Viable mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis in retail artisanal coalho cheese from northeastern Brazil.

2014

The women role in the agroenvironmental activities of Amazon agroforeststry systems.

This paper presents the results of a research on the way which shows the role of the farmer women to contribute to overcome the life hindrances in the Amazonian agroforest environment, for food safety and familiar income. The sample was the women of the Associação de Produtores Alternativos - APA, Ouro Preto do Oeste, Rondônia, Brazil. Questionnaires were applied to 50 women of this community, in 2004/2005, with additional interviews in 2006, taking into account their role in the farms, and their several invisible activities. The role of APA?s women was compared to that of other Amazonian women, like rubber tappers and riverine people. The APA?s women perform tasks as field manpower - 78.0% of them, making decisions about what to plant - 18.0%, harvest destination - 32.0%, which animals to raise -14.0% and animal products destination -34.0%. Traditionally, in rural zone, the women with their children play a role as non-paid manpower, getting some monetary income with occasional commercialization of on-farm processed products as cheese, pickles, jellies and fruit liqueurs. They are responsible for the cultures practiced around the house. All these Amazonian women edaphoclimatic conditions, greatly contributing to the biodiversity, conservation, and to ecological, social and economic stability.are guardians, perpetuators and disseminators of a rich germplasm adapted to local.

Intensity of bitterness of processed Yerba Mate leaves originated in two contrasted light environments.

The bitterness intensity of beverage prepared from the leaves produced on the males and females of yerba mate (Ilex paraguariensis), grown in the forest understory and monoculture, was evaluated. The leaves were grouped by their position (in the crown and on the branch tips) and by the leaf age. The leaf gas exchange, leaf temperature and photosynthetic photon flux density were observed. Inter and intra-specific competition for light and self-shading showed the same effect on yerba mate beverage taste. All the shading types resulted in bitterer taste of the processed yerba mate leaves compared to the leaves originated under the direct sun exposure. The leaves from the plants grown in the monoculture showed less bitterness than those grown in the forest understory. This conclusion was completely opposite to the conventionally accepted paradigm of the yerba mate industries. The leaves from the tips (younger leaves) of the plants grown in the monoculture resulted a beverage of softer taste; the males produced less bitter leaves in any light environment (forest understory or in the crown in monoculture). The taste was related to the photosynthetic and transpiration rate, and leaf temperature. Stronger bitterness of the leaves provided from the shade conditions was related to the decreased leaf temperature and transpiration in the diurnal scale.