The literature suggests there is ~0.3 percent chance per year of full-scale nuclear war. This event would have ~20 percent probability of causing U.S. mass starvation due to collapse of conventional agriculture from smoke blocking the sun. Alternate foods exploit fossil fuels (e.g. methane digesting bacteria) and stored biomass (e.g. mushrooms growing on dead trees) and are technically capable of saving all Americans from starving. However, current awareness is low and the technologies need t...
The sun could be blocked by an asteroid impact, supervolcanic eruption, or nuclear winter caused by burning of cities during nuclear war. The primary problem in these scenarios is loss of food production. Previous work has shown that alternate foods not dependent on sunlight, such as bacteria grown on natural gas, calories extracted from killed leaves, and cellulose turned into sugar enzymatically, could feed everyone in these catastrophes and preparation for these foods would save lives high...
This study was designed to establish farmers’ perception on climate change and weather variability and its impacts on input investments, crop yields and food security. The study was conducted in the Middleveld of Swaziland were three constituencies were selected within the region. Three communities were selected spatially from each constituency. Purposive sampling was used to select 30 households from each community to make a sample size of 270 households. Information was collected from hea...
This study was designed to focus on why subsistence livestock farmers concentrate mainly on cattle rearing instead of diversifying the livestock sector to incorporate small ruminants particularly goats which can sustain under a diverse climatic conditions. Areas of interest in this study were socioeconomic and cultural factors namely; social status, ownership, dignity, prestige, taste, lack of information on sustainable goat farming, customary activities, income and market that influence fa...
This study was done to establish the appropriateness of government and NGOs strategies to improve food security through the production of drought resistant crops in Swaziland. To determine this, analysis was done on the current rural Swazi livelihoods, strategies used by subsistence farmers to cope with hunger, priorities of both subsistence farmers and change agents and the approach used by change agents to fight hunger. Sithobela community was picked as a case study and a total number of 72...
ABSTRACT The study analysed the determinants of crop enterprise diversification among smallholder crop farmers in Delta State. Specifically, it sought to ascertain the socioeconomic characteristics of respondent, the determinants of crop enterprise diversification among the smallholder crop farmers, the intensity of crop enterprise diversification, the different crop combinations, the reasons for participating in crop enterprise diversification, the likely benefits of participating in crop e...
The in vivo activities of inulin and ascorbic acid were evaluated experimentally via using 450 Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) that were distributed into 3 equal groups (each of three replicates). Fish of the first group served as a control and received a balanced diet free from inulin and vitamin C. The second fed on balanced diet supplemented with inulin (5 g kg1), whereas, the third one received a balanced diet supplemented with vitamin C (500 mg kg1). The survival and growth perf...
The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of some immunostimulants and probiotics on the survival rate, final weight, and disease resistance of overwintered tilapia fry. There were five treatments: T1 (control) fed a balanced diet (35% protein) without additives. Treatments 2 to 5 were fed diets supplemented with 4% garlic, 4 g/kg Echinacea, 4 g/kg Organic Green or 4 g/kg Vet-Yeast, respectively. Growth and resistance to disease challenge with Aeromonas hydrophila and Pseudom...
This study was conducted in order to evaluate the potential bene¢t of Bacillus pumilus and a commercial product (‘Organic Green’TM) as a probiotic in the culture of the tilapia nilotica. Two doses of B. pumilus (106 and 1012 g1 diet fed) and Organic GreenTM (1 and 2 g kg1 diet fed) were used as feed additives and administered for periods of 1 (groups 2, 3, 4 and 5 respectively) and 2 (groups 6, 7, 8 and 9 respectively) months; group 1 served as a control. Each group consisted of...
A total of one thousand Oreochromis niloticus held in earthen ponds of the WorldFish Center were used in this study. Forty of these were randomly collected from the ponds and subjected to bacteriological and pathological examination where a variety of 80 bacteria were isolated. Among those 15 bacterial isolates were examined for their probiotic activity through studies performed in vitro and in vivo. Aeromonas hydrophila, Citrobacter freundii, Pseudomonas species and two Gram-positive isola...
Three dosage levels of black seed, garlic and commercial Biogen were administered for three months in summer and six months in winter to test their stimulation effect on growth, survival and response to challenge infection in Oreochromis niloticus. At the end of summer, no significant difference was observed in the growth performance of O. niloticus with most treatments, but the level of non-specific mortalities was reduced in all treatment groups compared to the control group. Significant...
The probiotic activity of two bacteria (Bacillus subtilis and Lactobacillus acidophilus) was evaluated by its effect on the immune response of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), beside its protective effect against challenge infections. Furthermore, their in-vitro inhibitory activity was evaluated. The in-vitro antimicrobial assay showed that Bacillus subtilis and Lactobacillus acidophilus inhibited the growth of A. hydrophila. The B. subtilis inhibited the development of P. fluorescen...
To evaluate the effect of some immunostimulants on growth performance parameters, survival rate and diseases resistance of Nile tilapia fry reared under different stocking densities, a total number of 2250 Oreochromis niloticus fries (0.3 ±0.05 g) were stocked at (2, 4, and 6 fry/m3) and provided with dietary supplementation of (Garlic 40 g/kg, purpurea extract 4 g/kg, Organic GreenTM 4 g/kg and Vet-YeastTM 4 g/kg of the diet) for a five-month period. The obtained results indicated that, sto...
This work aimed to investigate the role of some immunostimulants and probiotics in improving the response of overwintered tilapia to Aeromonas hydrophila vaccine. In this study, 15000 Nile tilapia fry (Orechromis niloticus) were collected and divided into five groups. Group 1 was the control, groups 2 to 5 were fed diet supplemented with garlic, Echinacea, Organic GreenTM and Vet-YeastTM respectively for 5 months. Vaccination with A. hydrophila bacteria was done by the end of the feeding e...
Our aim was to detect potential pathogens in diseased tilapia that might account for the high summer mortalities observed in Egyptian fish farms. To this end, diseased fish were examined from eight farms in different areas of the Nile delta. Here, we report the detection of Aeromonas species and, for the first time, the presence of TiLV in Egyptian tilapia aquaculture.