The objective of the current study was to create a frozen dessert with reduced fat and sugar content, using plant-based ingredients and to evaluate its physical, rheological and nutritional properties. The dessert formulations were developed using plant-based ingredients such as sweet potatoes, potatoes, carrots, and beetroot, combined with date sugar, corn starch and skimmed milk powder. Chemical analysis showed that the sweet potato (SP) sample had the highest energy value due to its carbohydrate and fat content, while the carrot (CR) sample had the lowest. Rheology tests revealed that beetroot-based (BR) samples exhibited the highest viscosity, likely due to the high dietary fibre content in beetroots, while the CR sample was the most fluid, attributed to its lower solids content. The study showed that air bubble size influenced texture and melt behaviour. The overrun, a measure of air incorporation, was highest in the BR sample, contributing to a lighter texture. The hardness of the desserts was influenced by solid content and ingredient composition, with the CR sample being the hardest. Melting rate analysis revealed that all samples melted slowly, with the SP, SPP (sweet potato + potato), and BR samples melting uniformly over time. Overall, the study demonstrated that plant-based ingredients could effectively replace traditional high-fat animal-based ingredients, yielding frozen desserts with favourable nutritional profiles, acceptable rheological properties, and desirable physical characteristics.

Poverty alleviation, employment creation, environmental conservation and income augmentation can be transformed based on agricultural diversification. Lotus farming is considered as a solution to improve income and livelihood for smallholder farmers. Many different products and values can be explored from lotus farming including lotus flower, lotus root, lotus seed, lotus fibre, as well as combining ecotourism. But many barriers are preventing the lotus products diversification of lotus growers. This study will provide a better understanding of lotus farming and explore the barriers to lotus products diversification and causes of these barriers. Phong Dien district, central Vietnam was selected as a case study. The qualitative research was applied through 54 semi-structured interviews including lotus growers, lotus buyers and officers of local government, as well as one focus-group discussion, observation method and secondary data from statistical data and reports were also conducted. The research findings indicated that there is a big gap between lotus products diversification of lotus growers and available lotus products on the market. Lotus growers only grow and sell raw products, of which, fresh unshelled lotus seed is the main product. Lack of knowledge, worries on loss, lack of market and market information, lack of labour and machines and traditional production habits are main determinants of the barriers. Characteristics of lotus seed, high production and monopoly of collectors are different features in barriers to lotus product diversification compared to other crop diversification.

Due to the systematic utilisation of substantial amounts of phosphorus fertilisers on agricultural crops in crop rotation, the amount of available phosphate compounds increases in the soil. It ensures the maximum increase in crop yields. The study of the phosphate level in Chernozem soils in various agrocenoses is really up-to-date. The gist of our research was to determine the specifics of providing mobile phosphorus in typical Chernozem in field crop rotation, especially in sunflower, varying according to fertilisation systems in the forest-steppe zone of Ukraine. The assessment of mobile phosphorus content was conducted using the Chirikov method, which involves extracting mobile phosphorus compounds from the soil using a solution containing acetic acid (CH3COOH) at a concentration of 0.5 mol dmE−3, with a soil–to–solution ratio of 1:25. Phosphorus was determined with the spectrophotocolorimetric method, which is based on the colour intensity of the phosphorus-molybdenum complex. Our investigations showed that the typical low-humus Chernozems have considerable reservoirs of potentially exploitable phosphorus for plant nourishment. We established that the mineral and organic-mineral fertilisation system leads to a greater use of mobile phosphorus with agricultural crops of crop rotation resulting in the formation of elevated phosphate content in the Chernozem soil. By the end of the second rotation, the organic-mineral fertilisation system variant displayed the greatest concentration of mobile phosphorus within the 0–25 cm soil depth, marking a surge of 15.6 mg kgE−1 compared to the unfertilised variant. In the period of sunflower germination, the content of mobile phosphates increased in the soil layers at depths of 0–25 cm and 25–50 cm in the variant of the mineral fertilisation system on 17.6 and 22.2 mg kgE−1 of soil compared to the alternative without the fertiliser. In the sunflower’s ripening period, the mobile phosphorus concentration in the soil at 0–25 cm depth increased significantly in the variant of organic-mineral fertilisation system by 12.0 mg kgE−1 and mineral fertilisation by 14.7 mg kgE−1 of soil if compared with the variant lacking the fertiliser. In the variant of the mineral fertilisation system, the amount of mobile phosphorus increased in the 0–30 cm soil depth by 18.7 mg kgE−1 of soil in two crop rotations compared to the beginning of the first crop rotation.

Globally, food systems are the most significant cause of environmental change; therefore, efforts to create more environmentally sustainable food systems are presented. One of the directions is strengthening the local actors and short food supply chains. Simultaneously, changes in farming systems are needed, and organic agriculture is one of the ways to make food systems more environmentally sustainable. Despite the abundance of research on the environmental consciousness of consumers in short food supply chains, the question is raised whether local food chain farmers are also committed to environmental sustainability. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the importance of environmental sustainability to organic short food supply chain actors. More specifically, the research depicts the views of organic farmers and consumers and their relation to the actual environmental sustainability of short food supply chains. During the research, a specific short food supply chain – a direct purchasing network – was explored. A qualitative approach was applied to reach the aim. Thus, in-depth interviews and observations were used as a research method. The research results demonstrated the views of farmers and consumers of the specific network regarding environmental sustainability aspects in the network. In the research, such environmental aspects as the circularity of resources, biodiversity, chemicals in the environment, seasonality and locality of diets, and the distance (food miles) were admitted as crucial ones by the specific short food supply chain actors. The differences in opinions of consumers and farmers emerged when thinking about the scale of their views.

Climate change is an inevitable global challenge of the 21st century. For developing countries like Ethiopia, it intensifies existing challenges towards ensuring sustainable development. Adopting the protection motivation theory, this study examined factors affecting the practice of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies among farmers. The study employed a mixed research approach to assess the subjective understanding of farmers about climate change threats and identify factors determining their responses to climate change effects. Qualitative data were collected using focus group discussions and interviews. Quantitative information was gathered using semi-structured survey from 296 randomly selected farmers. Qualitative data was dominantly analysed using content analysis, while descriptive and inferential statistics were applied to analyse quantitative data. Almost all respondents (97%) perceived that climate change was occurring and threatening their wellbeing. Dwindling precipitation, increasing temperature and occurrence of human and animal disease were perceived to represent climate change effects. From nationally initiated strategies, farmers were found to largely practice soil and water conservation, which they perceived as less costly and compatible to local knowledge. The result of binary logistic regression revealed that perceived severity of climate change, perceived susceptibility to climate change threat, perceived own ability to respond, response efficacy, and cost of practices predicted farmers’ motivation to practice climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. Thus, building a resilient system should go beyond sensitizing climate response mechanisms. Policies should focus on human capital development and economic empowerment which would enable farmers to pursue context-specific adaptation and mitigation strategies, thereby maintaining a sustainable livelihood.

The national ecolabel of tourist accommodation establishments and rural tourism enterprises of Latvia – the ‘Green Certificate’ (hereinafter the ‘Green Certificate’) celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2019. Its creation in 1999 was initiated by the Latvian Rural Tourism Association ‘Baltic Country Holidays’, and it is currently one of the oldest European ecolabels still in operation. One of the most significant tourism and rural tourism resources in Latvia is the natural and cultural heritage, which is the basis for the development of rural tourism products. In this process, ecosystem services used in tourism products play a major role. One of the goals of the ‘Green Certificate’ is environment, nature and local society friendly and sustainable farming, which means both a careful use of natural resources and their inclusion in the tourism product development process. The aim of this study was to find out which ecosystem services were used and the ways they were used by rural tourism companies to create the nature protection, social and economic added value. According to the respondents, 1/3 of the revenue of the ‘Green Certificate’ companies is generated by the use of the ecosystem services. It is an argument for further research on the possibilities of the ecosystem services to be used more effectively in future in developing new rural tourism products.

Three treatments were tested with four replications at RCBD, namely cassava monoculture, corn twice under cassava intercropping, and corn with corn monoculture where the second corn was planted 5 days after harvested. Planting distance of cassava in monoculture was 100x100 cm, and in intercropping was 200x50 cm, by which corn was planted in 50x30 cm, 1 seed per hole. All plots received dairy cattle manure 5 t haE-1. Fertilizer applied for cassava was Urea 100 kg haE-1, Ponska 200 kg haE-1 and KCl 100 kg haE-1 split into two applications two weeks after cassava planting, then when first of corn was harvested. Corn fertilization was Ponska 150 kg haE-1 + Urea 100 kg haE-1 every 3 months and split into two applications: 1 week and 4 weeks after corn was planted. Cassava and twice corn fertilization was Urea 300 kg haE-1 + Phonska 400 kg haE-1 + KCl 100 kg haE-1. Results showed that cassava monoculture can be improved by inserting of twice corn in between rows. Under sole cropping cassava, the B/C ratio was the highest 1.61, however with incorporating twice of corn the B/C ratio was 1.58. Intercropping cassava and twice of corn resulted in the Land Equivalent Ratio 2.146. By intercropping cassava with corn twice at the end of dry season, there was an opportunity to find corn biomass for dairy cattle. Under intercropping, cassava was able to produce 21.5 t haE-1 of fresh roots, while first and second of corn produced fresh biomass of 34 t haE-1 and 28 t haE-1 respectively.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the performance of agricultural sectors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries using selected criteria, to identify the deficiencies in agricultural policies, to explore competitive advantages and to guide food and nutrition policies. The analyses of this research use the secondary of time series data between the years 1967‒ 2016 from 10 countries including; Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam which are the member of ASEAN. This research uses the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method and the data used for the mentioned countries include the following criteria; total agricultural production value of the land, self-sufficiency of animal products criteria, self-sufficiency of crop products criteria, rural population rate, greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, and value of foreign trade in agricultural products. The result of proximity coefficients calculated with the TOPSIS method, which according to the number of proximity and maximum benefit analysis should be done according to the order of preference. It is stated that Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia were the most successful countries in the agricultural policy performance in 1967. As for last decades, Malaysia became the most successful country in agricultural policy performance. We can infer from the results that Malay industrial sector triggered the agricultural sector by supplying financial investment atmosphere.

Feeding young animals is a very important stage during their growing-up period, but in order to provide them with essential nutrients, they are fed with liquid feeds, whole milk substitute in particular (WMS). The technique for reconstituting WMS consists of dissolving it in water followed by mixing, but it is significant to follow the cooking recipe strictly, so it is necessary to develop a system with a feeding (dosing) device that will make it possible to solve this problem. Theoretical and experimental studies of the feeding device have been conducted in order to optimize the technological process of mixing liquid feed. Theoretically, the quality of determining the mixture during dosing was established for the purpose of further research. The influence of the design and technological parameters of the feeding device was experimentally studied, and its efficiency was evaluated. It was found that as the inclination angle α increases from 67,50 to 700, the rotation speed n being from 850 to 1500 minE−1, the maximum probability of staying in the tolerance field ΔP=96% is reached, and feed discharge Q ranges from 540 to 660 kg hE−1. The research makes it possible to develop a feeding device at the design stage, meeting the requirements of the recipe, having high discharge rates and the lowest energy consumption.

To survive in today's competitive environment, companies must continuously develop and offer customers new products. To increase the probability of a successful business case of investing in the development of a new product, careful attention must be paid to risk analysis in terms of the present value of future potential income. The article considers an example of the research work of the Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies, in the framework of which a technical and technological project was developed to produce a new product, like Mediterranean anchovy, from cheaper Baltic sprats. The main goal of this work is to explore the application multi-factor sensitivity and fuzzy real option analysis to the valuation of new product development project. The multivariate analysis of the sensitivity of the financial model of the greenfield production project described in this article revealed the main risk groups, as well as their degree of influence on the assessment of the Net Present Value of the project by a potential investor. The use of Fuzzy Real Option Valuation made it possible to evaluate the project with uncertain parameters, as well as to calculate the potential upside from preliminary refinement of parameters to eliminate negative scenarios. The described approach is applicable to risk assessment of new food product development and allows investors to make a more informed decision about participation in such projects.