International Journal of Agricultural Research, Innovation and Technology

1-8

Authors: KKA Alate, G Mawussi, KD Ayisah, K Sanda

Using composting technology, the biodegradable fraction of solid wastes collected from Agbalepedogan district in Lomé (Togo) was transformed into composts with no phytotoxicity suitable for use in agriculture. The household urban solid wastes were mixed with poultry manure and Mucuna pruriens leaves in appropriate percentages and transformed into composts. The composting process was monitored by temperature, pH and C/N ratio controlling. The composts quality was appreciated by phytotoxicity test, particle size distribution, contents of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, organic matter and trace elements. The results showed that composts particle size distribution presented four fractions (>10 mm, 5-10 mm, 2-5 mm and ≤2 mm) whose average percentages are respectively 9.04±0.2%; 10.71±0.2%; 12.68±0.4% and 67.53±0.6%, respectively. Composts produced contained 1.02±0.1% - 2.72±0.2% of nitrogen, 1.35±0.3% - 2.70±0.4% of phosphorus, 1.31±0.2% - 1.72±0.3% of potassium and 23.50±0.4% - 37.75±0.5% of organic matter. The pH in final composts were between 8.50±0.2 and 9.00±0.3 while C/N ratio varying from 8.06±0.2 to 13.13±0.2. The concentrations of some heavy metals in final products were 79.8±1.7 - 140.2±1.6 mg/kg.dm of zinc, 27.1±1.01 - 76.6±1.03 mg/kg.dm of copper, 2.07±0.33 - 9.19±0.22 mg/kg.dm of lead, 4.13±0.16 - 11.05±0.36 mg/kg.dm of nickel and 0.79±0.02 - 2.15±0.03 mg/kg.dm of cadmium. These concentrations were lower than the limited value for heavy metals prescribed by French and US EPA regulation for organic and organic-mineral fertilizers.

15-22

Authors: MA Ogeto, JH Mohammed, DG Bedada

Smallholder potato producers in Jeldu district produce potato for both home consumption and market. Adoption of improved varieties is suggested to improve and diversify farmers’ household income. This study intents to identify factors determining adoption and intensity of adoption of improved potato varieties in Jeldu district of West Shewa zone, Oromia region, Ethiopia. Both primary and secondary data were used. The primary data were collected from 140 sample households’ selected using two-stage random sampling techniques. Descriptive statics and double hurdle econometric model were used to analyze the data. Results indicate that sex of the household head, access to extension services, livestock ownership and farmers’ perception about the technology positively and significantly determined adoption of improved varieties in the district. In contrast, distance from the nearest market affected adoption of improved potato varieties negatively and significantly. Intensity of adoption is measured by the area of land allocated for improved potato varieties by farmers. The truncated result identified improved varieties yield perception, family size, livestock ownership and membership to agricultural cooperative influenced intensity of improved potato varieties adoption positively and significantly. Strengthening extension services to enhance farmers’ awareness about improved potato varieties infrastructure development, family planning, asset ownership and facilitating membership to cooperatives are recommended.

30-34

Authors: I.I. Nwoye, E.G. Osegbue and M.N. Okeke

The study examined the adoption of soybean products among women in Onitsha North Local Government Area of Anambra State, Nigeria. Specifically, it described the socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents, identified the type of soybean products available in the area, determined the source of information of the soybean products, ascertained the level of adoption of soybean products and identified the major constraints to the adoption of soybean products in the area. Purposive and simple random methods were used to select 50 respondents. Data were collected using structured questionnaire and personal interview and analyzed using descriptive statistics such as percentage, frequency distribution and mean scores. Findings show that 91.0% of the respondents were within the age range of 30-49 years, while the mean age of the farmers was 45.43 years. Extension agents (90.0%) and friends/relatives (80.0%) were the major source of information. Based on the level of adoption of soybean products, the farmers’ adopted only five soybean products, which included soymilk, soybean cake, soybean oil, soybean nut and soy flour. The major constraints against adoption of soybean product were poor extension service to assist farmers (¯x=3.7), lack of awareness of the soybean products (¯x=3.3) and lack of capital (¯x=3.3). In line with the findings, the study therefore recommends that extension agent needs to re-package and dynamically disseminate information, educate and re-educate farmers on several health benefit of soybean use in order to upgrade farmers’ awareness and subsequently their adoption.

42-50

Authors: M.A. Rahman, M.N. Islam, T.A.A. Nasrin and M.M. Begum

A rapid and non-destructive assessment of quality parameters in tomatoes was evaluated using a portable differential absorbance (DA) meter in order to accurately establish optimum harvest maturity. A commercial tomato variety cv. ‘BARI Tomato-8’ grown in the summer season of Bangladesh was used in this study. Different quality parameters including fruit skin colour, tissue firmness, chlorophyll contents, ascorbic acid, total soluble solids (TSS), titratable acidity and pH of tomatoes were determined using standard reference methods. Correlation analysis was performed to determine the relationship between the difference in absorbance index (IDA) and fruit quality parameters. The correlation coefficients showed good ability in estimating the hue angle, chlorophyll contents, titratable acidity and firmness of tomatoes showing ‘r’ values of 0.93, 0.91, 0.91 and 0.92-0.94, respectively. However, the changes of ascorbic acid contents and TSS of tomatoes did not follow the linear model during fruit maturation. Thus, the DA meter could most accurately predict the major quality attributes and may be used as an efficient technique for in-plant non-destructive assessment of tomato fruit qualities.

57-61

Authors: J.T.O. Oke, A.D. Kehinde and A.J. Akindele

This study investigated the determinants of access to credit among cocoa farmers in Osun state, Nigeria. Specifically, the study described the socio-economic characteristics of cocoa farmers in the study area, examined the factors affecting access to credit by cocoa farmers in the study area; and identified the constraints faced by cocoa farmers in credit acquisition. The study was conducted in Osun state, south-western Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used for selecting respondents for this study. A total number of 180 farmers were selected for the study. Data were analyzed using Descriptive statistics and logit Regression. The results for the entire respondents showed average values of 46 years for age, 25 years for year of experience, 8 persons for household size, and about 88% of the respondents have formal education. Farm size (p<0.05), income (p<0.05) and years of schooling (p<0.05) show significant and positive effects on access to credit. On the other hand, gender (p<0.05), distance to credit source (p<0.1) and interest rate (p<0.01) are significant but have negative effects on access to credit by cocoa farmers in the study area. Majority (85.6%) of the cocoa farmers acknowledged lack of collateral security as a constraint in credit acquisition, while about 71.1 % acknowledged that high interest rate was a factor hindering credit acquisition. Other factors are acknowledged in the following order: Bureaucratic procedures 60.6%, lack of information about available credit sources 45%, mode of repayment 40%, no credit association 31.1% and non- membership of farmers’-based organization had 23.3%. Following the findings of the study, government, non-governmental agencies and financial institutions should provide cocoa farmers with adequate access to credit facilities and soft loans with low interest and without collateral security. In addition, cocoa farmers should be educated on the acquisition of credit.

67-75

Authors: Z.T. Munia, S. Islam, K. Akhi and M.S. Islam

This study was conducted to analyze the profitability of banana farming in some selected areas of Tangail district of Bangladesh during 2015. A total of 60 samples (16 small, 19 medium and 25 large farmers) were directly interviewed using a structured questionnaire for achieving the purpose. Apart from the descriptive analysis of the socio-economic variables of the selected respondents, the benefit-cost and functional profitability analysis of banana farming were also performed. The Cobb-Douglas production function was chosen to determine the effects of various inputs on the profitability of banana. The finding of cost-benefit analysis reveals that banana farming is a profitable activity in Bangladesh as the estimated cost of production was lower than the return in the selected study areas. However, the profitability differs among different farmers’ group and large farmers are more profitable in banana farming than small and medium farmers. In addition, the functional analysis identifies four inputs such as the cost of human labor, manure, fertilizer and irrigation as the significant determinants of profitability of banana farming in the study area. In this study, resource use efficiency was also measured to show the efficient resource allocation to attain the goal of profit maximization which showed that human labor, seedling, manure, fertilizer, insecticides, irrigation and bamboo has inefficient use of the resources, and farmers should limit the use of these inputs. The researcher suggested some recommendations to improve the present production situation so that banana farming could be more viable and attractive commercial enterprise.

1-7

Authors: M.S.H. Bhuiyan, M.A. Malek, S.H. Bhuiyan, M. Islam and A.B.A. Hassan

PCR is a powerful tool for the amplification of genetic sequences but sometimes, even though using an established PCR protocol that had been optimized and successful for the amplification of a particular DNA segment, use of that same protocol on a different region can result in a less than desirable outcome. Therefore, an experiment was conducted at Molecular biology laboratory of Malaysian Nuclear Agency during December 2016 to January 2017 used seeds of 6 indica rice cultivars. To conduce RAPD experiments for the rice species it was established the following reaction conditions for the final volume of 20 μl where 0.1 unit of Taq DNA polymerase, 0.4 μl of each dNTP, 2.5 mM MgCl2, 1 μl primer and 2.0 μl of DNA template. From this experiment, it is clear that after mutation the parent MR219 performed some genetic modification and produce genetically different variety namely NMR151, NMR152, ML3, ML10 and ML30. These mutant varieties have two different groups based on their mutation source and it is clear enough from their RAPD profile.

14-17

Authors: G.M. Mohsin1*, M. Alauddin2, M. Rahman, M.K. Uddin, F.F Meem, A.H.M.Z. Ali, M.S. Rahman and M.K. Rahman

A field experiment was carried out in the paddy field of Charfession Govt. College, Bhola, Bangladesh during rabi season 2017 to evaluate growth, biomass production and nitrogen accumulation in mungbean plants. The size of the plot was 60 cm x 45 cm. The distance between row to row and plant to plant was 30 cm and 10 cm, respectively. Eight plants were raised per plot. Seven treatments were P0K0 (Control), P5K6, P5K12, P5K18, P10K6, P10K12 and P10K18 kg ha-1. Forty day old plants were harvestedas root, stem and leaf. The highest plant height (17.2 cm) and number of leaves (14.3 no. plant-1) were recorded in P5K12 kg ha-1 treatment at harvest. The maximum concentration of nitrogen in root, stem and leaf were 1.59, 2.51 and 3.82% in the treatments of P5K12, P5K12 and P5K18 kg ha-1, respectively. The highest amount of dry matter yield 1.88 g plant-1 was observed in P5K12 kg ha-1 treatment. The overall better dose was P5K12 kg ha-1. Thus, a considerable amount of nitrogen and organic matter might be added to paddy fields through the cultivation of mungbean in the coastal region of Bangladesh.

23-34

Authors: Dejene Taye

Climate variability and vulnerability have a range of impacts on livelihood. It is likely that food insecurity will progress more rapidly with rising temperatures and variable rainfall. Hence, the aim of this study is to assess to assess climate vulnerability on livelihoods, and coping mechanism in selected three Woredas’ of Bale lowland, Sothern Western, Ethiopia. The study was conducted in Six PA’s of the Rayitu, Dawe Qachen and Guradamole Woreda in order to achieve these objectives, the study collected data from primary and secondary sources. The primary data collected by using data gathering tools such as FGDs (6), key informant interviews (50) and household survey (436). The study finding showed that the fluctuation of climate makes the on livelihood of the pastoralist community vulnerable in affecting their crop and livestock productivity of the pastoralists’ community. Furthermore, the finding of the study also showed that there have to be an appropriate adaptation mechanism to the changing and fluctuating climate as well as it increases pastoralists community awareness about mechanism by which climate variability to reduce the impact and also to increase institutional involvement with different intervention mechanism. The vulnerability of climate fluctuation exacerbated by lack of adaptation and commitment from both pastoralists and local institutions. Since pastoralists are prioritizing their immediate benefits rather than sustainable development. To cope with the vulnerability the societies use saving, migration diversification, dissemination of technology and provision of safety nets to some lowlanders and emergency aid is among the coping mechanism provided by the government institution. Based on the findings and results of the study, the following recommendations suggested minimizing the vulnerability of the pastoral communities. Improve agricultural production, build on existing people’s knowledge and practices, strengthen local capacity to manage risks through local civil society organizations, foster institutional linkages for livelihood sustainability, and improve the coverage and quality of climate data.

42-47

Authors: M.N. Zahan, M.J. Islam, T. Mahajebin, M.S. Rahman and A.K.M.M Hossain

Four fish species namely, stinging catfish (Heteropneustes fossilis), spotted snakehead (Channa punctatus), climbing perch (Anabas testudineus) and tangra (Batasio tengana) were exposed to various concentrations of chlorpyrifos (Expert 20 EC) to investigate the mortality rate of fish species and the toxicity level of the pesticide. The LC50 values of chlorpyrifos on these fish species were 23.10, 20.32, 16.61 and 13.94 ppm, respectively at 96 hours of exposure. Among these results, it is clear that the lethal concentration is varying species to species because their strengths are different. During the experiments, some water quality parameters such as temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, total dissolved solids and electrical conductivity were also analyzed. The temperature values remained within the ranges of 17-20°C and the pH was 6.64-7.30. Fish behaved irregular and erratic movements followed by hyper excitability, loss of balance and settling to the bottom of the test chamber. At higher concentration of chlorpyrifos, alterations in physiological and behavioural responses especially erratic swimming, gulping, mucus secretion, increased opercular movement and profuse emission of mucus all above the body were observed during the primary stages of contact after which it became occasional.

58-65

Authors: G. Asasira, G. Karubanga, F. Okry, P. Kibwika and J.G. Agea

In Sub-Saharan Africa, video has been earmarked as an important tool to enhance learning among smallholder farmers. The study evaluated how the inherent video attributes influence learning about postharvest handling practices and technologies from the perspective of maize farmers in Kakumiro district of Uganda; using the case of Access Agriculture maize videos. An action-oriented research involving showing of four videos, on-site participant observation, six key informant and 50 exit individual interviews were conducted in February 2019. While thematic-content analysis was applied for qualitative data, quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS 18.0 version. Our results clearly illustrate that the video’s ability to influence farmer learning depends on the complementarity of its positive attributes including: demonstration ability, attractiveness and clarity of images, ability to arouse interest and curiosity; thus, fostering interactions among viewers. The nature of video content in terms of clarity, practicability, relevance, applicability and content sequencing are also perceived to be key attributes of video in enhancing learning among the viewers. However, the effectiveness of video is likely to be compromised by the socio-economic and cultural factors more especially if such factors are not well taken care of during the filming process. If possible, when developing videos for farmer learning, focus should be on creating local content that is context specific, which farmers can enjoy and relate to for easy adaptation and eventual application.

73-83

Authors: K. Hasan, M.S. Rahman, S. Sultana and M. Shahjahan

An experiment on the use of duckweed powder as a fish feed on monoculture of silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) was conducted in 6 ponds for a period of 75 days. The area of the each pond was one decimal. The experiment was carried out under two treatments, each with 3 replications. A combination of duckweed powder and rice bran at the ratio of 3:1 was supplied at the rate of 4% of total body weight in the ponds under treatment-I. On the other hand, the ponds under treatment-II were without supplying of feed. Each of the ponds under both treatments were stocked with 45 fingerlings of silver carp (H. molitrix). The average initial length and weight of the fingerlings were 14.60 cm and 33.48 g, respectively. The ponds were fertilized fortnightly with poultry droppings at the rate of 2 kg, urea 60 g and TSP 90 g decimal-1. During the experimental period the ranges of physico-chemical parameters viz. water depth (0.82 to 0.90 m), water temperature (17.80 to 26.7 °C), air temperature (19.11 to 28.29 °C), transparency (28.00 to 34.00 cm), dissolved oxygen (6.70 to 8.20 mg L-1), pH (6.70 to 8.00), total alkalinity (170 to 210 mg L-1), free CO2 (0.0 to 3.50 mg L-1), phosphate-phosphorus (1.2 to 2.9 mg L-1), and nitrate-nitrogen (3.1 to 4.5 mg L-1) were within the productive limit and more or less similar in all the ponds under treatments I and II. There were 25 genera of phytoplankton under four major groups and 10 genera of zooplankton under three major groups in the experimental ponds. Mean survival rates under treatment-I and treatment-II were 97.78% and 95.56%, respectively. The specific growth rates (SGR % per day) of the fish found under treatment-I and treatment-II were 0.98% and 0.49%. The calculated net production of the ponds under treatment-I was 1.87 ton ha-1 yr-1 and that of the ponds under treatment-II, was 0.74 ton ha-1 yr-1. By 't' test, it was found that the net fish production of treatment-I was significantly (p<0.01) higher than that of treatment-II, and cost return relationship was found that the net profit of treatment-I and treatment-II were more or less similar. Finally, it can be concluded that duckweed powder as an ingredient of fish feed had significant impacts on production of silver carp, which do not consume duckweed as fresh and raw condition. Thus, duckweed powder can be used as feed for most fishes.