The recent increased emphasis on impact assessment is due in part to the rapidly changing nature of funding for agricultural research and the shifts that have occurred in what is expected of the agricultural research community. The reasons for doing impact assessment are relatively clear: ex post studies can determine the impact of past investment in research on target beneficiaries and are a w...

Aspergillus flavus and some other closely-related members of Aspergillus section Flavi especially A. parasiticus and A. nomius are common fungi that normally inhabit as saprobes in soils and on a wide variety of decaying organic matters (Samson, et al., 2000; Varga et al., 2010). Besides being an etiological agent of systemic aspergillosis and allergic reactions, A. flavus has received major at...

Red-tailed black-cockatoos are specialist feeders, relying almost entirely on the seeds of brown and desert stringybark (Eucalyptus baxteri and E. arenacea) and buloke trees (Allocasuarina luehmannii). The cockatoos feed almost entirely on the stringybark species that has fruited most recently and there are marked periods of food shortage between new crops. For a period of 2-3 months in late su...

All soil used anywhere in the world for agriculture contains radionuclides to a greater or lesser extent. Typical soils (IA89a) contain approximately 300 kBq/m3 of 40K to a depth of 20 cm. This radionuclide and others are then taken up by crops and transferred to food, leading to a concentration in food and feed of between 50 and 150 Bq/kg. The ingestion of radionuclides in food is one of the p...

Ethanol is mainly produced from sugar cane (Brazil) and corn or other cereals (US), but these sources induced criticisms as for social sustainability, being directly competitive with the food and feed chain. Therefore, a second generation concept was introduced for biofuels, by developing processes for their production from waste biomass or energy crops not competitive with agriculture. However...

This study analyzes the potential impacts of expanded ethanol production on southern agriculture. Results of regression analysis suggest that acreage planted for field crops (corn, cotton, soybeans, and wheat) is inelastic with respect to relative prices. The results provide statistical evidence of potential significant acreage shifts favoring corn over cotton, soybeans, and wheat. Simulations ...

Global aquaculture production has expanded at an average annual rate of 6.2% during 2000-2012, with world aquaculture production of 66.7 million tons in 2012, outpacing world population growth rate of 1.6%. According to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), aquaculture is estimated to supply 62% of the world’s fish for human consumption by 2030. However, aquaculture produces huge volumes of ...

The need to feed livestock of herdsmen necessitates their migration from their communities due to inadequate pastures to other communities and this has led to the trespass of these pastoralists to the farmlands of local agriculturalists and destruction of their crops thereby leading to conflict. This study therefore analyses the causes, evolution, dynamics and solutions to the conflicts generat...