Studies have focused on identifying combinations of insects and organic waste to optimise bio-conversion. Here, the effects of different diets (10% chicken feed complemented with 90% vegetable waste, garden waste, cattle manure, or horse manure) on growth and survival rates, and nutritional value of Zophobas morio and Tenebrio molitor larvae, and Acheta domesticus were investigated. Compared with chicken feed, organic waste decreased the individual larval weight, although green waste showed fewer negative effects than the manure. The macronutrient concentrations in garden waste were moderate compared with chicken feed, and vegetable waste was the poorest diet in terms of nutrient concentration, as revealed by the principal component analysis (PCA). There was no difference in weight between larvae reared on garden waste and those reared on vegetable waste. Tenebrio molitor and A. domesticus showed the maximum growth rates at 71–101 and 36–66 days of age at 22.5 ± 2.5 °C, respectively. The PCA showed that the protein and fibre concentrations were inversely proportional to fat concentration in the larvae. Acheta domesticus was rich in proteins, whereas Z. morio and T. molitor were rich in fat. Feeding nutrient-poor diets resulted in a lower protein and a higher fat concentration in the larvae.

Historically, Hungary has witnessed numerous waves of drought episodes, causing significant agro-economic loss. Over the recent decades, the intensity, severity and frequency of drought occurrence have dramatically shifted, with undisputable upward tendencies across many areas. Thus, the main aim of this study was to characterize drought trends, intensity and duration over Hungary during 1961-2010. To attain the study goals, the present analyses utilized climate datasets obtained from Climate of the Carpathian region project-CARPATCLIM for 1045 gridded points covering entire Hungary. Meanwhile, a well-known drought index, namely; standardized precipitation index (SPI) and the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) at 12-month timescales were employed for drought characterization. Furthermore, the sub-set regions of drought in Hungary were identified using S-mode of the principal component analysis. The Mann-Kendall trend test analysis showed a significant negative SPI-12 trend (P \ 0.05) in 11.5% of the total points over the western part of Hungary. In comparison, 43.2% of the total numbers of the SPEI-12 time series gridded points showed a significant negative trend (P \ 0.05) over the similar locale. However, both indices' trends highlighted the fact that the northeastern region is less sensitive to drought despite experiencing the highest of total drought duration. Results also suggested that the SPI-12 indicates that no significant change can be detected from 1961 to 2010 over Hungary. In contrast, the SPEI-12 exhibits that the drought waves that hit Hungary were more pronounced, with a significant positive (P \ 0.05) trend of ? 1.4% per decade being detected for the area affected by very extreme drought. All in all, this study is one of the primary steps toward a better understanding of drought vulnerability assessment in Hungary.

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This paper aims to outline the consequences of the Syrian conflict on the land use/cultivated area, yield and production of the main crops: wheat, cotton, and olives. To achieve the study goal secondary data were collected from FAO website. After that the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model was applied for the time series analysis. Finally, the decrease in production was calculated and the total losses were valued at the local and international prices. A long‐term analysis from 1960 to 2016 showed a significant positive change for the main studied crops, but a significant negative change was noticed from 2000 to 2016 due to the conflict issue in Syria. while, the highest reduction was recorded in 2014 for wheat and olives by 47.53% and 64.18% respectively and in 2016 for cotton with more than 93% of the total reduction. Whereas, the total losses in local prices were (US$1,168,204,415) and (US$4,733,586,663), valued at the international price for the main crops: wheat, cotton, and olives, which are 9% of the 2011 Syrian GDP.