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Due to global trade and transportation, the COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly reached all corners of the world; it has most impacted the poor communities and rural areas with limited or no access to recovery. This paper aims to understand the pandemic's impact on the market supply of vegetables (agrifood) in Ethiopia and other countries in sub-Saharan Africa and to implement scientifically based recommendations that can improve the challenges caused by the pandemic and improve the livelihoods of vegetable producers.

This study assessed the major incidents that follow the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ethiopia with the factors that significantly influence onion market supply in the Mecha district of Northwestern Ethiopia using linear multiple regression.

The study revealed that producers, processors, local collectors, cooperatives, wholesalers, retailers and consumers are the main actors. The most important difference that happened on the onion market channel after the outbreak of coronavirus was brokers were removed from the market channel after the pandemic and this saved the cost producers pay as a commission. The pandemic disrupted input distribution, extension and cooperative services and created labor scarcity. Access to market, postharvest value addition, price and marketing contract were significant factors that influence the market supply of onion. The study identified the need for policy interventions by the government to overcome the postpandemic challenges and ensure the sustainable development of onion production and marketing in the Mecha district.

The limitations of the study are primarily related to the methodology as data are collected at a single moment in time. However, the study observes that those changes after the pandemic are better understood if we collect data at different time. Therefore, the future study needs to provide longitudinal data to examine stability of response and to observe performance of the market that occur over time.

This original research is the first to study the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in Northwestern Ethiopia. The data used in the analysis are primary.

Post-2008 global food crisis the prices of perishable high-value food commodities, such as vegetables and fruits, in India have risen faster and become more volatile compared to that of cereals. The welfare consequences of price shocks though are well understood yet the policy responses to manage these remain blurred because of a lack of clarity on their causes. Focusing on onions that comprise an important constituent of the Indian diet, the purpose of this paper is to explore causes of high price volatility.

Using high-frequency time series data on wholesale prices and arrivals of onions in major markets and other relevant variables, this paper analyzes causes of price volatility from several angles, that is production shocks, seasonality in production and market arrivals, internal trade, export policies and market power of intermediaries on the supply chain.

Despite markets being integrated and no significant climatic shocks to production there exists a strong element of uncertainty in market arrivals of onions, pointing toward the market power immediate downstream the production or alternatively anti-competition trade practices in major markets as a cause of high price volatility. The measures to manage price volatility, such as an increase in minimum export prices and bans on exports, are also not found to have an immediate cooling effect on prices.

The agricultural policy should provide for a system of market intelligence to monitor anti-competitive trade practices along the supply chain, and to take proactive trade control measures to prevent frequent ups and downs in domestic prices. In addition, it should provide for incentives for developing efficient supply chains and for the cultivation of onions in the regions that have agronomic potential but it has remained underexploited due to one or the other constraint.

Excessive volatility in food prices impacts farmers, consumers, processors, and traders and even political system. It may distort production and investment decisions of farmers and intermediaries on the value chains, leading to inefficient allocation of resources. The poor consumers may be forced to reduce food and non-food productive expenditures. If persists for a longer period, it may lead to political instability too.

Several studies have analyzed volatility in food prices and causes thereof. However, rarely any of these has examined volatility in prices of perishable high-value food commodities. This paper is an attempt toward filling this gap.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive evaluation of 34 onion genotypes for their antioxidant activity (AOX) content of phenolics, quercetin and pungency to enable selection of the best genotype for later experiments of variety breeding or to be used as a vector in the improvement of well‐established traditional genotype.

A comprehensive screening of 34 onion (red, pink and white) genotypes is carried out in order to determine the variation in phenolics, quercetin and total AOX as potential for breeding for their enhanced levels.

The AOX in red genotype with highest levels of phenolics is roughly three times higher than commercial white genotype. Pungency levels range from 3.12 to 10.48  μmoles pyruvic acid/g. Mean phenolic and quercetin content ranges from 60.1 to 1094.8 mg gallic acid equivalents/kg and 22.0 to 890.5 mg/kg quercetin, respectively. AOX in red genotype (expressed as μmoles trolox/g) ranges from 1.97 to 5.45 and 3.60 to 6.61 in ferric reducing antioxidant power and cupric ion reducing capacity assays, respectively. Selections, Sel‐383, Sel‐397, Sel‐61‐383, and Inbreds, I‐40, I‐80 and Burgundy are potential genotype with high pungency and AOX.

An improvement in breeding effort designed to increase the phenolics, quercetin and total AOX in onions (Allium cepa L.) provides selected material for analysis. Onion genotype and breeding lines with improved AOX are identified that would help breeders produce onions high in health promoting compounds.

The paper attempts to examine onion genotypes using standardized in‐vitro AOX assays.

The purpose of this study was to assess the bacterial viability, antioxidative activity, antimutagenicity and sensory evaluation of fermented onion types by using probiotic starters after fermentation at 37 °C for 24 hours and storage in the refrigerator for 28 days.

For onion fermentation, Lactobacillus acidophilus (LA-5), Bifidobacterium bifidum (BB-12), and Streptococcus thermophilus (ST) were utilised. This research was conducted on three types of onion: white onion, red onion and scallion. With a 5% brine solution, the onions were sliced into 3-5 cm long and 1-2 cm wide slices. The process of fermentation was achieved by adding 2% (10⁸ CFU/ gm) of fresh probiotic starter and incubating it for 24 hours at 37 °C. The fermented onion samples were kept in the refrigerator for 28 days. After fermentation and storage, the pH and total acidity were estimated, the vitality of probiotic bacteria was evaluated in samples of the onion species. The Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) technique was used to identify the bioactive components in fermented onion types. The antioxidant activity of fermented onions was measured using the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl-hydrate (DPPH) radical scavenging activity assay and the hydroxyl radical scavenging activity test. The Ames test was used to detect the antimutagenicity of fermented onion samples.

After fermentation, the fermented scallion (p = 0.036) has the highest vitality of all the starter bacteria species. The fermentation of onion types produced a pH of between 4.1–4.7 and 0.19–0.23% total acidity, which is in the range of reduced 3.1–3.5 pH values and 0.42–0.63% total acidity after 28 days. The viability of Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium bifidum in fermented scallions was Log. 7.79 and 7.57 CFU/gm. The GC-MS technique found 14 bioactive compounds in fermented white onions and 13 compounds in fermented white onions, with 15 compounds in scallion fermentation. The majority of these bioactive compounds are strong antioxidants. The antioxidant properties of fermented scallion significantly increased after 28 days of storage time, showing an inhibitory effect on the DPPH assay (p = 0.02) and the scavenging activity of the hydroxyl radical assay (p = 0.01). Sensory evaluation tests revealed that the fermented scallion was a suitable product in terms of appearance, aroma and overall acceptability.

Commercially accessible probiotic foods account for a sizable portion of the consumer market. Furthermore, as consumer interest in healthy eating grows, so does demand for plant-based goods. All onion types fermented with probiotic bacteria have many chemical compounds that have both antioxidant and carcinogenic activity. The fermented scallion onion sample was significantly superior to the rest of the other types of onions.

The analysis focuses on the perspective of overall strategic fit in the supply chain of onion seed in Nepal. The purpose of this paper is to analyze current status of onion seed sector in Nepal from the perspective of selected functional strategies that fit in supply chain, and also identifies how various actors involved coordinate among each other.

The integrated approach has been used. It is an actor-oriented approach used to trace product flows. Supply chains generally include several actors for the onion seeds supply chain in Nepal, all those actors may or may not be applicable. However, initial approach would be to first look for these actors then subsequently identify existing supply and its actors. Some traditional methods of product and market analysis isolate operational costs along various stages of production. But, this paper used more comprehensive methodology that has taken into account an entire spectrum of associated activities and inputs.

Result revealed that the market actors of supply chain are taking significant benefit of value addition due to more investment in value creation. Vertical coordination is completely absent and the existence of horizontal coordination is in fragile form. The functional strategies in the upstream as well as the market side are not properly matching with the preference of the downstream actors of supply chain. It is suggested that the supply chain activities should work with different functional strategies such as proper drying and storage of seed and production of preferred varieties to satisfy the need of end consumers.

It covers a single crop.

The findings and methodological discussions aim at providing practical guidance for supply chain researchers on how to analyze the strategic fit in supply chain.

This paper presents a state‐of‐the‐art review of the Web privacy and anonymity enhancing security mechanisms, tools, applications and services, with respect to their architecture, operational principles and vulnerabilities. Furthermore, to facilitate a detailed comparative analysis, the appropriate parameters have been selected and grouped in classes of comparison criteria, in the form of an integrated comparison framework. The main concern during the design of this framework was to cover the confronted security threats, applied technological issues and users' demands satisfaction. GNUnet's Anonymity Protocol (GAP), Freedom, Hordes, Crowds, Onion Routing, Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P), TRUSTe, Lucent Personalized Web Assistant (LPWA), and Anonymizer have been reviewed and compared. The comparative review has clearly highlighted that the pros and cons of each system do not coincide, mainly due to the fact that each one exhibits different design goals and thus adopts dissimilar techniques for protecting privacy and anonymity.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the potential returns to value chain actors from employing desiccant bead drying and hermetic storage technology.

Information was collected from 175 different onion (Allium cepa L.) seed value chain actors in Nepal. Four different business models for the introduction of new bead drying and hermetic storage technology were compared to current practices through use of partial budgeting.

The increase in net income throughout the chain was quite similar in all four models, ranging from US$28.86 to 29.61 per kg of onion seed, making it difficult to say that any single model is best for all situations. However, there are differences in sharing of positive net income and negative net income for different actors in different models. Moreover, about US$5.85 million incremental return could be earned per year in Nepal from improved preservation of onion seed alone.

This research assesses how to introduce a new technology, the dry chain concept to maintain seed quality, into the existing marketplace.

This paper focuses on the economics of a novel technology and compares different business models and scenarios.

This paper aims to propose an anonymous web‐browsing protocol that harnesses some of the advantages of store‐and‐forward anonymity solutions whilst retaining some of the interactive properties of web browsing. Anonymity research on high latency, store‐and‐forward mediums such as e‐mail have led to comparatively well‐researched anonymity technologies. However, similar achievements have proven to be more difficult for low‐latency communications such as web browsing.

A review of existing anonymity solutions notes the advantages of mix technologies versus the advantages offered by Onion Routing. A solution is presented that features a combined approach of both solutions.

The proposed protocol differentiates between web requests and web responses – a request is treated as a store‐and‐forward message whilst the response is handled as a data stream.

The solution described can be used by existing anonymous web browsing solutions in order to improve the level of anonymity whilst minimising the overhead of anonymously distributing web content.

This study investigates the impact of contract farming in onion, okra and pomegranate production on profits of smallholder farmers in India. It also investigates the determinants of farmers’ participation in contract farming. The study is based on a survey of 1,131 farmers from Maharashtra, India engaged in the cultivation of these three crops.

This study uses instrumental variable regressions and quasi-experimental methods to decipher the impact of contract farming.

The study reveals that contract farming ensures higher returns for smallholders, enables their access to high-end markets and brings in risk-sharing with protection during price fluctuations. Farm size and farmers’ risk perceptions are significantly associated with their participation in contract farming.

The study is based on cross-sectional data, which presents limitations on considering unobserved farmer-level individual heterogeneity.

The study shows that contracts highlight the functioning of the contractor/integrator on both the input and output sides of the market. By providing better-quality inputs on credit and at discounted prices and by providing training, the integrator helps small farmers meet international food safety and quality standards, a historically difficult challenge for smallholders in India.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of multiple functions and their underlying mechanisms for two common spices, garlic and onion, containing organosulphur compounds.

Literature review of chemistry, physiology, molecular biology, clinical studies.

Both garlic and onions exert their effects on human health via multiple different functions, including antioxidant, anti‐inflammatory, and antibacterial properties. The organosulphur compounds in these spices scavenge oxidizing agents, inhibit the oxidation of fatty acids, thereby preventing the formation of pro‐inflammatory messengers, and inhibit bacterial growth, via interaction with sulphur‐containing enzymes.

Currently available information on the optimal amount for consumption for each spice is insufficient.

This review is unique in its comprehensive nature, considering multiple different effects of the spices examined as well as multiple studies from molecular to clinical approaches.