The fermented seed of néré (Parkia biglobosa), known as Soumbara, is a condiment widely consumed by the population in West Africa and Guinea in particular. The present study aims to use physicochemical, colorimetric methods and mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy to evaluate the evolution of the quality of Soumbara during storage (30 days). Thus, 5 kg of Soumbara were taken, subdivided into 7 batches of samples, and analysed every 5 days for 30 days. Physicochemical analyses (water activity, moisture, proteins, and total ash) would show that the storage duration induced a variation during storage; for example, the total ash contents on days 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 are respectively 3.96 ± 0.25, 3.89 ± 0.43, 3.97 ± 0, 23, 3.99 ± 0.12, 4.54 ± 0.14, 4.57 ± 0.2 and 4.8 ± 0.21%. During the first 15 days of storage, no significant differences (p < 0.05) were observed between samples. The colorimetric measurements showed that the storage duration did not significantly affect the values of a* and b*, except the L* value which decreased significantly (p<0.05) (42.16 ± 0.015 on day 1 to 40.02 ± 0.015 on day 30). Applying statistical methods to mid-infrared spectroscopy allowed a clear distinction between the Soumbara samples during storage for 30 days. The partial least squares regression (PLSR) applied to MIR spectra made it possible to predict water, moisture and protein activity levels, since R2 greater than 0.99 were obtained. The results demonstrated that mid-infrared spectroscopy coupled with chemometric tools could be used as a rapid screening tool to assess and monitor the quality of Soumbara during storage.

Sorghum is one of the major staple crops grown in the poorest and most food-insecure regions of Ethiopia. Sorghum production is predominantly based on local seeds with limited use of commercial fertilizer or other chemicals. This study is therefore aimed to demonstrate the improved sorghum variety with its improved management practices and to assess farmers’ and extension workers’ reactions. The newly released variety of Beletew was evaluated with the variety of Melkam. The experiments were implemented using a simple plot design with farmers’ fields as a replicate. The result revealed that in both locations, the studied varieties showed nonsignificant variation in grain yield. Besides, all the participant farmers were agreed that the variety Beletew had compacted panicle, a larger number of spikes per panicle, stayed green character and yellow seed color. Similarly, about 78.3% and 65.6% of the participant farmers from Efratana gidim and Ensaro Districts respectively agreed that the variety Beletew had a larger panicle size than the variety Melkam and expected higher grain yields from it. Therefore based on the grain yield performance of the result of farmers’ evaluation, the new variety of Beletew was recommended to be pre-scale on a wider scale to sorghum-growing lowland areas as an alternative shortmatured varieties.

The present study was conducted to investigate the recent changes in dairy operations of Central Anatolia and to evaluate the milking facilities and machinery capacities of the facilities.The basic objective is to put forward the recent changes through the state supports provided to dairy facilities of the Central Anatolian Provinces. While investigating and evaluating the recent changes, milking parlors, milking machinery and livestock inventories of the facilities were taken into consideration. The relevant data were gathered from the recent records of Turkish Institute of Statistics (TUIK), Agriculture and Rural Development Support Institution (TKDK) and the Ministry of Economy.As a result, in this study while in determining the recent changes in dairy facilities of the Central Anatolian Provinces, the number of milking machinery, milking parlors and livestock inventories were taken into consideration as well as milk yields per animal and number of animals per machine. According to TUIK records for last six years; 384 milking parlors were built, 8877 milking machinery were bought, the increment in the number of livestock inventories and milk yields per animal were taken place as 62.9% and 9.5% respectively. It is thought that supports provided to dairy operations had a great effect on the recent developments. Such supports should also be provided in the future to furnish entire dairy operations with modern machinery and equipment, thus to improve yields and product qualities.

This paper analyses the production of functional chicken meat products from economic perspectives. It analyses and compares the economics and investment feasibility on different size groups of processing plants in India. The primary data on input use and output yield were taken from studies of NRCM and data was analysed using economic analysis and investment appraisal techniques like NPV, IRR(%), BC ratio, and Break even analysis. The results indicated that the cost of production of functional products was 5.2 and 5.18 and 4.59 US dollars per kg on small, medium and large scale units respectively. All the processing units are found to be economically feasible with NPV of US$ 12727, 64661 and 153703, IRR of 26%,31% and 42% and B-C ratio was estimated as 1.56, 1.78 and 2.29 for small, medium and large scale units respectively. Economies of scale is evident form all perspectives like production costs, profits, discounting measures and breakeven point. The study found the feasibility of functional meat products in India for commercial production.