Issue 28 is here. This time we carry 12 interesting articles on various subjects but all related to the theme of the journal. It is quite an achievement for us to have 12 articles ready in time for publication. We wish to report also that through the BIOLINE International hosted at the University of Toronto, a record “over ten thousand hits” in the month of September 2009 have been registered on AJFAND through their website. Our own AJFAND website has recorded more than half a million hits in less than 2 years since we started counting. Through this Foreword, I would like to ask those with any ZINC data they wish to share to visit www.ajfand.net for instructions to authors and send us articles for a special zinc issue we wish to publish but are short of papers. Our commentary this month is by Joachim von Braun, Director General of IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute), a good friend for many years and one of the very first people to inspire me to go ahead with publishing the journal and even contributed seed funding for us to get started. His message is that “there are important elements that could foster true inter-sectoral collaboration between agriculture, nutrition, and health in alleviating poverty” but what is lacking is a “framework for linking agriculture and health” and   “so is the set of instruments to effectively exploit the synergies between agriculture and health and to achieve joint policy formulation”. Are we not all so familiar with agriculture people talking to themselves and nutrition and health people likewise yet we all have similar goals? There are ongoing efforts to do things differently but we need to do more. In fact Thailand is a great example of this model, and while  the ICN in Bangkok, we were treated to the various models they are using, and fairly positively to address the health of the nearly 70 million Thais.

We wish you good reading

In this issue, we have the following articles:

Editorial: Ruth Oniang'o
What a Bangkok!

Commentary: Joachim von Braun
Bring Agriculture, Nutrition and Health Together

• Impact of HIV and AIDS on household food and nutrition security in Suba District, Kenya.
  Musita Caroline et al.

• Role of livestock projects in empowering women smallholder farmers for sustainable food security in rural Kenya.
  Walingo Mary

• Improving honey production in worker bees (Apis mellifera adansoni L.) hymenoptera: apidae through artificial modification of their feeding activities.
  Akinwande KL and MA Badejo

• Evaluation of some matenal and socio-economic factors associated with low birthweight among women in the upper east region, Ghana.
  Amagloh Francis et al.

• Evaluation of chemical and bacteriological quality of raw milk from Neudamm dairy farm in Namibia.
  Bille Peter et al.

• Studies on the traditional methods of production of maize tuwo (a Nigerian non-fermented maize dumpling).
  Bolade Mathew et al.

• Use of locally available flavouring materials in suppressing the beany taste in soymilk.
  Laswai Henry et al.

• Toxicants and physicochemical characteristics of the seeds of African black pear (Dacryodes edulis).
  Iyawe Hanson

• The influence of socio-economic and nutritional characteristics on child growth in Kwale District of Kenya.
  Amegah Adeladza

• Sources of risk and management strategies among food crop farmers in Osun State, Nigeria.
  Salimonu KK and AO Falusi

• The influence of technological changes on labour availability: A case study of cocoa farming households in Ogun State, Nigeria.
  Oluyole Kayode
  
  
• Scombrotoxicosis in African fisheries - its implications for international fish trade: An overview.
  Lokuruka Michael

 

Ruth Oniang'o
Founder Editor-in-Chief, AJFAND