SPECIAL FEATURES

BINA develops high- yielding tomato varieties

Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture (BINA) has developed two high yielding varieties of summer-tomato.

The new varieties, BINA-2 and BINA-3, which are larger in size and also delicious, have been innovated by horticulturist Shamsad Begum.

National Seed Board has already released the new varieties which need no hormone application in time of cultivation.

According to the scientist, the new varieties can be cultivated in all types of soils, particularly in sandyloan soil, preferably in between March and June.

A single plant bears 12-14 tomatoes each having average weight of 82 gram, and such a variety of tomato can give an yield of about 38-42 tonnes per hectare, said at BINA press release.(The Independent).

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Soybean - the golden crop

Soybean is believed to be one of the world's oldest crops which originated in ancient China where this golden legume had widely been acclaimed as a valuable food and medicinal crop for more than five millennia. However, its dramatic emergence as the cost-effective crop to produce protein and calorie per unit of resource invested, took place during the 19th and 20th centuries, when it turned out to be a leguminous oil crop of prime importance all over the world. As a matter of fact, the long and continuous research conducted in the production and processing of soybean is the key to its success. With the invention of solvent oil extracting process, this oil and protein-rich crop was provided with an extra boost due to its content of poly-unsaturated fatty acid as well as cholesterol-free oil for human use. Its high quality meal effectively stimulated fish, poultry and livestock farming. With this global background of soybean activities, Bangladesh has remained far behind in harnessing the potential of soybean. Nevertheless, its involvement in this promising crop variety dates back to about 40 or 50 years, though the production and utilisation efforts failed to receive the attention required for a crop like soybean. During the mid-1970s, a coordinated research project was undertaken in the Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) as the pioneer organisation to coordinate the activities of as many as 11 departments of seven institutes under four ministries. Since then, there had been continuous development efforts for both production and utilisation of soybean in Bangladesh. Even after the completion of the project, concerted efforts were made to develop as well as to transfer technologies of soybean production. The use of soybean as poultry and fish meal, initiated by the university researchers, has paved the way for the enhanced farm productivity of our country. Soybean has, thus, turned out to be an important cash-cum-industrial crop of Bangladesh. According to the Statistical Yearbook of Bangladesh (1995), the total industrial production of soybean oil in Bangladesh was 47.0 thousand metric tonnes while that of mustard oil, 7.5 thousand metric tonnes in 1994-95. During the years from 1989-90 to 1992-93, on an average 23 metric tonnes of soybean oil had to be imported for internal consumption. If the consumption of edible oil at the rate of 7.0 g. per head per day is taken into consideration, the requirement for 110 million people stands at 250.0 thousand metric tonnes. It is, therefore, evident that Bangladesh belongs to a severely oil-deficit zone, requiring appropriate policy measures to improve the situation. Among all the oil seed crops, mustard tops the list in terms of area, while soybean is treated as a very minor pulse and oil crop. Yet a number of research organisations (like the Oilseed Research Centre of BARI, the Soil Microbiology Division of BINA, the Soil Science Department of BAU etc.) and NGOs (like MMC, NAPL, etc.) are keen to render their services to promote the production and processing of soybean in Bangladesh. At present, the general production technologies suitable for all agro-ecological zones of the country are available with average yield potential of 2-2.3 metric tonnes per hectare. Local technologies for grain storage have also been developed. Large-scale storage of beans requires further research and development. Newer varieties having high seed oil content, low or no beany flavour and higher bacterial activities for atmospheric nitrogen fixation are to be developed on a priority basis. It is, therefore, necessary to have a strong research base for newer understanding, generation, refinement and synthesis of technologies needed for production and processing of soybean. Let us now turn to the consumption and nutritional aspect of this golden crop, soybean, which has the bright prospect to become one of the key protein sources for future world. Today, soybean, with a combination of oil and protein as high as 60 percent is considered as one of the economically and nutritionally valuable food commodities in the world. Due to lack of a specific enzyme, a good portion of population are allergic to natural milk and hence, the soyamilk is an ideal alternative to such populace. Soybean produces almost five times more protein than cereal and twice that of other pulses - making it most cost-effective crop to produce both protein and calorie per unit of investment. Soybean yields a cornucopia of delicious foods like tofu, tempeh, miso, soy sauce, soy flour, soynuts, fresh green soybeans, textured soy protein, soy milk, yogurt, ice cream, cheese and various meat analogues. It may be mentioned here that a number of western food companies are engaged in producing meat analogues by developing processes by which soybean protein is extracted and concentrated to purity above 90 percent and then is spun by extrusion through platinum dies and chemical modification into protein strands which are formed into pieces with meat like texture. Some companies are engaged in developing a process in which soybeans are flaked, tempered, formulated and extruded in order that the products are subjected to high pressure and temperature for a short time and emerge from the extruder as chewy, protein-rich, meat-like nuggets which supply the flavour, texture and nutritive value of meat in a number of Western dishes. I would like to mention here a few fermentation techniques of producing nutrient rich soybean food products as practised in Indonesia and other Asian countries. These techniques are primarily used as cottage industry to produce cost-effective foods accessible by the deprived ones. Tempeh kedele: It is made from soaked, partially cooked dehulled soybean cotyledons which are inoculated with a mold, generally Rhizopus oryzae or R. oligospurus that overgrows the soybeans knitting them into a firm cake. It is then sliced thin and deep fat fried and cut into chunks for use in soups in place of meats. The tempeh process is also applied to okara, the soybean residue left after production of soymilk or yogurt. Tempeh is a product of a cottage industry made through an appropriate technology affordable by low-income people. Soy sauce: Soybeans are soaked and thoroughly steamed, then cooled and coated with ground roasted wheat which serves as a source of nutrients for the fermenting mold, Aspergillus oryzae, which overgrows the beans. When the beans are completely covered with mold mycelium, they are packed in a strong salt brine so that final salt concentration in the product reaches about 20 percent. Over the next 6-12 months, enzymes from the mold hydrolyse the protein into amino acids, lipids to fatty acids, and solubilise other components to yield, when filtered, the typical meat-like flavour of soy sauce. Fermentation of soybean for tempeh production results in enrichment with B12, B2 (two fold) and niacin (seven fold). Japanese miso is a soy sauce, the meat-flavoured soybean/rice, soybean/barley or soybean paste, in which A. oryzae and yeast Saccharo-myces rouxii provide the enzymes for protein and lipid hydrolysis and flavour development. Soy sauce provides essential amino acids and peptides, very important in nutrition. The indigenous fermented foods and food processes have, in fact, survived and persisted over the centuries in the developing world. They are considered as the prime source of better nutrition for the poor and economically deprived. They offer low-cost methods of processing and preservation of foods with attractive aromas and flavours. They belong to the native culture of a given country with immense potentiality of commercialisation. The Western world has discovered a gold mine in food science and technology that may be further developed for use in feeding the world of the future. Bangladesh being a severely edible-oil-and-protein-deficit country, the importance of soybean production here can hardly be over-emphasised. Soybean is a crop that requires reduced tillage, fixes atmospheric nitrogen in the soil, adds plentiful humus to the soil with its fallen leaves and left out nodulated roots - all contributing to the sustainable system of agricultural production. Soybean is often called the golden crop, that requires lesser inputs both in terms of cash and kind, gives higher yield to boost the income of the farming community and supplies high quality protein-rich food and thus helps to attain the goal of national food security. We are now standing on the last edge of the 20th century waiting eagerly for the golden hour to step on the threshold of the third millennium. Now is the time to consolidate our thought and action, to redirect our will and commitment towards a happy, prosperous and sustainable future, Sonar Bangla, as dreamt by the Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Our agricultural policy should accordingly be reformulated in order that poverty, hunger and malnutrition are wiped out for ever from this golden land. Here, soybean can make vital contribution. Hence, a proper action plan to promote this magical crop is of utmost importance. The farmers here are interested in the production of soybean, but the marketing of products and the availability of quality seeds are the two major constraints. The people in business with soybean should seriously consider the development of a balanced market with pre-fixed price, which will encourage the farming community to quickly take up this crop for large-scale production. As a matter of fact, the promotion of soybean has similarity with chick and egg' story, i.e. crop production and industrial processing are closely inter-related. Here, we may take a lesson from the Sakthi Soyas of Tamilnadu, the largest manufacturer of sugar in India, having a chain of seven sugar factories crushing 15,000 tonnes of cane every day. They are intercropping soybean with sugarcane, cotton and banana, relay cropping soybean with rice with encouraging result. Sugarcane is a C-4 type of plant with erect leaves, while soybean is a C-3 type with broad leaves and horizontal spread. Hence, both have a compatible co-existence, utilising the solar radiation fully and effectively. Side by side, the Sakthis has developed a large processing plant to meet the oil and protein demands of India. This approach may well be tried in the sugar mill zones of Bangladesh on an experimental basis. To maximise the production and yield potential of soybean in Bangladesh, continued research on its production and processing is of utmost importance. The efforts of the related organisations of both public and private sectors should be harmonised to attain this end.

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Borobila is located one kilometre from Pirgachha thana sadar, beside Dhaka-Rangpur highway. According to data of the Directorate of Fisheries, the size of the beel is about 370 acres during the dry season. It expands up to 1,235 acres in rainy season. The depth of water in the beel is between five and 15 feet. The suitable time for fish production is about five months from July every year. About 268 families in 20 villages around are dependent on the beel. Besides, there are about 337 fishermen and 1,631 subsistence fishermen. The Ramnathpur fishermen's association has bought the entire one and a half tonnes of fingerlings for about Tk 1.05 lakh this year. Of the total amount, the association has invested Tk 38,000 from its savings since 1994 and the rest came as loan from the Promoda Trust, which is working for motivating the fishermen around Borobila for more than three years.

"We are giving the loan to the fishermen as they have successfully carried out the stocking at Borobila since 1994 and multiplied the fish production," said Moklesur Rahman of Promoda Trust. The NGO executive also hoped that the fishermen would be able to repay the loan after a successful fish cultivation at Borobila. Former fisheries officer of Pirgachha thana, Badrul Hossain Babul, said the Ramnathpur Fishermen's Association, time to time, had returned a good amount of money, to the government as part of the TFP's cost recovery programme. The association collected the money from the licenses issued for about 2,900 villagers engaged in seasonal fishing. The government, during the TFP programme in Borobila, stocked 12.17 tonnes of carp fingerlings in 1994- 95, 16.56 tonnes in 1995-96 and 13.41 tonnes in 1996-97. Following the stocking, total year-wise production of fish during this period was recorded at 189.16 tonnes, 109.17 tonnes and 134.8 tonnes respectively. Production in 1995-96 was below the expected level due to the flood.

Fishermen mainly from four villages around Borobila - Razarampur, Karimpur, Uzirpur and Jagannathpur - formed the Ramnathpur Fishermen's Association in early '70s. But they started having difficult days since mid '80s as fish production was decreasing day by day. In the previous years, production was limited only in about 54 acres of khas land in the beel. With the introduction of floodplain stocking, the beel covering about 1,235 acres is now being used for fish cultivation. Officials concerned observed that involvement of NGOs, particularly local ones in the programme has become very effective in mobilising and organising the local people into groups and involving them in it.

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The National Nutrition Survey has found that the average per head calorie intake in the country has declined by 250 calories per day over the last 32 years. The average per head calorie intake declined to 1868 per day in 1995-96 from 2118 in 1962-64, disclosed the survey conducted by Prof Khurshid Jahan of the Institute of Nutrition and Food Science, Dhaka University.

A five member advisory committee comprising Prof, Kamaluddin Ahmed, National Professor Nurul Islam Prof, Rehman Sobhan, Prof, Mosharraf Hossain and Dr Sekander Hayet supervised the survey.

The National Nutrition Survey was undertaken in September 1994 at the invitation of the Bangladesh National Nutrition Council (BNNC) with financial help of the World Bank.

The survey report was released at a press conference yesterday at the conference room of the Centre for Policy Dialogue.

Prof. Khurshid Jahan said that the survey was conducted on the basis of age, sex and physical activity level of 7,000 people selected at random from 41 districts. The survey found that the average per head calorie intake was 1868 per day in the country against the average daily requirement of 2039.

Prof Jahan termed the malnutrition situation as alarming particularly for the children and pregnant mothers. Due to malnutrition there are possibilities of the disabled and handicapped population increasing in the country, she said.

Prof, Rehman Sobhan, Prof Kamaluddin Ahmed and Prof Mosharraf Hossain were also present at the press conference.

Prof Jahan said that since 1964 when the first Nutrition Survey was conducted, the average consumption of foodgrains and most other kinds of food as well as nutrients have been declining.

The survey showed that only 26.5 per cent of the surveyed population are able to fulfil their daily calorie requirements. Only 28.8 per cent of the rural population and 18.1 per cent of the urban population are able to meet the requirement.

"Great majority of both the rural and urban poor are suffering from acute malnutrition, but the food consumption levels of the urban poor are much lower than that of the majority of rural poor," the report said.

Earlier two nutrition surveys were conducted in 1975-76 and 1981-82. The data from all these surveys show that average per head calorie intake in the rural areas of Bangladesh is steadily declining. However, the calorie intake in urban areas, which is less than the rural areas, has remained more or lees the same.

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One of the most conspicuous features of the modern consumerist society is the generation of massive quantities of waste, which is both costly and difficult to dispose of through conventional methods. Mountains of solid wastes lying unattended in street corners have become an inseparable part of the Indian urban scenario. It has been computed that India, as a whole, generates as much as 25 million tonnes of urban solid waste of diverse composition per year. But per capita waste production in India is minisculous compared to the per capita production of wastes in the industrialised countries. Even so, the problem of waste disposal in India has of late attaining serious proportions posing as it does immense health hazards and an environmental crisis of the first magnitude.

However, thanks to the emergence of many eco-friendly recycling technologies, the problem of waste disposal is now being tackled with a greater degree of efficiency and a heightened level of confidence. Not only waste materials are decomposed into a harmless by products, but also many useful materials are derived from out of the process of recycling. Currently the most popular and widely employed technique for soild waste disposal relies on earthworms generally referred to as “farmers’ friend”. For centuries, earthworms, as biological natural agents, have been in the business of decomposing wastes and enriching the soil structure.

An innovative discipline of vermiculture biotechnology the breeding and propagation of earthworms and the use of its castings has become an important tool of waste recycling the world over. Essentially, the vermiculture provides for the use of earthworms as natural bioreactors for cost-effective and environmentally sound waste management. As it is, the Pune-based Bhawalkar Earthworm Research Institute has done commendable work in exploiting the vermiculture technology for urban waste recycling. Many voluntary agencies in cities like Pune and Bangalore are actively involved in employing vermicultural techniques for waste treatment and garbage management. For instance, in one of the residential extensions of Bangalore, a voluntary agency called Wastewise has organised 400 residents into a group to collect household wastes and recycle it using vermicultural technology. A group of six ragpickers collect waste from each of the household in the extension. The waste is then segregated by the residents. Substances such as glass bottles and plastics are sold to the existing network of dealers. Hazardous wastes along with the construction rubble is collected by the city corporation. The biodegradable wastes are composted behind the street corner garbage dumpyard using earthworms. This compost is then sold back to the residents of the area for use in their kitchen gardens. The process evolved by Bhawalkar Earthworm Research Institute has been successfuly employed in the urban centres of India and elsewhere in Asia for recycling of bio-degradable domestic waste. The energy input in the processing is very small compared to the existing waste disposal systems and the processing cost is next to the nothing. Different kinds of wastes can be collected in specially designed bins and subjected to vermicomposting using vermicastings secreted by the earthworms. As things stand now, the vermiculture technology is all set to emerge as a big business of the next century. For, this versatile technique yields organic fertilisers, recovers energy rich resources, makes for safe disposal of organic wastes and helps combat the spreading problem of environmental pollution. Today, many corporate units and business agencies are making a fortune by marketing vermicompost—an excellent soil conditioner—to the farmers and gardeners. For thousands of years now, the process of vermicomposting has been in vouge in nature due to the activities of earthworms which excrete droppings called vermicastings. It has been estimated that about 5,000 earthworms can degrade a heap of organic wastes of the dimension 1.2x2.4mx0.6m speedily and efficiently. However, for further increasing the efficiently. However, for further increasing the efficacy of vermicomposting, care sgould be taken to see that worms thrive on organic matter, breed faster, tolerate moisture and withstand climatic fluctuations. The most beneficial feature of vermicomposting is that it eliminates foul smell of decaying organic wastes. The concept of vermiculture made its beginning in the 50s of this century when the facilities were set up in the industrialised countries of Western Europe for the mass breeding of earthworms. Subsequently, researchers in the USA, Italy, France and Israel did painstaking work to perfect the vermiculture technology for an efficient waste disposal.

Interestingly, Japan imports 3000-million tonnes of earthworm per annum for waste conversion. But India is still a long way behind in fully exploiting the promises of vermiculture technology for waste disposal and manure generation. With the amount of waste produced in India, the country could easily produce 400 million tonnes of plant nutrients and considerably reduce the outflow of foreign exhange towards the import of fertilisers. Today, many industrial units covering paper, pulp and tanning make use of vermiculture technology for waste treatment.

Now there is an all-round recognition that adoption and exploitation of vermiculture biotechnology would besides arresting ecological degradation could go a long way towards meeting the nutrient needs of the agricultural sector in a big way. On another front, widespread use of vermicultural biotechnology could result an increased employment opportunity and rapid development of the rural areas. It is hightime that the scientific community of the country gave a serious attention to standardising and popularising vermiculture technology on a countrywide basis.

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