Issue 1

The present study was an attempt to assess adequacy, utilization and repayment of Society for Social Service (SSS) credit on women beneficiaries. Interviewing 90 respondents randomly selected from five villages of Gouripur upazila of Mymensingh district in Bangladesh. The study revealed that both annual income and expenditure of the respondent households have increased after joining the micro credit program of SSS. Average annual income of agriculture and petty business enterprises are Tk. 80726.57 and 74864.14 respectively while average annual expenditure of agriculture and petty business enterprises are Tk. 78776.65 and 67912.37 respectively. Overall annual savings of agriculture and petty business enterprises are Tk. 3733.25 and 8475.09 respectively. Moreover, the women are better at present in respect of social awareness, freedom of attitude, financial freedom and also exercising their right in decision making activities. The study identified some crucial problems such as lack of adequate credit, high rate of interest, burden of old debt, lack of storage and marketing facilities, lack of improved seeds/breed and low price of their products, etc. The findings suggest that the amount of credit should be provided in accordance with their requirement, reduced interest rate and arranging for reasonable price of their products. Finally it was concluded that the SSS credit program benefited the women beneficiaries in respect of increasing income, creating self-employment opportunity, improving social status and at least in reducing the poverty from the study area.

Antibiotic residues remain in edible portion of meat animals that have been treated with antibiotics. The aim of this study was to detect enrofloxacin residue after discriminate and indiscriminate administration and investigate the effect of enrofloxacin in growth of poultry. 18 broilers DOC (Cobb-500) were collected & reared up to 31 days. On day 16, they were randomly divided into 3 groups, namely Group–A (Control group), Group-B (Discriminate group) and Group-C (Indiscriminate group). Each group contains 6 birds. The discriminate and indiscriminate groups were treated with antibiotic, enrofloxacin. In Group-B withdrawal period was followed and treatment was stopped before 7 days of sacrifice. On the other hand, withdrawal period was not maintained in indiscriminate group and antibiotic treatment was continued until the day of sacrifice. Body weight was recorded daily in the morning. On 31^st day mean body weight was highest in Group-C (1901.17 ± 15.22gm) and lowest body weight was in Group-A (1453.33 ± 26.39gm). The differences among mean weight gain were statistically significant (P<0.005) in both discriminate & indiscriminate group compared to control group. Test results found in TLC showed that in discriminate antibiotic group (Group-B) 50% liver samples, 33.33% kidney and 16.67% fat samples were enrofloxacin positive. No sample of thigh muscle, breast muscle and spleen was positive. In indiscriminate antibiotic group (group-C) all the samples were positive in case of liver, kidney, fat and spleen samples. Only 33.33% and 16.67 % samples were positive in case of fat and thigh muscle samples. All the samples of control group (Group-A) were negative. Overall, the present study documented the widespread abuse of enrofloxacin and failure to implement the recommended withdrawal period will undeniably leads to deposition of residues in broiler tissues.

The presence of antibiotic residue in chicken and animal meats is a serious threat to human health due to its harmful effects. This study aimed at identifying the antibiotic resistance patterns of the isolates as well as antibiotic residues in chicken, cattle, buffalo and goat meats in different southern districts of Bangladesh. A total of 205 meat samples, including 70 chicken meat, 60 cattle meat, 50 buffalo meat and 25 goat meat were aseptically collected and analysed for the detection of antibiotic residues by thin layer chromatography and the isolates obtained from these samples were subjected to antibiogram study against 16 commonly used antibiotics. The isolates found in this study were Staphylococcus spp., Streptococcus spp., Escherichia coli, and Salmonella spp. and their prevalence were 37.5% (77/205), 22.1% (48/205), 29.7% (61/205), 8.7% (19/205), respectively. The isolates showed different degrees of sensitivity to the antibiotics used in the study. The most resistant phenotype was against cefradine, amoxicillin, penicillin, oxytetracycline, erythromycin, and enrofloxacin. 18.5% (38/205) meat samples were found to be positive for antibiotic residues and the highest prevalence was observed in chicken meat compared to other meat types. Overall, the findings of the study suggest that it is important to take controlling measures for the emergence of antibiotic resistance and also for ensuring healthy meats for human consumption.

The study was conducted to detect and quantify the residue of seven commonly used organophosphorus pesticides (acephate, chlorpyrifos, quinalphos, diazinon, malathion, dimethoate and fenitrothion) in eggplant and tomato samples collected from local market of commercially grown four different regions viz. Bogura, Narsingdi, Jeshore and Cumilla for the comparison between the detected residue level with maximum residue limit (MRL) set by European Union. A total of 80 analyzed samples of eggplant and tomato, 21.25% of the total number of samples contaminated with acephate, chlorpyrifos, fenitrothion and diazinon residues which were above the EU-MRLs. Out of 40 analyzed samples of eggplant, 11 samples were contaminated with acephate, diazinon fenitrothion and chlorpyrifos residues. All of the contaminated samples (27.5% of the total number of samples) had chlorpyrifos (0.02-0.046), acephate (0.017-0-0.39), diazinon (0.11- 0.47) and fenitrothion (0.20) residues which were above the EU-MRLs. The eggplant samples collected from Jeshore and Narsingdi received more pesticides than Cumilla and Bogura regions. In case of 40 analyzed samples of tomato, 6 samples (15% of the total number of samples) had chlorpyrifos (0.27-0.43), diazinon (0.25) and fenitrothion (0.10) residues which were above EU-MRLs. Malathion, quinalphos and dimethoate residues were not found in any of the tested samples which might be applied at recommended doses.