eChapters

Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is the most contagious disease of animals and has a great potential for causing severe economic losses in susceptible cloven-hoofed animals. FMD has been classified as a Transboundary Animal Disease (TAD) which is highly contagious or transmissible and has the potential for very rapid spread, irrespective of national borders, and causing serious socio-economic consequences. FMD has constituted a recognised threat to the health of livestock for over 500 years and still remains a serious hazard to the productivity of animal populations throughout the world. The large numbers of virus serotypes and subtypes, the ease of transmission and the limited efficacy of vaccination make control complicated and difficult. Contribution of environmental variables for emergence and distribution of infectious diseases has long been recognized by many researchers. India is largely subject to four seasons: winter (January and February), summer (March to May), a monsoon (rainy) season (June to September), and a post-monsoon period (October to December). There are reports on effect of environmental parameters such as relative humidity, windspeed and air temperature on the spread of the disease. FMD is endemic and at a high prevalence in many countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia and is also present in parts of South America. Europe, North and Central America, the Pacific nations and the Caribbean are free from the disease. FMD in India is the biggest impediment to growth of livestock sector. FMD outbreaks occur in India throughout the year. The outbreaks occurred round the year with maximum occurrence during October to March, and in May and June (Fig. 15.1). Foot and mouth disease is associated with an aphthovirus (family picornaviridae) which occurs as seven major serotypes: A,O,C,SAT1, SAT2, SAT3 and Asia1. FMD is characterized by fever, profuse salivation, vesicles in the mouth and on the feet and a drastic reduction in milk production; sudden death in young stock may occur (Radostits et al., 2006).

In the existing planetary system, life was established and growing over millions of years on earth. If we track down to the history of evolution, beginning with a living unicellular organisms Amoeba, growing to a gigantic size of Dinosaur and stabilizing at well adaptable stage of an Elephant in animal kingdom or to reach the present status of the intelligent human being, throughout these developmental stages the climatic/meteorological factors play a crucial and supportive role. Further the Development of plant/Animal kingdom is making rapid strides in tropical climatic zones where the temperature ambient ranges between 20⁰C to 40⁰C and the rain fall/humidity factors are moderate. We are fortunate enough that India is geographically located in tropical zone. This classic location advantage of the country in the world geographical map helped the country in keeping India as number one milk producer in the world, no 3 producer in poultry egg production, number 5 in horticulture production i.e fruits and vegetables. Climate change affects livestock both directly and indirectly. Direct effects from temperature, humidity, rainfall, wind speed and other climate factors, aggravates the heat stress in dairy animals, and influences animal performance badly: in growth factors, milk production in Dairy animals, mutton production/ wool production in case of sheep. egg and meat production in poultry, and reproductive aspects in all the species. The indirect impact of these factors on livestock may result on economic, nutritional and health aspects of human society and also its contribution to the economy of the country.

Introduction

Poultry production is one of the fastest growing sectors of livestock industry in developing countries. Environmental variation is one of the major factors that affect sustainability of poultry production systems in tropical climate (Sinha et al., 2017a). Adverse climatic stress declines the production performance of chicken which causes high economic loss to the enterprises as well as the farmers. Heat stress has an adverse effect on egg production, egg weight and shell quality of laying hen (Whitehead et al., 1998). Climatic variables like temperature, humidity, radiation and wind speed that directly affect the mechanism of thermoregulation and rates of heat exchange by all animals (NRC, 2001). Heat stress is a major factor that decreases productivity and reproductive efficiency of livestock due to lower feed intake and negative energy balance (De Rensis and Scaramuzzi, 2003). Moreover, it badly affect the production due to decline feed digestibility such as proteins, fats, starch (Bonnet et al., 1997). In addition, the acute heat stress drastically decreases the reproductive performance of hens due to alterations in acid-base balance and ion exchange mechanism (Mahmoud et al., 1996). Climate change in?uences the emergence of disease and their transmission due to increases vectors, pathogens. All the above effects impact a huge economic loss to the farmers as well as the country.

Introduction

Our soil resource is generally taken for granted for many uses. Most people don’t realize the importance of the resource and that it is fundamental for farming/agriculture. Without high quality soils, agriculture production cannot be achieved on a sustainable basis to meet ever growing demand. Thus, conservation agricultural practices are capable of improving soil health by increasing organic carbon, aggregation, improving infiltration and minimizing erosion losses.

Introduction

The main aim of conservation agriculture is to sustain and improve the crop productivity and to provide protection against biotic and abiotic stress, while at the same time protecting and enhancing the biological activities of the soil. The essential principles of conservation agriculture are no-tillage (and direct seeding) or reduced tillage, the maintenance of a cover of live or dead vegetative mulch on the soil surface and the wise use of crop rotations. The crop sequences are planned in such a way that which will discourage the buildup of pests or diseases and will help to optimize plant nutrient use by synergy between different crops of the rotation. While deciding the crop rotation, the locally important crops should be considered and there should be deep rooted and shallow rooted crops in the sequence so that the utilization of soil nutrients is maximized. At least one leguminous crop should be there in the crop sequence. The use of plant residues influences the soil physical, chemical and biological properties by reducing surface temperature, rate of evaporation and maintaining water content, nutrient load and rate of organic matter decay. The soils under conservation agriculture are happened to be highly active and diverse biologically and can supply plant nutrients for a longer period of time because of their higher nutrient loading capacities.

Soil biodiversity comprises of all organisms whether single-cell organisms or multi-cell animals or plants that live in the soil. Soil microbial diversity includes “genetic diversity, that is the amount and distribution of genetic information within microbial species, diversity of bacterial and fungal species in microbial communities, and ecological diversity, that is variation in community structure, complexity of interactions, number of trophic levels and number of guilds (Nannipieri et al., 2003).

Livestock is considered one of the essential variables in the revenue of a farmer. The sector (excluding fisheries) contributes 30 per cent to India’s agriculture gross domestic product, and it is valued at more than Rs. 9 lakh crores. India is also one of the largest producers of milk in the world; around 70 million rural households are engaged in professions linked to dairy. India is also the second largest exporter of bovine meat after Brazil. This sector provides a substantial income to farmers and supports the economy by generating enough demand in the rural and semi-urban regions. This animal husbandry sector comprising dairy and poultry is extremely valuable for farmer’s income security, and Covid-19 has the potential to disrupt this sector.

In developing countries such as India, where dairy farming is one of the most important sources of livelihood for 60 million rural households, 80 per cent of whom are landless, small and marginal farmers who depend on dairy for daily income, the crisis is extreme. Thus, even a small decline in the growth of the dairy sector significantly affects a large chunk of our population which are already vulnerable due to low income, poor savings, and lack of livelihood alternatives. Small production in multiple households leads to more reliance on efficient transportation for procurement. In addition to this, the Indian dairy sector is still dominated by the unorganized sector which handles more than 50 per cent of the marketable surplus. Milkman and vendors collect a small quantity of loose milk from different households and then supply it to urban consumers, roadside eateries, hotels, and sweetshops. Closure of shops and restrictions on transportation has ruthlessly disturbed this arrangement. Even in the formal sector out of the total milk processed 65 to 70 per cent is sold as liquid milk which is immediately vended after packing and only 30 per cent is processed into other dairy products like ghee, butter, cheese, curd, ice-cream, milk powder, etc. Thus, the formal sector also lacks sufficient infrastructure and storage facilities for processing and storing surplus milk after value addition.

Introduction

The COVID-19, the Global Pandemic has affected the world and is still continuing with its various mutations even today. This has created a long-lasting impact and many sectors like energy, transport, industries, and residential buildings, have critically experienced impacts from the pandemic (Qarnain, Muthuvel, and Bathrinath 2020). It has directly and indirectly impacted every household’s operations. The mandatory COVID – 19 protocols, lockdowns, Work From Home (WFH) schedules and the major fear of every one of contracting the disease if going out itself has forced people to stay indoors and forced residents to use more energy for their daily routine activities, (routines like watching more TV, using environment control devices like fans, AC, room heaters etc.) giving rise to higher energy usage resulting in high energy bills and subsequent scarcity in the energy supply.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted agribusiness communications, creating unprecedented challenges and opportunities for the sector. With restrictions on transportation, shortage of labor, and changes in consumer behavior, agribusinesses have had to adapt their communication strategies to remain operational and retain consumer trust. The objective of this chapter is to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on agribusiness communication and suggest effective communication strategies to overcome the challenges posed by this and similar crisis which might arise in the future.

Agriculture and allied sectors have adversely hit by the COVID-19 scare.The rumors of poultry birds likely the carrier of the virus circulated in social media had led to reduced demand of the chicken meat in several parts of the country in the month of February 2020 even before India reported the first case of COVID-19. The poultry industry in India hit hard because of nationwide lockdown to stop the rapid spread of COVID-19 virus. This lock-down had disrupted the entire supply chain. Before COVID-19 the prices for broiler was about Rs. 80 per kg and Rs. 4 for egg the price dropped to almost no value like Rs. 6 per kg and Rs. 1-1.50 per egg. As a result, the projected loss of the industry was about Rs 25000 crore. (Shukla & Bhattacharyya, 2020).
According to industry sources, the poultry industry which had witnessed steady growth rate in the last two decades because of rising consumer demand for protein rich food especially but, it has incurred huge losses since the beginning of the 2020. The loss incurred by Indian poultry industry is mainly attributed to sharp decline in demand because of disruption of supply chain during lock down. The financial condition of all the stakeholders in the poultry value chain – farmers, feed suppliers and retailers had become risky. The drop in demand and supply chain disruption especially hit the smaller farmers who had limited
resources. Thus, many farmers went for ‘contract farming’ offered by many large poultry players.

Introduction

With the advent of modern agricultural technology, especially during the period of the Green Revolution in the late sixties and early seventies, there was a continuous surge for diversified agriculture, primarily on economic considerations. The changes in cropping pattern, however, are the outcome of interactive effect of many factors which can be broadly categorized into the following five groups-

Resource related factors like irrigation, rainfall and soil fertility.

Technology related factors viz. seed, fertilizer, and water technologies on one hand and marketing, storage and processing on the other.

Household related factors like food and fodder requirement as well as investment capacity of the farmers.

Price related factors covering input and output prices and economic policies that affect these prices.

Institutional and infrastructure related factors pertaining to farm size and tenancy arrangements, research, extension and marketing systems and government regulatory policies.

Introduction

The process of making the rumen of animals free of rumen protozoa is called defaunation and the animal is called defaunated animal. The role of rumen ciliate protozoa on the performance of host animals became debatable issue when Becker and Everett (1930) demonstrated that rumen protozoa were non-essential for growth in lambs. Nevertheless, the reports of recent years reflect that though protozoa may be non essential for ruminant, still they have significant role to play in the rumen metabolism specially to stabilize the rumen pH (Santra and Karim, 2002a). Rumen protozoa are the largest in size among rumen microbes and contribute 40-50% of the total microbial biomass and enzyme activities in the rumen (Agarwal et al., 1991).

Introduction

India’s change in the economic environment and market-oriented economic reforms can be traced back to the 1990s which led to the growth of the country. There was a clear evident change from the condition it was in the 1970s when it was far behind the other Asian countries. The economic reforms brought by LPG (Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation) model have affected not only international trade but also led to an increase in the competitiveness of the industries. But what triggered these economic reforms? Before 1990, India was in a severe economic crisis condition due to repeated policy failures. India was experiencing a huge fiscal and balance of payment deficit, a high inflation rate and a fall in foreign exchange reserves. This led to the sickening of the public sector units whose prime role was to bring a reduction in inequality and poverty. The self-reliance condition in India was not of much help as there was insignificant trade with the rest of the world. The crisis mainly depicted the mismanagement of the resources. In light of this, this chapter discusses the impact of the economic reforms on agri-enterprises.

4.1 Introduction

Circumstantial evidences almost confirm researchers’ on early predictions of a changing climate and a warming world. The trend of changes also establishes the primary influence of increased greenhouse gas concentration on the global warming and the consequential events. The global mean surface air temperature has increased by about 0.74°C over the last 100 years. It is projected to rise 1.4 to 6.4 °C by the year 2100 (IPCC AR4, 2007). Changes will vary from region to region. Eleven of the twelve years in the period 1995-2006 rank among the top 12 warmest years in the instrumental record (since 1880). The radiative forcing of CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O is very likely (> 90% probability) increasing at a faster rate during the current era than any other time in the last 10,000 years. This is because of the increase in the global abundance of the three key greenhouse gases. The atmospheric CO₂ concentration has reached the level of 389 ppm in 2010 (WMO, 2011) from 270 ppm the pre-industrial era. In addition, global abundance of other greenhouse gases such as methane (CH₄) has increased from 700 ppb in the pre-industrial era to 1808 ppb in 2010 and in the same period, nitrous oxide (N₂O) has increased from 270 ppb to 323 ppb.

ABSTRACT

This paper is an attempt to analyze the plausible impacts on the economy and social issues of developing countries with reference to enforcement of IPR.

Introduction

From commodity based nature, business has changed during the past hundred years in a way that ideas and knowledge have taken higher value than commodities. Today, many companies find their most valuable assets being intangible and they are therefore dependent on functioning IPR systems. But does the rigid protection of IPR serve all the people in our globalized world? The purpose of this paper is to discuss the impact of the introduction of IPR protection on developing and under developed countries in the light of TRIPS Agreement.

Introduction

The advancements in the field of informatics, biology and allied fields of technology led to the emergence of an inter-disciplinary field known as ‘Bioinformatics’ (Kumar 2006, Madhan Mohan 2006). Explosion of knowledge in the field of biology and generation of new information (data) needs collection, storage, organization, integration, analysis, simulation of biological data and a faster distribution among the scientific workers (Mehrotra et al. 2005). The advent of super computers, high speed computing and development of algorithms for data formatting, assists in the storage of data at the site of origin and distributed through the hyperlinks in world wide web (www).

The vast field of Bioinformatics is beyond the scope of this article. However to elucidate the concepts that led to the the development of Bioinformatics vis-à-vis is given in brief before explaining the new and emerging area of ‘fluxomics’.

2.1 Introduction

Each step in the food industry system e.g. food production, processing, transportation, storage, distribution and marketing, has some impact on the environment and there is much concern about environmental pollution. Due to the highly diversified nature of the food industry, various food processing, handling and packaging operations create wastes of different quality and quantity, which, if not treated, could lead to increasing disposal problems and severe pollution problems [24]. The preservation of the natural environment from industrial pollution is currently receiving much attention. In food industry, the most important problem is treatment and disposal of large quantities of waste water, a by-product of various processing operations. It is one of the largest industry groups comprising the manufacturing sector of the U.S. economy [47]. Likewise, India is the world’s second largest producer of food next to China, and has the potential of being the largest food processor. The total food production in India is likely to double in the next ten years [22]. Flour and grain; soft drinks and carbonated water; breweries; starch and miscellaneous food products; meat, poultry and fish; tea, coffee and other beverages; fruit juices; animal feed; sugar; distilleries and blending of spirits; cocoa, chocolates and sugar confectioneries; agricultural and food chemicals and industrial packaging are important sub-sectors of the food processing industry. Food processing projects involve the processing and packaging of meat products, fish and shell fish, dairy products, fruit and vegetables, grains and beverages production. It includes refinement, preservation, improvement of product, storage, handling, packaging and canning (Fig. 1). The processing may involve receiving and storing raw or partially processed plant, animal or other food materials, processing the raw materials into finished products, packaging and storing the finished products.

Food provides a sense of wellbeing and comfort and makes people feel good. In this world of a growing population, the need for affordable, safe and good quality food is rising constantly. On the other hand, there is growing awareness of customers who demand that food be produced and supplied hygienically in socially responsible and eco-friendly ways.

Introduction

Pulses are the most important part of our diet, richest and cheap source of proteins, vitamins, minerals and amino acids besides high nutritional value. Hence, the economic value of these crops is very high. Pulses can be produced with a minimum use of resources and are mostly cultivated under rainfed conditions and do not require intensive irrigation (Sood et al. 2018). Keeping in view large benefits of pulses for human health; the United Nations has proclaimed 2016 as the International Year of Pulses. Thus, due attention is required to enhance the production of pulses not only to meet the dietary requirement of proteins but also to raise the awareness about pulses for achieving nutritional, food security and environmental sustainability. The Government of India through Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has established a wide network of Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) in all the rural districts of the country. These KVKs under the aegis of the National Agricultural Research and Education System are the real carriers of frontline technologies and impart knowledge and critical input support for the famers. The frontline demonstration programme (FLDs) in pulses is a unique programme by Ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India, conducted under close supervision of farm scientists. Main objective of FLDs in pulses is to demonstrate and popularize the improved agro-technology on farmers fields under varied farming situations for effective transfer of generated technology and f ill the gap between improved technology and adopted/indigenous technology to enhance pulse productivity and farms gains for sustaining the production systems especially under rainfed farming (Choudhary et al. 2009). The field demonstrations conducted under the close supervision of scientists of the National Agriculture Research System is called front-line demonstrations. The main objective of Frontline Demonstrations is to demonstrate newly released crop production and protection technologies and its management practices in the farmers’ field under different agro-climatic regions and farming situations.

Acinetobacter baumannii is an opportunistic pathogen giving rise to nosocomial infections causing threat to public health. Studies of biofilm-forming genes was done in A. baumannii isolates by PCR technique. To study the relationships of genes a technique based on PCR sequences along with multilocus sequence typing (MLST) were utilized (Saeed et al., 2020). Goudarzi, Mehdi et al. (2019) studied the genetic diversity and biofilm formation analysis of Staphylococcus aureus causing urinary tract infections in Tehran, Iran. The biofilm forming and adhesion encoding genes were studied along with distribution of different agr and spa types in S. aureus isolates by PCR screening and multiplex PCR. The workers found that the ability to produce biofilm was higher among MRSA strains as compared to MSSA strains. The most prevalent biofilm forming gene was icaD (77.3%), followed by icaA (76%), icaB (57.3%) and icaC (50.7%). Acinetobacter baumannii is a nosocomial pathogen which is commonly present in hospitals and is a causal organism of many diseases. A. baumannii isolates have been known as multidrug-resistant (MDR). For controlling such serious organism only molecular techniques have been found to be effective. 

Introduction

Indian subcontinent has a rich and varied heritage of bioresources, encompassing a wide spectrum of habitats from tropical rain forests to alpine vegetation and from temperate forests to coastal wetlands. It is one of the eight centres of origin and one of the 12 mega centres of the world. It possess 11.9 % of world flora and about 33% of the country’s recorded flora are endemic to the region and are concentrated mainly in the North-East, Western Ghats, North-West Himalayas and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Of the 49,219 higher plant species, 5,725 are endemic and belong to 141 genera under 47 families. Of theses 3,500 are found in the Himalayas and adjoining regions and 1,600 in the Western Ghats alone. India has 26 recognized endemic centres that are homeland