The Structure of Indigenous Food Crop Markets in sub-Saharan Africa: The Rice Market in Uganda

Using data obtained from a series of nation-wide market surveys in Uganda, this article attempts to document and assess the domestic rice market at all stages in the post-harvest marketing chain from the farm gate to metropolitan area retail outlets. The criteria used are quantities marketed, prices, marketing margins, marketing costs and net returns to traders. The results show that the regional rice markets are integrated into the national market and that on average little surplus is left for rice traders at all market stages if marketing costs are accounted for. The spontaneously developed indigenous crop market works reasonably well.     

Phases of Irrigation Development in Asian Tropics: A Case Study of the Philippines and Sri Lanka

Using data for the Philippines and Sri Lanka during the last five decades, we examine three phases of agricultural development experienced by the rice sector in insular countries in tropical monsoon Asia; the first was based on land opening, the second on new irrigation construction and the third on increasing the efficiency of the existing irrigated land base. We show that these sequential shifts were induced by changes in the relative profitability of the three major means of land development for increasing food production. Rehabilitation, water management improvement and better maintenance, which are important means of irrigation development in the latest phase, are under-invested, despite their high rates of return.     

Phylogenetic relationship of psychoactive fungi based on rRNA gene for a large subunit and their identification using the TaqMan assay (II)

"Magic mushroom (MM)" is the name most commonly given to psychoactive fungi containing the hallucinogenic components: psilocin (1) and psilocybin (2). We investigated the rRNA gene (internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and large subunit (LSU)) of two Panaeolus species and four Psilocybe species fungi (of these, two are non-psilocybin species). On the basis of sequence alignment, we improved the identification system developed in our previous study. In this paper, we describe the new system capable of distinguishing MMs from non-psilocybin Psilocybe species, its application data and the phylogeny of MM species.