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The purpose of this article is to investigate on changes of the microbial load and the chemical and physical properties of date fruits stored for 6 months under two different temperatures.

A composite sample of 100 kg date fruits from the Khalas variety, season 2019, was collected from the local market in Al Ahsa Province, Saudi Arabia, packaged in 1 kg lots, stored at room and refrigerator temperatures and the microbial contamination and the chemical and physical properties monitored over a period of six months of storage. Total bacteria, lactic acid bacteria, Enterobacteriaceae, yeasts and molds were counted and representatives of yeast and mold contaminants were identified using morphological, physiological and molecular typing techniques. Changes in the color and texture of the samples were also monitored during storage.

The yeasts detected were two strains of each of Lachancea thermotolerans and Rhodosporidiobolus fluvialis and one strain of Cystofilobasidium lacus-mascardii. For molds, one strain of each of Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus, Penicillium chrysogenum and Aspergillus caespitosus have been detected. No significant growth of these microorganisms was observed, but enough load persisted during storage that makes the samples not meeting the microbiological standards. There were significant changes in the color and texture of the fruits during storage.

These findings add important information that can help producers and processors to improve quality and promote marketing of date fruits, especially to international markets.

The purpose of this study is to examine how the tourism economy affects local food availability, access, utilization and stability in dessert-prone agricultural heritage sites. Specifically, the study aims to explore the relationship between the tourism industry and local agricultural practices and how this connection influences food security in the Siwa Oasis, located in the Western Desert of Egypt.

The study employs a qualitative exploratory research design using in-depth interviews and focus groups to investigate the impact of the tourism economy on food security and identify potential benefits and limitations for food security in the region.

The research reveals that the tourism economy in Siwa Oasis has only a marginal contribution to food security. The study highlights a lack of a strong connection between the tourism industry and local agricultural practices within the heritage site. As a result, the potential benefits and synergies that could be achieved between tourism and agriculture have not been fully realized, leading to a limited impact on food stability.

This study primarily relies on qualitative data from Siwa Oasis, Egypt, which may limit the generalizability of findings beyond this specific context. Additionally, while the study provides valuable insights into the complex relationship between tourism and food security, it does not quantitatively measure the magnitude of tourism's impact. Future research could incorporate quantitative methods for a more comprehensive understanding of this relationship in diverse desert-prone regions. Finally, the study highlights the need for more integrated approaches to enhance food security through tourism, but the specific strategies and policy recommendations require further investigation and adaptation to local contexts.

This study underscores the need for tourism development strategies that prioritize food security in desert-prone areas like Siwa Oasis. Policymakers and stakeholders should promote sustainable tourism practices that enhance local agriculture, create diversified income sources and foster equitable benefits for communities. Moreover, recognizing the seasonal nature of tourism, interventions to address food shortages during off-peak periods are crucial. Efforts should also focus on skill development and gender-inclusive opportunities within the tourism sector to ensure broader community participation. Additionally, collaborations between tourism and agriculture should be encouraged to optimize food availability and stability while preserving cultural food traditions.

This study adds original insights by examining the specific impact of the tourism economy on food security in dessert-prone agricultural heritage sites. The study's originality lies in its exploration of the untapped potential for synergy between the tourism and agricultural sectors and the implications for local food security. This research contributes to understanding how tourism can improve food security in specific contexts and provides valuable insights into sustainable development in heritage sites.

Within a Europe highly concerned about becoming a zero net greenhouse gas emission continent, and where the circular economy is strongly promoted as a proper lever in this sense, the present paper aims to raise awareness regarding best practices towards a “green” food retail sector in Romania. In a more specific regard, the “green” practices implemented by the main food retailers acting on the Romanian market are analysed, focusing on what these practices are, how they are measured and how transparent they are.

The paper is based on desk research consisting in the identification and content analysis of the “green”-related information outlined on the food retailers' websites and in their published sustainability reports.

Food retailers are concerned about becoming carbon neutral, implementing the “green” measures outlined in the paper through the lenses of waste management, minimising/eradicating plastic, reducing/eliminating food waste, energy efficiency/saving, water consumption efficiency, protecting biodiversity, transportation efficiency and compliance with standards/obtained certifications/adherence to pacts. In addition to actions, food retailers are concerned about their proper, continuous monitorization, tackling key indicators in four directions: overall impact on the environment, impact on resources, waste impact and transportation impact.

The paper provides a novel, exhaustive best practices guide to encourage the transition to a “greener” activity in the Romanian food retail sector, highlighting both action measures and key assessment indicators.

This study aims to explore how key stakeholders and recipients of local food access programs operate strategically to meet individual and community food needs, enhance experiences of dignity and promote social justice. The study of a fragmented community food system highlights the connections between micro and meso dimensions of food access, illustrating how people work around food system limitations to access food.

Using qualitative in-depth interviews with food assistance managers, workers, volunteers and recipients, this study examines the period before the implementation of a centralized community-based food access initiative in a mid-sized, rural Oklahoma college town with a high rate of food insecurity. This study asks: What are community members’ experiences in a fragmented food assistance system? In what ways do individuals use everyday resistance and workarounds to actively promote experiences of dignity and social justice in food access spaces?

Those involved in sites of community food access build important networks to share information and engage in negotiation and trade to gain access to useful food resources. As forms of everyday resistance, such practices encourage co-construction of dignity and social justice in stigmatized spaces.

This research contributes to literature examining micro- and meso-level community dynamics that inform agency, dignity and social justice in community food access approaches.

The ionization of the air surrounding the phase conductor in high-voltage transmission lines results in a phenomenon known as the Corona effect. To avoid this, Corona rings are used to dampen the electric field imposed on the insulator. The purpose of this study is to present a fast and intelligent surrogate model for determination of the electric field imposed on the surface of a 120 kV composite insulator, in presence of the Corona ring.

Usually, the structural design parameters of the Corona ring are selected through an optimization procedure combined with some numerical simulations such as finite element method (FEM). These methods are slow and computationally expensive and thus, extremely reducing the speed of optimization problems. In this paper, a novel surrogate model was proposed that could calculate the maximum electric field imposed on a ceramic insulator in a 120 kV line. The surrogate model was created based on the different scenarios of height, radius and inner radius of the Corona ring, as the inputs of the model, while the maximum electric field on the body of the insulator was considered as the output.

The proposed model was based on artificial intelligence techniques that have high accuracy and low computational time. Three methods were used here to develop the AI-based surrogate model, namely, Cascade forward neural network (CFNN), support vector regression and K-nearest neighbors regression. The results indicated that the CFNN has the highest accuracy among these methods with 99.81% R-squared and only 0.045468 root mean squared error while the testing time is less than 10 ms.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time, a surrogate method is proposed for the prediction of the maximum electric field imposed on the high voltage insulators in the presence Corona ring which is faster than any conventional finite element method.

Artificial fruit ripening is hazardous to mankind. In the recent past, artificial fruit ripening is increasing gradually due to its commercial benefits. To discriminate the type of fruit ripening involved at the vendors’ side, there is a great demand for on-sight ethylene detection in a nondestructive manner. Therefore, this study aims to deal with a comparison of various laboratory and portable methods developed so far with high-performance metrics to identify the ethylene detection at fruit ripening site.

This paper focuses on various types of technologies proposed up to date in ethylene detection, fabrication methods and signal conditioning circuits for ethylene detection in parts per million and parts per billion levels. The authors have already developed an infrared (IR) sensor to detect ethylene and also developed a lab-based setup belonging to the electrochemical sensing methods to detect ethylene for the fruit ripening application.

The authors have developed an electrochemical sensor based on multi-walled carbon nanotubes whose performance is relatively higher than the sensors that were previously reported in terms of material, sensitivity and selectivity. For identifying the best sensing technology for optimization of ethylene detection for fruit ripening discrimination process, authors have developed an IR-based ethylene sensor and also semiconducting metal-oxide ethylene sensor which are all compared with literature-based comparable parameters. This review paper mainly focuses on the potential possibilities for developing portable ethylene sensing devices for investigation applications.

The authors have elaborately discussed the new chemical and physical methods of ethylene detection and quantification from their own developed methods and also the key findings of the methods proposed by fellow researchers working on this field. The authors would like to declare that the extensive analysis carried out in this technical survey could be used for developing a cost-effective and high-performance portable ethylene sensing device for fruit ripening and discrimination applications.

This study aimed to investigate the effects of accessibility, quality perception, and price perception on consumer satisfaction with imported fruit, specifically imported Asian pears. The moderating role of the country image was also assessed.

A total of 413 Americans aged over 19 years who had purchased imported Asian pears were surveyed through an online questionnaire. Structural equation modeling and multiple group analysis were conducted to test the hypotheses.

Accessibility, quality perception, and price perception exhibited a significant impact on consumer satisfaction with imported Asian pears and influenced behavioral intention through satisfaction. Multiple group analysis results revealed a moderating effect of the country image on these relationships. Accessibility had a significant impact on consumer satisfaction of consumers with a high country image of Korea, whereas prices had no significant impact on them. In contrast, price was determined as a key satisfaction factor for consumers with a low country image of Korea, whereas accessibility did not have a significant impact.

This study contributes to the literature on imported fruits and provides practical implications for promoting the consumption of imported Asian pears in the US.

Given the dominant share of India in global production of fruits and vegetables, this paper intends to analyze the export competitiveness of India and other major food exporters in the world trade. The purpose of this study is to examine export structure, substitutability and complementarity of selected fresh and processed fruits and vegetables of top ten food exporters for the period 2010-20.

Balassa’s (1965) revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index was used to measure RCA indices of selected fruits and vegetables under study. Also, revealed symmetric comparative advantage (RSCA) and normalized RCA (NRCA) indices have been calculated. Further, Spearman rank correlation coefficients were computed to analyze changes over the study period for India and other competing countries. The export data have been sourced from UN Comtrade, an electronic database of United Nations, as well as World Trade Statistical Review, a database of World Trade Organization. The analysis was undertaken at Harmonized System (HS) four-digit classification for the period 2010-20.

The results disclosed an improvement in India’s comparative advantage over the period of 2010-20 in HS 07 product category, whereas the advantage ceded to other competitive nations in HS 08 product category. Further, Spearman rank correlation coefficients revealed that India faces competition from countries like China, Indonesia, Brazil, Thailand, Argentina and European Union for HS 07 product category, while countries like Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil and Thailandare the major competitors of India in HS 08 product category.

The paper expands the existing agricultural trade literature in three ways. First, it is one of the very few studies that have analyzed RCA for Indian fresh and processed fruits and vegetables using three different types of indices, namely, Balassa’s RCA, RSCA and NRCA. Second, the authors provide a number of comparisons related to RCA for Indian fruits and vegetables with other top food exporters in the world for a period of 10 years (2010-20). Third, the authors contribute to agricultural trade literature by assessing the substitutability or complementarity of India in the export of fruits and vegetables with other competing nations by using Spearman rank correlation coefficients.

Background: Evidence suggests that people living in poverty often experience inadequate nutrition with short and long-term health consequences. Whilst the diets of low-income households have been subject to scrutiny, there is limited evidence in the UK on the diet quality and food practices of households reporting food insecurity and food bank use. We explore lived experiences of food insecurity and underlying drivers of diet quality among low-income families, drawing upon two years of participatory research with families of primary school age children.

Methods: We report on a mixed-methods study of the relationship between low income, food bank use, food practices and consumption from a survey of 612 participants, including 136 free text responses and four focus groups with 22 participants. The research followed a parallel mixed-methods design: qualitative and quantitative data were collected separately, although both were informed by participatory work. Quantitative data were analysed using binary and multinomial logistic regression modelling; qualitative data were analysed thematically.

Results: Lower income households and those living with food insecurity struggle to afford a level of fruit and vegetable consumption that approaches public health guidance for maintaining a healthy diet, despite high awareness of the constituents of a healthy diet. Participants used multiple strategies to ensure as much fruit, vegetable and protein consumption as possible within financial constraints. The quantitative data suggested a relationship between higher processed food consumption and having used a food bank, independent of income and food security status.

Conclusions: The findings suggest that individualised, behavioural accounts of food practices on a low-income misrepresent the reality for people living with poverty. Behavioural or educational interventions are therefore likely to be less effective in tackling food insecurity and poor nutrition among people on a low income; policies focusing on structural drivers, including poverty and geographical access to food, are needed.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze the impacts that the recent proliferation of private and overlapping standards is having in the trade of agricultural products from developing countries.

In a first stage industry experts in the Chilean fresh fruit trading industry were interviewed to understand the perceived impact that private standards are imposing in the industry. These interviews allowed to identify the market case study, table grapes, the landscape of private standards and their prevalence in different countries. In a second stage, a gravity trade model for trade in table grapes was estimated, with a focus on the more stringent countries identified by experts in the first stage.

We show evidence that the proliferation of private standards required by large European retailers has diverted trade away from more stringent countries that require more certifications (and into less stringent European markets). We also show that the costs of these additional certifications have been shared by trading partners, via an increase in direct sales, as opposed to consignment (the traditional marketing mode), which is associated with higher prices.

The impacts of the recent proliferation of private and overlapping standards in international trade needs to be better understood both by the legal and economic literature. While the use of private standards has been growing since the 1990s, there is a recent trend of large European retailers imposing their own and overlapping standards that needs to be better understood to inform policy.

While there is a thin literature on the impact of private standards on trade, most of this has studied the effects of the now de facto mandatory GlobalGAP certification. However, there is a recent trend by large European retailers of demanding their own private certifications, together with other already existing overlapping private standards. This study describes and analyzes the impacts of this rather new trend.