Nature Ecrogrow

The first step is to attract outstanding students into vegetable breeding programs with modern, exciting and relevant curricula that provide clear paths for obtaining knowledge, experience and skills needed for success in attractive jobs that are currently available in plant breeding globally. For all countries, vegetable products are critical for good nutrition, healthy living and a dynamic business sector. Development of new, genetically improved vegetable cultivars that are profitable for growers and that meet the needs of consumers will contribute to a vital, dynamic vegetable industry world-wide. The ready supply of a wide range of affordable vegetable crops in most developed countries has led to a marked complacency about the need for ongoing R & D vegetable breeding programs.Consequently, many governments world-wide have scaled back funding for vegetable breeding and production programs.Most research driven universities have now disbanded horticulture/ horticultural breeding departments and merged them into plant science/plant biology departments with a very strong focus on the molecular sciences. This erosion has been concentrated in what historically have been viewed as vital disciplines for vegetable breeding such as plant breeding, agronomy, pathology, and entomology. Nonetheless, as indicated above, there are a basic need for research and breeding on vegetable crops given by the current consumer demands for affordability, safety and continuity of supply; increasing needs to achieve sustainable practices; and the need to deal with challenges arising from a more variable climate, the loss of productive soils through urban encroachment, and the loss of low-cost labour.

The concepts of sustainability of vegetable crops relate both to the use of resources,stackable planters such as water and nutrients, in a manner which considers future needs, and the responsible use of compounds such as pesticides which will not compromise the quality of the environment . Improved vegetable cultivars are also important since there are cultivars more apropriated for sustainable production. Vegetable breeding can be important for genetic enhancement of vegetables, and for an eco-friendly organic horticulture that will reduce human carbon footprints.Pressure on water resources for urban, industrial, recreational, conservation and other uses all appear to have higher priority within societies than the availability of water for vegetable crop production. Current demands on water from both river and subterranean sources are outstripping availability resulting in attention being given to water harvesting options with on-farm dams, the use of waste water and to the use of more efficient cultural practices. Research is urgently needed to resolve issues such as the development of drought tolerant vegetable crops, the management of crops under managed water deficits, dealing with increased salinity, and the use of low quality water. Integrated crop production systems have been shown to be effective on a number of vegetable crops for reducing the number of pesticide applications and for shifting to new control compounds that have less persistence in the environment and which are of lower overall toxicity. Producers have behaved responsibly and with some urgency to ensure the adoption of new practices. GMOs cultivars can also be important for sustainable production . Genetic engineering has the potential to address some of the most challenging biotic constraints faced by vegetables growers, which are not easily addressed through conventional plant breeding alone. Transgenic vegetable crops, enable also breeders to bring favorable genes, often inaccessible by conventional methods, into elite cultivars, improving their value considerably and offering unique opportunities for controlling insects and other pathogens . Technology transfer from both university and government sources in many developed countries has markedly declined over the past two decades and have been re-placed with a greater provision of services from the private sector. Paradoxically, the demand for information from public providers has nonetheless increased as providers of information in the private sector seek to stay abreast of the latest developments and as producers seek to secure the best advice possible.

This can be very important for sustainable production and better knowledge of the vegetable producers about the cultivars available. In developing countries, where often the provision of knowledge from both private and public sectors may be poorly developed, the demand for useful and relevant information is growing as vegetable enterprises become more sophisticated and often more focussed on exporting their vegetable produces. In parallel with such changes, there has been an unprecedented expansion of methods by which to transfer information-mobile phones, the internet, laptop computers, private and public networking, and so on. Equally, there is a growing expansion of the types of information that can be accessed including that from remote sensing, environmental monitoring, image analysis and others. The challenges relate not to the availability of information, but to the provision of relevant knowledge and the more effective means of transmitting the specific information that is required. Vegetable producers have rapidly adopted many of these technologies contributing for their success as farmers. The major challenge facing vegetable producers in the future will be to filter the information that is available into useful knowledge that will allow them to be more effective and efficient in their various enterprises. Regular consumption of a vegetable rich diet has undeniable positive effects on health since phytonutriceuticals of vegetables can protect the human body from several types of chronic diseases. The mechanism by which vegetables decrease risk of disease is complex and largely unknown. Various components of the whole food are likely to contribute to the overall health benefit. Various phytonutriceuticals with antioxidant properties may work directly by quenching free radicals or indirectly by participating in cell signaling pathways sensitive to redox balance . Nutrients such as potassium contribute to blood pressure regulation. The dietary fiber content and type of different vegetables may also contribute to the overall health benefit, such as improving bowel transit, lowering cholesterol, helping manage blood glucose concentrations, and by transporting a significant amount of minerals and phytochemicals linked to the fibre matrix through the human gut .

Finaly, increaseing vegetables in the diet may reduce the intake of saturated fats, trans fats, and foods with higher caloric density,stacking pots all of which may be related to a healthier overall diet . A major activity over the past 2 3 decades has been the promotion of health benefits that can be gained through the consumption of various vegetables. This has been most evident from the various “5 a Day” and similar promotional programmes to promote fruits and vegetables consumption. These activities that have been a success have not just included fresh vegetable and fruit products but have also embraced products based on juice, dried products and extracts, many of which have extensive on-label claims. The reality is that many such claims have not in fact been clinically proven and regulators are increasingly requiring label claims to either be substantiated or removed. Clearly, there is a need for considerably more research in this area in order to fully specify the presumed health benefits in many vegetables . This is an exciting area of endeavour where there is a convergence of horticultural science with medical and nutri-tional research. Notwithstanding the need to prove many of the specific health claims that are made for many vegetable crops, the consumption of vegetables per capita in markets such as the United States of America has in-creased over the past 2 3 decades. However, consumer preferences have changed markedly during that same period with a growing pattern of interest in convenience, year-round availability and with novelty. No doubt the perceived health benefits of some of these vegetable crops have also helped to enhance consumption. Because each vegetable contains a unique combination of phytonutriceuticals , a great diversity of vegetables should be eaten to ensure that individual’s diet includes a combination of phytonutriceuticals and to get all the health benefits. The availability of a large diversity of vegetables year-round, allied to increase in mean per capita incomes in recent years and knowledge of vegetable health benefits, have enable consumers to include a variety of health promoting phytonutriceuticals in their diet .

Nutritional quality as understood by the consumers and available at a moderate price may encourage enhanced consumption, thereby conferring an important marketing incentive to vegetable plant breeding. Re-search on the health benefits of vegetables, from a horticultural and breeding perspective, needs to focus on key areas in the near future such as: i) to continue the evaluation of phytonutriceuticals content among older versus newer major cultivars; ii) to identify the genetic mecanisms that regulate the syntesis of their key phytochemicals, such as the glucosinolates, thiosulfides and flavonoids, in order to develop cultivars rich in a variety of phytochemicals and in order to ensure that a mixture of phytochemicals enters into the human diet; iii) to study the potencial change in the balance of these compounds ; and iv) to identify the optimum conditions for mantaining these phytochemicals after harvest and processing since studies have shown that the biovailability of some of the phytochemicals increase dramatically after storage and processing and others de grade rapidly. Genetic engineering enables vegetable breeders to in-corporate desired transgenes into elite cultivars, thereby improving their value considerably. It further offers unique opportunities for improving nutritional quality and bringing other health benefits . Many vegetable crops have been genetically modified to improve traits such as higher nutritional status or better flavour, and to reduce bitterness or anti-nutritional factors . Transgenic vegetables can be also used for vaccine delivery. Consumers could benefit further from eating more nutritious transgenic vegetables, e.g. an increase of crop carotenoids by metabolic sink manipulation through genetic engineering appears feasible in some vegetables . Genetically engineering carrots containing in-crease Ca levels may boost Ca uptake, thereby reducing the incidence of Ca deficiencies such as osteoporosis. Fortified transgenic lettuce with zinc will overcome the deficiency of this micronutrient that severely impairs organ function. Folates deficiency, which is regarded as a global health problem, can also be overcome with transgenic tomatoes with folate levels that provide a complete adult daily requirement. Transgenic lettuce with improved tocopherol and resveratrol composition may prevent coronary disease and arteriosclerosis and can con- tribute to cancer chemopreventative activity. Food safety and health benefits can also be enhanced through transgenic approaches, e.g. rural African re-source-poor consumers will benefit eating cyanide-free cultivars of cassava. Biotechnology-derived vegetable crops will succeed if clear advantages and safety are demonstrated to both growers and consumers. A major trend over the past decade, possibly as a con-sequence of smaller households and more dedication to leisure activities, has been the shift towards the consumption of fresh rather than frozen vegetables. Modern consumers do not store vegetable products for long periods within the household and are able to discern the difference in quality  between vegetables that have been stored for short versus long periods. The challenge for breeding and horticultural science is, therefore, to refine methods for short term storage so that premium quality is retained rather than to focus on long-er-term storage for prolonged marketing. Interestingly, this potentially transforms the approaches that can be taken for chilling sensitive vegetables where long-term storage techniques have not been routinely available.

The option to provide for new approaches that can be used for quality retention during short-term storage should be an absolute priority. Maturity at harvest is the most important determinant of storage-life and of final fruit-vegetable quality. Many vegetables, in particular leafy vegetables, and immature fruit-vegetables , attain optimum eating-quality prior to reaching full maturity. This often results in delayed harvest, and consequently in produce of low quality.The method of harvesting  can significantly impact upon the composition and post- harvest quality of vegetables. Mechanical injuries  can accelerate loss of water and vitamin C resulting in increased susceptibility to decay-causing pathogens. Most fresh vegetables are harvested by hand. Root crops  and some commodities destined for processing  are mechanically harvested. Management of harvesting operations, whether manual or mechanical, can have a major impact on the quality of harvested vegetables. Proper management procedures include selection of optimum time to harvest in relation to product maturity and climatic conditions, training and supervision of workers, and proper implementation of effective quality control. Expedited and careful handling, immediate cooling after harvest, maintenance of optimum temperatures during transit and storage, and effective decay-control procedures are important factors in the successful post-harvest handling of vegetables. Attention must be paid to all of these factors, regardless of the method of harvesting used. These factors are nevertheless more critical in the case of mechanically harvested commodities. It should be noted that any practice that reduces the number of produce handling steps will help minimize losses. Field packing  of produce at the time of harvest can greatly reduce the number of handling steps in preparation vegetables for marketing. Mobile field packing stations with adequate shading are used for vegetables  that do not require washing as part of their preparation for marketing. Within each vegetable there is a range of genotypic variation in composition, quality, and post-harvest-life potential.

Fresh tomatoes must have acceptable flavor, color, texture, and other taste parameters to satisfy consumer demands and handling requirements. Processing tomatoes, on the other hand, must have intrinsic rheological characteristics that make them suitable for various processing applications, such as juice, ketchup, or sauce production. Traditional breeding requires the selection of a tomato genotype or a related wild species that has a desirable trait, such as early ripening or disease resistance, and crossing it with another tomato cultivar that has a good genetic background. The desired result is an earlier ripening tomato that makes it to the market sooner, or cultivars that resist pathogen attack. In this way,nft channel several thousands of tomato cultivars have been developed over the years. The final goal of vegetable breeding programs is then to release new cultivars having elite combinations of many desirable horticultural characteristics.

Consumers are seeking new eating experiences, different quality attributes and improved convenience, and are prepared to pay a premium for such produce if their expectations are met. Plant breeding for improved taste, convenience, and consumer appeal has already contributed to increased per capita vegetable consumption with the development of products such as baby carrots, yellow and orange peppers, cherry and pear tomatoes, non-bitter cucumbers, mild tasting eggplants, seedless watermelons, and lettuces with different colors, textures and flavors for baby leaf and precut salads. In some instances, these premiums are considerable and bring benefit to the overall vegetable industry through improving the popularity of the vegetable crop overall. Further, the premiums achieved can exceed those that consumers are prepared to pay for the choice of consuming organic produce. Other important objectives of vegetable breeding are disease and pest resistances. Since the early days of the 20th century, traditional breeding for disease resistance in vegetables has been a major method for controlling plant diseases.

Cultivars that are resistant or tolerant to one or a few specific pathogens are already available for many vegetable crops. Resistant hybrids with multiple resistances to several pathogens exist and are currently used in vegetable production. For example, in tomato, the genetic control of pathogens is a very useful practice and most resistances are monogenic and dominant. So far, tomato breeding has resulted in cultivars with resistance to at least 15 pathogens, hydroponic nft although with varying stability and level of expression . Tomato cultivars with some resistance to fungi or oomycetes , bacteria , virus , and nematodes  are available.With the increasing use of F1 hybrids it is possible to use cultivars combining from four up to six resistances . Pest resistance is essential in vegetable production but is marginal in vegetable breeding research. There are few vegetable cultivars resistant to insects. Resistance may be unstable due to genetic variants of the insect that are able to overcome that source of resistance. Depending on the complexity of the interaction between the pest and the vegetable plant, plant resistance may break down rapidly or be long-lived. Insects, including aphids, whiteflies, thrips and leafhoppers, are also very important in vegetables because they vector many viruses.

Viruses can substantially reduce production and quality and are be-coming increasingly problematic worldwide due to the absence of virus resistant germplasm for many important vegetable crops. Aphid vectored viruses are particularly problematic because many are transmitted in a non-circulative and non-persistent manner . This means that a very short time, i.e. a few seconds or minutes, is sufficient for aphids to acquire virus particles when probing on infected plants. A similarly short time period is enough for aphids to release virus particles when probing on healthy plants. The primary injury caused by aphid-vectored viruses arises not from direct feeding damage by the aphids, but from their ability to allow the virus to enter the plant and initiate the disease. A successful application of biotechnology has been the development of vegetable cultivars that resist insect transmit-ted viruses, as well as cultivars that directly resist insect feeding or development. Bt potato cultivars expressing resistance to Colorado potato beetle , and aphids associated with potato virus Y, and potato leaf roll virus, were approved for sale in the United States in 1995. The economic return of investment in breeding for disease and pest resistance may be low because it is dispersed among many different vegetable crop types. Also resistant cultivars compete directly with non–resistant ones that may still be used by growers with minimum problems.

Its effects on cognitive development, fatigue and mortality have significant economic impacts, estimated at 7.9% of GDP in the case of Bangladesh . Vitamin A deficiency also is widespread and an estimated 190 million preschool children and 19 million pregnant women are affected. More than half of these are found in South and East Asia and under a third in Africa . Vitamin A deficiency is a major cause of blindness and weakened resistance to disease, resulting in the deaths of up to 3 million children each year . In Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nepal and the Philippines at least half of the preschool children and pregnant women are affected by micro-nutrient and vitamin deficiencies . Small variation in maternal diets, particularly reduction in micro-nutrient content, can have a significant impact on fetal growth and development. The interplay of the different micronu-trients and antioxidants found in vegetables has important health impacts, explaining for instance the higher birth weight of children in India, flood and drain table when mothers consumed higher rates of green leafy vegetables and fruits during pregnancy.

Diets rich in vegetables, in all their many forms to ensure an adequate intake of most micro-nutrients, dietary fibers, and phyto-chemicals can bring a much-needed measure of balance back to diets contributing to solve many of these nutrition problems . Good health depends on dietary diversity, and as poverty increases, human diets become less diverse. In impoverished countries the poor have little choice and are forced to rely on the cheapest available staples  and dietary diversity and health suffer. In richer countries, changes in the food systems have made poor quality processed foods high in carbohydrates and fats more affordable, available, and accessible; this has most impact on the diets of the poor.The emphasis has been on ensuring supplies of macro-nutrients while putting less emphasis on major sources of micro-nutrients and vitamins, which means a focus on survival rather than on health. World vegetable production does not meet even the basic nutritional needs of most countries, and the resulting imbalanced diets are one of the world’s most serious health problems.

Continuing to focus on increasing the production of staples will only exacerbate the real food problem, which is one of imbalanced diets. A world vegetable survey showed that 402 vegetable crops are cultivated worldwide, representing 69 families and 230 genera . Vegetable crops, of which the leaves or young leafy shoots are consumed, were the most common group of vegetables utilized , followed by vegetable fruits . Below ground crop vegetable organs ranked as follows in frequency of use: roots > tubers > rhizomes > corms > stolons and together comprised 17% of the total number. Many vegetable crops have more than one part used. Most of the vegetables are marketed fresh with only a small proportion processed because as most vegetables are perishable by nature, consumption shortly after harvest is the best guarantee for optimal quality. Of these marketed vegetables, rolling bench only 67 have attracted great breeding attention by international seed companies, due to their large area of production and substantial consumption, 52 were considered minor, and other 87  were considered rare . In 2010 the global vegetable seed market was estimated at US$4.1 billion, of which 36% were for solanaceous, 21% for cucurbits, 13% for roots and bulbs, 12% for large seed, 11% for brassicas, and 7% for leafy and others vegetables . In the last 8 years global commercial vegetable seed sales had an annual growth rate of 5.8%.

There are now 7.2 billion human beings inhabiting this planet, and it has been projected that world population growth may exceed 70 million annually over the next 40 years. It is expected to reach approximately 9.5 billion by 2050, when approximately 90% of the global population will reside in Asia, Africa, and Latin American countries. With the increase in world population and consumption, and the advent of a high degree of growth and added value through biotechnology, the global market of vegetable seeds is expected to expand in future years. The worldwide consumption and importance of vegetables in the diet is difficult to estimate owing to scant production statistics. Even where crop reporting services are an integral part of the agricultural infrastructure, in-formation is available only for a small percentage of the vegetable crops grown. The consumption and caloric contribution of vegetables to the diet varies widely with geographical region, nationality, local customs, and cuisine. China is the largest consumer of vegetables in the world.

MAXENT jackknife test of variable  importance shows Bio18  giving a reasonably good fit to the training data.The environmental variable with highest gain when used in isolation is Bio18,which therefore appears to have the most useful information by itself in the model. The environmental variable that decreases the gain the most when it is omitted was also observed in bio18, which therefore appears to have the most information that isn’t present in the other variables.Same jackknife test, using test gain instead of training gain  also shows that Precipitation of Warmest Quarter as an important climatic variable in the test gain, the test gain plot also shows that a model made only using Bio8 results in a negative test gain. The model thus is below a null model  for predicting the distribution of occurrences set aside for testing and the variables are not the useful as predictor.

Jackknife test using AUC on test data,stackable planters the AUC plot shows that Bio18 is the most effective single variable for predicting the distribution of the occurrence data that was left aside for testing, when the predictive performance is measured using AUC, though it was hardly used by the model built using all variables and the relative importance of Bio4 also increases in the test gain plot .These results establishes the importance of precipitation in the MAXENT prediction model and the role of model development for MAXENT to obtain a good fit to the training data with the Precipitation of Warmest Quarter defining better results on the set-aside test data  followed byBIO5 , BIO16  and BIO13 . The model was developed using a very low occurrence points and most of the areas of Nagaland was predicted under high suitability threshold, thus to validate this, the model was subjected to intensive ground truthing and introduction indifferent prediction threshold to assess the model prediction ability .

Target plant species was introduced in different areas and ground truthing works was carried out and it was realized that the distribution of the target plant species was highly threatened and very sparsely distributed in pockets. K- fold partitioning of test data and training data could not give usable model as the occurrence points are too low therefore Pearsons jackknife method of leaving one out and assessing the predictive performance of each separate model was used. Jackknifing method was able to construct a workable model and ground truthing works by random selection of sites in different prediction threshold level give a significant result with 10 new occurrence records . The MAXENT model was able to give significant prediction results over a smaller area however, stacking pots when the small sample size data was used to predict over a larger area i.e. , whole part of India and North Eastern region of India, the predication model becomes unstable and insignificant.Though the model was developed using only four training sites, it was able to predict suitable sites in the neighboring Northeastern states of India and countries.

The high suitability threshold was validated in Manipur and Arunachal, with secondary occurrence data, the model prediction in neighboring countries of Bhutan and Burma can also be supported by occurrence reports available from secondary sources. The ability of the model to predict all the suitable sites over larger areas might be lowered as the training points are very less and confined over a smaller area , The model however shows a more robust prediction outside the target area in Bhutan and Myanmar. During the present study it was observed that most of the occurrence areas are under high biological disturbances like logging, Jhuming and forest fire and these are some of the factors that are bringing noticeable changes to the forest over a short period. This spatially separated population shares similarity in host plant and seasonal climatic variables like precipitation and temperature.

Most of the areas are under high suitability threshold but are under high anthropogenic disturbances and only a small portion of the study in very high suitability thresholda falls under undisturbed area and interestingly Intanki National Park, India fall under very high suitability threshold. Introduction of species to random forests will proved to be futile if careful assessment of the forest condition is not done areas like Intanki national park will serve as excellent sites for in-situ conservation and possible re-introduction for species recovery. The study was able to produce significant prediction models using very small sample size over a defined area, which has been validated statistically and though ground truthing. Earlier studies on development of models using low sample size has also reported effective models by using sample size of minimum 4 and 5study on cryptic geckos .

Business sustainability isthe increase in productivity and/or reduction of consumed resources withoutcompromising product or service quality, competitiveness, or profitability while helping to save the environment . Food industry is confronted with issuesranging from migrant worker abuses, product safety and animal handling practicesto the environmental impacts of soil erosion, habitat destruction, fertilizerrun-offs and use of herbicides and pesticides .The concept of Triple Bottom Line was coined by John Elkington in 1998.TBL focuses on three dimensions of an organization’s operations. Due to theincrease of global awareness of environmental challenges, consumers have becomemore concerned about promotion of green designs. Thus, consumershave become more aware of the consequences of their consumption decisionsand their choices are increasingly affecting the product offerings .

In Sustainable Supply Chain Management  literature, the inclusion ofsustainability into the theory of Supply Chain Management  is most oftenbased on the TBL approach flood and drain tray. SSCM refers to the management of material, informationand capital flows as well as cooperation among companies along thesupply chain while considering the three dimensions of sustainability.Issues of sustainabilityespecially in the flower farming have remained a big concern to thepolicy makers, stakeholders and the Horticultural Crops Development Authority. According to HCDA, work environment, water usage, environmentalissues i.e. chemicals used on the flower farms, and employee wages are key concerns.All these issues can be well addressed if organizations adopt the environmental,social and economic aspects of TBL into their supply chains .A number of studies have been carried out on sustainability and Triple BottomLine approach in organizational supply chains. Situational variables andsustainability in multi-attribute decision making established that the environmentaldimension of sustainability is the most influential followed by economicand social .

A study on crippled bottom line-measuring and managing sustainabilityconcluded that the relative indicators with focus on people utilitycompared to planet and people harm seem to be relevant for measuring the levelof sustainability .It was evident from the above studies that there was lack of research on thetopic of sustainability of horticulture sector supply chains in Kenya. The authorsaimed to narrow the research gap by focusing on the horticulture sector andspecifically studying sustainability and TBL performance from a supply chainperspective. The study questions included: To what extent are the TBL dimensionsadopted in horticulture sector in Kenya? What are the triggers or drivers ofsustainability in the horticulture sector in Kenya? What is the relationship betweenSSCM and TBL performance in horticulture sector in Kenya?This study is will be useful to policy makers in specific to the government,government agencies and various stakeholders in the agricultural sector as theyuse the findings and recommendations of the study to improve food security inthe country by applying sustainability and Triple Bottom-Line concept in farmingpractices as well as managing efficient and effective food supply chain.

Professionals and academicians are also in a position to clearly understand majorpractical challenges which need to be addressed. Organizations operate within a wider environment that is composed of a numberof variables that include political, economic, nft hydroponic socio-cultural, technological,ecological and legal. Any change in any one of these variables is expected to havefar reaching implications in the way organizations operate. This compels organizationsto adopt SSCM practices in addressing any change that may occur inany of the variables. The goals of businesses are achieved through the applicationof change management approaches including SSCM .Companies’ interest in SCM hasincreased in recent decades because of growing global competition, outsourcingof companies’ non-core activities and the shortening of product life cycles .Companies have become more deeply committed to corporate social responsibility and sustainability by refusing to implement a reductionist corporatemanagement model focused only on shareholders’ interests . Under thisscenario, sustainable management of supply chains has become a core strategicfactor for companies worldwide.

Net revenues per hectare from rice is more than four times that from corn and the net revenue to cost ratio is about three times that of corn farming. With generally less land devoted to cultivation of other crops and much less costs involved, annual net incomes realized by households from farming of other crops are comparable, if not higher than corn. All the other crops—abaca,banana, coconut and other non-traditional crops have remarkably much lower costs, yielding net revenues to cost ratio of more than one. With the exception of coconut, net returns per hectare from all other crops are greater than that from corn. Survey data indicate that despite relatively high gross revenues from corn farming, vertical farming racks substantial costs diminish net returns/income.Data from the Philippine Statistics Office reflect an improvement in the profit to cost ratio of corn farming in the Philippines from 0.25 in 2010, to 0.63in 2015, and to 0.78 in 2018 .

Survey results from this study suggest that corn farming profitability in Lake Sebu has remained on the 2010 level of the Philippines.Welfare indicators, such as aggregate household income, poverty incidence,food consumption vulnerability and self-reported happiness are presented in Table 3. Welfare measures for households whose main income source is farming as well as for households that are dependent on other livelihood sources such as tourism, tilapia aquaculture and others are provided so as to show the relative socio-economic conditions of farming households in the Municipality. Table 3 reveals that households who are mainly dependent on agriculture are worse-off than other households in the Municipality. On the average, annual income of other households is about30-100% larger that income of farming households. Poverty incidence and hunger incidence are substantially higher among farming households than other households.Further, the average happiness score is lowest for farming households.

Interviews and focus group discussions with farmers in Lakes Sebu that allowed more in-depth investigation on their conditions revealed farming households’ vulnerabilities arising from limited financing and marketing options.Although most of the FGD participants claimed that they own the land that they cultivate, all of them have no savings to fund their farming livelihood activities and hence,vertical rack system depend on financiers to cover farming costs from seed sowing to marketing. Some acquire cash financing from informal loan sharks at interest rates of 5% – 10% per month . But most farmers enter into a financing contract with agricultural traders who normally provide them with all farm inputs—seedlings, fertilizers, herbicides,and pesticides. The prices of the farm inputs are set in the contract at levels that are much higher than market prices. All contract prices are fixed such that even if the market price of a farm input falls, the price set in the contract is not changed. For example, a bag of fertilizer that costs PHP950 in the market is provided by the financier to the farmer at PHP1,500. There have been instances that the market price of fertilizer falls to as low as PPH650, but the PHP1,500price set in the contract is not amended. In most cases, the agricultural traders who provide the farm inputs are also the buyers of the crops.

While they set very high input prices in the contract, they buy crop harvests at very low prices. Further,they charge transportation costs of PHP1.80 for every kilogram of the crop,leaving the farmers with very little net income for their harvests.It is very difficult for the subsistence Lake Sebu farmers to bring their produce and sell directly to the market to get a fairer price for their produce due to the absence of concrete farm to market roads. Roads are hardly passable during rainy days. World Bank   notes that transportation costs can rise by an additional 71% during the rainy season. Produce from upland farms has to be transported using horses or motorcycles to lowland areas. Apart from higher transportation costs, the shortage of drying facilities and transport difficulties result in high spoilage and further losses to the farmers during the rainy season. In the Philippines, the Department of Agriculture, in partnership with the local government units, is mandated to provide the support services necessary to make agriculture and agriculture-based enterprises profitable.

The deployment of weed competitive variety is not only ecofriendly but also a very cost effective  tool for integrated weed management. Considering the high vulnerability of aerobic rice to weeds, development of weed competitive aerobic rice variety has been suggested by many researchers .No work has so far been done to assess the ability of the huge pool of Bangladeshirice germplasms to wrestle weeds under aerobic soil conditions. In this backdrop, the present study was undertaken to study the variation in weed competitiveness among selected high yielding rice varieties and to recognize agronomic traits conferring weed competitiveness of rice grown under aerobic soil conditions.Maximum weed growth was observed in weed monoculture. In terms of weed rating BRRI dhan59, BRRIdhan67 and Binadhan-10 appeared as the most weeds suppressive since weed ratings against these variety were low. Weed growth was rated between 4 and 5 for BRRI dhan50, BRRI dhan58, BRRI hybrid dhan3, Binadhan-6 and Agrodhan-14,hydroponic fodder system and between 5 and 6 for BRRI dhan28, BRRI dhan29 and BRRI dhan47 indicating moderate weed suppressive .

Weed rating  in BRRI dhan55 and Binadhan-8 and highest weed rating > 7 in Binadhan-5signify poor competitiveness against weeds. Weed dry matter followed almost similar trend as visual weed rating. Mean weed pressure across variety was 37.83 g m−2 against 92.32 g m−2 recorded in weed monoculture, which denotes that on average, rice variety reduced weed pressure by about 59%. BRRI dhan59emerged as the most weed suppressive variety reducing weed pressure by 79%followed by BRRI dhan67 and Binadhan-10. Highest weed pressure of 62.8 g m−2 was found in Binadhan-5 which was 32%less than in weed monoculture. Other varieties were intermediate in suppressing weeds within the range of 41 to 79%. Maximum weed density of 197 m−2 was recorded in weed monoculture. The rice variety did not significantly differ with respect to weed density, which was within a narrow range from 69 to 114 m−2. The average weed density across variety was 94 m−2 which was 52%less compared to the weed monoculture. Relative chlorophyll content was not significantly influenced by variety .

Numerically, the highest chlorophyll content was observed in BRRI dhan55 and the lowest chlorophyll content was observed in BRRI dhan67 .Higher SPAD values indicate greener and healthier plants. Relative chlorophyll content was significantly affected by weeding regimes aeroponic tower garden system. In weed free condition higher chlorophyll value was found and in weedy treatment lower chlorophyll content  was found. Weed competition was severe in weedy condition and thus lowest chlorophyll was produced. On the other hand,in weed free treatment throughout the crop growth period, higher chlorophyll value was produced . SPAD value was higher in weed-free condition than in weedy condition. SPAD values were greatly reduced by weed interference and this was reflected in yield performance. The varieties from diverse genetic sources and origins demonstrated a broad range in phonological parameters . Growth duration of the varieties in this study ranged from 117 to 143 days.

Average growth duration was 134and 132 days in weed free and weedy condition, respectively. BRRI dhan28 and BRRI dhan55 took less than 100 days for flowering and near about 120 days for maturing in both conditions. BRRI dhan67, BRRI dhan47 and BRRI dhan58 commenced flowering between 100 and 105 DAS and consequently matured by125-130 days in weed free condition and matured 2-3 days early in weedy condition.BRRI dhan29 required the longest duration of more than 115 days to initiate flowering and matured after 140 days. The variety and weeding regime exhibited significant differences in plant height at most of the sampling dates, however, their interaction had no significant effect. At 15 DAS plant height ranged from 7.65 to 11.55cm. Here, highest plant height at 15 DAS was produced by BRRI dhan59, followed by Binadhan-10 and the lowest plant height was obtained from Binadhan-5 followed by Binadhan-8. At 30 DAS, plant height ranged from 13.05 to 18.55 cm. Here, BRRI dhan59 was the tallest variety and Binadnan-5 was the shortest one which was at par with BRRI dhan47, BRRI dhan55, Binadhan-8 and BRRI hybriddhan3. At 45 DAS, values are not significant.

Some organic materials have faster decomposition and mineralization rates that are comparable with the fast rate of nutrient release by mineral fertilizers. Such organic inputs can be associated with materials that have slow rate of nutrient release to produce an effective amendment that is comparable or better than mineral fertilizers. Apparently, Mucuna and Tithonia biomasses provided fast nutrient release that enabled better tomato performance than mineral fertilizer throughout the plants’ life cycle, leading togreater production. The higher tomato yields under combined organic biomass of Mucuna + Tithonia amendment that is comparable to the sole Tithonia biomass application supports our hypothesis of better performance with sustainable ISFM technologies comprising mainly a combination of different organic plant materials that advocates the use of mainly organic biomass in ISFM. Therefore, such fast nutrient release organic biomass materials can be integrated with other organic materials that release nutrients slowly, vertical hydroponic nft system so as to enable regular and enhanced nutrient supply during the entire crop cycle, leading to improved plant nutrition and greater crop yield.

About 65% of the total labor force is employed in the agriculture sector, which contributes about 32% of the continent’s gross domestic product . The sector has remained the backbone of Africa’s economic development for centuries without having taken on a real structural transformation. This lack of transformation perpetuates the characterization of Africa as a cheap and secure source of primary commodities required to feed the growing needs and changing demands of the traditionally established and newly emerging industrial super-economies. In line with both Abuja High Level Conference on Agribusiness and Agro industries and the Malabo Declarations, which respectively 1) urged the African Union AU member states not only to establish the requisite legal, regulatory and institutional frameworks to support agribusiness and agro-industry development, but also to put in place programs to accelerate the development of the value of strategic food commodities; and 2) committed to halving poverty by the year 2025 through inclusive agricultural growth and transformation.

As such the heads of state committed to ensure that the agricultural growth, to sustain annual agricultural GDP growth of at least 6%, to establish and/or strengthen inclusive public private partnerships for at least five priority agricultural commodity value chains with strong linkage to smallholder agriculture. It is with this background and within the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme  new framework that the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, nft hydroponic system in collaboration with the African Union Commission , the Food and Agriculture Organization, and Economic Community of West African States , has launched an initiative for the development of strategic commodities regional value chains in Africa. As no agricultural development initiative should look away from climate change issues, UNECA decided to analyse the Greenhouse Gas emission along the value chains, which is a factor most often overlooked. Shifting cultivation or slash-and-burn agriculture is a global agricultural practice that affects an estimated arable land area of 1500 million ha .

It is the traditional method of upland rice cultivation in most parts of West Africa and in the humid and sub-humid tropics. This is a practice where a piece of forest is cleared and burnt for cultivation for a period of two to three years without fertilizer input and then leaving the land under natural fallow vegetation for a much longer period, usually greater than fifteen years, to restore soil fertility .At the onset of the cropping phase, when vegetation is burnt, almost all biomass carbon which is a potential source of soil organic carbon is lost as well as a significant amount of nutrients such as nitrogen and sulphur contained in the biomass.During the cropping phase, inappropriate soil management practices could lead to accelerated depletion of soil organic matter and nutrients resulting in rapid depletion of soil fertility.During the fallow, the accumulation of biomass on the soil surface and its gradualde composition does not only release nutrients but provide an energy source for the soil microbial populations and improvement of soil aggregate stability and structure, bulk density, infiltration capacity, cation exchange capacity, and soil organic matter.

With multiple drivers of change, these dynamic dryland farming systems face rapid evolution of social, economic and biophysical features. The focus group discussion showed that recurrent drought and resource-based conflicts are the two most critical climate-induced shocks and stressors small-holders face in the study area.It is therefore imperative that small-holders pay most attention to respond to recurrent drought conditions perceived as indicators of recent climate change. The smallholders perceive the recurrent droughts as evidence of changes in local climatic conditions which are harming the performance of rainfed agriculture upon which their livelihood depends . This view is consistent with a parallel study by Debela et al. whereby survey participants identified decreasing rainfall often with extremes to be key feature of changing climate which negatively affected local livelihoods. The study employed farm household surveys,rolling benches focus group discussions, expert consultations and secondary data collation to obtain both quantitative and qualitative data.

The farm household survey employed a multi-stage sampling technique involving selection of five districts and twenty pastoral/agropastoral associations. Five districts were purposely selected from the ten districts of the Borana lowlands which represent diverse agro-climates and heterogeneous farming systems shaping adaptive responses. Within each district farm house-holds were stratified into pastoral and agropastoral production systems depending on the predominant production system leading to stratification into pastoral  and agropastoral  associations or villages. The strata are aligned with pastoral/agropastoral associations which are the lowest administrative units after district. From each production system or association , two associations were randomly selected whereby each stratum was again represented by an equal size of 24 randomly selected farm households. The sampling yielded a total sample size of 480 sampling units with households represented by their respective heads in the interview. The household interview was held using a semi-structured questionnaire pretested before the formal inter-view. The survey data, comprising farm and household attributes, was fed into, managed and analysed using an SPSS  program . Prior to the interviews, participants’ written consent was obtained and ethical consideration for human research was made.

In addition to the household survey, a total of twenty focus group discussions were held representing equally ten pastoral and agropastoral production systems. In each of these focus groups, 6 to 10 farming community members with significant farming experience in the area were randomly selected to take part in the open discussion using a checklist. The focus groups reviewed and reflected on major farming system constraints, ebb and flow bench adaptation options and barriers identified in the farm household survey. The data obtained through focus group discussions on insights and experiences about adaptation options and their characteristics, and barriers were then summarized and described qualitatively to complement the quantitative data obtained from household interviews.

In addition, informal expert consultations and discussions were made at zonal and district levels of agricultural development offices to get broader picture of agricultural adaptation in the study area. The data from consultations and supplement the data obtained from household survey and focus group discussions. In this study, we triangulate between qualitative and quantitative data obtained from different social research data collection methods—individual and household interviews, focus group discussions and expert consultations. Triangulating information from different data collection methods allows for the validation and explanation of options and barriers to adapt, and development of a typology of adaptation responses. The classification assumes that, in the extreme, these strategies are different in terms of their adaptation vision or goal, timing of adaptation in relation to a risk to manifest itself into a hazard , degree of collaboration among actors and its immediate impact on the adaptation unit.

The numerical inferiority of the hunter-gatherers stems directly from the higher reproductive capability of the farmers. Following the increase in the high-fitness populations of farmers, the need arose to find new farming lands that would provide the requirements of the growing community. Since agriculture itself violates the balance of its surroundings and in the long run causes a lack of ecological stability, farmers are time and time again forced to find new and better lands for their multiplying offspring. Thus, they spread to new territories and new frontiers. On these new frontiers they encounter neighbors, whom they must in fact expel. These neighbors are the hunter-gatherers. Then, the possible scenarios are that one of the two groups withdraws, or that the two groups intermix or that one adopts the other’s way of life. Again, grow bucket human history clearly describes the triumph of the agricultural societies.

These societies, with their larger population and more complex social organization, at best caused the hunter-gatherers to recede to more remote regions, and at worst led to their disappearance, whether by conquest and killing, or by their assimilation to agricultural practice, ultimately turning them into farmers as well. Occasionally, the conflict between these two ways of life did not necessarily culminate with a real clash and that the hunter gatherers adopted the agricultural way of life even before the farmers’ frontier had reached them. In other words, some hunter-gatherers adopted the concept of agriculture by way of hearsay only; doing so, in fact, in order to gain prestige among their own people. Prestige is a most significant factor in the behavior of human beings. It is most important in other animals as well, mainly with respect to the potential to attract mates and the ability to reproduce. Indeed, the relationship between acquiring prestige  and a male’s higher reproduction ability is noted also among hunter-gatherers, but is much stronger in agricultural societies.

The structure of the agricultural society is such that it enables certain individuals to amass property, to engage in commerce, to attain a better economic status than other individuals and, as a result, to gain prestige. The immediate result is that such individuals who achieve prestige have a better chance both of attracting mates  and as a result, of having more offspring. Commerce and the amassing of property are ancient component of human societies. These components in fact preceded agriculture by thousands of years , and thus they have a major role in the hunter-gatherer societies. It can be assumed that hunter-gatherers, dutch bucket for tomatoes when seeing both the prestige achieved by a handful of farmers and its sociological and biological consequences, could not resist the temptation of improved economics and status that agricultural life could offer. In other words, despite the many draw- backs of the agricultural way of life, it can ultimately lead to the amassing of property, wealth, prestige, and in turn to polygamy and to a greater number of offspring. All the above mentioned behavioral traits, beyond being rooted in culture, are highly valuable with respect to fitness. As such, they are naturally selected for in the evolutionary process, since the many progeny  also inherit those behavioral traits that motivate accumulating wealth and prestige and will in turn pass these behavioral traits on to their offspring as well.

Thus, the generation of abundant food  and gaining of prestige , offer those who possess either of them enhanced biological fitness; all the more so those who possess both. As mentioned before, another scenario of much quicker spreading of agriculture involves the scattering of the idea of agriculture’s benefits. Remote hunter-gatherers possibly adopted agricultural way of life even before the farmers’ frontier reached them, following reports about wealth, prestige, polygamy and multitudes of children. Such hunter-gatherers may have received the founder crops and agricultural-technological knowledge that they may have lacked, from the distant farmers them- selves through commerce or marital ties. However, it is most important to note that even before agriculture time, hunter-gatherers possessed extensive botanical and environmental knowledge. Hunter-gatherers have exercised vast varieties of mobility levels and different ways of subsistence, and different populations through- out the world manipulated their environment using irrigation, fire or weeding in order to obtain better yields of the wild plants in their environment. Hence, the crucial point was not the acquiring of the concepts of botanical and agro-ecological knowledge of agriculture, but rather the ideas of agriculture’s benefits.