Integrated Pest Management Strategies for Sustainable Agriculture

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) system is the best effective sustainable approach of protecting crops from the ravages of pests towards the goal of food sufficiency for the ever-increasing human population of the globe.The book contains twenty eight articles covering various aspects of crop protection. The topics cover fundamental as well as advanced and modern aspects of pest management. Here, an attempt has been taken to present some recent findings with review work in a manner considered suitable for the scientific community.

Accelerating Sustainable Development Goals for South African adolescents from high HIV prevalence areas: a longitudinal path analysis

Background Adolescents experience a multitude of vulnerabilities which need to be addressed in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In sub-Saharan Africa, adolescents experience high burden of HIV, violence exposure, poverty, and poor mental and physical health. This study aimed to identify interventions and circumstances associated with three or more targets (“accelerators”) within multiple SDGs relating to HIV-affected adolescents and examine cumulative effects on outcomes. Methods Prospective longitudinal data from 3401 adolescents from randomly selected census enumeration areas in two provinces with > 30% HIV prevalence carried out in 2010/11 and 2011/12 were used to examine six hypothesized accelerators (positive parenting, parental monitoring, free schooling, teacher support, food sufficiency and HIV-negative/asymptomatic caregiver) targeting twelve outcomes across four SDGs, using a multivariate (multiple outcome) path model with correlated outcomes controlling for outcome at baseline and socio-demographics. The study corrected for multiple-hypothesis testing and tested measurement invariance across sex. Percentage predicted probabilities of occurrence of the outcome in the presence of the significant accelerators were also calculated. Results Sample mean age was 13.7 years at baseline, 56.6% were female. Positive parenting, parental monitoring, food sufficiency and AIDS-free caregiver were variously associated with reductions on ten outcomes. The model was gender invariant. AIDS-free caregiver was associated with the largest reductions. Combinations of accelerators resulted in a percentage reduction of risk of up to 40%. Conclusion Positive parenting, parental monitoring, food sufficiency and AIDS-free caregivers by themselves and in combination improve adolescent outcomes across ten SDG targets. These could translate to the corresponding real-world interventions parenting programmes, cash transfers and universal access to antiretroviral treatment, which when provided together, may help governments in sub-Saharan Africa more economically to reach their SDG targets.

Anticipated Food Scarcity and Food Preferences: Ph.D. thesis

In the recent decade, marketing literature has acknowledged the advantages of applying an evolutionary lens to understand consumer behavior in different domains. Food choice context is one such domain, having implications for societal well-being, especially for public health and addressing environmental issues. In this thesis, I investigate how mechanisms that have emerged as adaptations to food scarcity—frequent throughout human history—affect modern consumers’ food preferences, potentially leading to maladaptive outcomes. In Paper I, we highlight that selection pressures adjusted humans to forage in ancestral, hostile environments when they were wandering between periods of food scarcity and food sufficiency. Consequently, consumers often fail to choose foods appropriate to their current needs in contemporary retail contexts. Rather than attempting to override these hardwired and evolutionarily outdated food preferences, we recommend policymakers leverage them in such a way that facilitates healthier food choices. A series of studies reported in Paper II show that exposing people to climate changeinduced food scarcity distant in time and space shifts their current food preferences. Specifically, people exposed to such video content exhibit a stronger preference toward energy-dense (vs. low-calorie) foods than their peers exposed to a control video. In Paper III, we aimed to account for potential confounds stemming from the control video used in studies reported in Paper II. Additionally, we strived to conceptually replicate these earlier findings by exposing participants to subtle cues to food scarcity—a winter forest walk. Although not all studies yielded significant results at conventional levels, this empirical package—when taken together—corroborated the earlier findings. Despite that studies described in Papers II–III provided a shred of empirical evidence showing a potency of food scarcity cues in increasing preferences toward energy-dense (vs. low-calorie) products, it was still unclear what drove such a shift in food liking. Thus, in Paper IV, we have developed and psychometrically validated the Anticipated Food Scarcity Scale (AFSS), measuring the degree to which people perceive food resources as becoming less available in the future. Aside from being a candidate mechanism partially explaining findings reported in Papers II–III, anticipated food scarcity (AFS) is also related to some aspects of prosociality. Studies presented in this thesis suggest that when environmental cues to food scarcity are present, people show a stronger preference toward energy-dense (vs. low-calorie) foods than their peers unexposed to such cues. Policymakers should consider these results when designing climate change and other similar campaigns, as such communication often depicts food scarcity. Additional research may explore the possibility that exposure to food scarcity cues affects food choices. Considering that we found AFS correlated with certain prosocial attitudes, it is a new psychological construct that warrants future investigation through multidisciplinary research.

The Potential of Jack Bean (Canavalia ensiformis L.) Developed in Suboptimal Soil to Succeeding Food Sufficiency

The more population grows, the more the food demand required. In this case, soybean, due to the less production compared to rice. In order to support food self-sufficiency and soybean demands, tropical legumes are cultivated due to its nutritional content which is similar to soybean. The local Indonesian plant, jack bean has adaptive properties to sub-optimal land. It can adapt to various cultivation systems, high productivity, and similarity of nutritional content to soybean. It has quite unique adaptations which can grow its upright stems or grows vines, depends to the environment, and relatively shorter age than another type local bean plants. Jack bean seeds can be further processed into tempeh, powder, bakpia (Indonesian traditional sweet cake which using nuts for the filling), and various cakes as a substitute for soybean, mung bean, and wheat. Therefore, the jack bean plant has a great potential as food self-sufficient Indonesia’s program.

Pelatihan Budidaya Sayuran Secara Vertikultur di Pekarangan Guna Ketahanan Pangan Rumah Tangga

One of the efforts to increase food sufficiency, resilience and self-sufficiency is the use of the yard. Cultivation of vegetables using verticulture techniques can be applied in the use of yards. The verticulture technique was chosen because it has advantages: it does not require large costs, is easy, can be a source of family food, the beauty of the home and the environment and produces oxygen. This training activity aims to introduce vegetable farming techniques with the verticulture system as an effort to strengthen household food security. Participants in the activity were members of the Kencana Lestari Women's Farmer Group, Rancaekek Kencana Village, Bandung Regency. The methods used in this activity are lectures, practice and mentoring. The methods used in this activity are lectures, practice and mentoring.This activity has provided benefits for activity participants. The result was that there was a significant change in cognitive terms, namely an increase in the level of participants' knowledge about vegetable cultivation techniques using the verticulture system. For the psychomotor aspect, there is an increase in the skills of participants to cultivate various types of vegetable plants using verticulture techniques.

State minimum wage, paid sick leave, and food insufficiency during the COVID-19 pandemic

IntroductionPeople in low-income households face a disproportionate burden of health and economic consequences brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, including COVID-19 and food insufficiency. State minimum wage and paid sick leave policies may affect whether people are vulnerable to employment and health shocks to income and affect food insufficiency.MethodsWe evaluated the relationship between state minimum wage policies and the outcome of household food insufficiency among participants younger than 65 during the COVID-19 pandemic. We used data from biweekly, state representative Census Pulse surveys conducted between August 19 and December 21, 2020. We conducted analyses in the full population under age 65 years, who are most likely to work, and in households with children. The primary exposure was state minimum wage policies in four categories: less than $8.00, $8.00 to $9.99, $10.00 to $11.99, and $12.00 or more. A secondary exposure was missing work due to COVID-19, interacted with whether participants reported not having paid sick leave. Food insufficiency was defined as sometimes or often not having enough to eat in the past seven days. Very low child food sufficiency was defined as children sometimes or often not eating enough in the past seven days because of inability to afford food. We conducted a multivariable modified Poisson regression analysis to estimate adjusted prevalence ratios and marginal effects. We clustered standard errors by state. To adjust for state health and social programs, we adjusted for health insurance and receipt of supplemental nutrition assistance program benefits, unemployment insurance, and stimulus payments. We conducted subgroup analyses among populations most likely to be affected by minimum wage policies: Participants who reported any work in the past seven days, who reported <$75,000 in 2019 household income, or who had a high school education or less. We conducted falsification tests among participants less likely to be directly affected by policies, ≥65 years or with >$75,000 in 2019 household income.ResultsIn states with a minimum wage of less than $8.00, 14.3% of participants under age 65 and 16.6% of participants in households with children reported household food insufficiency, while 10.3% of participants reported very low child food sufficiency. A state minimum wage of $12 or more per hour was associated with a 1.83 percentage point reduction in the proportion of households reporting food insufficiency relative to a minimum wage of less than $8.00 per hour (95% CI: −2.67 to −0.99 percentage points). In households with children, a state minimum wage of $12 or more per hour was associated with a 2.13 percentage point reduction in household food insufficiency (95% CI: −3.25 to −1.00 percentage points) and in very low child food sufficiency (−1.16 percentage points, 95% CI: −1.69 to −0.63 percentage points) relative to a state minimum wage of less than $8.00 per hour. Minimum wages of $8.00 to $9.99 and $10.00 to $11.99 were not associated with changes in child food insufficiency or very low child food sufficiency relative to less than $8.00 per hour. Subgroup analyses and sensitivity analyses were consistent with the main results. Estimates were of a lesser magnitude (<0.6 percentage points) in populations that should be less directly affected by state minimum wage policies. Missing work due to COVID-19 without paid sick leave was associated with a 5.72 percentage point increase in the proportion of households reporting food insufficiency (95% CI: 3.59 to 7.85 percentage points).DiscussionFood insufficiency is high in all households and even more so in households with children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Living in a state with at least a $12 minimum wage was associated with a decrease in the proportion of people reporting food insufficiency during the COVID-19 pandemic. Not having paid leave was associated with increases in food insufficiency among people who reported missing work due to COVID-19 illness. Policymakers may wish to consider raising the minimum wage and paid sick leave as approaches to reducing food insufficiency during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Faktor Pendukung dan Kontribusi Kecamatan bagi Kecukupan Konsumsi Beras di Kabupaten Jombang, Jawa Timur

<p>Vulnerability of food insecurity is closely related to food sufficiency, especially rice as a staple food. The purpose of this risearch was to analyze supporting factors and to identify sub-districts contribution to the rice consumption adequacy in Jombang Regency, East Java. Data used in this study was a panel data of cross-sectional from 21 sub-districts and time series data of the period 2010 to 2016. A regression analyses and a biplot analyses were used in this study. Research results showed that three ot of five factors were linear positive in supporting the adequacy of food consumption, namely rice procurement, productivity of rice farming, and rice harvested acreage; rice consumption was linear negative, and rice prices was not significant. The variability of rice consumption was identified as the highest among the supporting factors, similarity in supporting factor characteristics was exist in eight sub-district groups, and the superiority of factor scores was identified in three sub-districts groups. The policy implication from this study, among others, are a program for the rice consumption adequacy should be designed based on eight sub-districts groups with the similarity characteristics in orders to achieve efficiency ini costs, time, and manpower; and a supply chain among sub-districts should be developed by prioritizing the rice flow from the above average consumption adequacy rate of sub-districts groups to the below average one.</p>