eChapters

Abstract

Herbal Burfi was development with various types of milk viz., Buffalo (6% Fat), Cow (4% Fat) and mixed milk (5% Fat) and different levels of sugar i.e. 20, 25, 30 and 35 per cent (weight basis of khoa). Each sample was fortified with 5g satavar and safed musli powder. Other minor ingredients like Almonds, Cardamoms, Cashew nuts, Pistachio nuts, etc were mixed thoroughly and after preparation herbal burfi was allowed to set at room temperature (20- 25_oC) for two hours. Physico-chemical (acidity, pH, fat, protein, lactose, sugar, ash and total solids), microbial (total plate count, coliform count, yeast and mould count) quality and sensory attributes of the herbal burfi were evaluated. The data of experiments were statistically analyzed to compare significance effects of various factors by applying factorial Randomized Block Design (fRBD) with the help of OPSTAT software and ANOVA.

Nano-material possess unique properties such as dimension, shape, specific surface area, surface mass ratio etc., that are highly influenced by the mechanical and physical properties. It is pertinent to understand the basic physical properties of nano-materials in order to apply them in a wide array of functions. In this context, this chapter is devoted to provide basic information on physical, mechanical and photo-luminescence properties of nano-materials.

Nano-materials are to be extensively studied and characterized prior to their application in material science, biological science, electrical and electronics. In addition to the basic physical properties of the nano-materials, other characteristics such as paramagnetism, ferromagnetism, supermagnetism, optical properties, quantum size effects and electrical properties have to be studied. With a view to provide the fundamental information on these aspects this chapter is dedicated.

1. Mechanical Properties of Nanomaterials

Scientific challenges in nanoscience and nanotechnology include the development of nanomaterials with novel mechanical properties. The need for scratch, mar and/or abrasion resistance is well established in various markets, including fingernail polishes, flooring, plastic glazing, headlamp covers and other automotive parts, transportation windows and optical lenses, where clear scratch-resistant coatings are used. Because the nanosize, many of their mechanical properties of the materials is modified, among others, hardness and elastic modulus, fracture toughness, scratch resistance, fatigue strength, and hardness. Energy dissipation, mechanical coupling within arrays of components, and mechanical nonlinearities are influenced by structuring components at the nanometer scale. This includes also the interpretation of unusual mechanical behavior (e.g., strengths approaching the theoretical limit) and the exploration of new ways to integrate diverse classes of mechanically functional materials on the nano-size.

Introduction

Sem (Dolichos) bean, Hyacinth bean or Field bean is one of the most ancient crops among cultivated plants. It is a bushy, semi-erect, perennial herb, showing no tendency to climb. It is mainly cultivated either as a pure crop or mixed with finger millet, groundnut, castor, corn, bajra or sorghum in Asia and Africa (Maass et al., 2010). It is a multipurpose crop grown for pulse, vegetable and forage. The crop is grown for its green pods, while dry as well as fresh green matured seeds are used in various vegetable food preparations, as most of the nutritive value is concentrated in the seeds. FAO website reports that Dolichos lablab (field bean) is a dual purpose legume. It is traditionally grown as a pulse crop for human consumption in south and south-east Asia and eastern Africa. Flowers and immature pods also used as a vegetable. It is also used as a fodder legume sown for grazing and conservation in broad acre agricultural systems in tropical environments with a summer rainfall. Also used as green manure, cover crop and in cut and carry systems and as a concentrate feed.

In India rice is cultivated under two land situations. In uplands, rice is grown under rainfed conditions and the yield is normally low. In medium or low land conditions rice is grown under wet condition where plenty of rain water or irrigation water is available. Here an intensive tillage is practiced in wet to create a soft puddle condition and then paddy is transplanted. Land submergence is thus an essential condition for successful rice cultivation.

Rice soils are not necessarily soils with water at or near the surface. Many soils have a fairly deep water table, but their surface is kept under submergence maintaining depth of 3-5 cm water. This condition is maintained either by puddling when wet or by having a compacted layer in the sub surface.

A rice soil is characterized by reducing conditions, when it is cropped with rice during wet season and oxidizing conditions during dry season, when the land remained fallow or planted with dry season crops if, irrigation water is available.

The atmosphere near Earth’s surface, often referred to as the boundary layer, exhibits unique properties influenced by the interaction between the surface and the atmosphere. These properties are crucial for understanding weather patterns, climate, and various environmental processes. Ancient Indians use to worship five natural elements i.e. earth, water, air, energy and the sky. Perhaps they were aware of the interactive effects and processes between these 5 elements that govern life on earth. In a sense, meteorology itself is a science based on interactive effects of these natural elements. Microclimatology is all about the effect of the interactions between these 5 elements on life over the earth. For a beginner of microclimatology, it is important to understand the properties of the atmosphere near the earth’s surface and get familiar with the concept and terminology used to describe/quantify the physical processes taking place between the lower layers of the atmosphere and the earth’s surface.
2.1. Energy
The major source of energy in the earth atmosphere system is solar energy (Fig.2.1). The outer surface of the sun is very hot and its temperature is estimated to be around 6000°Kelvin (symbol K).
The Kelvin is the base unit of temperature in the international system of units (SI). The Kelvin scale is the absolute temperature scale that begins at the lowest possible temperature that can be attained (absolute zero) taken as 0 degree K. The magnitude or value of each degree of temperature in the Centigrade scale and Kelvin scale is same. The temperature measured in centigrade scale can be converted to Kelvin scale by adding 273.15. The sun emits heat energy in the form of solar radiation. As the solar radiation passes through the atmosphere, it gets partly depleted before reaching the earth’s surface. The processes through which the solar radiation gets depleted in the

Wool, which is sourced from sheep, is a significant protein fibre categorized as an animal fibre. Its hygroscopic nature allows it to absorb moisture effectively. Composed mainly of keratin, a protein created by amino acids linked through peptide bonds, wool possesses unique characteristics due to its sulphur content, setting it apart from other animal fibres. The fibres of wool are crimped and elastic, growing in clusters. This crimping generates air pockets that provide insulation, while the outer surface features overlapping, serrated scales that enable the fibres to interlock and create felt. For thousands of years, wool has been utilized as a textile because of these distinctive attributes.
Properties of Wool Fiber: The properties of wool fibre include the following:
1. Composition of amino acids: Wool fibres consist of amino acids that form the protein keratin.
2. Absorbency: Wool exhibits high absorbency, which allows it to effectively take in moisture.
3. Moisture retention: Wool can hold a considerable amount of moisture in relation to its weight.
4. Thermal insulation: Wool fibres offer superior warmth compared to many other fibres due to their crimp and structure.
5. Chemical resistance: Wool fibres show limited resistance to alkalis (such as strong soaps or detergents) but are resistant to acids.

1. Introduction

Observing the right to property from the angle of human right, it could be perceived that it is an essential component of freedom and development (Narveson, 2010). In his literature Levy (1995) maintains that, free speech is of little value to a person who has no entitlement on property. He also holds the view that only property can enable the individual to make independent decisions and choices because he is not beholden to anyone and has no need to be subservient. Thus property ownership is basically grounded on considered and intrinsic values of human right. Strategically it assists economic human rights essential for development. Intrinsically it provides every one the right to preserve human dignity and in turn worth to protect human rights. Moreover, every individual should enjoy the legal protection that is perpetually required to preserve his or her human dignity. Access to use and control of productive resources including land are essential to ensure the equality and adequate standard of living among persons. The discussions on woman right to land are somehow interlinked with global food security and also sustainable development of the economy. The crucial obstacles on these rights are inadequate legal standard, ineffective implementation mechanism, and discriminatory cultural values.

In many capitalist societies women are still being vulnerable and subjected to exploitation which emerges from their exclusion from property ownership rights. Indeed the claim from women, for right to own property confirms the proposition laid down by Levy (1995) that the property rights relieves its owner to be subservient to others. However, the deteriorated rule of democracy obviously protect the discriminated and arbitral rules in almost every part of the world.

Introduction

Fisheries and aquaculture are important source of food, nutrition and livelihood for millions of people around the world. Aquaculture is the fastest growing food-production sector in the global aquaculture with production of 73.8 Million tonnes in 2014 (FAO, 2016) expanding into new directions, intensifying and diversifying. A persistent goal of global aquaculture is to maximize the efficiency of production to optimize profitability.

Infectious diseases pose of the most significant threats to successful aquaculture. Intensively cultured fish and shellfish are susceptible to infectious agents. The losses due to shrimp diseases in India is valued at Rs. 10, 221 million. Globally, the yield loss due to diseases in aquaculture is estimated to be $ 6 billion. A variety of antimicrobial and chemical treatments have been used for the control and treatment of bacterial diseases in aquaculture systems. The emergence of antimicrobial resistance in bacteria due to application of antibiotics in aquaculture and the toxic nature of chemicals led to the search for alternatives for the control of infection. Here, we discuss the several alternatives to antibiotics that have been successfully used in aquaculture.

Objectives

• To keep the laboratory animal house neat and clean
• To maintain healthy stock

The disease may be bacterial, viral, fungal or of parasitic origin. All the measures taken to reduce growth and also to control spread of pathogenic organism is a sanitary measure like ventilation, building without cracks crevices.

Important aspect of good sanitation is insect control or pest control. Most effective measure is to just chase them out. To achieve this :

Vaccination of cattle and prevention of diseases causing huge economic losses is very much essential for economic rearing of livestock as prophylactic and strategic vaccination helps in development of immunity against the vaccinated diseases thereby prevents the animals from developing such infections and consequent diseases. Animals should be vaccinated at specific age and at definite time intervals for optimal protection against the diseases.

Introduction

Aquaculture is given major thrust in many countries including India not only as a source of good quality food of animal origin but also because of economic gains it brings to aqua-farmers, creation of employment and export trade. It has emerged as one of the fastest growing food producing sector sowing to intensification and diversification of culture systems. However, the success of the intensive aquaculture system depends on several factors including species cultured, type of feed, water quality, management practices and strategies adopted to prevent/ control disease problems. Further, the intensive aquaculture operation results in accumulation of wastes leading to water quality deterioration, oxygen depletion, build-up of toxic metabolites such as hydrogen sulphide, methane, ammonia and nitrites that cause stress to culture animals leading to susceptibility to diseases. Among the several challenges that seriously affect the growth and sustainability of aquaculture, the incidence of microbial diseases are considered as major threat. Thus, keeping cultured aquatic animals in good health becomes major requirement for the success of aquaculture.

Though application of chemicals and drugs are often considered necessary to maintain water quality and animal health, use of these, in the long run are known to cause harmful effects both to the animal and the environment. Further, accumulation of drugs and chemicals in tissues, development of resistance to drugs by pathogens, pathogen build up, destruction of useful microorganisms, deterioration of pond environment and toxicity issues have limited their use in aquaculture system. Under these circumstances several alternative strategies have been proposed as viable option for the success of aquaculture in the form of prophylactic measuressuch as use of probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, immunostimulants and bacterial vaccines. The term prophylaxis refers to all preventive steps taken including better aquaculture management practices that are adopted during a hatchery and farming operation to improve growth, minimize the load of pathogens and prevent occurrence of diseases.

Introduction

The control of infectious diseases of bacterial etiology in food animals is often by using collective and simultaneous medication of a group, i.e. the so-called preventive uses prophylaxis and metaphylaxis. These uses are vigorously debated because they involve the mass consumption of antibiotics that is suspected to favour the emergence of resistant bacteria, especially in the gut flora, which is critical for the potential transfer of resistance to humans via the food chain. Metaphylaxis corresponds to the administration of antibiotics to animals experiencing any level of bacterial disease before overt disease occurs, with the time of intervention depending on the detection of disease outbreaks in a few animals in the group. Metaphylaxis is launched after (meta) pathogen contamination, with the goal of the bacteriological cure of infected animals, which subsequently warrants the final protection (phylaxis) against infection outbreaks. In this respect, metaphylaxis should be viewed as a curative treatment occurring early in the time scale of the infection, and should be compared to classical curative treatments of sick animals. The pathophysiological status of the animals and the size of the bacterial load at the infection site are specificities of metaphylaxis that could play an important role in antibiotic pharmacodynamics, including the reduction of resistance selection within the pathogenic inoculum. Recent advances have been made in evaluating the antibiotic doses required for clinical and bacteriological cures, depending on the size of bacterial load at the infection site. The observations that total doses were much lower for early treatments when bacterial loads were small, compared to later treatments of sick animals with higher bacterial loads, reinforces the in vivo relevance of the so called ‘inoculum effect’, whatever its underlying mechanisms.

1. Introduction Proso millet (Panicum miliaceum (L.) belongs to the grass family Paniceae. It is a perennial cropthat grows in summer each year as late-seeded summer crop (Figure 1). Its origin can be traced back to at least 2000 B.C. when it was said to be grown in the Central European regions. Proso millet plant thrives in dry areas such as Africa, Central Russia, Manchuria, Middle East and Northern India and North America’s Great Plains. Proso millet was introduced to Canada in the 17th century and used sparingly as a feed crop in the early 1900s (Rajasekaran and Francis, 2021). This is a low-demand crop and is utilised in organic farming systems across Europe and as an intercrop in the United States. Its shallow root system and resistance to atrazine residue make it a great intercrop between two crops that need a lot of water and pesticides. The last crop’s stubbles entrap more heat into the soil which promotes faster and earlier growth of millet. Hence, it can help to evade summer drought and achieve continual crop rotation (Kalinova and Moudry, 2006). It is an erect herbaceous annual crop with a lot of tillering. Its plant can reach a height of 45-100 centimetres. The stem is thin, with prominently enlarged nodes. The roots are thin and fibrous.

Plants have served as an important food source in the human diet since times immemorial. In recent times, available plant food sources are facing the threat of limitation due to many reasons viz., shrinking of agricultural land, changes in traditional lifestyles, population growth, rapid urbanization, changes in climate and a variety of plant diseases (Strange and Scott, 2005). Technological, development in agriculture and food processing are associated with both benefits and drawbacks impacting the human health globally with people suffering from chronic hunger, malnutrition to over-nutrition and nutritional imbalances.

1.1 Introduction Among the C4 grasses known as panicoids (subfamily: panicoideae), which also includes nutrient-rich cereals like millets and sorghum as well as commercially valuable crops like switchgrass, napier grass, and guinea grass, are bioenergy feedstocks like sugarcane and miscanthus. Among all, millets overpowered others in terms of biotic/abiotic stress resilience, resource sustainability as well as nutritional benefits. Minor millets, often known as nutritional cereals, are a type of small-seeded grains that are members of the Poaceae family. Up to 35 kinds of grass from 20 genera are well-known for being minor millets. Finger millet, foxtail, proso millet, barnyard millet, kodo millet, and little millet are the most significant small millets that are grown worldwide. India is the leading producer and consumer of millet crops and their products. The total area of small millets in India is around 1.63 m ha, with a production of 1.82 m tones during the year 2016- 17 (Annual progress report 2018-19, ICAR-AICRP on small millets).

ABSTRACT

Agriculture is an important component of Indian economy contributing over 14% to the National GDP and employment to about 52% of the workforce. The small farm families form the backbone of Indian agriculture. The sustainability of small farms needs to be continuously supported with appropriate technologies and also with promoting off farm employment opportunities in the rural sector. The role of KVKs’ in preparing the next generation farmers’ through imparting training to update their knowledge and skills in modern agricultural technologies related to technology assessment; refinement, demonstration and training of extension personnel to orient them in the frontier areas of technology development. Sh. Narender Singh s/o Sh. Jagdish Rai, Graduate, 42 years old youth from Dharania Village came in contact with KVK, Fatehabad in 2008 and got training from this centre. He was motivated to diversify his traditional system of agriculture with integrated farming system of Dairy Farming, Vegetable, Seed production, inter cropping of Guar in cotton. He also used neem cake and bio control agents in poly houses for management of root knot nematode. He is recycling cow dung from the dairy farm and producing bio gas for domestic consumption with the diversification of farming system. The total expenditure was Rs. 5,55,645 and gross return was Rs. 13,63,100. The farmer benefit cost ratio is 2:45.

SUMMARY

Green manuring is the practice of growing lush plants on the site into which organic matter directly incorporate to the soil while it is still fresh. Green manures, often known as cover crops, are plants which are grown to improve the structure and nutrient content of the soil. They are a cheap alternative to artificial fertilizers and an eco-friendly input for organic farming and can be used to complement animal manures. Growing a green manure is not the same as simply growing a legume crop, such as beans, in a rotation. Green manures are usually dug into the soil when the plants are still young, before they produce any crop and often before they flower. They are grown for their green leafy material which is high in nutrients and protects the soil. It is basically a holistic management system, which promotes and improves the health of the agro-ecosystem related to biodiversity, nutrient biocycles, soil microbial and biochemical activities.

Like other sectors of the economy food processing sector also suffers from certain constraints. The challenges for the food conservation, distribution and processing sectors are diverse and demanding, which need to be addressed to leverage the growth of agriculture and food processing sector. Following are the major challenges and strategies are suggested to overcome the challenges (Sakina, 2019).

6.1. Domestic Constraints in the Development of Food Processing Industry in India

Despite the significant economic potential of the FPI in India, it still faces massive domestic challenges, which include low level of processing, fragmented structure of the industry, consumer perception and lack of skilled manpower. Firstly, low level of processing means that at industrial level, less food is processed, as compared to household level. Most of the traditional food items like jams, jellies, pickles etc. are prepared at small manufacturing units or by households (Agarwal & Neogi, 2017).

Secondly, consumer perception with regard to processed food in India is not very optimistic and they consider that packaged food is not fresh, thus, leading to low consumption of processed food. Thirdly, food processing sector is still highly fragmented and unorganised. This led to the inefficacies in the sector and has failed to achieve the economies of scale (Agarwal & Neogi, 2017).