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The energy crisis and increasing fossil fuel prices due to increasing demands, controlled supplies, and global political unrest have adversely affected agricultural productivity and farm profitability across the globe and Pakistan is not an exception. To cope with this issue of energy deficiency in agriculture, the best alternate strategy is to take advantage of biomass and solid waste potential. In low-income countries such as Pakistan, the greenhouse heating system mostly relies on fossil fuels such as diesel, gasoline, and LPG. Farmers are reluctant to adopt greenhouse farming due to the continuously rising prices of the fossil fuels. To reduce reliance on fossil fuel energy, the objective of this study was to utilize biomass from crop residues to develop an efficient and economical biomass furnace that could heat greenhouses to protect the crop from seasonal temperature effects. Modifications made to the biomass furnace, such as the incorporation of insulation around the walls of the furnace, providing turbulators in fire tubes, and a secondary heat exchanger (heat recovery system) in the chimney, have increased the thermal efficiency of the biomass furnace by about 21.7%. A drastic reduction in hazardous elements of flue gases was observed due to the addition of a water scrubber smoke filter in the exit line of the flue. The efficiency of the biomass furnace ranged from 50.42% to 54.18%, whereas the heating efficiency of the diesel-fired heater was 71.19%. On the basis of the equal heating value of the fuels, the unit material and operating costs of the biomass furnace for wood, cotton stalks, corn cobs, and cow dung were USD 2.04, 1.86, 1.78, and 2.00 respectively against USD 4.67/h for the diesel heater. The capital and operating costs of the biomass furnace were about 50% and 43.7% of the diesel heater respectively, resulting in a seasonal saving of about 1573 USD. The produced smoke was tested as environmental friendly under the prescribed limits of the National Environmental Quality Standards (NEQS), which shows potential for its large-scale adoption and wider applications.

In recent years, sustainability concerns have gained increasing attention among countries and stakeholders worldwide. Towards the transition to sustainable rural development, the rural web framework (RWF) has become a consistent tool. Indicators from the RWF have been used to explore sustainable rural development for decision-making tasks, which improves the social, economic, and environmental performance of rural regions. However, the application of the RWF in studies is on the decline. Furthermore, there is a lack of literature reviews on the importance of the RWF and its relationship with different facets of sustainable development. We conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) (a) to explore how studies have used the RWF in the context of sustainable development and (b) to identify areas for further research. This study found that the RWF has mostly been used in developed countries, with fewer applications in developing countries. We suggest that there should be increased application of the RWF, particularly in developing countries, to broaden the rural web–sustainable development discourse and its relevance. This paper presents several areas where the indicators of the RWF can be applied to illustrate their relevance for policy decisions towards the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Sustainable food supply has gained considerable consumer concern due to the high percentage of spoilage microorganisms. Food industries need to expand advanced technologies that can maintain the nutritive content of foods, enhance the bio-availability of bioactive compounds, provide environmental and economic sustainability, and fulfill consumers’ requirements of sensory characteristics. Heat treatment negatively affects food samples’ nutritional and sensory properties as bioactives are sensitive to high-temperature processing. The need arises for non-thermal processes to reduce food losses, and sustainable developments in preservation, nutritional security, and food safety are crucial parameters for the upcoming era. Non-thermal processes have been successfully approved because they increase food quality, reduce water utilization, decrease emissions, improve energy efficiency, assure clean labeling, and utilize by-products from waste food. These processes include pulsed electric field (PEF), sonication, high-pressure processing (HPP), cold plasma, and pulsed light. This review describes the use of HPP in various processes for sustainable food processing. The influence of this technique on microbial, physicochemical, and nutritional properties of foods for sustainable food supply is discussed. This approach also emphasizes the limitations of this emerging technique. HPP has been successfully analyzed to meet the global requirements. A limited global food source must have a balanced approach to the raw content, water, energy, and nutrient content. HPP showed positive results in reducing microbial spoilage and, at the same time, retains the nutritional value. HPP technology meets the essential requirements for sustainable and clean labeled food production. It requires limited resources to produce nutritionally suitable foods for consumers’ health.

Cassava utilisation in Malawi is negatively affected by rapid deterioration of fresh roots, primarily caused by postharvest physiological deterioration (PPD). A study was conducted to assess farmers’ knowledge and approaches used to minimize losses from PPD. Multi-stage sampling was used to identify districts, Extension Planning Areas (EPA’s) and farmers. Data were collected from 519 farmers using a structured questionnaire. Results revealed that PPD (74.0%) was the major post-harvest constraint followed by pests and diseases (62.1%). Farmers had varying knowledge levels on signs and causes of PPD. They were knowledgeable on PPD signs with 91.5% ably identifying PPD through change of pulp colour. The farmers also had moderate knowledge on causes of PPD, citing high temperature (57.6%) and over-staying of roots (56.2%) as main causes of PPD. Key methods for preventing PPD are: storage (43.0%) and piece-meal harvesting (40.4%). Only 2.6% of the farmers exploited varietal difference in dealing with PPD as some varieties (Sauti, Mpuma, Ching’amba, and Kalasa) take three to five days before showing PPD signs. Farmers’ knowledge levels and PPD preventive methods could be strengthened through: provision of training on post-harvest handling, improvement in storage and processing technologies; and application of advanced breeding techniques to exploit genetic variation in cassava germplasm.

In the United States, today’s ranches are engaging in small-scale nature-based endeavors to diversify their income base. But the geographic boundary of the land they own creates a relatively small area within which to operate, and fragmented ownership diminishes the ability of any single landowner to produce nature-based income. Collective action among nearby landowners can produce a set of resources from which all members of the group can profit. Such action can enhance the economic, social, and environmental sustainability of grasslands and the populations that use them. This article shows that common-interest communities can be used to provide and allocate wildlife and other resources on ranchlands, enabling individual landowners to generate more income from selling nature-based experiences to customers. Common-interest communities are familiar in urban settings but they have not yet been used in this setting. Thus, the article proposes a new approach to ranchland management based upon a familiar set of largely private legal arrangements. More broadly, the article illustrates the relevance of private law and private property to sustainable development by explaining how property owners can use private law to engage in environmentally beneficial and economically profitable enterprises on the vast privately owned landscape of the U.S. Great Plains.

Sustainably feeding the world’s growing population represents one of our most significant challenges. Aquaculture is well positioned to make contributions towards this challenge. Yet, the translation of aquaculture production innovations into benefits for rural communities is constrained by a limited understanding of the social dynamics that influence the adoption of new agricultural practices. In this paper, we investigate the factors that shape the spread of small-scale tilapia aquaculture through rural Solomon Islands. Based on diffusion of innovation theory, we focus on three potentially influential factors: (i) socio-economic characteristics of adopters; (ii) the role of opinion leaders; and (iii) characteristics of the innovation. We find that farmers who were wealthier, older, and had more diverse livelihoods were most likely to be adopters. Opinion leaders facilitated the adoption of tilapia aquaculture, but lacked the capacity to provide fundamental knowledge necessary to realize its potential benefits to food security. The paper argues for more explicit attention to the poorest households and makes the case for a deeper engagement with the broader social and institutional contexts that shape the adoption process. Aquaculture interventions that account for these social dynamics are critical for translating production innovations into sustainable benefits to rural communities.

Agriculture is the largest sector of Pakistan’s economy, contributing almost 22% to the GDP and employing almost 45% of the total labor force. The two largest food crops, wheat and rice, contribute 3.1% and 1.4% to the GDP, respectively. The objective of this research was to calculate the energy return on investment (EROI) of these crops on a national scale from 1999 to 2009 to understand the size of various energy inputs and to discuss their contributions to the energy output. Energy inputs accounted for within the cropping systems included seed, fertilizer, pesticide, human labor, tractor diesel, irrigation pump electricity and diesel, the transport of fertilizer and pesticide, and the embodied energy of tractors and irrigation pumps. The largest per-hectare energy inputs to wheat were nitrogen fertilizer (52.6%), seed (17.9%), and tractor diesel (9.1%). For rice, the largest per-hectare energy inputs were nitrogen fertilizer (32%), tube well diesel (19.8%), and pesticide (17.6%). The EROI of wheat showed a gradual downward trend between 2000 and 2006 of 21.3%. The trend was erratic thereafter. Overall, it ranged from 2.7 to 3.4 with an average of 2.9 over the 11-year study period. The overall trend was fairly consistent compared to that of rice which ranged between 3.1 and 4.9, and averaged 3.9. Rice’s EROI dipped sharply in 2002, was erratic, and remained below four until 2007. It rose sharply after that. As energy inputs increased, wheat outputs increased, but rice outputs decreased slightly. Rice responded to inputs with greater output and an increase in EROI. The same was not true for wheat, which showed little change in EROI in the face of increasing inputs. This suggests that additional investments of energy in rice production are not improving yields but for wheat, these investments are still generating benefits. The analysis shows quantitatively how fossil energy is a key driver of the Pakistani agricultural system as it traces direct and indirect energy inputs to two major food crops.