Assignment Code: MEVE-003/TMA-01/2022-23

Course Code: MEVE-003

Assignment Name: Agriculture and Allied Sector

Year: 2022-2023

Verification Status: Verified by Professor

Maximum Marks 100

Attempts any five questions. All questions carry equal marks.

5x20=100

1. Describe the effects of chemical pesticides and its impacts on the environment and human health.

Ans) Several studies have shown that organophosphorus insecticides can cause oxidative stress. It changes the way Ca+2 moves into and out of cells. This causes cholinergic hyperactivity and turns on proteolytic enzymes and nitric oxide synthase, which make free radicals. For example, fenitrothion has very bad effects on the liver, lungs, and kidneys because it creates ROS when there are pesticide residues and Cytochrome P450 is used to break them down.

People and animals have also said that pesticides are "serious endocrine disruptors." They change the way hormones work by not making enough, making too much, blocking or disrupting hormone receptors in living things. According to reports, DDT had a big effect on the reproductive systems of mammals and birds by acting like an oestrogen. Pesticides not only pose serious risks to human health, but they also harm the environment by polluting the water, soil, and air and killing organisms that they are not meant to kill. In particular, the wrong use of pesticides causes unwanted effects on non-target organisms, such as fewer beneficial species, contaminated water from pesticide drift, toxic air from volatile pesticides, damage to non-target plants from herbicide drift and herbicide residues, and damage to beneficial plants from herbicide drift and herbicide residues. Most of the harmful effects of toxic pesticides on the environment are caused by the way the physicochemical properties of the pesticide, the physical properties of the soil, the crop species, and the weather interact.

Also, pesticides cause a lot of worry about how they might affect people's health if they use them, mix them, or work on lands that have been treated. Accidental poisoning can happen if something is used wrong, stored wrong, or if toxic containers are used again and again for food and drinks. Pesticides are often used in ways that hurt the natural enemies of pests and make it more likely that pesticide-resistant species will grow. Also, even farmers who know what they're doing often use pesticides in the wrong way.

The health effects of pesticides depend on how dangerous the chemical is and how long and how much people are exposed to it. Most people who are directly exposed to agricultural pesticides are farm workers and their families. Pesticides are in the fat cells of every person.

Children are more likely to get sick from pesticides than adults because they are still growing, and their immune systems aren't as strong. Children may be more at risk because they are closer to the ground and are more likely to put strange things in their mouths. Like lead exposure, how much a child puts their hands in their mouths depends on how old they are. Children under the age of six months are more likely to be exposed through breast milk and small particles that they breathe in. The chance of being exposed to pesticides goes up when family members bring them into the house on their shoes. A child may be exposed to toxins because of the food they eat. Epidemiological studies have found that the current levels of exposure to some pesticides are bad for children's brain development. [89] Over time, the body can get more and more of the chemicals.

Effects of exposure can range from mild irritation of the skin to birth defects, tumours, genetic changes, blood and nerve disorders, disruption of hormones, coma, or death. Pesticides have been linked to effects on development. Somatic cell mutations may be the cause of the recent rise in childhood cancers in North America, such as leukaemia. Insecticides that are meant to kill insects can hurt the nervous systems of mammals. Exposures have been found to change in both long-term and short-term ways. DDT and DDE, which is made when it breaks down, can mess up the way oestrogens work, which could cause breast cancer. Animals whose testicles don't come out because they were exposed to DDT as foetuses have smaller penises. Pesticides can harm foetuses when they are still in the womb or when their parents were exposed to them before they were born. Chemical reactions and changes in the structure can both lead to problems with reproduction.

2. Describe organic farming and its importance in sustainable development.

Ans) Henning et al. say that organic farming is both a way of thinking and a way of doing things. It is based on values that reflect an awareness of ecological and social realities and the ability of the individual to take effective actions. In practise, it is meant to work with natural processes to save resources, encourage self-regulation through diversity, reduce waste and negative effects on the environment, and keep farms profitable.

Organic farming has many advantages over modern chemical farming that make it a very big deal. Some of the most important things about chemical farming are the damage it does to the environment and health, as well as the loss of soil fertility. Several areas of land can no longer grow crops. The ground water is no longer good enough to drink. People are being forced to move to other places. You can find these kinds of reports in all states where agriculture is a strong point. Chemical farming may also have had an indirect effect on the farmer's decision to kill himself. Farmers kill themselves when they can't pay back the loans they took out to buy chemicals for their farms but can't pay them back. If the crop fails, these things happen.

Besides these, organic farming has a lot of potential to increase crop yields over time.

Examples of India's cotton yield going up

In 2003, IWMI did a study in India that showed the amount of cotton grown on organic farms was a little bit higher than on conventional farms. In 2005, Raj et al. did another organic cotton project in Andhra Pradesh. They found that the yield went up by 13%. In the same way, the Central Institute of Cotton Research in Nagpur found that organic treatment led to yields that were 11–21% higher.

In another study, Jackson found that the average organic cotton yield in Kutch was between 2.5 and 2.75 t/ha, which was the same as or even higher than the yields from non-organic systems and much higher than the yields from irrigated conventional hybrid cotton in other states, like Punjab and Andhra Pradesh. The dry climate, the fact that Desi varieties are used a lot, and the fact that more attention is paid to soil fertility are all things that explain these differences.

It works well on dry land, which makes up more than 60 percent of land that can be farmed. Organic farming means that the animals are healthy and don't have diseases that can spread. Their products don't have any chemicals in them and are very healthy. So, it's clear from the above sources that organic farming has a lot of potential for making food and keeping natural resources safe.

3. Write short notes on the following.

a) Biofertilizers.

Ans) "Biofertilizers are ready-to-use live formulations of these helpful microorganisms. When applied to seed, root, or soil, they make nutrients more available through their biological activity and help build up the microflora and soil health in general. When put on plants, it makes them grow faster, increases their yield, improves the soil, and makes it less polluted.

In other words, biofertilizers are mixtures of living or dormant cells of effective strains of microorganisms that help plants take in nutrients by interacting with the soil or the rhizosphere when applied through seed or soil. They make more nutrients available to plants in a form that is easy for plants to absorb. They don't hurt the environment and are cheap, so they are used instead of chemical fertilisers. If biofertilizers are used regularly, they can boost crop yield and make plants more resistant to things like drought, extreme heat, early frost, pests, and diseases. Biofertilizer is a large number of a specific or a group of helpful microorganisms that increase the soil's productivity by fixing nitrogen from the air, releasing phosphorus from the soil, or promoting plant growth by making substances that help plants grow.

Biofertilizers are made up of bacteria, algae, and fungi. They can be put into two main groups: nitrogen-fixing organisms like Rhizobium, Azotobacter, Azospirillum, Acetobacter, Blue Green Algae, and Azolla, and phosphorus-solubilizing organisms and Vesicular Arbuscular Mycorrhiza. Recently, Potash mobilizers like Frateuria aurentia, Zinc and Sulphur solubilizers like Thiobacillus species, and Manganese solubilizer fungal culture like Pencillium citrinum have also been found for commercial use.

b) Botanicals.

Ans) Plants are used to make botanicals. In the health and wellness field, this term refers to plants or parts of plants that can be used as medicine or are good for your health. Botanicals are changed into botanical preparations, botanical drugs, and essential oils. Concerns about the safety, cost, and side effects of traditional pharmaceutical drugs are making people more interested in these. Botanical products for health are now easy to find and use.

Botanicals are parts of plants, like the leaves, flowers, seeds, bark, roots, twigs, and other parts. People have known about and used some plants and their parts for hundreds of years. Other plants have only been used in the past few years. No matter what, they have healing effects that help heal some illnesses and improve health in other ways. Botanicals can heal your body and mind and make you healthier if you know how to use them and take the right precautions.

Plants can be picked from the wild or grown in gardens and on farms. Once they are picked, they need to be ready to use.

Examples of Significant Botanicals:

Sabadilla is a natural pesticide made from the seeds of the plant Schoenocaulon officinale, which is used to make medicine. It is used as a powder made from ground seeds. It has been shown to be very good at getting rid of thrips, and the bioactive parts are alkaloids. In insects, it causes nerve cells to stop working, paralysis, and death. Most of the time, there are no leftovers after it has been used because it breaks down quickly in the sun.

Ryania is another well-known plant that is made by grinding the stems of a tropical tree called Ryaniaspeciosa, which is in the Flacourtiaceae family. In its powdered form, it stops muscles from releasing calcium. It is very dangerous for moths, borers, and thrips, especially the codling moth (Cydiapomonella). Ryania is a poison that hurts the stomach slowly.

5. What is meant by traceability and explain its technological innovations?

Ans) Agricultural traceability is the process of writing down, collecting, keeping, and using information about a store network in a way that makes it easy for a buyer to prove where, when, and how a product was made, as well as helping to handle basic situations caused by quality and safety problems. It talks about how simple the inventory network is and how it uses clear markings and records. Traceability helps the quality management system by making it easier to find, verify, and isolate sources of non-compliance with agreed standards and customer expectations. Traceability increases the overall value of a quality management system by making it easier to find, approve, and isolate sources of disagreement with the set standards and customer needs.

Technological Innovations In Traceability

Quality and safety measurement technology: Traceability is measured by how well products are delivered to meet the needs of consumers and different partners, and by how easy it is to find out where each product unit is in case there is a problem with quality or safety. There needs to be exact information about the product's development, quality, and security, which must be estimated using the right tools and methods. Estimate (mass, measurements), immovability (freshness, crunchiness), dissolvable solids, causticity, season, etc., are some of the physical, mechanical, and mixture properties that may need to be estimated to figure out the quality of a product.

Instruments like the penetrometer, firmometer, contort analyzer, Instron machine, and Kiwifirm can be used in a lab or online to measure how hard something is to move. Non-destructive tests like power detecting, infrared, and attractive reverberation imaging can be used to measure immovability and other internal quality properties and to figure out how close dangerous physical flaws are to the surface of a product. Models of these instruments can be bought from different companies, and they are used in industry and research labs right now. Modern methods and tools can be used to check product tests, hardware surfaces, and the air for the presence of dangerous microbial contaminants.

Innovations in genetic analysis technology: In order to protect the quality of product supply chains and the desire for genetic traceability, new techniques and measuring tools have been created to look into the genetic makeup and pollution of substances and other organic products. Because PCR is always changing, DNA tests have been made to find and measure GMOs and other transgenic materials. Giese gives a good summary of what some research facilities are showing at the current Institute of Food Technology Meeting and Food Expo in order to estimate the traceability and safety of food products.

Environmental monitoring technology: Things like temperature and relative humidity, the way the weather affects the air, toxins, and other things can affect the quality, safety, and stability of food products. Instrumented natural history tools, such as gas analyzers and biosensors, can be used to measure these parameters and can be used to control frameworks.

7. Give a detailed account on genetically modified crops.

Ans) Genetically modified organisms are those (plants, animals, or microorganisms) whose DNA has been changed by adding DNA from another organism to improve certain traits. GM crop is used to describe "golden rice." Molecular biology techniques were used to create GMOs with new combinations of genetic material that people can eat. This method is also called "recombinant DNA technology" or "genetic engineering," and the organism that comes out of it is called "genetically modified." These plants have been changed in the lab to make them better, like making them more resistant to herbicides or giving them more nutrients. In the past, desired traits were improved by breeding, but this takes a long time and isn't very accurate. On the other hand, genetic engineering can quickly and accurately make organisms with the exact trait that is wanted. Genes of interest from different species are taken and spliced together using genetic engineering to make GMOs.

In 1992, China was the first country to sell transgenic plants to the public. They did this by making a virus-resistant tobacco. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave permission to use the first genetically modified corn in 1992. (FDA). The first GMO to be grown commercially was a tomato called Flavrsavr, which was changed so that it would ripen without getting soft. It was made by Calgene Inc. in the United States in 1994. Several food crops, like soybeans, corn, cotton, tomatoes, Hawaiian papaya, potatoes, canola, sugarcane, sugar beets, field corn, sweet corn, and rice, have been genetically modified to improve their yield, grain size, durability, etc. The first food ingredient made with biotechnology was Chymosin, an agent that helps milk clot when cheese is being made.

India's government hasn't said anything about GM foods yet because the country doesn't grow any edible GM crops and doesn't sell any GM foods yet. India, on the other hand, is very interested in transgenic plant research. Cotton is one of India's most important cash crops. India makes and buys more cotton than any other country except China. It does, however, lose a lot of crops because it is easy for insects to eat. So, a pest-resistant gene from the bacterium Bacillus thringenesis was added to the cotton plant's DNA (Bt). Bt cotton is a type of cotton that has been changed genetically to be very resistant to bollworm, which is a major pest of cotton.

In 2011, India celebrated 10 years of successfully growing Bt cotton, which has done a great job of making cotton the most productive and profitable crop in the country. When Bt cotton is used, the yield of cotton goes up because bollworms are kept under control and less insecticide is used in the growing process. Also, it could lower the cost of farming and reduce the amount of pollution in the environment caused by insecticides. But it has some problems, like the high cost of Bt cotton seeds compared to non-Bt cotton seeds and the fact that the toxin only works well for 120 days before it becomes much less effective. But too much Bt cotton led to a loss of genetic diversity, the death of sheep, farmer suicides, pests that were resistant to Bt cotton, the sale of Bt cotton seeds illegally, and low yields compared to the USA and China.