® is common. The toxicity of most pesticides is expressed in terms of the oral average Lethal Dose , represented by milligrams of the active ingredient of the product per kilogram of live weight, required to kill 50% of the rat or other animal population test.According to this classification the pesticides belonging to class I are considered extremely toxic. Those in class II are highly toxic, those in class III are moderately toxic and those in class IV are fairly toxic . The rural workers of Piedade de Caratinga expose themselves to the deleterious effects of these products when preparing and applying them with the use of the manual knapsack applicator and most of them prefer not to use or to use only sometimes the PPE. This fact represents a great risk for this population, which is consistent with that described in another study that investigates the risks determined by the inappropriate use and management of pesticides for the rural worker . The effects of prolonged use of pesticides have been well established in numerous national and international studies that describe chronic adverse effects, depression and suicide , immunological alterations  , impairments in reproductive function  , neurotoxic effects, gastrointestinal effects , genotoxic , neurotoxic , and cancer. Our results suggest a high incidence of auditory loss in the population surveyed with a percentage of 34.8%, considering conductive and sensorineural loss. The relationship between sensorineural auditory loss and ototoxicity promoted by pesticides is already well established by other studies    and, when considering only rural workers with sensorineural loss, the incidence is 13.04%. The comparison between the findings found in our study and those found in similar studies may become difficult, since studies of the prevalence of hearing impairments in Brazil are still scarce and, nft hydroponic system when they are performed, follow different methodologies .

In a study of 18 rural workers, aged 16 to 59 years, occupationally and environmentally exposed to organophosphorus pesticides from the city of Teresópolis , they observed that the incidence of sensorineural hearing loss in this population was 38.9%, above that observed in our findings. This difference may be conditioned by inequalities in the methodology used here, since we do not work with individuals over 50 years of age and do not use the vectoelectronystagmography test . As a way of confirming that the hearing loss presented by the individuals of this study is directly related to the use of organophosphorus pesticides, we opted to exclude those workers who handled heavy machinery, due to the noises, those that presented changes in the meatoscopy, as well as those with age range over 50 years. Teixeira et al  carried out a study of prevalence with 98 workers exposed to organophosphorus and pyrethroids pesticides used in vector control campaigns. The workers were divided into 2 groups. Group 1 reported no exposure to noise in current and past work and/or leisure life, and group 2 reported exposure to noise in current or previous work and/or leisure life. Of those exposed only to insecticides, 63.8% had hearing loss; for the group with simultaneous exposure to insecticides and noise, hearing loss was 66.7%. The authors concluded that there is evidence that exposure to pesticides induces peripheral auditory damage, and that noise is a factor that interacts with pesticides, optimizing their ototoxic effects. Similar studies have concluded that chemicals can induce hearing loss, regardless of the presence of noise, but this could act as an intensifier of hearing loss. The results described here suggest that the impression of the auditory health of the rural workers interviewed did not always correspond to what was observed through the diagnostic exams. This fact can be understood by the possible association with the impairment of sound frequencies, since among individuals with sensorineural loss, the fact that there is no compromise in the lower frequencies, which correspond to the sound of speech, could contribute to the sensation of everything being well, since they would not have limitations to communicate. Among those with conductive loss, the impression that the right ear presented less acuity than the left can also be understood by the audiometry results, since the right ear had a higher percentage of involvement in the frequencies of 250 to 500 Hz than the left one, which compromises the audition in the speech exercise.

The perception of loss of auditory acuity between those diagnosed with sensorineural loss and conductive loss, where it was observed that the first claim to not have auditory problems, possibly related to bilateral loss among those who had the compromised bone pathway, thus allowing their adaptation. As carriers of conductive losses often have unilateral involvement, this difference in acuity from one ear to the other is better perceived. Other work also report a study done with individuals exposed to various types of pesticides, among them organophosphates, the presence of sensorineural loss with bilateral impairment and alterations in their auditory thresholds for the highest frequencies from 3 kHZ to 6 kHZ, 8 kHZ, which is consistent with our results . Sensorineural hearing loss is similar to that seen in the loss caused by medication and other drugs or by noise, where a bilateral, symmetrical and irreversible lesion of the hair cells is installed, with changes in hearing thresholds of 3 kHz to 6 KHz, which also coheres with our results.  The results that indicate that all individuals sampled in this study present normal meatoscopy can be explained by the presence of alterations in this test was exclusion criterion defined in the methodology for definition of the sample. This criterion was established due to the importance of the meatoscopy in the identification of the functional integrity of the middle ear, considering possible lesions such as obstruction of the external acoustic conduit, perforated tympanic membrane and auditory deficiency of non-occupational origin already diagnosed .

Quercetin in onion appeared mainly in the free-form as the aglycone. In garlic cloves, 72% of the total flavonoids is myricetin, 23% apigenin, and 5% quercetin. In chive, garlic chive, and leek the predominant flavonoid is kaempferol. Onion and garlic are an excellent source of calcium, potassium and manganese providing up to 10% of the human daily requirements of these elements. Onion and garlic can also accumulate selenium if grown in selenium-rich soils in the form of selenocystein and selenoproteins. Based on this information Ip and Lisk showed that garlic plants fertilized with high selenium and low sulfur fertilizer accumulated between 110 and 150 ppm dry weight selenium, while onion plants accumulated up to 28 ppm. Ip and Lisk proposed that the selenium enriched garlic and onion provide an ideal system to deliver selenium efficiently and safely into the human body for cancer prevention since inhibition of cancer by selenium in animal models requires between 1 to 3 ppm. Most of the onions and garlics contain very low concentrations of selenium. Ip and Lisk reported that “Valencia” topset garlic cloves contained 0.06 ppm selenium, while “Stuttgart” onion bulbs contained 0.02 ppm. Interestingly, onions also contain chromium and are considered a good source of this element. Chromium has been recently linked to diabetes prevention and appears to act as such by potentiating insulin receptor kinases and to be a part of the glucose tolerance factor, involved in cellular responses to insulin. Clinical studies on diabetic patients have shown that chromium can decrease fasting glucose levels, improve glucose tolerance, lower insuline levels and decrease total cholesterol and triglycerid levels.

Onions are a rich source of dietary fibers and especially of inulin, a polyfructosan. The health benefits of inulin-type fructans to human health have now been studied for more than one decade. It has prebiotic properties as it is preferably fermented by beneficial bowel bacteria like Lactobacilli and Bifidobacteria, thereby altering the bacterial mycoflora of the intestine in such a way that pathogenic, ebb flow table or harmful bacteria become less abundant. Neokestose, another fructan found in onion, has recently been shown to be an excellent promoter of the growth of beneficial bacteria. Frutans also promote the absorption of calcium and could thus be useful in the prevention of osteoporosis. High fructan diets have also been shown to lower concentration of colesterol, tryacylglycerol, phospholipids, glucose and insulin in the blood of middle-aged men and women. Owing to the presence of prebiotic polysaccharides , which are poorly degraded by the gut enzymes, and the presence of flavonoids, onions have been shown to possesss antidiabetic potential. Sharma et al. showed that onions had antihyperglycemic effects. Such effects were confirmed by Tjokroprawiro et al. who conducted a crossover comparative study with twenty diabetic patients to assess the effect of a diet comprising onions and green beans on serum glucose levels. They showed that the consumption of 20 g fresh onion three times daily significantly reduced blood sugar levels. The therapeutic value of onions, garlic and other Allium vegetables is confirmed by multiple epidemiological and experimental studies. Consumption of Allium vegetables has been found to retard growth of several types of cancers. For instance, there appears to be a strong link between the consumption of onions and the reduced incidence of stomach and intestine cancers. A number of epidemiological studies show inverse correlations between the consumption of alliums like onions and garlics, and the reduced incidence of cancers. A synthesis of case control studies carried in Italy and Switzerland reveals that consumption of one to seven portions of onions per week reduces the risks of colon, ovary, larynx, and mouth cancers. Other epidemiological studies clearly show the correlation between moderate garlic intake and a low esophageal and stomach tract cancers incidence. These studies have been performed on diferent geographical areas/continents and countries: China, Japan, Netherlands, Italy, Hawaii, Venezuela, Uruguay. Overall, a protective effect was reported, despite the obvious genetic variance existing among the populations examined in the different studies.

A regular consumption of garlic has been associated with the reduction in the incidence of preneoplastic lesions occurring in the gastric mucosa of individuals infected by Helicobacter pylori. A reduced cancer risk has been widely documented also for colorectal and prostate cancers. Other studies analyzing the preventive effect of garlic extracts on colorectal cancer have evidenced their suppressive potential on the development and progresssion of colorectal adenomas. A population based study analyzing the impact of a diet rich in Allium vegetables on the incidence of prostate cancer showed that the anti-cancer effects were more pronounced in men presenting localized rather than advanced forms. Mortality due to prostate cancer also appears to be reduced by a diet making a large place for onions. A limited number of studies explored the impact of a regular intake of Allium vegetables on the incidence of cancers affecting breast, endometrium and lungs. The risk of breast cancer was shown to decrease as consumption of alliums was increased in a French case-control study. It was found that garlic and some of its constituents prevent tumor initiation by inhibiting the activation of pro-carcinogens and by stimulating their elimination. Some studies say that onion extracts can inhibit the mutation process and reduce the proliferation of cancer cells. This effect is being attributed to quercetin in particular. Prevention of cardiovascular diseases has been attributed to regular garlic consumption. Onions also contain a number of bioactive molecules that can presumably reduce the risks for cardiovascular diseases. A preliminary study conducted in humans showed that the consumption of the equivalent of three onions in a soup was sufficient to significantly reduce the blood platelet aggregation. Tomato is the second most consumed and widely grown vegetable in the world after potato. Tomato is popular fresh and in many processed forms . In addition to their culinary role in the diet, tomatoes represent a low energy dense food with unique constituents that may positively affect health. Compositionally, the tomato has a unique nutritional and phytochemical profile. The major phytochemicals in tomato are the carotenoids consisting of 60% to 64% lycopene, 10% to 12% phytoene, 7% to 9% neurosporene, and 10% to 15% carotenes. Based on a fresh weight basis, tomato  contains about 35 mg/kg of lycopene, with red cultivars containing in average 90 mg/kg of lycopene and yellow ones only 5 mg/kg. Processed tomatoes  contain 2- to 40-fold higher lycopene than fresh tomatoes. Tomatoes and tomato-based foods are the world richest sources of lycopene.The average daily intake of lycopene in the human diet is about 25 mg/day; nearly 85 percent is obtained from fresh and processed tomato products. Tomato contains significant amounts of α-, β-, γ-, δ-carotene ranging in concentrations form 0.6 to 2.0 mg/kg, which ranks tomato as the fourth leading-contributor of provitamin A and vitamin A in the American diet. In addition to lycopene, tomatoes are one of the top contributors of potassium in developed countries and in the American diet.

Based on a 1999-2000 USA National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey food intake data, tomatoes rank seventh after milk, potatoes, beef, coffee, poultry, and orange/grapefruit juice as a potassium source. Besides in USA potassium is a nutrient of concern, as most Americans consume amounts well below the Dietary Reference Intake . In 2004, the new adult DRI for potassium  was substantially higher than the amount previously reported in the 1989 Recommended Dietary Allowance . The increased recommendation was based on evidence indicating that 4700 mg potassium should help lower blood pressure, reduce the adverse effect of excess sodium intake on blood pressure, reduce the risk of kidney stones, hydroponic grow table and possibly reduce age-related bone loss. Tomatoes provide at least twice the potassium per 100 kcal compared with other common sources, except coffee, a nonsignificant calorie source of potassium. Consuming potassium from fruits and vegetables is ideal because it occurs with a biologically advantageous ratio of bicarbonate or citrate, important for bone health. Increasing potassium intake through increased tomato intake is a healthful, calorically sensible strategy for world developed countries. Tomato fruits are also an excellent source of ascorbic acid, about 200 mg/kg and are the major source of vitamin C next to citrus. Tomato contains small but significant amounts  of lutein, α-, β-, and γ– tocopherols, and conjugated flavonoids. In a study of 20 tomato cultivars, total flavonoids content ranged from 1.3 to 22.2 mg/kg with about 98% present in the skin. Flavonoids in fresh tomato are present only in the conjugated form as quercetin and kaempferol, but processed tomato products contain significant amounts of free flavonoids. Flavonoids content is affected by cultivar and culture. For example, cherry tomatoes have a markedy d higher flavonoids content than standard or beef tomato cultivars and field-grown fruits have higher flavonoids content than greenhousegrown. Tomato cultivars are available with double the normal vitamin C , forty times normal vitamin A , high levels of anthocyanin , and two to four times the normal amount of lycopene . Tomato lycopene is found in appreciable levels in human serum and tissues when tomatoes and tomato products are consumed frequently. Several research investigations have shown an inverse relationship between plasma/serum lycopene concentrations and risk of some cancers. Similar associations have been reported for markers of cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, cognitive function, and body weight. Moreover, relationships between dietary intakes of tomato products or tomato extract supplements have been observed in epidemiological studies and clinical trials examining markers of some cancers, cardiovascular disease, and ultraviolet light-induced skin erythema. The majority of research conducted in the area of tomato and lycopene intake and cancer risk has been observational. In a recent review of the literature, 178 original research articles were compiled reporting findings in humans on the relationship between lycopene, tomatoes and tomato-based products, and cancer risk.

Among these publications, nearly 90% were observational, highlighting the paucity of cause and effect investigations in this area. Reports on 13 cancer types were identified, of which breast, colorectal, gastric/upper gastrointestinal, and prostate cancers have the most original research published in humans, ranging from 17 to 60 publications. For breast, colorectal, and gastric cancers, the data support a neutral, although potentially protective, relationship between tomato/lycopene intake and cancer risk. Although the data are limited for gastric and lung cancers; the protective association is strongest with tomato intake verses dietary lycopene intake. Among the cancers investigated relative to lycopene and tomato intake, prostate cancer is the most widely researched. Although randomized controlled trial data are less available than observation data, a small number of dietary intervention trials using processed tomato products have been conducted. The results have been relatively successful as measured by improvements in prostate-specific antigen concentrations or increased apoptotic cell death in carcinomas. A prostate cancer risk reduction of nearly 35% was observed when the test subjects consumed ten or more servings of tomato products per week and the effect was much stronger for subjects with more aggressive and advanced stages of cancer. People consuming diets rich in tomato and tomato based products, which are rich in the carotenoid lycopene were found to be less likely to develop stomach and rectal cancers than those who consume lesser amounts of lycopene rich vegetables. Tomatoes, with their distinctive nutritional attributes may play also an important role in reducing the risk of cardiovascular and associated diseases through their bioactivity in modulating disease process pathways. In 2004, Sesso et al. reported an inverse association for women consuming greater intakes  of tomato-based products and cardiovascular disease; an association not observed with lycopene intake alone. Several hypotheses are being tested related to the antioxidant properties of lycopene and a combination of carotenoids with coexisting water-soluble constituents delivered by tomatoes, such as vitamin C. The antioxidant capacity of plasma decreases when tomatoes and tomato products are removed from the diet and increased when they are added back. Consuming tomato products daily for 2 to 4 weeks increases antioxidant enzyme defenses and has been shown to reduce plasma lipid peroxides and the susceptibility of low density lipoprotein to oxidation. Oxidative modification of low density lipoprotein is a key step in the development of atherosclerotic lesions.

South Africa is currently the largest producer and exporter of macadamia nuts in the world and the Limpopo Province is the third largest producer amongst the country’s nine Provinces. This explains the overall higher agricultural annual income amongst both small-scale and large-scale macadamia nut farmers recorded in the study. Results from the study reveal that income from HVCs facilitates the purchase of staple food products and provide a mechanism for meeting long term food security goals at both household and national levels. The study focuses on land out of the four drivers of production i.e. land, labour, capital and enterprise, and highlights how aspects of the land resource drive the two farming systems in South Africa and the pathway of agricultural enterprise. Results have emphasized the importance of land as a driver of production for sustainable agriculture. There is great potential for ensuring a positive future for South African farming systems and consequently food security in the sustainable production of HVCs. According to Ba  in order for African countries to commercialise their agricultural sectors sustainably there is need for farmers to adopt a stable, productive agricultural resource base. This requires a targeted investments in such as into the cultivation of HVCs amongst small-scale farmers which will prove highly beneficial.Conventional soil-based agriculture has been resource-intensive. According to the United Nations, 70% of global water use is consumed by agriculture. Moreover, the global population is predicted to increase  to a projected 11.2 billion nearing 2100. The increasing population represents a requirement for an increase in food production capacity in the face of declining arable land per capita. However, the increasing trends of world populations trends are not evenly spread and tend to be concentrated in urban areas. According to the United Nations, more than half the world’s citizens live in urban areas, which is projected to be more than 60% by 2030. Therefore, relying solely on conventional soil-based agriculture poses stresses to food security. There are many critical issues related to conventional agriculture: water, air, and soil pollution, soil salinization, desertification, climate change-induced droughts, extreme variation in temperatures, extreme variation in solar radiation, and pests.

With more frequent and extreme weather patterns, climate change will continue to increase pressures on world agricultural productivity. By FAO estimates, around 33% of global farmland is degraded to some extent, if not higher. The decrease in productivity of arable land in the face of increasing demand for food is another challenge confronting food production. Another concurrent problem in industrialized countries is the common phenomenon of food retailers underserving socioeconomically disadvantaged areas. These areas are identified as food deserts, vertical farming racks defined as urban areas with lower accessibility to fresh foods. Lower income, lower education, and lower health levels are the commonly occurring characteristics of food deserts. Neighborhoods in the vicinity of food deserts tend to have higher adverse health outcomes, mortality, and morbidity. Socioeconomically disadvantaged families tend to have children that are more than likely to develop obesity and diabetes, which together account for $395 billion in medical costs and lost productivity annually. As of 2018, 11% of the population in the US faced food insecurity. There is a need to make nutritious food sources readily available to residents of such areas. Agricultural growth in controlled environments is increasingly used to increase crop productivity and make produce accessible without traveling long food miles. These setups can be referred to as a controlled environment with artificial lighting  or plant factories with artificial lighting, among many others. Controlled Environment Agriculture  can refer to urban farms that use soilless systems such as hydroponics, aeroponics, or aquaponics. CEAL/PFAL setups can serve as an excellent solution for feeding future cities. Plant factories serve as closed plant production systems with lower interaction with the outside environment. Agriculture needs to focus on reducing natural resource losses, decreasing environmental pollution, and increasing crop returns using innovative technologies. In addition, the agricultural industry needs to increase its productivity to meet market commitments of high-quality produce. The Yang laboratory at the University of Connecticut first introduced the concept of GREENBOX farming as a new system for urban agriculture. The concept presented an overall idea of growing food crops in standard grow boxes in urban structures, with optimal environmental controls that have been greatly improved with the advancement in LED lighting, environmental sensors, and information technology. The GREENBOX technology was specifically designed to be used in urban warehouse conditions , generally defined with a lower degree of environmental controls, high ceilings, and minimal lighting conditions. Urban warehouse spaces have the distinct advantage of minimal requirements of retrofitting or modification to be ready for GREENBOX crop production. Growing food crops in such settings can effectively use urban spaces, produce different species to be harvested at different times, reduce food transport distances, harvest produce just before they are purchased/consumed, and quickly adopt the new industrial technologies  to reduce operational costs.

Research has been conducted to analyze the energy and water use of the GREENBOX system using dynamic simulation models for lettuce crop production, in comparison with conventional greenhouses. The simulation study indicated that the GREENBOX used less water than greenhouses over both summer and winter seasons, and the energy use efficiency of the GREENBOX was lower in the summer and higher in the winter compared to a greenhouse. Since 2019, The Yang Laboratory has initiated a systematic experimental study on the technical and financial feasibilities of the GREENBOX technology. The overall objective of this paper was to demonstrate the GREENBOX as a sustainable and alternative avenue for vegetable crop production in urban settings. We studied the growing environments and productivity of lettuce growth in two protocol GREENBOX units and carried out a parallel growth cycle in an experimental greenhouse for reference and comparison. Using descriptive statistics, we aimed to present the observations on the environmental and biomass patterns in lettuce crop output. We also intend to discuss the overall implications of GREENBOX technology in urban horticulture.We carried out the experiments in the headspace of the greenhouse  and greenhouse bays  in the Agricultural Biotechnology Lab  at the University of Connecticut  at Storrs, Connecticut, United States of America. Connecticut’s climate is temperate, characterized by cold, snowy winters and warm, humid summers. The defining characteristics of Connecticut weather are large temperature ranges , precipitation equally distributed amongst seasons, and considerable variation in weather over a short time. The headspace is a semicircular section building with 40 m diameter and approximately 400 m2 . The Greenhouse Bay 8 dimensions are 7.62 × 9.14 m, and Bay 6 dimensions are 3.96 × 7.62 m.Thus, the headspace’s ambient conditions are similar to a warehouse environment. The similarities lie in that they are large volume spaces with high ceilings and have sparse windows and lighting. Greenhouse Bays 8 and 6 are connected to water and power, and have shade curtains and supplemental lighting to modulate controlled environments that sustain crop growth along with ventilation through fans and vents.The grow tents  with dimensions of 1.5 × 1.5 × 2.1 m consisted of an exterior canvas covering  were meant to serve as the exterior of the prototype GREENBOX. The interior of these grow tents is comprised of diamond reflective walls to serve as insulation. An LED light source  was installed in each GREENBOX to facilitate photosynthesis. The lighting elements were four feet long, provided white light of 40,000 K color temperature, vertical rack system and had a rated diode life of 50,000 hours. The lighting element was positioned one meter above the plant canopy. Modulating the use of fans  and vents maintained the ambient growing conditions inside the GREENBOX by a forced ventilation system.

Greenhouse Bay 8 is equipped with 1000-watt metal halide HID bulbs, and Bay 6 is equipped with Infinity LED Linear Fixtures  in the form of overhead lighting for light control placed one meter above the crop canopy. Greenhouse Bays 8 and 6 are heated by hot water in fin tubes . Passive ridge vents or three exhaust fans  are used for cooling. Both bays are controlled by the Argus Titan greenhouse control system . The controlled environmental parameters included light intensity, light duration, air temperature, and air moisture content. We used environmental controllers  to monitor the environment outside the GREENBOX units and inside the greenhouse. The other environmental controller  was used to monitor and regulate the inside environment conditions in the GREENBOX. The sensors were positioned 0.15 m above the plant canopy in the GREENBOX and greenhouse. For growing crops in the GREENBOX and greenhouse, we use hydroponics as means of soilless cultivation. Compared to conventional soil-based growth, hydroponic growth isolates the plant from the soil, thereby preventing exposure to disease, salinity, and drainage issues, along with a rapid turnaround time on crops. The hydroponic nutrient film technique  channels were placed on a 0.91 × 0.91 m tray stand . The NFT channels  were 0.10 × 0.05 × 1.2 m with holes for plants, spaced for inserting transplants 15.24 cm apart. We placed the NFT channels 7.62 cm apart to keep a distance of 15.24 cm between plants, forming a 4 × 6 matrix in each GREENBOX and two panels of 4 × 6 in the greenhouse bays. We monitored the pH and the electrical conductivity of the nutrient solution  using a portable pH/EC meter . The piped nutrient delivery system consisted of a reservoir with submersible pumps  to facilitate nutrient delivery. Reviewed reports have indicated that when grown in a soilless system, lettuce has a high yield and quality. Pelleted Rex lettuce  seeds  were chosen for the crop for offered advantages such as lettuce include having a maximum height of thirty centimeters and having a growth cycle between ten to thirty days. As a preventative measure, we used bio-controls on our crops during the growth cycles in both growing locations. Environmental variables including light intensity , temperature , and relative humidity  were collected using iPonic controllers that log data instantaneously every minute and are accessible via the cloud. The environmentaldata collected by the iPonic sensors had a precision of 0.1 W/m2 for light, 0.1˚C for temperature, and 1% for relative humidity. We harvested lettuce on the thirtieth day from the day of the transplant from the GREENBOX and greenhouse. We randomly selected two lettuce plants from both growing locations every three days for destructive sampling to obtain the wet and dry weights . To obtain the wet weight, we pulled apart the roots and any growing medium attached to the plant before weighing the lettuce immediately after harvest.

The wet weight indicates the amount of biomass accumulated in the crop resulting from evapotranspiration. We blotted the plant gently with a soft paper towel to remove any free surface moisture and weighed the plants immediately after harvest. Finally, we obtained the lettuce’s dry weight by drying the leaves  in a forced air convection oven . We derived the productivity of both growing locations using the wet weight values at harvest to determine the total biomass output in kilograms per square meter of growing area. Lighting was represented by DLI  by using instantaneously measured light data  and converted to cumulative light accumulated per day. Temperature and humidity were processed to 15-minute averages using data from the iPonic environmental controllers. We used descriptive statistics to characterize the environmental data of DLI, temperature, and relative humidity, which were plotted to 15-minute averages over a thirty-day growing period for the summer and winter. We detailed their average values, along with their standard deviations except for light . We report dry weight, wet weight, and productivity of lettuce crops in GREENBOX and greenhouse over summer and winter at harvest .The descriptive statistics of the environmental variables are summarized in Table 1, and the dynamic variations of these variables are shown in Figure 2 for both growing locations. The mean DLI in GREENBOX ranged between 32.48 – 36.70 mol/m2·d over the two growing cycles . It was purposely set higher than the recommended minimum DLI of 6.5 – 9.7 mol/m2·d.

Tree and bush species form a significant part of livelihood systems, particularly in Illangama. In Illangama, families have strong interest in species that can be used as animal forage, firewood and charcoal, and varieties with medicinal properties. They also use trees as live barriers in soil conservation structures, to extract dyes, and fibers for artisanal products. Alumbre residents are less aware of the uses of tree species, are unfamiliar with local names, and are mainly interested in trees for the exploitable wood they can produce. The water quality and the biodiversity assessments were designed to highlight the fragility in high-altitude. The initial assessments showed that farmers’ voice con- cerns about environmental quality, recognize that their productive practices can create environmental damage, and seek alternatives to resource-mining activities. The strongest concern for the environment was voiced by community members in the upper watershed who recognize environmental change such as variable rainfall pat- terns, less water availability and others. The assessments also strengthened linkages between the research team and community members; the participatory means of con-ducting them and open sharing of findings built owner- ship of the adaptive management process. In order to prioritize interventions, stakeholders need information on vulnerability and its variability over space.Results showed that about 4000 ha in Illangama and 2000 ha in Alumbre are extremely vulnerable to environmental damage. These areas needed special attention during the planning and management phases. The vulnerability mapping exercise uncovered evidence of conflicts between ideal and actual land uses: Some of the most environmentally vulnerable lands are currently under intensive crop production.

These areas should be reserved for conservation or reforested and managed sustainably. Research thus focused on the physical and economic/social consequences of less intensive uses on vulnerable lands. Such activities are especially critical in areas of water recharge. Two main challenges constrain efforts at conservation in these areas: Lack of finance to ensure that households can survive during the transition from intensive to extensive production , and low rates of return in extensive production systems. Few own sufficient land resources to sustain a family on forestry production. Part of the problem is institutional; farmers have no means of capturing the off-farm benefits from less intensive land use. The team began negotiations with down- stream govern ments to examine if these governments were willing to pay farmers to avoid downstream dam-ages. These negotiations are ongoing, but downstream siltation is increasingly associated with costly flooding and there is strong interest in finding low-cost ways to avoid these damages. The research identified several environmentally friendly agricultural production options for farms in the Chimbo . These alternatives increase productivity, enhance soil retention and improve soil health. They were tested on model farms, where farmers participated in site preparation, vertical grow rack cultivation, and evaluation. Field days demonstrated the practices to farmers. Substantial adoption has occurred already and, given the success of the alter- natives, we expect more widespread adoption as information becomes more widespread. The pilot sites were established on farms with average sizes of 7.5 ha. In 2006, production systems included small pine forests, natural pasture, small areas of improved pasture, and potato production together with mashua . At that time, the most vulnerable areas had been devoted to crop production. The research team designed a farm use plan incorporating improved cropping systems and farming practices, pastures and woodlands . We tested and subsequently recommended use of improved potato varieties, faba beans, barley, quinoa and chocho. Conservation agriculture practices such as improved rotations, reduced tillage, and increased ground cover were included . We also recommended in-situ conservation of native Andean tubers such as native potatoes, oca , melloco , mashua and carrot . As of 2010, the project had been functioning for 5 years and it was possible to evaluate its impacts. This was done by transecting the sub-watersheds to measure the extent of adoption of the practices and computing changes in farm incomes associated with the practices. Table 6 shows an assessment of uptake of BMPs in Illangama and Alumbre. In Illangama, net economic benefits have risen to about $ 1921 per hectare per year, an increase of about 65% compared to 2006.

Improvements have resulted from incremental increases in yields of potatoes, faba beans, chocho, barley, quinoa and improved pasture. Soil management has changed dramatically as ground cover is more widespread throughout the year. Part of this change was caused by changes in relative prices; potato and other crop prices have become increasingly variable and farmers are moving toward dairy production with continuous pasture and other more environmentally suitable crops. Potato net profits have, however, grown by as much as 50%, due to improved rotations and reduced pesticide use . Use of late blight-resistant potato varieties, improved soil fertility and use of better-quality seeds help lower variable to improved forages, and better sanitation and feeding practices. Food security has also improved. Diversified grain sources broaden the dietary base, reduce risks from dependence on single crops, and increase energy and protein intake. The data indicate impressive trends toward more di- versified production, with increases in relatively new  products such as quinoa. Quinoa production has emerged, and the crop provides nutrition for home con- sumption and high prices in the market. As a result of all these changes, erosion is being reduced and water quality is improving. In Alumbre, net benefits from agricultural production increased by 81% to $1629 per hectare per year in 2010. This increment was a product of increased yields of white maize, yellow maize and beans, resulting from improved management practices. The main engine was introduction of improved varieties, and more intensive management concentrated in less vulnerable and more productive areas. Planting densities have increased and integrated pest management practices have reduced input costs. Increased agro-diversity and lower profit risks  have also increased food security. Use of vulnerability maps to guide land use planning has reduced production on most vulnerable lands and improved ecosystem services. Indicators of biodiversity, soil retention and water quality have improved alongside improvements in agricultural profitability. Farmers now concentrate productive activities on the most fertile and least vulnerable lands. Yield improvements and cost re- ductions allow farmers to earn higher incomes and si- multaneously improve environmental conditions. Ability to observe farming practices on the pilot farms has built confidence in the new practices and they have naturally spread throughout the watershed. Concurrently, the study of biodiversity raised consciousness about the value of native species and led to planting and maintenance of these potential sources of biodiversity. These actions have improved environmental conditions and water avail- ability Prior to 2006, conservation practices in the area did not exist. Now, various practices are widely found, such as improved crop rotations, strip cultivation, deviation ditches, contour plowing, and use of live barriers.

An indigenous innovation has led to the protection of devia- tion ditches with various local species. These include milín grass and native plants such as Quishuar, Yagual, Chachacoma, Romerillo, Aliso, Pumamaqui, Lupinus, Piquil. Contour cultivation is also widely practiced now in both watersheds, irrigation water management has improved and actions have been taken to protect areas of water recharge. This protection has involved replanting many of the native plants metioned above. Table 7 summarizes results of the 2010 evaluation. Farmers in the Illangama watershed were more likely to apply all natural resource management methods, except for green fertilizer. Differences over time of use of con- servation methods are statistically significant. Our team identified local stakeholders,vertical grow system institutions and government and non-government partners to engage in participatory planning. Participants identified research themes and designed research activities and collaborated in on-farm trials. The process included meetings, work- shops and information exchanges. Stakeholders immedi- ately recognized the need for coordinated cross-sectorial actions and institutional change to increase the value of natural resources. A regular meeting of a project steering group was held; the group identified and promoted the idea of integrated adaptive management. This group en- gaged local and Provincial Governments who are full partners in the process. The Provincial Government cre- ated a new unit for environmental management and link-ages across government units has facilitated coordi- nated actions; our technical team has trained the Gov- ernment’s technical team and this strategic alliance has been strengthened over time. The alliance is important because the Provincial Government bears responsibility for creating and enforcing the regulatory and legal re- gime. Our research agenda was arrived at after an arduous process of building consensus among stakeholders. Pro- bably the most valuable research output at the start of the process was to help stakeholders understand and appre- ciate the value of their natural resources. This new- found appreciation of value has strengthened incentives for actions to promote soil retention and health, and to use native species as a contributor to this conservation. Native species of trees and bushes have been widely in- corporated into live barriers to reduce water and wind erosion, and as lining biomass for deviation ditches. The team also helped identify a major source of reduced wa- ter supply and quality: Incursions into the upper páramo areas. As a result, we have built support for increased intensification at lower elevations and a sense of com- munity-wide disapproval for those who exploit the pris- tine higher-elevation areas of the Illangama. Social pres- sure is having an effect. Social capital has been strengthened in many ways. The participatory planning process is strengthening so- cial networks in the region. In addition, training in bio- diversity, natural resource valuation, and natural resource management has built networks of activists in both mi- cro-watersheds. Efforts to understand the potential bene- fits of higher-valued market chains and obstacles to par- ticipation in them have helped identify how networks of producers can have more effects than individual actors. Subsequent efforts to build these networks have also re- inforced local social capital.

Some of the other qualities that are desired in new rabbiteye blueberry cultivars are the development of increased cold hardiness, better adaptation to particular climates, adaptation to mineral soils or soils with high pH, the extension of the fruiting season, high vigor,reduced plant stature, high quality fruit, suitability for mechanical harvest,disease and insect resistance,tolerance to environmental stress,and higher nutraceutical properties .Yield is the most important trait from the grower’s perspective, and cultivars that are not only high yielding, but are consistently high yielding across years are desirable . Yield is a function of many factors including the amount of flower clusters per plant, flower number per cluster, flowering twigs per bush,fruit set and drop, and fruit size . The commercial crop yields are typically considerably less than that documented in experimental plots, primarily due to inconsistencies in plant health and pollination as well as seasonal influences.Flowering and fruiting seasons are important traits that vary from cultivar to cultivar. Late flowering, early ripening cultivars and/or tolerance to low temperatures during and following bloom are also desirable traits that breeders are striving for in rabbiteye due to the risk of late spring frost damage .In much of Alabama, blueberries with low chilling requirements are used, but once the chilling requirements are met, there is still a risk of a damaging late spring frost . With the availability of cultivars with a range of flowering times, a grower can select cultivars that match their risk of late spring frosts and consequent crop loss . Rabbiteye blueberry floral buds tend to be rather cold hardy, but as flower development continues, the bud’s susceptibility to cold damage increases .Spiers , documented 7 distinct stages of floral bud development. An inverse relationship was observed between the stage of development and the flower bud’s susceptibility to cold damage . Spiers  also found that swollen flower buds were not damaged by temperatures of −4˚C, but some were killed at−6˚C. At stage four, or when individual flowers become distinguishable, flower buds were killed by −4˚C, and during the transition to the distinctly separated individual flowers stage, temperatures of −2˚C were lethal. Temperatures of 0˚Cwere not found to damage any of the flower buds in developmental stages one through five, but temperatures of −1˚C were damaging to flowers with open corollas approaching stage six of flower bud development.In addition to the flowering period, the ripening period is also important in blueberry production. The ability to target an early market for premium prices is one reason a grower would risk a late freeze by planting an early flowering and fruiting cultivar such as “Climax” .