The challenge the researchers set out to solve is one of the most stubborn in crop breeding. Introducing salinity tolerance into an adopted, farmer-favorite variety usually means crossing it with a tolerant donor and then spending years backcrossing to recover the original grain quality, often with mixed results. Mutation breeding offers a shortcut: bombard seeds with radiation, let the plants grow, and select individuals whose randomly mutated genes happen to confer stress tolerance. The risk is collateral damage, since radiation mutates the entire genome indiscriminately, potentially degrading the very traits that made the variety popular in the first place.

To generate the mutant population, the team treated Satabdi seeds with 300, 400, and 500 Gy doses of gamma rays, then advanced the surviving plants through successive generations to stabilize the mutations. By the fourth mutant generation, or M4, they had roughly 500 lines to work with. Screening at the seedling stage under salinity stress identified eight tolerant lines, designated SM-1 through SM-8, and the researchers confirmed that this tolerance persisted through the sixth mutant generation, ruling out chance environmental effects.

What makes the results technically striking is the physiological mechanism behind the tolerance. Under salt stress, the tolerant mutants accumulated significantly lower sodium ion concentrations in their shoots while maintaining higher potassium levels, resulting in lower sodium-to-potassium ratios than the parent Satabdi. This ion discrimination is the hallmark of effective salinity tolerance in rice, since excess sodium disrupts enzyme function and photosynthesis while potassium is essential for cellular processes. Lines SM-1, SM-6, and SM-8 scored a tolerance rating of 3 on the standard SES scale, indicating strong tolerance, while the remaining lines ranged from moderately tolerant to tolerant.

The researchers did not stop at the seedling stage, which is where many salinity studies end. They also evaluated the mutants under salinity stress at the reproductive stage, when the plant is forming grain and yield losses are most economically painful. Here the difference was dramatic: while Satabdi suffered a severe yield penalty with a yield stability index of just 0.22, the mutant lines maintained indices between 0.43 and 0.56, meaning they lost roughly half as much yield under salt stress. This dual-stage tolerance is rare and valuable, since tolerance at one life stage often does not translate to the other.

Perhaps the most important finding for farmers and consumers is what did not change. Using the standard DUS descriptors for distinctiveness, uniformity, and stability, the researchers found that all eight mutant lines were morphologically identical to Satabdi in every measured character except panicle length. Grain physicochemical analysis confirmed that the premium long-slender grain quality of the parent was largely retained across the mutants. For a variety whose market value depends on grain appearance and cooking properties, this preservation is the difference between a useful breeding product and an academic curiosity.

Molecular genotyping with trait-specific SNP markers confirmed the visual assessment. SM-1 and SM-3 retained approximately 96 percent of the Satabdi genome, meaning the radiation had introduced only a small number of targeted changes rather than scrambling the whole genome. Lines SM-2 and SM-8, which showed tolerance at both seedling and reproductive stages, carried higher numbers of mutated favorable alleles for stress tolerance, suggesting the radiation had hit multiple genes involved in salt response simultaneously.

The implications for coastal rice-growing regions, particularly in eastern India where Satabdi is widely grown, are significant. Salinity intrusion from rising seas and cyclone-driven storm surges is an escalating threat to rice productivity in these areas, and farmers there face a difficult choice between adopting tolerant varieties with unfamiliar grain quality or sticking with preferred varieties that fail under salt stress. Mutant lines derived from Satabdi could offer a third path: the same variety farmers already know and trust, but engineered through radiation to withstand the salt that increasingly threatens their fields.

The study also demonstrates the broader value of mutation breeding as a complement to conventional hybridization. While transgenic approaches and marker-assisted backcrossing have produced salt-tolerant rice lines, they face regulatory hurdles and require extensive breeding cycles. Gamma-ray mutagenesis, by contrast, generates genetic variation without introducing foreign DNA, and the resulting mutants can be deployed more rapidly. The researchers note that their work confirms gamma-ray-induced mutagenesis can generate promising salinity-tolerant lines that retain the parent’s agronomic and grain-quality traits, offering potential for deployment in coastal saline rice-growing areas.

What remains to be seen is how these mutants perform in multi-location field trials across diverse coastal environments and whether the tolerance holds up under the combined stresses of salinity, flooding, and temperature extremes that characterize real-world conditions. But the core result stands: eight lines, derived from a single premium variety through radiation alone, that survive salt stress at both seedling and reproductive stages while remaining genetically and morphologically nearly indistinguishable from the parent. For the millions of rice farmers on the front lines of soil salinization, that combination of tolerance and trait preservation may prove to be exactly what they need.

Subject of Research: Gamma-ray mutagenesis of the premium rice variety Satabdi to develop salinity-tolerant mutant lines retaining grain quality

Article Title: Integrative Phenotypic, Agro-morphological, Grain Physicochemical, and Molecular Characterization of Salinity-Tolerant Mutants Derived from the Premium Rice Variety Satabdi

Article References: Chattopadhyay, K., Molla, K. A., Anilkumar, C., Das, M. P., Preethi, B., Mohapatra, S. S., Dehury, P., Bagchi, T. B., Sarkar, S., Marndi, B. C., & Chakraborty, K. (2026). Integrative Phenotypic, Agro-morphological, Grain Physicochemical, and Molecular Characterization of Salinity-Tolerant Mutants Derived from the Premium Rice Variety Satabdi. Indian Journal of Genetics and Plant Breeding. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44489-026-00054-9

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44489-026-00054-9

Keywords: rice, salinity tolerance, gamma-ray mutagenesis, mutation breeding, Satabdi, grain quality, SNP genotyping, sodium-potassium ratio, coastal agriculture, crop yield stability, India, plant genetics

The challenge the researchers set out to address is both local and global. Coastal Bangladesh is dominated by soils that turn saline during the dry season, when seawater intrusion and capillary rise push electrical conductivity in the root zone to between three and four decisiemens per meter, a level classified as slightly saline but still enough to stress young crops. Traditionally, farmers in the region grow a single monsoon rice crop and leave their fields fallow for the rest of the year. Maize has emerged as a promising dry-season crop for these fallow lands, valued for food, feed and biofuel, yet fertilizer guidelines for the region remain rudimentary. Farmers commonly broadcast urea without regard to timing, placement or the crop’s actual demand, wasting money and losing nutrients to the environment.

Nitrogen is the engine of maize productivity, but it is also the most easily lost nutrient. Applied too early, urea sits in soil that the young crop barely taps during its first month of growth, when uptake is minimal. In warm, moist, salinity-affected soils, that idle nitrogen is vulnerable to ammonia volatilization, leaching and the ionic imbalances that salinity imposes on roots. The research team framed their experiment around the 4R nutrient stewardship framework, the right source, right rate, right time and right place, focusing on the two dimensions most neglected in coastal practice: timing and placement. Their question was whether synchronizing nitrogen supply with the crop’s rapid vegetative and reproductive growth phases could recover the yield potential that indiscriminate broadcasting squanders.

The trial was laid out as a randomized complete block design with seven treatments and three replications, all receiving the same total nitrogen rate of 225 kilograms per hectare, alongside uniform phosphorus and potassium. The treatments varied the schedule and method of delivery: some placed a third of the nitrogen at sowing by broadcasting, side banding or row placement before two later side dressings; others delayed or reshuffled the splits entirely. One treatment applied 20 percent of the nitrogen at fifteen days after sowing followed by 40 percent at each of the later dates, while others applied half the nitrogen at 35 days, or the entire dose in a single side dressing at 35 days. The test crop was the hybrid DON 111, a medium-duration variety with a yield potential of 12 to 13 tonnes per hectare under good management.

The winner was unambiguous. Applying nitrogen in three equal side-dressed splits at 15, 35 and 60 days after sowing produced the highest grain yield in every season: 10.87 tonnes per hectare in 2022, 11.76 in 2023 and 10.79 in 2024, all statistically significant at the one percent level. The pooled stover yield of 11.78 tonnes per hectare and root yield of 1.44 tonnes per hectare were also highest under this schedule. By contrast, the treatment that placed a third of the nitrogen directly in the seed furrow at planting recorded the lowest yields, a result the researchers attribute to urea’s close contact with seeds, which hampered germination and produced an uneven plant population. The conventional farmer practice of basal broadcasting followed by two side dressings fell well short of the delayed-split strategy.

The physiological story behind the yield gap is revealing. Side-dressed nitrogen delivered near the plant rows maintained an adequate supply through the later growth stages, extending the active life of green leaves and sustaining the accumulation of photosynthetic assimilates during grain filling. The delayed-split treatment produced the longest cobs, the most grains per cob, reaching 620 grains on pooled data, and the heaviest thousand-grain weight at 217 grams. Correlation analysis underscored how these components stack up: thousand-grain weight showed the strongest association with grain yield, with a correlation coefficient of 0.79, while root yield correlated at 0.77, suggesting that a well-fed root system underpins the whole yield architecture. Cob length and grain number per cob were likewise tightly linked to final yield.

Root development deserves particular attention in saline soils, where osmotic stress makes water and nutrient acquisition harder. The three-split side-dressing schedule produced the highest root yields in 2022 and 2023, and the pooled root yield advantage was highly significant. The researchers argue that delaying the first application until active root establishment improves the synchronization between nitrogen availability and crop uptake, which in turn enhances nitrogen use efficiency. Adequate nitrogen supports healthy root architecture, and a denser root system improves the plant’s capacity to buffer the salt-induced nutrient imbalances that characterize coastal soils in March and April, when conductivity peaks just as the crop approaches maturity.

The economics reinforce the agronomy. Compared with the farmer practice of basal broadcasting, the optimized schedule added 860 kilograms of grain per hectare on pooled yields, worth roughly 287 US dollars at local grain prices. The only extra cost was labor for the additional first side dressing at fifteen days, about 15 dollars per hectare for two extra workers. That leaves a net gain of more than 270 dollars per hectare from a change that requires no new inputs, no new varieties and no machinery, only a shift in when and where existing fertilizer is applied. For smallholders in one of the world’s most densely populated and climate-vulnerable deltas, that margin could determine whether dry-season maize is worth planting at all.

The findings also carry environmental weight. Nitrogen that is not captured by the crop does not simply vanish; it can escape as ammonia gas, leach into groundwater, or be transformed into nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas nearly 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Previous work cited by the team shows that interactions between salinity and fertilizer type significantly shape ammonia and nitrous oxide fluxes, meaning that mismanaged nitrogen in coastal soils is doubly wasteful. By matching supply to demand, the delayed-split approach minimizes these losses while maintaining nutrient availability during the critical vegetative and reproductive phases. The authors note that their results align with the 4R stewardship principles and with earlier studies showing that split applications extend leaf greenness beyond anthesis in stay-green maize hybrids.

Caveats remain, as they always do. The trial was conducted on a single soil series, a silty clay loam of the Ramgoti series, at one site near the Bay of Bengal, and the 2023 season benefited from warmer vegetative-stage temperatures and some rainfall during grain filling. Salinity dynamics vary across the coastal zone, and recommendations will need validation across a wider range of soils and weather patterns. Still, the core insight travels well beyond Bangladesh: in seasonally saline environments, the cheapest yield gain available to farmers may lie not in more fertilizer but in better-timed fertilizer. As maize expands into the fallow lands of coastal deltas worldwide, the humble act of waiting two weeks before the first urea application could reshape the economics of farming at the salty edge of agriculture.

Subject of Research: Optimizing the timing and placement of split nitrogen fertilizer application to improve maize yield and nitrogen use efficiency in slightly saline coastal soils of Bangladesh.

Article Title: Optimizing split nitrogen application for enhanced maize yield in slightly saline coastal soils (ECe 3–4 dS m−1)

Article References: Haque, M. A., Bhuyan, M. I., Jharna, D. E., Jahiruddin, M., & Bell, R. W. (2026). Optimizing split nitrogen application for enhanced maize yield in slightly saline coastal soils (ECe 3–4 dS m−1). Discover Soil, 3(1), Article 123. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44378-026-00282-1

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44378-026-00282-1

Keywords: maize, nitrogen fertilizer, split application, side dressing, soil salinity, coastal agriculture, Bangladesh, Ganges delta, nitrogen use efficiency, 4R nutrient stewardship, grain yield, fertilizer timing

The study was led by Sabiya Akhter of Khulna University, working with Md. Akramul Islam and Shaikh Magfur Rahman. In December 2021, the team collected 22 soil samples from the top 15 centimeters of soil across Gangarampur Union in Batiaghata Upazila, Khulna district. Sampling points were laid out on a systematic grid roughly one kilometer apart to ensure consistent geographic coverage, and at each point five subsamples were gathered at random and blended into a single composite sample. Portable GPS devices recorded the exact coordinates of every location, allowing the chemical results to be tied precisely to the landscape. The samples were air-dried in the shade, gently crushed, sieved to two millimeters to remove stones and root fragments, and shipped to the Soil, Water and Environment Discipline laboratory at Khulna University for analysis.

The analytical suite covered the macronutrients that govern crop growth: total nitrogen, available phosphorus, available sulfur, available potassium, available calcium and available magnesium, along with soil organic matter. Total nitrogen was measured colorimetrically, a choice the researchers justify because available nitrogen forms fluctuate wildly with environmental conditions at the moment of sampling, whereas total nitrogen represents the stable reserve of the soil and is widely regarded as a reliable fertility indicator. Available phosphorus was extracted with sodium bicarbonate solution using the Olsen method and quantified with the molybdophosphoric blue color technique. Sulfur was assessed by turbidimetry, with barium chloride generating the turbidity that a spectrophotometer reads at 420 nanometers. Potassium, calcium and magnesium were extracted with neutral ammonium acetate, and organic carbon was determined by the classic Walkley and Black wet oxidation method, converted to organic matter using the conventional Van Bemmelen factor of 1.724.

The numbers that emerged reveal a soil system under acute strain. Total nitrogen ranged from a mere 0.001 percent to 0.016 percent, with a mean of 0.0103 percent, and every sample landed in the very low category. Organic matter fared somewhat better, spanning 0.38 to 4.19 percent with a mean of 2.47 percent, but roughly half the samples still fell into the low class. Available phosphorus was the most erratic nutrient of all, ranging from 2.17 to 113.39 parts per million with a coefficient of variation of 136.7 percent, the highest of any measured parameter, and about half the samples were classified as low. Sulfur, by contrast, was remarkably consistent and overwhelmingly abundant, with 77.27 percent of samples in the very high category and a modest coefficient of variation of 34.28 percent. Potassium and magnesium were rated very high in every sample, while calcium mostly sat in the optimum range.

To turn these point measurements into a landscape-scale picture, the team used inverse distance weighted interpolation within ArcGIS 10 software. This technique estimates values at unsampled locations by weighting nearby measurements more heavily than distant ones, producing smooth nutrient distribution maps across the union. The researchers deliberately chose this method over more sophisticated geostatistical approaches such as kriging because, with only 22 sampling points, the reliability of variogram modeling degrades and simpler interpolation can actually outperform it. The resulting maps show nitrogen uniformly in the very low class across the entire area, phosphorus concentrated in the very low and low classes, sulfur exceeding 45 parts per million throughout, and potassium above 0.375 milliequivalents per 100 grams everywhere. Magnesium mirrored potassium, while organic matter clustered in the low to medium range.

The nutrient index, a weighted scoring system that condenses the frequency distribution of samples into a single fertility rating, confirmed the pattern. Nitrogen scored 1.0, the lowest possible value, and phosphorus scored 1.95, placing it in the medium band. Sulfur reached 5.31, potassium and magnesium both hit the maximum of 6.0, calcium scored 3.31, and organic matter registered 2.4. In practical terms, the soils of Gangarampur are starving for nitrogen and phosphorus while drowning in sulfur, potassium and magnesium. This imbalance matters because applying fertilizer blindly, without knowing which nutrients are already plentiful, wastes money, pollutes waterways and can even suppress yields through nutrient antagonism.

The reasons behind this skewed profile are rooted in the region’s geography and history. The study area sits within the high Ganges alluvial floodplain and the Ganges tidal floodplain, where periodic flooding with tidal water delivers seawater-derived sulfur, potassium and magnesium directly to the fields. Coastal soils formed from alluvial and deltaic deposits also contain potassium-rich minerals such as feldspar, mica and illite, which weather slowly and release potassium into the soil solution. Nitrogen, however, has no such geological subsidy. The authors attribute its collapse to excessive continuous cultivation, rapid decomposition of organic matter in the hot humid climate, minimal application of manure or compost, and gaseous losses of ammonium nitrogen to the atmosphere. With mean annual rainfall of 1,693 millimeters, leaching and denitrification strip what little mineral nitrogen the soil can hold.

Phosphorus deficiency has its own chemistry. The alkaline, calcareous coastal soils tend to lock phosphorus into insoluble forms that plant roots cannot access, a process known as phosphorus fixation. Salinity intrusion from the sea, an escalating problem in the Khulna region as sea levels rise and upstream freshwater flows decline, further suppresses phosphorus availability. Previous work in coastal Bangladesh, including surveys dating back to the 1980s, has consistently documented nitrogen deficits in saline zones, and the new maps confirm that decades of high-yielding variety rice cultivation, sustained by heavy applications of urea, triple superphosphate and muriate of potash, have failed to rebuild the underlying nutrient capital. Organic matter, the engine of soil fertility, remains low across much of the area, a decline the researchers link to erosion, altered land use including shrimp farming, and the removal of crop residues.

The correlations among nutrients add another layer of insight. The analysis found a positive relationship between nitrogen and calcium, but negative correlations between nitrogen and potassium, and between sulfur and magnesium. Such antagonistic patterns suggest that the abundant cations supplied by tidal flooding may interfere with nitrogen uptake or retention, complicating any simple fertilization recipe. The authors argue that the region’s excessive precipitation, driving erosion and leaching, combined with the sandy fraction inherited from the parent material, underlies the generally poor fertility rating for nitrogen and phosphorus. Their central recommendation is unambiguous: nitrogen nutrition should be the top priority, with careful attention to phosphorus, before any crop planning in the region.

The study is candid about its limits. Twenty-two samples taken from a shallow 15-centimeter depth cannot capture every nuance of spatial variability across a landscape of nearly 38 square kilometers, and the findings should be generalized with caution. The authors call for long-term monitoring to track how soil fertility changes over time, the integration of remote sensing and geostatistics to sharpen future maps, and the coupling of soil data with crop performance data to enable truly targeted nutrient management. Even so, the work delivers a practical tool for farmers, extension services and policymakers in a region where agriculture accounts for the majority of livelihoods and cropping intensity runs at roughly half the national average. By showing exactly where nitrogen must be rebuilt and where potassium and sulfur can be left alone, the nutrient atlas offers a blueprint for cutting fertilizer waste, reducing environmental degradation and steering the coastal fields of Khulna toward the sustainable, food-secure future that both the global sustainable development goals and local families demand.

Subject of Research: Spatial assessment of soil macronutrient status and fertility in coastal agricultural soils of Khulna, Bangladesh

Article Title: Spatial distribution of soil macronutrients and nutrient index for sustainable agriculture in the Khulna region of Bangladesh

Article References: Akhter, S., Islam, M. A., & Rahman, S. M. (2026). Spatial distribution of soil macronutrients and nutrient index for sustainable agriculture in the Khulna region of Bangladesh. Discover Soil, 3(1), Article 137. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44378-026-00296-9

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44378-026-00296-9

Keywords: soil fertility, macronutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus, nutrient index, spatial distribution, GIS mapping, Bangladesh, coastal agriculture, sustainable agriculture, soil organic matter, Khulna

The study, led by Jackline Juma Robert of Egerton University together with Mary W. K. Mathenge and Augustus Sammy Muluvi, examines why some smallholder cashew farmers throw themselves fully into cooperative life while others remain on the margins. The stakes are considerable. Kenya’s national cashew output has collapsed from 28,410 tonnes in 2015 to just 8,997 tonnes in 2023, and Kilifi County, which produces roughly 40 percent of the national crop and supports more than 70,000 smallholder farmers, sits at the epicenter of the decline. Weak institutional coordination, thin market linkages and low cooperative participation are identified as central culprits.

Agricultural cooperatives, the authors argue, are among the best-documented institutional fixes for smallholder market failure. By pooling produce and sharing infrastructure, they cut transaction costs, improve access to quality inputs, credit and markets, and create platforms for disseminating knowledge and new technologies. In cashew value chains specifically, cooperatives enable collective investment in storage, transport and processing, allowing farmers to capture more value from each nut. The problem, the researchers found, is not that cooperatives do not work; it is that participation intensity, meaning the number of different services a farmer actually draws from the cooperative, remains stubbornly low.

To investigate, the team surveyed 394 smallholder farmers in Kilifi North Sub-County, a designated cashew production zone where the crop is the principal cash enterprise. Using a multistage sampling design, they first purposively selected the county, then the sub-county, and finally four major cashew-producing wards: Kibarani, Matsangoni, Dabaso and Tezo. Individual respondents were drawn by simple random sampling from a register of 11,012 registered cashew farmers maintained by the county agriculture department and the Empowering Farmers Foundation, with the sample size calculated using Yamane’s formula and inflated slightly to guard against non-response.

Because the outcome of interest, the count of cooperative services a farmer receives, is count data plagued by excess zeros, the researchers compared four regression specifications: standard Poisson, negative binomial, zero-inflated Poisson and zero-inflated negative binomial. Diagnostic tests revealed significant overdispersion, with a mean of 1.82 against a variance of 2.62, and a glut of zeros largely produced by non-members who are structurally excluded from cooperative services. The zero-inflated Poisson model, which separately models this structural-zero group from the count process among members, delivered the lowest Akaike Information Criterion at 1304.858 and emerged as the preferred specification. Multicollinearity checks using variance inflation factors showed no problematic correlation among predictors.

The descriptive portrait of the farming population is striking in its own right. Nearly 64 percent of surveyed cashew farmers were women, a pattern the authors attribute to men migrating toward alternative income activities as cashew returns have stagnated, leaving women to shoulder routine farm management, harvesting and marketing. Cooperative members were also significantly more likely to have received training in cashew production and Good Agricultural Practices, to access market information, to use pesticides and to belong to social groups, suggesting that membership is entangled with broader networks of information and support.

The regression results tell a coherent economic story. Older farmers used more services, with each additional year of age raising the expected rate of service utilization by a factor of 1.012, plausibly because experience has taught them the long-run value of cooperative support. Education mattered as well: each additional year of schooling increased service uptake by a factor of 1.023. Larger households, with their deeper labor pools and diversified risk, participated more intensively, as did farmers earning off-farm income, whose expected rate of service use was 1.264 times higher per unit increase in such income, presumably because financial slack makes cooperative engagement less risky.

Scale and market access proved decisive. Each additional cashew tree owned raised expected service utilization by a factor of 1.004, reflecting economies of scale that make cooperative services worth the trouble, while farmers with market access used services at 1.895 times the rate of those without, a finding the authors interpret as evidence that a ready market builds the trust that underpins collective action. On the flip side, geography worked against participation: every additional kilometer from the nearest market, or from the nearest tarmac road, reduced service utilization by a factor of 0.985. Remoteness, the study suggests, cuts farmers off not just from physical market access but from extension visits, cooperative announcements and the peer networks through which cooperative life actually happens.

The authors are careful to acknowledge limits. Their data are cross-sectional, gathered between July and August 2025, and thus capture a snapshot rather than the dynamics of participation over time. Conditions in other cashew-producing areas, with different cooperative structures, market access and agroecology, may diverge from Kilifi North, cautioning against overgeneralization. Still, the analytical framework, grounded in Collective Action Theory and Random Utility Theory, treats each farmer as a utility maximizer weighing the perceived costs and benefits of engagement, and the data support that framing with unusual clarity.

The policy implications are concrete. The researchers recommend targeted training to diffuse information about cooperative benefits, deliberate strengthening of social networks and market interactions, and subsidy programs channeled through cooperatives, especially for farmers with fewer trees who might otherwise be priced out of participation. They also call for public investment in rural roads and market proximity, alongside growth in the non-farm economy, to raise off-farm incomes that fuel cooperative engagement. In a county where one nut once funded households, schools and futures, the message is blunt: reviving Kenya’s cashew sector may depend less on the tree than on the roads, education and trust that carry farmers into collective action.

Subject of Research: Determinants of the intensity of participation in agricultural cooperatives among smallholder cashew farmers in Kilifi County, Kenya

Article Title: Intensity of participation in cooperatives among smallholder cashew farmers in Kilifi County, Kenya

Article References: Robert, J. J., Mathenge, M. W. K., & Muluvi, A. S. (2026). Intensity of participation in cooperatives among smallholder cashew farmers in Kilifi County, Kenya. Discover Agriculture, 4(1), Article 282. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44279-026-00755-5

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44279-026-00755-5

Keywords: cashew farming, agricultural cooperatives, Kilifi County, Kenya, smallholder farmers, Zero-Inflated Poisson model, cooperative participation, market access, rural infrastructure, farm productivity, collective action, coastal agriculture