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Sustainable urban farming is a strategy to improve food availability and food access, and to support food security for the urban population in Malaysia. However, the development of these activities has been affected by several constraints. This article aims to identify the challenges faced by urban farmers in Kuala Lumpur. The challenges of practicing urban gardening were categorised into five groups (technical, resource-related, economic, social and environmental factors). Data were collected via a questionnaire survey distributed to 106 urban farming practitioners from 17 urban gardens in Kuala Lumpur and were analysed using descriptive analysis by tabulating the frequency and percentage. The result showed that highly fluctuating weather, problems with access to available land and financial problems were the main challenges faced by urban farmers in Kuala Lumpur. Furthermore, difficulty in access to a financial institution, lack of commitment and the increased number of pests were also the problems faced by the urban garden. Availability of technical factors is the least issue in this study. Correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship between the challenges of urban gardens and socio-demographics. The result showed that there was a weak correlation between technical factors of educational level (r = 0.225) and race (r = 0.210), respectively, as well as between race and social factor (r = 0.201), while there was a moderate correlation between age and environment factor (r = −0.410). There is a need for further work, and comprehensive research should be conducted to capture what actions can be taken to create a policy-making space for urban farmers.

The rice husk and anchovy filet industry is one of the world's most successful industries and generates many biowastes with valuable bioproducts. Combining effective microorganisms (EM) with anchovy head (AH) and rice husk (RH) will produce a beneficial fertilizer and make nutrients more valuable to the plant. Thus, this study aims to determine the most effective anchovy head and rice husk treatment ratio for agricultural applications to reduce waste disposal from anchovy heads and rice husks worldwide, which may cause environmental problems. In this study, rice husk and anchovy head were fermented at five different ratios of treatment weight for 25 days: Treatment A with 100% AH, treatment B with 100% RH, treatment C with 50% AH:50% RH, treatment D with 70% AH:30% RH, and treatment E with 30% AH:70% RH. The pH, temperature, and number of colonies of every treatment were measured every 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 days. This study shows that treatment D with a ratio of 70% AH: 30% RH is the most suitable based on pH range within 6-8.5, consistently increasing temperature and the highest number of colonies to be applied to plants. The ratio of rice husk and anchovy head of treatment D in this study can be used further by other researchers to discover their potential, especially for the agricultural industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodegradable films are extremely important for food packaging applications since they minimize environmental effects. However, their application areas are limited due to insufficient characteristics required for particular applications. The objective of the present research was to improve the properties of sago‐based biodegradable films embedded with nano‐ and micro‐ZnO (zinc oxide). Nano and micro‐ZnO were incorporated in the films at different percentages (1%, 3%, and 5%) in that the films were formed using the solvent casting method. The physicochemical, barrier, thermal, optical, morphology, and mechanical properties of sago‐based films were investigated. Adding 5% of micro‐ and nano‐ZnO significantly improved film thickness (0.162 and 0.150 mm, respectively) and WVP (4.40 and 5.64 (kg/s)/(m.Pa), respectively) while the optical properties and thermal stability exhibited superior performance. Micro‐ZnO particles improved the mechanical properties of sago‐based biodegradable films with the tensile strength reaching 6.173 MPa. Moreover, sago‐based nano‐ZnO films showed excellent UV‐shielding performance and relatively good visible‐light transmittance. This study suggested that sago biodegradable film incorporated with micro‐ZnO could be an excellent alternative to petroleum‐based plastic packaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study intended to provide biopolymer films used as food packaging, which will result in reducing environmental pollution produced by the activities of synthetic food packaging. We used zinc oxide nanorods (ZnO-nr) and we prepared nanocomposite films by means of solvent casting. FTIR and SEM were employed to characterize the final films. SEM images revealed that ZnO-nr particles were homogenously distributed throughout the film surface. The thermal, optical, and heat sealability properties of the films were also examined. Adding ZnO-nr significantly reduced oxygen permeability and heat sealability. The semolina films’ UV absorbance was highly impacted by the degree of ZnO-nr addition. The nanocomposite films absorbed above 90% of the near infrared spectra. In addition, the zeta potential revealed the surface charge of ZnO-nr had a negative charge of about −33.9 mV.