Charles Yamoah has his expertise in irrigation design and project supervision. He has worked with Ghana Irrigation Development Authority for four years. He then moved from Ghana to pursue Master’s Degree in Environmental Sciences at Tsukuba University in Japan. He studied Civil Engineering at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana. He was passionate about the environment; his bias towards the environment is a natural shift. With support from colleges and management, he had the privilege to supervise construction of irrigation and water conservation projects across Ghana. Further, a passion for improving the lives of farmers through extension services has motivated him to undertake this study. The goal of his current academic pursuit of environmental sciences is to add environmental concepts to the design of irrigation infrastructure.

At the center of food security is water security. Agriculture production accounts for about 70% of water use in developing countries. It competes with domestic, industrial and ecosystem water demand. The water demand/scarcity is estimated to increase with the growing population. Therefore, there is intense pressure to manage water on agriculture fields (particularly rice fields) to increase efficiencies and reduce water stress. For sustainable water management, there is need to educate Ghanaian rice farmers on the economic, social and environmental impact of the water supply technology they have been using. The aim of this research, therefore, is to evaluate water supply technologies in Ghana to promote sustainable and water efficient rice production. We used cost-benefit analysis based on impact assessment of water supply technologies. We found that the cost-benefit ratios of the technologies are positive. Gravity Irrigation (pipe system) has the highest incremental benefit for sustainability, because of its reliability and efficient on-field management. Our study proposed a reliable tool to measure and assesses the performance of water supply technologies for sustainable rice production. It is expected that it will lead to better water allocation and better decision making for water management authorities

Marfo E A is pursuing her MPhil from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), under the CAY-Seed project in Ghana reading Crop protection (Plant Virology). She works at the CSIR-Crops Research Institute as a Laboratory Technician in the Virology laboratory. She has her expertise in laboratory plant virus diagnostics using PCR and ELISA (PAS, DAS, TAS, ACP and NCM ELISA) and field disease assessment to determine the percentage virus disease incidence and severity. This helps to determine disease prevalence among plant populations and specific crop growing area.

Seed yams previously (in 2015) selected from symptomless or mildly infected plants (positive selection), as well as those purchased from the market (farmer saved) and those selected from field diseased plants were established in field trials in 2016 and 2017 at Ejura (forest-transition zone) and Fumesua (forest zone) in a randomized complete block 3 x 3 factorial design. The performances of the three seed sources were compared for their reaction to yam mosaic virus infection and tuber yield. The varieties used were ‘Dente’, ‘Pona’ and ‘Larabrako’. Plants established from positive selection performed significantly (P<0.05) better with least virus percentage infection and disease severity scores. Tuber yield was also significant (P<0.05) for plants established from positive selection. With farmers’ current practice of recycling seeds from one season to another, this study clearly shows that positive selection is a good approach to reduce virus load in farmers’ fields as well as reducing seed yam degeneration while maintaining fairly good yields.

Jesmin Akter has completed Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) and Masters of Science (MS) in pharmacology from Bangladesh Agricultural University, Bangladesh. Now, she is doing Ph.D. in the United Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences, Kagoshima University, Japan. Her field of study is to check the pharmacological activities of different species and strains of turmeric and isolation and identification of active drugs from them.

Turmeric (Curcuma spp.) is a rhizomatous perennial herb with broad spectrum of pharmacological actions. There are more than 80 species of turmeric and 70 varieties/strains of Curcuma longa, which may have different chemical properties and biological activities. Hence, we compared the major active components (curcuminoides) and antifungal activity of three Curcuma longa strains (Ryudai gold: RD, Okinawa ukon and BK2), C. xanthorrhiza, C. aromatica, C. amada and C. zedoaria against four isolates (one, three, 10 and 17) of Fusarium solani senso lato (FSSL) derived from American manatees (Trichechus manatus) with three different genotypes. Curcuminoides were measured by HPLC and antifungal activity was measured by the diameter of colonies on Petri dish, microscopic observation and microdilution methods followed by CLSI. Our result suggested that the turmeric BK2 contained highest concentration of all the three active compounds followed by Ryudai gold, C. xanthorrhiza, Okinawa ukon and C. aromatica. These compounds were not detected in C. amada and C. zedoaria. All the turmeric species and strains inhibited fungal growth in a concentration dependent manner. The order of the IC50 against FSSL was RD (78 to 92 g/ml) > BK2 (89 to 101g/ml) > C. xanthorrhiza (98 to 114 g/ml) > C. aromatica (183 to 204 g/ml) > C. amada (183 to 206 g/ml) > Okinawa ukon (191 to 216 g/ml) > C. zedoaria (354 to 385 g/ml). We have chosen Ryudai gold (contain curcuminoids) and C. amada (does not contain curcuminoids) for the isolation and identificaiton of antifungal compounds using silica gel column, toyopearl HW-40F column and high performance liquid chromatography. Structural identification of the antifungal compounds was conducted using 1H NMR, 13C NMR, and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. The purified antifungal compounds were curcumin (1) demethoxycurcumin (2) and (E)-α-atlantone (3) from Ryudai gold and zederone (4) and furanodienone (5) from C. amada. These five compounds showed strong antifungal activity with a concentration dependent manner. The concentration required for 50% growth inhibition (IC50) of F. solani ranged from 65 to 76 µM, 76 to 88 µM, 91-101 µM, 77-91 µM and 101-129 µM for compound one, two, three, four and five, respectively. Our results demonstrated that Ryudai gold (developed by the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan) and C. amada have excellent antifungal activity against FSSL. These compounds could be the alternative choice for commercial antifungal agent and to prevent fungal contamination of stored food.

Surface mining require large tracts of land for mining and human labor, which comes with worrying issues such as rapid deforestation, including wild economic trees, shift of labor from food crop farming to mining, reduction of soil fertility through erosion, pollution of water bodies for irrigation purposes and reduction in the health status of people. Against this background, the question that needs to be answered is “should surface mining be continued despite its numerous negative impacts?” This paper investigates the impact of surface mining on sustainable agriculture and the environment in the Western Region. The study will examine both production and price trend of some key agricultural commodities in the study area. The expected results of this paper will seek to come out with recommendations aimed at improving food production in the region.

Kutah Joseph King Junior is currently a first year Master’s student at the University of Tsukuba, Japan, studying Life and Environmental Science. He is an Agricultural Economist at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in Ghana. He works with the policy planning monitoring and evaluation directorate under the Ministry. He was born in Sekondi-Takoradi, the Western Region of Ghana; he was educated at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana and he was graduated with a Bachelor Degree in Agricultural Science. He has been working with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in Ghana since 2008. He was the Regional Monitoring and Evaluation Officer. His current research is about how to increase food production in Ghana. His research work is to determine the impact of environmental degradation through surface mining on sustainable agriculture in Ghana.

Md Zahorul Islam published latest article in Microvascular research entitled Hypertension alters the endothelial-dependent biphasic response of bradykinin in isolated Microminipig basilar artery. This article is available in PubMed with an unique identification number PMID: 28587989 and it is published in 2017. The coauthors of this article are Zahorul Islam M, Kawaguchi H, Miura N, Miyoshi N, Yamazaki-Himeno E, Shiraishi M, Miyamoto A, Tanimoto A.

Synthetic antioxidants like butylated hydroxyanisole, butylated hydroxytoluene, tertiary butyl hydroquinone and propyl gallate are widely used as preservatives in food industry. However, it has been reported that synthetic antioxidants produce toxins and show carcinogenic effect. Therefore, it is an urgent need to identify potential non-toxic natural antioxidant sources. For this, scientists, food manufacturers, producers and consumers have a great interest on photochemical and antioxidant properties in plant materials. Some turmeric species have been reported for antioxidant activities. However, there are many species of turmeric (Curcuma spp.) of which some have multiple strains/varieties that may have different active ingredients and biological activities. Therefore, we compared the total phenolic, flavonoid levels and antioxidant activity of three Curcuma longa strains (Ryudai gold, Okinawa ukon, BK2), C. xanthorrhiza, C. aromatica, C. amada and C. zedoaria. The antioxidant activity was determined using the 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical scavenging activity, oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) and reducing power assay. Turmeric Ryudai gold contained the highest concentration of polyphenols (157.43 mg GAE/g extract), flavonoids (1089.507 mg Rutin/g extract). It also showed the highest DPPH radical-scavenging activity with the lowest 50% inhibitory concentration (IC50) (26.36 g/mL), ORAC (14090 Mol TE/g extract) and reducing power absorbance (0.33). For this, Ryudai gold was chosen for isolation of antioxidant compounds using silica gel column, toyopearl HW-40F column and high-performance liquid chromatography. Structural identification of the antioxidant compounds was conducted using 1H NMR, 13C NMR and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. The purified antioxidant compounds were curcumin (1), demethoxycurcumin (2) and bisdemethoxycurcumin (3). The IC50 for DPPH of curcumin, demethoxycurcumin and bisdemethoxycurcumin were 17.66 µM, 47.81 M and 196.42 M, respectively. Our findings suggested that the Curcuma longa strain Ryudai gold (developed by the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan) is a promising source of natural antioxidants which could be used for feed additives/preservatives to the benefits to consumers.

Fikralem Alemu is a PhD fellow at Addis Ababa University, Institute of Water Resources. She has been working with FHI360 Ethiopia as a Health and Nutrition Specialist (includes WASH). She has a particular interest in WASH and Nutrition

Household food insecurity are major challenges of low and middle-income countries, nutrition and health interventions routinely overlook integrating home gardening as a sustainable strategy to create access to fruit and vegetables for vulnerable groups. This study was conducted to explore the role of permagarden training and support in improving knowledge, attitude, skills and vegetable gardening practices of recipients. Cross sectional community based mixed method design was employed. In the quantitative survey 435 trained caregivers were interviewed face-to-face using semi-structured questionnaire. Data were computerized using epi-data version 3.1 and analyzed using STATA version 11. Logistic regression was used to assess factors associated with good level of permagarden practice. Overall, 62% have good level of knowledge of permagarden skills, and 58% demonstrated good level of practice. More than two-third (68%) harvested vegetables at least twice in the year and for 90% of respondents household consumption is the primary purpose of growing vegetables although 66% reported selling vegetables from their garden. The extent of good level of permagarden practice is significantly associated with having good level of knowledge on basic permagarden skills (AOR: 3.54, 95%CI: 2.0-6.3), being a participant from Tigray region (AOR: 2.74, 95%CI:1.33-5.64), being male (AOR:4.62 (1.51-14.12), getting support of agricultural tool (AOR: 1.94, 95%CI (1.00-3.85), and getting follow-up support (AOR: 2 .00; 95%CI 1.04-3.77). Consistent with quantitative findings, results from qualitative study also indicate that permagardening training introduced modern vegetable gardening techniques, skills and inputs resulting in more yields. Unavailability of adequate garden space, shortage of water supply and shortage of agriculture tools were identified as challenges. The finding showed that introduction of permagarden has motivated households to practice home gardening implying that health and nutrition programs are likely to benefit from integrating permagarden to create access to nutrition for vulnerable groups.

Sara Sintayehu is expertise in Plant Biology and Biodiversity Management. She has Master of Science in Plant Physiology. At the time being she is a lecturer in Hararmaya University, College of Agriculture, Ethiopia. Her thesis has focused on Drought Tolerance Mechanism of Drought Tolerant Genotypes which was backcrossed With Stay Green Parent. Currently she is working on project of Wild Edible Plants in Eastern Ethiopia for increasing the Food Demand of the Community.

Drought is serious problem in rainfed areas due to rapid change in climatic conditions. Among prevailing abiotic stresses, it is the most significant and severe factor inhibiting plant growth and production through impairing normal growth, disturbance of water relations, reduction of water use efficiency and yield performance. The objective of this study was to evaluate growth, physiological and yield performance of sorghum introgression lines under post-flowering stress. The field experiment was conducted on seven stay-green QTLs introgression lines (marker assisted backcrossing derivatives), two stay-green donor parents and three recurrent parents obtained from Melkassa Agricultural Research Center. The experimental materials were tested in split plot design under well watered (WW) and drought stress (DS) growing conditions at Melka Werer field sites during the post-rainy cropping season of 2014. The combined ANOVA revealed that effect due to moisture regimes (MR) was highly significant (P<0.05) for all traits. Differences among the genotypes were also highly significant (P<0.05) for all traits considered. Post-flowering drought stress reduced growth, physiological and yield related traits relative to the well watered condition. Drought induction reduced average leaf area, green leaf number, chlorophyll content, relative water content, CO2 assimilation, transpiration, water use efficiency, root length, root dry weight, grain yield, hundred kernel weight and panicle weight. B35, E36-1, Meko x B35-120, Meko x B35-116, Teshale x B35-2011 and Teshale x E36-1 showed better drought stress tolerance and stay green property. Meko x B35-120, Meko x B35-116, Teshale x B35-2011 and Teshale x E36-1 was selected for maximum grain yield under post-flowering drought condition. Correlation, analysis revealed that chlorophyll content, green leaf area, assimilation rate, water use efficiency, lower rate of leaf senescence, root length, root dry weight and grain yield have been found to be growth and physiological traits for drought tolerance and for stay-green property during post-flowering stage.