Charles Wortmann

This book features five peer-reviewed reviews on good agricultural practices (GAP). The first chapter describes GAP, notions of good farming and how GAP standards have developed over time. The chapter also identifies opportunities to evolve these pre- and post-harvest or slaughter standards, and their related principles and practices in the future. The second chapter reviews the role of GAP in preventing microbial contamination of fresh produce. The chapter also summarises how GAP have evolved, as well the impact they have had on the fresh produce industry. The third chapter considers emerging aspects of GAP in the context of controlled environment agriculture and explores how performance criterion and monitoring programmes can be developed as part of an effective food safety control programme. The fourth chapter explores the role of GAP in optimising maize-based cropping systems. The chapter illustrates the importance of setting targets and measuring performance through the inclusion of a case study on improving maize cultivation in the US, Ethiopia and Argentina. The final chapter reviews the range of GAP in smallholder organic export banana production and the ways in which they can be improved to make banana production more sustainable.

Tanzania's economy is heavily dependent on rain fed agriculture, thus, climate variability has a strong impact on crop production. This study aims to assess the effects of climate variability on maize yield in Tanzania. Regression, co integration and ARIMA models were applied. The regression results showed that, April monthly rainfall for Arusha was significant (0.0027). There are significant positive long run relationships between maize yield and rainfall for Arusha, Dodoma, Songea, Tabora and Musoma districts. In the case of short run monthly rainfall for Arusha, Dodoma, Songea and Tabora were significantly positive. The fitted ARIMA (p, d, q) model for forecasting monthly rainfall at selected weather stations were computed. The study identified that there is positive relationship between yield and rainfall however; further studies need to be conducted so that we can have broader understanding of the problem for policy actio