Tag: fruits
Nutritious Food Portfolios for targeting year-round food harvest and nutrient gaps – Kinango
Nutritious Food Portfolios for targeting year-round food harvest and nutrient gaps – Nakasongola
A top 100 trees for planting in tropical countries: representational and invasiveness challenges
Assessing household food insecurity experience in the context of deforestation in Cameroon
In forest areas, reconciling strategies to halt deforestation and concerns to improve sustainable food supply and access is a great challenge to development planners and forest managers. This paper gathered evidence on the relationship between deforestation and food insecurity. The study was executed in Cameroon’s forest areas which constitute 10% of the Congo basin forest – an area characterized by increasing deforestation and high levels of poverty and food insecurity (FIS). The objective was to understand the characteristics, prevalence and severity of household FIS as deforestation increases. The HFIAS 9-item questionnaire for measuring experience-based FIS was used for data collection and analysis.
Trees are best bets for rural food security
Trees can provide food, such as fruits, nuts, and leaves, or indirectly through the sale of products, so trees can be an efficient way to improve food security.”Working across field, farm and landscape scales, it is known that trees also play a key role in making efficient use of water and nutrients while maintaining soil carbon,” says FergusSinclair, Systems Science Leader at the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF),”this also develops a climate smart agriculture through the intensification and diversification of farm production,in a manner that leads to increases in agricultural productivity. Further they can also have knock on effects within farm systems (many interactions in a system). For example instead of usingdung for fuel, farmers can alternatively use firewood as fuel and return the dung to farm as manure.”
Income and labour productivity of collection and use of indigenous fruit tree products in Zimbabwe
Rural people in Africa periodically rely on wild fruits to supplement their diet and to generate cash income. However, scientific evidence on the economics of using indigenous fruit tree (IFT) products is scarce. The objective of the study was to fill in some of the gaps for which farm-household surveys were conducted in Zimbabwe during 1999–2000. Gross margins and returns to labour in collection, use and sale of products of Uapaca kirkiana (Muell. Arg., Wild Loquat), Strychnos sp. (S. cocculoides (Baker) and S. spinosa (Lam.), Monkey Orange) and Parinari curatellifolia (Planch. ex. Benth., Fever Tree) were compared with other farming activities. A random sample of over three hundred households in the Murehwa Communal and the Takawira Resettlement Areas was interviewed to gather income and expenditure data. Additionally, income, expenditure and labour allocation of 39 households were closely monitored for one year. Results indicated that the majority of rural households benefited from consumption and sale of indigenous (IF), although the extent varied among households. Within the households, children were the main consumers of fruits. Marketing of IF are carried out by women who used the receipts to purchase household goods. While U. kirkiana fruits were more important in generating cash income than others, fruits of P. curatellifoliawere important for home consumption during periods of food shortages. The gross margins for collection of IFT products were lower than for livestock and crop production. However, returns to labour from collection and use of IFT products were considerably greater than from other activities including gardening and livestock rearing. The study indicates that collection of IFT products is an efficient labour allocation strategy in Zimbabwe.
Evidence that subsistence farmers have domesticated indigenous fruits (Dacryodes edulis and Irvingia gabonensis) in Cameroon and Nigeria
Ten fruit and kernel traits were measured in 152 Irvingia gabonensis and 293 Dacryodes edulis trees from 6 villages in Cameroon and Nigeria. Frequency distribution curves were used to examine the range of variation of each trait of each species in each village and aggregated into national and regional populations. There were differences between the village sub-populations, with regard to the normality (e.g., mean kernel mass of D. edulis) or skewness (e.g., mean flesh depth of D. edulis) of the distribution curves and in the degree of separation between the individual village populations along the x axis, resulting in the development of a bimodal distribution in the regional population. For all traits, populations of both species differed significantly between countries, but only in D. edulis were there significant differences between the Cameroon populations. On the basis of the results of this study, D. edulis can be said to be virtually wild in Nigeria but semi-domesticated in Cameroon, while I. gabonensis is wild in Cameroon and semi-domesticated in Nigeria. These results are discussed with regard to a hypothesis that the range and frequency of variation in the different populations can be used to identify five stages of domestication. From a comparison of the frequency distribution curves of desirable versus undesirable traits, and statistically identifyable changes in skewness and kurtosis, it is concluded that as a result of the farmers’ own efforts by truncated selection, D. edulis is between Stages 2 and 3 of domestication (with a 67% relative gain in flesh depth) in Cameroon, while I. gabonensis in Nigeria is at Stage 2 (with a 44% relative gain in flesh depth). In this study, genetic diversity seems to have been increased, and not reduced, by domestication.
Agroforest-fruits raise income in the Amazon
Abacaxi, açaí, acerola, cacau, c upuaçu, goiaba, maracujá, tapere bá are only some of the Amazonian fruits I had a chance to try last m onth in Belém do Pará, Brazil. Juices, ice cream and all kind of desserts made usi ng these fruits are quite popular around the country, where an industry of frozen fruit pul p is well established a nd still growing. In many cases, these fruits are grown in agroforestry systems. The history of the adoption of agroforestry in Tomé-Açu, Pará, is a lesson for scientists. When a colony of Japanese immigrants arri ved in the 1930s to Tomé-Açu, 230 km from the city of Belém, they established large fiel ds of black-pe pper (‘pimenta do reino’). In the 1960s, the farmers suffered great losses due to pepper diseases, so they looked for alternatives and began to expe riment with agroforestry systems. A response continues to fruits. Currently, the cooperative produces frozen pulp from 13 different fruits for sale to local markets, Japan and the EU. This is not the only success for agroforestry in the Amazon. Experiences from Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezu ela, discussed during a 10-day workshop in January demonstrated that agroforestry is proving a powerful appr oach to counteracting environmental degradation in the Amazon. The workshop is part of the agenda of the Amazon Initiative, a new intern ational consortium for sustaina ble use of natural resources which aims to design and implement collaborative programs in the region. More than 80 researchers from 7 Amazonian countries met in Belém, Brazil from the 19 – 28 January 2005. Among the participants were Philip Fearnside, recognized ecologist from the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Amazônicas; Jean Dubois, founder of the Rede Brasileira Agro-Florestal (REBRAF); and Antônio Abílio Siqueira, one of the two founding members of the Associação de Produc tores Alternativos (APA) in Rondônia. APA promotes the sustainable production of agroforestry systems combining coffee with cupuaçu ( Theobroma grandiflorum ) and other forest species, and is in the process of getting organic certification
Effect of organic fertilizer on the growth and fruit yield of six paprika (Capsicum annum L.) cultivars in Malawi
The production of paprika (Capsicum annum L.) under small-scale farm conditions in southern Africa is constrained by low soil fertility and lack of appropriate cultivars. The objective of this study was to determine the growth responses and fruit yields of six cultivars of paprika to organic and inorganic nutrient sources. The study was conducted in 2007 and 2008 at Chitedze Agricultural Research Station in Malawi. A combination of six paprika cultivars and four nutrient sources, namely (1) organic input from Gliricidia, (Gliricidia sepium) biomass, (2) inorganic fertilizer, (3) integrated nutrient input (Gliricidia biomass + inorganic fertilizer), and (4) control (no nutrient input) were compared. Each combination was replicated five times. A split-plot design was used where nutrient sources formed the main plot and cultivars the sub-plots. Plant height differed due to nutrient source in 2007 and 2008, while differences due to cultivar were minor. The control plots produced the shortest plants (height 60 cm). Numbers of branches and fruits per plant differed due to nutrient source and cultivar during most of the study period. Plants receiving either organic inputs (Gliricidia biomass) alone or the integrated nutrient input alone had significantly higher stem, leaf and fruit weight compared with the control. Average fruit yield was lower in control plots than in plots receiving the organic input alone or the integrated nutrient input. Among cultivars, Papri-King, Papri-Supreme and Papri-Queen produced higher dry fruit yield. The ASTA and RAL colour rating was within the internationally accepted range for fruit from the treatments.