Category: Natural Environment

One’s natural surroundings can create a psychological impact that affects their moods and perceptions. Most researchers have seen how the natural surroundings one is near clearly influence one’s emotions and the way one views life. Because our environment is an essential part of life and we view it daily, it is from unknown thoughts that certain sceneries create different influences on people, for example, we will be referring to Portland in this research. Portland has been seen as a city with a beautiful natural environment since it is full of many views that are eye-catching and so eventful for people to enjoy and visit. It also contains viewpoints of the cityscape that bring Portland as a whole together. These kinds of views in the environment can be utilized in representation of how humans are connected to it, and how the surrounding can create an impact on the way one lives. Whether one is dealing with stressful situations or is having problems, the impact of being outdoors can be very beneficial to their situations and to feel more connected with the environment. Portland’s environment will impact a person psychologically, whether it’s with the natural influences or the cityscapes it has represented to us.

The benefits that nature has to humankind and all organisms around the world are a wonderful phenomenon. Much research has been conducted on what natural ecosystems do to one and all organisms that affect humans and other animals. We are born and raised in this environment, essentially connected to nature, and that simple bond is what has the most effect in all, it has the power to draw out what you never knew was in you. In this environment, human beings, animals, and nature all have a peaceful relationship that unites us to achieve harmony in the world. In his article, the author, Howard Frumkin, addressed the relevance of environmental issues to humanity. Specifically, he examined the relationships of one’s influences to nature when he mentioned, “A crucial step in the lives of most organisms, including humans, is a selection of a habitat. If a creature gets into the right place, everything else is likely to be easier ”(Frumkin, pg.3) which analyzes the concept of evolutionary selection, assesses important ideologies of how many times all kinds of organisms have used their instincts, such as their senses, and essentially their presence, and how they have felt in those environments to decide if it was a safe place for them to be. Leading to the idea now that logic can be linked to how one responds and chooses a place of security in this world. In the natural environment, the experience of animals, plants, ecosystems, and sustainability has always been linked to the way we survive and improve in our lives, but we have moved beyond the basics, posing a challenge for more people who do not realize that there could be a solution to their challenges, which could be to get out and reconnect with nature. He also mentions a sensible argument regarding this when he asserts, “taking seriously our affiliation with the natural world—may be an effective way to enhance health, not to mention cheaper and freer of side effects than medications”(Frumkin, pg.5) reflecting the focus on scientific information on how the natural environment is beneficial to one’s health. He pointed out how the way this world functions and how patients find care will transform quickly. It also puts forth solutions that improve our capacity to cure ourselves through what we are connected to. All of this is linked to the commitment that certain things that the natural environment has to offer to provide a range of health benefits, both physically and psychologically, to one surrounded by this kind of environment. The presence of finding a space where you can express yourself and feel at ease can affect one’s mind and help offer a lot of health benefits. Inducing new ways to consider how helpful nature is to your life because it’s like going back to what nature offers to support when you try to connect with it. It signifies therapeutic time and gives one the sense of being in harmony with nature, whether that is surrounded or viewed.

There are several ways we can define the relationship between humans and nature, but the important principles we can concentrate on are aspects that keep us from progressing forward. One’s mental wellbeing is a powerful thing that keeps people with disorders or psychological problems to be in the same place they presume is safe. The environment around us is a major determinant of our mental health impact. This is what the author Hartig addresses in his article as he stipulates that “The immediate setting is part of some larger place or whole. It derives from a sense of the relatedness of immediate perceived…”(Hartig, 6) Reflecting in-depth one’s central issue is the need to reconnect with the environment. One normally focuses on their bubble in their private space, turning it like a barrier and enabling them to escape since this is a convenience that keeps them from progressing forward in life. This setting they can’t leave doesn’t inspire one to do something else which causes some kind of mental issue. They provided a thorough description of how a natural environment can assist one with one’s inner peace and help to restore one’s mental energy. It also points out that when you’re raised in something that can be considered peaceful rather than healthy, it might simply be your brain trying to tell you that it’s acceptable because it’s turning into a psychological problem. Another author who examines this is Berman, who explores that being outdoors and experiencing nature is a necessary thing for one’s well-being since it offers relaxation and allows some opportunity to collect their thoughts. Emphasizing the relevance of nature experiences with all, she explains this when she declares, “On one hand, to the extent that inter-acting with natural environments replenish cognitive resources, individuals with MDD may show the same or even greater cognitive gains than those demonstrated by healthy individuals.”(Berman, 301) Referring to how there are two key ways in which it can influence various individuals with different mental perceptions, it shows that it could be helpful for others to go for a walk and for others to worsen their condition. That’s why Berman realized that he was not entirely able to show how this process affects one’s attitude or perception, but that they saw a major overall influence, giving them a better sense of why nature-related relationships are important to humans. Her experiment surrounded those with MDD, but also the effect it might have on someone who doesn’t have it, and it was all pretty healthy. This is a chance to connect with what’s been with us, to give us life, and to promote a lot of well-rounded results for humankind.

We will see a tremendous difference in the conditions in which we find ourselves in our natural environment. The different styles of the landscape have different influences on people and are also determined by the way one was raised and how the world is perceived. The way these associations link us to the world has a mental effect on them. There are several different places in Portland that you can go to with wonderful natural scenery either to think or stroll about. Portland has been considered to be a great city with some fascinating natural sights. Most of these places all have something in common, that is, how they can help one cope with the challenges they may encounter and relax by embracing the freedom that nature has to offer. In another article, the author Bratman draws us to the conclusion that certain settings lead to different modes of living and make people have different views of the landscape. When he claims, “The specific ways in which people interact with nature may account for differential impacts of nature exposure on mental health” and “People have different levels of awareness and perceptions of natural environments in their attitudes and receptivity toward nature, childhood experiences, and sense of connectedness to nature”(Bratman, 5-6) thus illustrating that the variation between environmental settings will affect, how you react when you interact with nature. It emphasizes the importance of natural experiences for one’s mental health and how accelerated urbanization can lead to a reduction in contact with nature. We see that it has been seen in all the natural scenery that Portland has left and given a perfect spot for everyone to observe.

An attribute that we can see from the town of Portland is all its eco-friendliness and the way it has managed to remain both natural and modern. There are several areas in Portland that can offer this kind of liberation to the environment. Such locations are Washington Park, Mt. Tabor Park, Powell Butte, Japanese Gardens, and many more scenic spots with excellent views. These places offer a mode of connection that is desirable and conducive to one’s well-being.

Whether we should think about the future of the environment as a matter of doing justice to future generations, is based upon the grounds to which we should be obliged to work to protect the environment. The protection of the environment is a basic human duty and a natural law to which we all depend upon to live from day-to-day. It is a duty by individuals, organisations and governments to incorporate policy approaches to fulfill this. As part of the Intergenerational Justice concept, the extents and limits of Social Justice regarding the need to protect the natural environment, justify the basis to which we owe duties, to us and the future generations to follow.

This essay will discuss whether we should be obliged to work today to protect the environment, for the needs and interests of future generations. On the other hand, whether it comes down to the basic deep ecological view that nature is intrinsically valuable. Furthermore, considerations will be addressed on protecting the environment as a matter of Justice to future generations, and if so, on what grounds.

The global nature of threats to the environment and the necessity of international cooperation were first recognized in the UN’s Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972. The Stockholm Declaration issued by the conference recognized the right to a healthy environment, on the part of both present and future generations, and called for countries to preserve nonrenewable resources and to prevent damage to ecosystems and to the earth’s atmosphere. Environmental intergenerational duties and natural law are two theories used to weigh up the extent to which we have a duty to protect the natural environment. The extents and limits of social justice in the intergenerational concept justify the basis of how and why we owe our duties.

Northcott argues the location of the origins of the current environmental crisis in the rise of modernist science and economics, and emphasises that a solution to the issues lies in the Christian tradition of Natural Law ethics. Northcott also emphasises the non-religious, natural law abiding reasoning for the basis of protecting the natural environment, through social and anthropological arguments – as well as evaluating Natural Law precepts are found under all religious denominations in the Modern Society. Whether this gives grounds for protecting the environment is up to debate. There is an emphasis that Natural Law and intergenerational duties cover all humans. Thus, we all have the duty to protect and not just exploit with disregard for the future generations.

A just account of the environment will take into consideration both the fact that people have legitimate interests, and there must be limits on people’s environmental impacts. The Egalitarian concept presses the position of equality of opportunity requires us to protect the natural environment, through our ability to live a good life should not be undermined by unchosen circumstances – factors beyond our control. Such factors would be that of future generations who have to live a limited life due to a damaged environment. People both in the present and the future must have sufficient resources so that there is equal opportunity to live a good life.

Protecting the environment for future generations must incorporate whole society movements and changes to everyday life to ensure that the natural environment is protected from today, so forth for future generations. Since the 1980s, the concept of sustainability has been adopted to describe a compromise between the need for economic development and the protection of resources for future generations. Schumacher takes the principle challenge through the Buddhist economic approach on the principle of ‘right livelihood’. This illustrates the types of radical changes and challenges to individual economies, which cannot be sustained by the poor nations. Further to this the challenges in protecting the natural environment as a matter of justice. Industrial development is the temporary cushion and developments which can offer medium-term benefits to poor countries, and coordinated through international action; though proves difficult under such circumstances. Bridging the gap between global coordinationcommunication and individuals lifestyle choices, could have the ability to create the grounds for the radical change necessary at this point.

Deep Ecology has shaped the understanding of Arne Naess and Val Plumwood, forming the foundational argument on the basis of why the natural environment has to be protected for future generations. That nature does not need protection, but requires protection. From the deep ecology perspective, the natural world must be preserved due to its inherent value and humans should only affect it to protect vital needs. In this argument humans should not seek to protect the environment, rather that nature is intrinsically valuable. In Reasons and Person (1984) Derek Parfit illustrates the problem with an influential basic observation, Future persons cannot be rendered worse off by our unsustainable living. Rather, the particular people who will exist in the future will do so as a result of how we decide to live our lives. John Rawls goes further to suggest environmental degradation threatens political stability and access to goods upon which many rights depend. However, as Richard Hiskes argues, the modern dilemma inquiries humans to look after the environment as a matter of moral obligation, rather than an actual requirement of Justice.

Through the concept of Human Rights another approach is addressed. As a key moral value, endorsed by adherents to a wide variety of different philosophical perspectives. Through a human rights perspective the environment matters, at least in part, because environmental degradation undermines core human rights to food and water, to health, and to life. The Libertarian case brings an unusual approach. Libertarian theorists are in favour of robust private property rights, and individuals should not be expected to transfer their property or spend their income or resources for their protection. As Liebell explains, environmental degradation is a problem for liberalism, but through John Locke’s work linked the values of freedom, fairness, and equality to the natural world. A libertarian would think that there is no injustice if the harms wholly arose from natural phenomena, and were not caused by humans. At this present time, climate change, biodiversity loss, or acid rain, are key examples of the environmental impact of human behaviour. Thus, it is justified for a liberalitarian to intercept individual freedoms.

Boulding argues that Humans have traditionally acted as though they live in a Cowboy Economy – an economy with unlimited opportunities – suggesting that this type of Human behaviour towards, what essentially is the environment, has encouraged exploitative, and violent behaviour. In support of this, the Utilitarian principle argues that we should always choose the course of actions that will maximise the amount of happiness or well-being in the world. The Utilitarian case questions why the well-being of future generations should be considered in our calculation to those who live now, and through accepting this premise, then there is clearly an obligation to protect and save natural resources for the future.

To conclude, the natural environment should be protected for future generations based on a moral duty, and a matter of intergenerational justice. The intrinsic value of nature for human life, should be preserved through the equality of opportunity for future generations to have the same opportunities as those today. Further to this the liberal view demonstrates that what is left (through property means) should be enough and as good for others. Therefore, protecting the natural environment, not only benefits the individual but future generations that will follow.

Whether we should think about the environment as a matter of doing justice to future generations, is based upon the grounds to which we should be obliged to work to protect the environment because of the needs and interests of future generations. This essay will actively argue the point at which intervention by humans to protect future generations through protecting the environment, or whether it comes down to the basic deep ecological view that nature is intrinsically valuable. Furthermore, considerations will be addressed on whether protecting the environment is a matter of Justice to future generations, and on what grounds.

The global nature of threats to the environment and the necessity of international cooperation were first recognized in the UN’s Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972. The Stockholm Declaration issued by the conference recognized the right to a healthy environment, on the part of both present and future generations, and called for countries to preserve nonrenewable resources and to prevent damage to ecosystems and to the earth’s atmosphere. Environmental intergenerational duties and natural law are two theories used to weigh up the extent to which we have a duty to protect the natural environment. The extents and limits of social justice in the intergenerational concept justify the basis of how and why we owe our duties.

Northcott argues the location of the origins of the current environmental crisis in the rise of modernist science and economics, and emphasises that a solution to the issues lies in the Christian tradition of Natural Law ethics. Northcott also emphasises the non-religious, natural law abiding reasoning for the basis of protecting the natural environment, through social and anthropological arguments – as well as evaluating Natural Law precepts are found under all religious denominations in the Modern Society. Whether this gives grounds for protecting the environment is up to debate. There is an emphasis that Natural Law and intergenerational duties cover all humans. Thus, we all have the duty to protect and not just exploit with disregard for the future generations.

A just account of the environment will take into account both the fact that people have legitimate interests which involve both the fact the people have legitimate interests which involve using the environment, and the fact that there must be limits on people’s environmental impacts. The Egalitarian concept presses the position of equality of opportunity requires us to protect the natural environment, through our ability to live a good life should not be undermined by unchosen circumstances – factors beyond our control. Such factors would be that of future generations who have to live a limited life due to a damaged environment. People both in the present and the future must have sufficient resources so that there is equal opportunity to live a good life.

Protecting the environment for future generations must incorporate whole society movements and changes to everyday life to ensure that the natural environment is protected from today, so forth for future generations. Since the 1980s, the concept of sustainability has been adopted to describe a compromise between the need for economic development and the protection of resources for future generations. Schumacher takes the principle challenge through the Buddhist economic approach on the principle of right livelihood. This actively illustrates the types of radical changes and challenges to individual economies, which cannot be sustained by the poor nations. Furthermore, this suggests the challenges to what extent is protecting the natural environment a matter of justice for future generations. Industrial development is the temporary cushion and developments which can offer medium-term benefits to poor countries, and coordinated through international action. Though, proves difficult under such circumstances. Bridging the gap between global coordinationcommunication and individuals lifestyle choices, could have the ability to create the radical change necessary at this point.

Deep Ecology has shaped the understanding of Arne Naess and Val Plumwood, forming the foundational argument on the basis of why the natural environment has to be protected for future generations. That nature does not need protection, but that the natural environment requires protection. From the deep ecology perspective, the natural world must be preserved due to its inherent value and humans should only affect it to protect vital needs. In this argument humans should not seek to protect the environment, rather that nature is intrinsically valuable. In Reasons and Person (1984) Derek Parfit actively illustrates the problem with an influential basic observation, Future persons cannot be rendered worse off by our unsustainable living. Rather, the particular people who will exist in the future will do so as a result of how we decide to live our lives. John Rawls goes further to suggest environmental degradation threatens political stability and access to goods upon which many rights depend. However, as Richard Hiskes argues, the modern dilemma inquiries humans to look after the environment as a matter of moral obligation, rather than an actual requirement of Justice.

Through the concept of Human Rights another approach is addressed. As a key moral value, endorsed by adherents to a wide variety of different philosophical perspectives, through a human rights perspective the environment matters at least in part because environmental degradation undermines core human rights to food and water, to health, and to life. The Libertarian case brings an unusual approach. Libertarian theorists are in favour of robust private property rights, and individuals should not be expected to transfer their property or spend their income or resources for their protection. As Liebell explains, environmental degradation is a problem for liberalism, but through John Locke’s work linkd the values of freedom, fairness, and equality to the natural world. A libertarian would think that there is no injustice if the harms wholly arose from natural phenomena, and were not caused by humans. At this present time, climate change, biodiversity loss, or acid rain, are key examples of the environmental impact of human behaviour. Thus, it is justified for a liberalitarian to intercept individual freedoms.

Boulding argues that Humans have traditionally acted as though they live in a Cowboy Economy – an economy with unlimited opportunities – suggesting that this type of Human behaviour towards, what essentially is the environment, has encouraged violent, exploitative, and violent behaviour. In support of this, the Utilitarian principle argues that we should always choose the course of actions that will maximise the amount of happiness or well-being in the world. The Utilitarian case questions why the well-being of future generations should be considered in our calculation to those who live now, and through accepting this premise, then there is clearly an obligation to protect and save natural resources for the future.

The protection of the environment is a basic human duty and a natural law to which we all depend upon to live from day-to-day. It is a duty by individuals, organisations and governments to incorporate policy approaches to fulfill this. As part of the Intergenerational Justice concept, the extents and limits of Social Justice regarding the need to protect the natural environment, justify the basis to which we owe duties of justice, to us and the future generations to follow. Thus, the natural word must be preserved for its inherent value and the human species should only affect the natural environment to protect vital needs.

The impact of man on environment through his economic activities are varied and highly complex as the transformation of the natural condition and process leads to a series of changes in the biotic and abiotic components of the environment. Environment condition would have been worsened if the pandemic had not hit world. Before 2019, holy rivers like Ganga were polluted also the air pollution in Delhi was worse that people started wearing masks. People were taking initiative to save the environment and planting more trees.

On late December 2019 in Wuhan city, in China, an unusual pneumonia was noticed caused by microorganism, named COVID-19. COVID-19 soon spread to other parts of the world. WHO declared the situation a pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted every aspect of human life and the global economy. The number of new cases and deaths is increasing at an alarming rate with no signs of control yet, making the estimates of its economic and other impacts uncertain. Due to the unusual outbreak of COVID-19, many countries were under partial or total lockdown for a long period of time for months. Under the nationwide lockdown, all transport services – road, air and rail were suspended with exceptions for essential services which improved the condition of environment.

There are many causes for environmental problems in India. However, some of the very common causes of environmental degradation which can be clearly pointed out are the population growth, the economic growth, industrial growth, unplanned urbanization, poverty, change of technology, and etc. The conditions of poverty and underdevelopment themselves create a situation where the people are forced to live in squalor and further degrade their environment. The process of development itself also leads to damage of the environment, if not properly managed.

It is fundamental human right to live in an unpolluted environment and It is fundamental duty of every individual to maintain purity of environment. Protection and improvement of environment is a constitutional mandate. The Indian Constitution contains specific provisions for environment protection under the chapters of Directive Principles of State Policy and Fundamental Duties

Equality before the law and equal protection of the law has been granted under article 14 of the Constitution. This fundamental right impliedly casts a duty upon the state to be fair while taking actions in regard to environmental protection and thus, cannot infringe article 14.

The right conferred upon the citizens under Article 19(1)(g) is thus subject to the complete or partial prohibition or to regulation, by the State. However, under the provisions of Article 19(6) the prohibition, partial or complete, or the regulation, has to be in the interests of the general public. To which Supreme Court held in the case Small Hydro Power Developers’ vs Transmission Corporation of A.P. on 8 May, 2008, that Industries engaged in the work of chemicals and production of hazardous substances owe a duty to protect environment.

Article 21 of the constitution of India provides for the right to life and personal liberty. It states that no person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law. In the case of Subhash Kumar v State of Bihar, again the apex court held that the right to get pollution free water and air is a fundamental right under Article 21.

It is the duty of state to protect environment under article 47. Supreme Courts and High Courts have been taking petitions under articles 32 and 226 as the violation of article 21.

Kendra v State of UP, also known as the Dehradun quarrying case, the Supreme Court of India has held that pollution caused by quarries adversely affects the health and safety of people and hence, the same should be stopped as being violative of Article 21.In this case, the Supreme Court for the first time held that the right to wholesome environment is a part of right to life and personal liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.

In State of U.P. v. Yamuna Shanker Misra & Ors., (1997) 4 SCC 7, this Court interpreted the object of writing the confidential reports and making entries in the character rolls by deriving support from Article 51-A(j) which enjoins upon every citizen the primary duty to constantly endeavour to strive towards excellence, individually and collectively.

M C MEHTA, who was single-handedly responsible for making environmental degradation a part of public discourse, says it is vital that PILs have no ulterior motive.

On December 4th, 1985. Oleum gas had just leaked from the Shriram Chlorine plant in Najafgarh, and Delhi had panicked. When the matter came up, Mehta referred to the Oleum gas that had leaked just three hours earlier. The gas leaked at 11 am; the case was listed and heard at 2 pm, no case has been heard this quickly. The Supreme Court punished the company heavily; the entire complex eventually shut down. More far reaching, the Supreme Court created the `absolute liability principle’ — companies engaged in inherently hazardous activities had absolutely no excuse when an accident occurred.

The court held that any enterprise that is engaged in an inherently dangerous activity is `absolutely’ liable to compensate all those affected by an accident. They key feature of the judgment was the principle of `absolute liability’, in which no exceptions (such as an `act of God’) are brooked.

The Court held that the Municipality has failed to discharge its ‘primary duty’ resulting in the acute sanitation problem in Jaipur city which is hazardous to the life of the citizens of the city. In this case the Court explained the true scope of Article 51-A in the following words:’ can call Article 51-A ordinarily as the duty of the citizens, but in fact it is the right of the citizens as it creates the right in favour of the citizens to move to the court to see that the State performs its duties faithfully and the obligatory and primary duties are performed in accordance with the law of the land. Omissions or commissions are brought to the notice of the court by the citizen and thus, Article 51-A gives a right to the citizens to move the court for the enforcement of the duty cast on the state, instrumentalities, agencies, departments, local bodies and statutory authorities created under the particular law of the state.

The Petition was filed against the water pollution caused due to excessive release of pollutants by the tanneries and other industries in the State of Tamil Nadu into the river Palar. Palar River was the main source of water for the livelihood of the surrounding people. Later, the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University Research Centre, Vellore discovered that approximately 35,000 hectares of agricultural land has turned either entirely or partially barren and not fit for cultivation.

The court observed that these Tanneries are the major foreign exchange earner to the country and also provide employment to several people. But at the same time, it harms the environment and poses a health hazard to everyone. The Court ruled in favour of Petitioners and directed all the Tanneries to deposit a sum of rupees ten thousand in the office of Collector as fine. The Court further directed the State of Tamil Nadu to award Mr M. C. Mehta with a sum of Rupees Fifty thousand as a token of appreciation towards his efforts in protecting the environment. The Hon’ble Supreme Court also made it a point to emphasize on the formation of green benches in dealing with matters related to the protection of the environment

Connecting human rights and environment is a valuable sourcebook that explores the uncharted territory that lies between environmental and human rights legislation. Human beings can ensure fundamental equality and adequate conditions of life in an environment that permits a life of dignity and well-being.

There is an urgent need to formulate laws keeping in mind the fact that those who pollute or destroy the natural environment are not just committing a crime against nature, but are violating human rights as well.

Indeed, health has seemed to be the subject that bridges gaps between the two fields of environmental protection and human rights. The advancement of the relationship between human rights and environment would enable incorporation of human rights principles within an environmental scope, such as anti-discrimination standards, the need for social participation and the protection of vulnerable groups.

RATIONALE

In this investigation I am going to be investigating how minerals affect the growth of plants and perceive the essential minerals that the vegetation requires to develop efficiently. The motive why I am going to research how minerals influence the plant increase is to be able to detect a less expensive alternative manner to make fertiliser, which can reduce the cost of plant germination and might lower the rate of crops. Also, by discovering an inexpensive alternative way of making fertiliser this enables me to perform some primary and secondary research to determine which minerals are important to offer natural plant growth. I’m going to exploit 5 different sorts of secondary sources to discover some more statistics roughly plant nutrition. Then I am going to carry out some research into primary studies that assist me to analyse the effect of minerals on plant growth. This would make growing plants and crops affordable because the faster the plant grows, the more produced. This would be mostly useful in areas such as Africa because minerals are expensive and as a less developed country it is hard to obtain all the useful minerals to assist plant growth and the land is dry which affects soil productivity. This is a huge impact on the continent because for people such as farmers, they will be unable to grow enough crops and plants meaning shortage of income which can lead to families suffering.

LITERATURE REVIEW

There are many factors that restrict plant growth and these factors include; nutrition, temperature and water. As mentioned by (OSU Extension Service, 2020) that “the environmental factors that affect plant growth are water, humidity, temperature, light and nutrition” this shows that these factors are common limitations of plant growth. (OSU Extension Service, 2020) also states that “poor environmental conditions such as too little water can damage a plant directly” which mostly implies to areas such as Africa un locations such as the Sahara Desert because the land is deserted as stated by (Sharp, 2020)”the Sahara has substantial underground water reservoirs” this suggests that there is little water which makes it impossible to grow plants or crops.

(Soils4teachers.org, 2018) mentions that “desert soils form in areas where evaporation and transpiration is much greater than precipitation” which emphasises that soil productivity is important because plant growth begin in the roots and if there is insufficient water, this can lead to plants and crops dying. According to Fao,2019 “many soils are losing the minerals and organic matter that makes them fertile “and this shows that dry farming would encourage soil loss, and this restricts plant growth and soil productivity.

One of the other serious issues which affect plant growth according to (Slavikova and Popescu,2017) are humans through overgrazing and deforestation “overgrazing leads to land degradation which leads to loss of topsoil which makes it impossible for native plants to start growing again “this means that if humans continue overgrazing this will influence the natural habitats such as animals and mostly plants as this will lead to animals feeding in one area which will destroy the soil productivity. (Slavikova and Popescu, 2017) also suggest that “plants will be unable to grow which can eventually lead to damage in the root system” and this will make the plant regrowth harder because transpiration cycle will be affected. As specified in the Life of plant blog (2020) that “as forest habitat shrinks through deforestation, many plants and animals become vulnerable “this implies that the more overgrazing and deforestation, the lesser of a chance soil productivity taking place because without trees there is dryland because lack of trees encourages climate change and global warming as mentioned by (European Environment Agency, 2015) “higher temperatures could also increase decomposition and mineralisation “which affects the soil moisture.

Can nutrient deficiency affect plant growth? Parson (2001) states that “for a healthy plant growth, three crucial mineral irons are required in the soil to have soil productivity” which implies that within my investigation l have to implant some minerals irons into the soil to ensure the soil is mineral iron rich to prevent the deficiency which will enable faster growth. The source also mentions “most beneficial minerals include nitrate, phosphate and potassium” which is very useful because nitrate is mainly used in making amino acids, phosphates are an essential to plants during aspiration and respiration, and potassium assists enzymes and also assists plants during photosynthesis and respiration. However in the ‘epic garden’ blog (Espiritu, 2017) talks about the effect of nutrient deficiency on plant growth. (Espiritu, 2017) also mentions “primary nutrients which determine the plant growth including phosphate, nitrate and potassium” this is known as the NPK which is mostly found in fertilisers used by farmers to grow crops.

Limitations

Enclosed area; as the practical investigation has to be carried out in a laboratory, this illustrates that my observation is limited as l will not have to access to the laboratory without assistance. Therefore, this means the outcome will not be observed throughout which can have an impact on my results as l cannot change the environment settings to an area which plants can easily undergo photosynthesis. Changing the environment will make the investigation difficult because it is supposed to be a controlled environment which means changing the environment will make it into a dependent variable.

Restricted time; the conduction of the experiment is time limited which suggest that the conditions of the plant growth has to be met as l have to meet my aim to complete the investigation. Within this given time, l have to research plants which are able to germinate in as early as 3 weeks or less in order to meet any given time while using time contingency to complete the investigative project.

Type of seed; when it comes to seeds, a rotten seed can have a huge impact on my investigation because there are no physical signs which can make me aware that the seed used is not fresh. This can eventually be time consuming as it can take a longer time period than using fresh seeds because even in good conditions the plant growth will still be minimised.

Initial method shows germination of barley seeds and during this experiment I might need to propagate barley with fluid culture. This would enable me to collect relevant results related to my aim and hypothesis which means l might need to live the mass of the seed before and once it germinates. I will also need to link the 2 ideals to be able to make the comparison. By undertaking this experiment, I will need to use secondary data values as it will allow me to identify what l did wrong and how l can improve to give me reliable supply of knowledge. On the opposite hand, this test wouldn’t relate to my investigative project aim which is to check the way quantity of minerals will affect plant growth. This experiment is aimed to check what quantity minerals the plant absorbs. Also, this experiment does not require time contingency as it takes three weeks for the barley to germinate. However, I may acclimate my experiment to allow it to match the restricted quantity of my time frame.

The second method I reviewed was the research of algal suspension. During this experiment I might be observant the speed that the algal grows within the culture answer. I might use haemocytometer to estimate what quantity algal grows. This experiment relates a lot of to my aim then the primary methodology. This is often because the aim of the experiment is to seek out however the culture answer impact the expansion of the algal. However, this methodology is extremely temporary and doesn’t make a case for the characteristics I want to be trying to find. Also, if I perform this experiment once observant the plant growth, l might be biased because this will allow me to relate my results to my aim.

Conclusion

Generally speaking, the two methods that I have investigated would not be appropriate for my experiment. However I could utilize parts from the two experiments in my investigation as I need to record my findings by quantitative information and by observation. I would do this by estimating the length of my plant after a particular time. Also would need to be able to distinguish any physical changes in the plant for instance, colour shade pattern of the plant or inadequacies the plant may have to an absence of minerals. Additionally, would need to consider certain variables such as volumes of fluid culture in each seed.

When a child in the developed world feels sick, usually her/his parents take the child to visit a doctor. The doctor then prescribes a medicine of some sort, and the family leaves the hospital with a soon to be healthy child. The advanced medicines such as pills, syrups, inhalants, eg., have progressed human society to fight diseases and illnesses. The majority of humans have become solely dependent upon Western medicine, resulting in the decrease use of plants for both physical and spiritual healing. Before the engineering of modern medicine, civilizations and cultures were reliant upon the medicinal properties in plants. To this day, there are still some individuals and indigenous groups who utilize plants for healing properties.

Some indigenous groups of the world still use plants for physical healing, spiritual, cultural purposes. Scientists and engineers have studied the chemical properties of the plants possessing healing abilities to create modern medicine that many individuals use today. In fact, 40% of the world’s pharmaceutical medicine originates from medicinal plants; therefore, studying the properties of plants can be of assistance in the medical field (“Pharmaceutical industry,” 2).

Embryophytes have an interconnected relationship with other living species on Earth influencing the behavior of fauna and environmental conditions. Understanding the fundamental units of embryophytes and their possessed phytochemicals can help scientists learn how they adapt to their changing environment. Humans can learn medicinal benefits of plants through studying the phytochemicals found within plants, and their adaptations to both terrestrial and aquatic environments. Phytochemicals such as polyphenols, flavonoids, alkaloids, polysaccharides, stilbenoids, glycosides, and essential oils have been proven to prevent, treat, or cure many diseases or illnesses that humans may contract. The scale of these sicknesses range from the common runny-nose or cough, to life-threatening diseases such as diabetes, cancer, or Alzheimer’s disease (Xiao 2015, 4). The phytochemical I will examine is the alkaloid.

Alkaloids are a secondary metabolite that have evolved in nature in response to threats of herbivores, harmful microbes, or other competing plants. They are a nitrogen containing base, and stabilize and toughen leaves within plants. Usually, alkaloids have some degree of toxicity; therefore, plants containing alkaloids are either toxic or beneficial in medicinal properties. Doctors are studying and applying the properties of alkaloids to treat cancer, parasitic diseases, pathogenic bacteria, and neuronal disorders (Wink 2019, 1-4). Alkaloids are remarkable compounds because they assist in treatments and managements for the incurable neurodegenerative diseases such as Lew body, vascular dementia, Huntington’s, Pick’s Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s diseases. Currently, there are two of the five known drugs to treat dementia that are derived from the enzyme Acetylcholinesterase found in plant alkaloids. One example of using alkaloids for neurodegenerative diseases is through the alkaloid nicotine. Alkaloid nicotine is being proven to control cholinergic and cognitive functions present in dementia through mimicking the action of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine at the nicotinic receptors (Howes 2013, 1331). Scientists and doctors are still researching alkaloids within plants to find their potential relationship within the regulation of the human cholinergic functions.

Although alkaloid compounds may promote healthy biological activities, some alkaloid plants were used for lethal purposes such as murder, abortions, executions, and suicide in early African civilizations (Ndhlala & et al., 2013). One plant containing alkaloid compounds used for death is the Conium maculatum (figure 1). The C. maculatum is native to Western Asia and North Africa, but has been introduced to other parts of the world such as Australia, New Zealand, and other parts of Africa. This plant is extremely toxic that it is considered a health threat to both humans, and livestock (Ndhlala & et al.). The phytochemicals present in plants can either be toxic and impose a threat to other living species, or the chemicals can be deadly.

Indigenous people were the first to use native plants for healing purposes. However, indigenous peoples’ methods and rituals involving the plants are different from the technological integrations of today’s medicinal practices. The methods of the indigenous peoples’ are traditional, and generally consist of the application of plant to human skin. Typically, healers of the tribe cut the leaves, or sometimes grind them into a pulp to apply to a wound for disinfection and healing of the open skin. Other times, the healers would simply put the leaves on the forehead to soothe a headache (Roth & Lindorf 2002, 30-31). The healers believed when the plants were pulverized, the plants would release a greater amount of healing substances; therefore, occasionally people would eat the pulp as well. Another common method of integrating plants into healing practices is through hot water and leaves to make the infamous tea (figure 2). Infusions are a method similar to tea, but with the plant mixture remaining in the water. Healers and shamans are careful to utilize their knowledge of the plants around them because boiling some poisonous substances can remove the toxicity of the plant (Roth & Lindorf, 31). Indigenous groups accumulated knowledge of their native plantae over thousands of years, and knew how to treat or protect toxic components of their plants.

Indigenous groups not only used the plants for medicinal purposes, but for spiritual and cultural purposes as well. Unfortunately, indigenous groups lose the availability of their cultural keystone species as tropical regions continue to face threats from agriculture, deforestation, cattle-ranching, gold-mining, and road building. Additionally, as the demand for the medicinal plants increases due to the demand in pharmaceutics, indigenous groups have begun selling their medicinal plants for profit. Individuals understand the economic value of medicinal plants, as these plants are used for many pharmaceuticals. The United States spent $344.5 billion on pharmaceutical drug expenditure in 2018 alone (“Statista,” 2019). Many indigenous people live in poverty and understand that the medicinal plants provides a way to make economic profit. The indigenous groups lose the value of their medicinal practices as they assimilate to a lifestyle of the communities surround them. This results in a detached value of their native plants, and placing the medicinal plants on the market.

In conclusion, plants perform a variety of functions. Functions that have evolved from millions of years ago to better adapt the plant from or for herbivores, pathogens, competition within other plants, or other environmental stress factors. The phytochemicals that equip plants to survive in nature are the same phytochemicals that exhibit medicinal properties that humans use today for biological health, or lethal purposes. Even though most pharmaceutical drugs that are engineered from doctors and scientists derive from medicinal plants, indigenous people were the first people to use these plants. Plants are of relevance to both indigenous, and non-indigenous peoples.

ABSTRACT

Deep learning methods are greatly admired in the research field of agriculture. The fundamental basic key aspect of agriculture is soil for crop growing.Here we identify plant disease and provide remedies that can be used as a defence mechanism against the disease. The database obtained from the Internet is properly segregated and the different plant species are identified and are renamed to form a proper database then obtain test-database which consists of various plant diseases that are used for checking the accuracy and confidence level of the project .Then using training data we will train our classifier and then output will be predicted with optimum accuracy. We use Convolution Neural Network (CNN) which comprises of different layers which are used for prediction. And also we predict the name of the crops that can be cultivatable to their corresponding soil types.

A prototype is also designed which can be used for large agricultural fields images of the plants which will act as input for the software, based on which the software will tell us whether the plant is healthy or not. With our code and training model we have achieved an accuracy level of 78% .Our software gives us the name of the plant species with its confidence level and also the remedy that can be taken as a cure.

INTRODUCTION

The primary occupation in India is agriculture. India ranks second in the agricultural output worldwide. Here in India, farmers cultivate a great diversity of crops. Various factors such as climatic conditions, soil conditions, various disease, etc affect the production of the crops.The three primary nutrients required for the plant growth are nitrogen,phosphorus and potassium.And it is necessary to provide with the sufficient amount of those nutrients to the plants through fertilizers or organic manures. The existing method for plants disease detection is simply naked eye observation which requires more man labour, properly equipped laboratories, expensive devices, etc. And improper disease detection may lead to inexperienced pesticide usage that can cause development of long term resistance of thepathogens, reducing the ability of the crop to fight back. The plant disease detection can be done by observing the spot on the leaves of the affected plant. It can also be done by observing the colour change in the different parts of the plant body.The method we are adopting to detect plant diseases is image processing using Convolution neural network (CNN).Using the CNN algorithm it checks for the disease and if it is affected with the disease,then it provides suggestions in the form of guide to recognise the disease and cure it. The first implementation of the plant disease detection using image processing was done by Shen WeizhegWuyachun Chen Zhanliang and Wi Hangda in their paper [1].

EXISTING SYSTEM

However there is an increasing researches related to the disease of plants,For example the system describes about the identification of the disease and if an plant is affected with an disease then the crop production is lowered also compromising the quality of crops,the most common disease are Anthracnose,applescab,bacterial canker,black knot, blossom end rot,brown rot,club root etc.A system follows an sensor based analyses to detect the disease by using the temperature,humidity and PH sensors monitoring the plant and soil.The sensors are fixed in different positions of the farm and also an ccamera is fixed in the farm which is connected to the raspberry pi module where the data is sent to the cloud for storage and accesed through an web application which is designed user friendly to the farmers.

Drawbacks

• The existing works which the prediction accuracy has been not well while consider the prediction rate.
• And it has not good enough remedies also.
• It uses an number of sensors and the is an high risk of disconnection of the sensors in the farm

PROPOSED SYSTEM

The soil image is captured and then it is preprocessed , in which the image data is improved and it suppresses the unwanted distortions and enhances some image features important for further classification. pre-processing of the image which involves gray conversion and noise removal.Then we use the CNN algorithm to detect the disease present in the plant and ANN to provide with the means to cure it. Accordingly, based on CNN, the algorithm estimates classifying and predicting the symptoms of nutrient deficiency.A reliable approach is used by employing additive merging for both image recognition and object detection based on residual connection.Convolutional neural network are used to find patterns in an image. It can be done by convoluting over an image and looking for patterns. In the first few layers of CNNs the network can identify lines and corners, but we can then pass these patterns down through our neural net and start recognizing more complex features as we get deeper.This algorithm focuses only on the soil area and gets deeper into the layers and finds out the pixels. ANN algorithm is the simple mathematical model for analysis of the data.It also enables the process to proceed in an sequential order.The database obtained from the Internet is properly segregated and the different plant species are identified and are renamed to form a proper database then obtain test-database which consists of various plant diseases that are used for checking the accuracy and confidence level of the project .Then using training data we will train our classifier and then output will be predicted with optimum accuracy. We use Convolution Neural Network (CNN) which comprises of different layers which are used for prediction. A prototype drone model is also designed which can be used for live coverage of large agricultural fields to which a high resolution camera is attached and will capture images of the plants which will act as input for the software, based of which the software will tell us whether the plant is healthy or not. With our code and training model we have achieved an accuracy level of 78% .Our software gives us the name of the plant species with its confidence level and also the remedy that can be taken as a cure.

Advantages

• The proposed work, we are using convolutional neural network (CNN) which gives us the better prediction rate based and also gives us the disease pesticides.
• This system working time consumption are less and also gives us better results.
• It also provides us with the remedies to treat the disease.

The user is asked to input the image of the plant which is affected by a disease.A digital image is composed of pixels which can be thought of as small dots on the screen. The designed system compares the given image with the data set which is feeded to the system. If the plant is found to be healthy, it shows an message that the plant is healthy, if not when the plant is detected with any disease, thenit compares with the data set and detects the plant is affected by which disease and also the system suggests with the remedies such as the fertilizers and the pesticides that need to be added to the plants to cure the disease.

Incomparison with other techniques used and presented, comparable or even better results were achieved, especially when taking into account the wider number of classes in the presented study.But this paper detects for ten common diseases of plants ,it may be improvised by making the system more generalised.Though the distinctive algorithm used in the proposed system is effective and cost efficient,it may be further improved in the upcoming proposals.

CONCLUSION

To satisfy the need of growing population it is high time to focus maximum yield. This is only possible if plants get enough nutrients for growth. Plant nutrient content is neglected many times, though it should be given the importance. The examination of the plant disease is predicted and the measures to be taken in order to get rid of the disease are suggested.The use of the distinctive algorithms improves the accuracy and the execution time of the system.

REFERENCES

1. Aakanksha Rastogi, Ritika Arora, Shanu Sharma, Leaf Disease Detection and Grading using Computer Vision Technology &Fuzzy Logic ,In Proceedings 2nd International Conference on Signal Processing and Integrated Networks (SPIN), IEEE
2. Garima Tripathi, Jagruti Save, An image processing and neural network based approach for detection and classification of plant leaf diseases, In Proceedings Int. J. Comput. Eng. Technol. IJCET
3. S. Arivazhagan, R. Newlin Shebiah, S. Ananthi, S. Vishnu Varthini, Detection of unhealthy region of plant leaves and classification of plant leaf diseases using texture features,In Proceedings Agric Eng Int CIGR J.
4. Prof. Sanjay B. Dhaygude, Mr.NitinP.Kumbhar, Agricultural plant Leaf Disease Detection Using Image Processing,In Proceedings IJAREEIE
5. K. Muthukannan, P. Latha, R. PonSelvi and P. Nisha, classification of diseased plant leaves using neural netw ork algorithms,In Proceedings ARPN J. Eng. Appl. Sci.
6. Md. Nazrul Islam, M.A. Kashem, MahmudaAkter and Md. JamilurRahman, An Approach to Evaluate Classifiers for Automatic Disease Detection and Classification of Plant Leaf,In Proceedings Electrical, Computer and Telecommunication Engineering, RUET.
7. Hrishikesh Kanjalkar P. and Prof. Lokhande S. 2013. Detection and Classification of Plant Leaf Diseases using ANN. In Proceedings International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research
8. Suhaili Beeran kutty. and Noor ezan Abdullah. 2013. Classification of Watermelon Leaf Diseases Using Neural Network Analysis, In Proceedings IEEE Business Engineering and Industrial Applications Colloquium (BEIAC).
9. H. Al-Hiary, S. Bani-Ahmad, M. Reyalat, M. Braik and Z. ALRahamneh, Fast and Accurate Detection and Classification of Plant Diseases,In Proceedings Int. J. Comput.
10. Prakash M. Mainkar, Shreekant Ghorpade, Mayur Adawadkar, Plant Leaf Disease Detection and Classification Using Image Processing Techniques,In Proceedings Int. J. Innov. Emerg. Res. Eng.

Abstract

Optimization of the plant population is one of the most important aspect for better growth and development of the crops. Optimum population of the plants is required to utilize all the growth factors viz. nutrients, water, light and space. If space is not properly utilized then there can be the more weed infestation which highly affects the crop production. Weeds contribute 45% loss in the overall yield of the crops among all the crop pests. Population of the plants also should not be maintained so high that all the moisture is drained out from the soil before crop reaches to the maturity. Hence population of the plants should be maintained in the unit area in such a way that each of the plant get all the essential inputs in very efficient way for their good growth. So proper planting geometry must be selected to efficiently utilize all the available space and growth factors.

Introduction

Plant population is defined as the total number of plants which are present at the given unit area of the land. Optimum population of the plant in the given area is very important for the healthy yield of the crops because plant population is directly responsible for the crop yield which depends upon the number of viable seeds, rate of survival and seed germination percentage. The population of the plants should be maintained in the unit area in such a way that each of the plant get all the essential inputs in very efficient way for their good growth.

In soil if the soil moisture and nutrients present in the sufficient amount then we can increase plant population for higher yield but under this condition solar radiation can be the limiting factor. Population of the plants in the field such that there is maximum interception of the solar radiation. So, when we have to decide about the plant population then each and every aspect which has potential to affect the crop yield should be taken under consideration. If the population of plants in field is high then there are some changes in the crop growth. There is increase in the plant height due to the competition of the light. High plant population also affects the thickness of the leaves. High plant population can increase the yield per unit area but individual plant yield is decreased. In case of determinate plants yield is decrease due to small ear size and in case of indeterminate plants yield is decrease due to reduction in number of ears.

Yield of individual plant and community

Crop spacing plays very important role for the better growth and development of the plant. Wider spacing of the crop provide all the favorable conditions to plant to show its full yield potential but when sown closer to each other then there is more competition between the plants for growth factors which results in the reduction in the yield and size of the plant. When we increase the population of the plants per unit area then yield/plant is decreased but there is increase in the yield/area due to efficient utilization of the growth factors. When we provide severe competition to individual plants, highest yield/area can be achieved.

Plant population and yield

Because of the higher plant density in case of indeterminate plants yield is decrease of the individual plant due to reduction in number of ears. In determinate plants yield is decrease due to reduction in the size of ears. The yield reduction can be optimized by selecting the crops having high tillering capacity of effective tillers.

Plants which have high branches and tillers behave as indeterminate plant and reduction in the yield due to reduction in the seeds number. With the plant population of 3.33 lakh/ha in redgram produces 20 pods/plants while at 50000 plants/ha produces about 100 pods/ha.

Plants which are non tillering and nonbranching results in low yield because of reduction in ear size in maize and sorghum.

Holliday (1960), a scientist gives two types of response curve to shows the relationship between plant population and yield which as follows:

1. Asymptotic response
2. IParabolic response

Asymptotic response

This response curve can be shown in the tobacco and fodder crops where whole plant contributes as the economic product. With increase in the plants density in wide spacing, there is increase in the dry matter of the individual plants because there is low competition between the plants. There is further increase in density of plants which also increase the plant’s dry matter but at a decreasing rate. After that increase in the plant population results in a plateau in which there is no increase in dry matter per unit area. The plateau continues for large increase in plant population. Therefore, for obtaining high yield, fodder crops are recommended under higher plant population.

Parabolic response

Parabolic curve shows the relationship between plant population and yield in those crops in which economic yield is the part of the total dry matter yield. In this case there is also increase in the population gives higher yield and then reaches maximum. But further increase in the population decreases the yield.

Optimum plant population

Optimum population of the plant is very important for getting higher yield per unit area. Optimum plant population based upon the following aspects:

1. Size of the plant
2. Elasticity of the plant
3. Soil cover
4. Dry matter partitioning

Size of the plant

Spacing of a particular crop affects the optimization of plant population. At the time of sowing of crop, we have to consider the spread and volume which is occupied by the individual plant at flowering time and according to which we have to decide the spacing.

For example: Wheat, rice and sorghum cover lesser space in the field as compare to redgram, cotton and sugarcane plant. There is also difference in the growing nature of the different varieties of the same crop. LRG-30 is the variety of redgram having 1.5-2 m height with 1-1.5 m spreading nature. There is another redgram variety that is ICPL 87 having 70 cm height and 30 cm spreading nature.

Elasticity of the plant

Variation in the size of plant between the minimum size of the plant that can produce some economic yield to the maximum size the plant can reach under unlimited space and resources is the elasticity of the plant. The variety of red gram ie. LRG 30 when reaches to the size of 20 g dry weight produces the few pods but it has potential to attain the size of 2000 g dry weight per plant and produces more pods.

In case of indeterminate and long duration crops elasticity of growth and yield characters of plants are high and range of optimum plant population is also high. For eg. Indeterminate redgram variety.

While in determinate plants, optimum plant population and elasticity in growth is less as in maize and sorghum.

Soil cover

For the maximum interception of the light the soil must be covered with crop as early as possible. The total dry matter production is directly proportional to the total interception of the light. Soybean crop which is closely spaced attained 95% light interception within 54-55 days gave 26-32% higher yield as compared to wider spaced crop.

Dry matter partitioning

Dry matter partitioning is the flow of assimilates from the source to sink organs. Translocation of the assimilates may depends upon the transport path which can be affected by the biotic and abiotic factors. Total dry matter production is related to the interception of light by the crop canopy. During the early stages of the crop more light is intercepted and more dry matter is produced.

Optimum plant population and environment

Environmental conditions play very important role for growth and development of the crops. Optimum plant population is different for different crops and also varies according to the environment under which a particular crop is grown.

Time of sowing

There are different weather conditions for the crop when sown at different periods. Optimum plant population highly depends upon the temperature and day length. There are some photosensitive varieties which requires light for flowering initiation. Under this condition day length play very major role for changing the size of the plant.

For example: Red gram which is sown in monsoon season occupies optimum plant population of 55000 plants/ha and this population is increased up to 3.33 lakh plants/ha when sown in winter season.

Irrigation

Irrigation is one of the most important factor for the optimum plant population and growth of the crops. Population of the plants is less when sown under rainfed conditions as compare to areas where irrigation facility is available.

Under irrigated and rainfed conditions water is lost from the crops and soil through the process of evapotranspiration (ET). When there is higher plant population in the field, water is lost more through the transpiration as compare to evaporation because soil is fully covered with the crop canopy. Higher plant population is recommended when there is availability of the irrigation water and adequate rainfall is occurred.

Fertilizer application

Optimum plant population or dense population is required to utilize all the nutrients which are present in the soil for obtaining higher yield. There is development of nutrient deficiency in the soil if large amount of plant population present in the field. For example: Without N application rice does not respond to optimum plant population. When we apply moderate amount of nitrogen ie. 50 kg/ha in rice field then higher population of plant gives more yield than lower plant population. By the application of higher amount of nitrogen ie. 100 kg/ha in field gives good results even under low plant population because of its good tillering nature.

Planting Pattern

Proper planting pattern is very important for the growth and development of the crops which has direct effect on the interception of the light, rooting behavior of the crop, moisture extraction pattern by the plant and proper management of the weeds to avoid competition.

There is difference between the crop geometry and plant geometry. Plant geometry refers to the shape of the individual plant and crop geometry is the shape of the space present for the individual plant. There are different types of planting system which are following:

Square planting

It is most commonly used system of planting in which inter-row and intra-row distance is same. In this all the plants are at right angle to each other and forms a square. In the square planting system, there is proper utilization of the space, moisture, light and nutrients by each of the plant present in the field. For eg. In tobacco effective management of the weeds by adopting square planting.

Rectangular planting

In this system of planting inter-row distance is more than intra-row distance. When sowing of crops with seed drill thus attaining rectangularity. Rectangularity is maintained in those crops in which intercultivation is major practice. In this system number of plants are less as compare to square system of planting.

Diagonal or Quincunx system

In this planting is done same as square system of planting, here only extra plant is adjusted at the center of the square only to utilize the extra space and increasing the yield. This system also helps to reduce the weed infestation. But there is slight increase in the competition for light, nutrients, water and space.

Conclusion

For obtaining the higher yield and high productivity it is very important and major task to properly utilize the available space to avoid wastage of land and also efficiently utilize the available nutrients, water, space and light. Nowadays population of the country is increasing and there is fragmentation of the land. Urbanization and industrialization decrease the cultivable land for the crop production which feeds the nation. So there is need to properly utilize the area for crop production and fulfills the need of farmers and nation itself.

References

1. Rana, S. S. & Rana, M. C. “Modern Concepts in Crop Production”. Department of Agronomy, College of Agriculture, CSKHPKV, Palampur.
2. Anderson, Walter. “Some relationship between plant population, yield components and grain yield of wheat in a Mediterranean Environment”. University of Western Australia.
3. https://www.agrihortieducation.com/2016/09/systems-of-planting.html
4. https://www.google.com/search?q=eagri.+org&oq=eagri&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j35i39l2j0l2j69i60.4322j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
5. https://agrihunt.com

Abstract

With increase in population the need for food is on rise, in such circumstances, plant diseases prove to be a major threat to agricultural produce and result in disastrous consequences for farmers. Early detection of plant disease can help in ensuring food security and controlling financial losses. The images of diseased plants can be used to identify the diseases. Classification abilities of Convolutional Neural Networks are used to obtain reliable output. Google’s pretrained model ‘Inception v3’ is used. The Inception v3 model is trained over a dataset of diseased plants obtained from ‘PlantVillageDataset’. The developed detection approach is evaluated on measures of F1 score, precision and recall.

INTRODUCTION

Plant diseases are one of major reasons behind the production and economic losses in agriculture. Identifying disease correctly is a challenging task and requires expertise. Usually the diseases or its symptoms such as colored spots or streaks are seen on the leaves of a plant. In plants fungi, bacteria, and viruses are the cause of most of the diseases. The diseases caused due to these organisms are characterized by different visual symptoms that could be observed in the leaves or stem of a plant.

Deep neural networks have recently been successfully applied in many diverse domains as examples of end to end learning. The nodes in a neural network are mathematical functions that take numerical inputs from the incoming edges and provide a numerical output as an outgoing edge. Deep neural networks are simply mapping the input layer to the output layer over a series of stacked layers of nodes.

The CNN could be used in the field of agriculture for several applications. It includes detection of diseased leaf to measure the affected area by disease. Usually the diseases are identified by naked eye observation by an expert. This approach is time consuming in huge farms or land areas. The use of convolutional neural network in detection and identification of plant diseases in the earlier stages so that the quality of the product could be increased.

In order to develop such an accurate image classifier for diagnosis of plant disease, we need a large, processed and verified dataset containing various diseased and healthy plant images. ‘PlantVillage’ project has collected thousands of plant images and made it open and free to use. The dataset is already processed and is available in three versions as Colored, gray scale and segmented.

LITERATURE SURVEY

In the paper “Deep learning for Image-Based Plant detection” [1] the authors Prasanna Mohanty et al., has proposed an approach to detect disease in plants by training a convolutional neural network. The CNN model is trained to identify healthy and diseased plants of 14 species. The model achieved an accuracy of 99.35% on test set data. When using the model on images procured from trusted online sources, the model achieves an accuracy of 31.4%, while this is better than a simple model of random selection, a more diverse set of training data can aid to increase the accuracy. Also some other variations of model or neural network training may yield higher accuracy, thus paving path for making plant disease detection easily available to everyone.

Malvika Ranjan et al. in the paper “Detection and Classification of leaf disease using Artificial Neural Network” proposed an approach to detect diseases in plant utilizing the captured image of the diseased leaf. Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is trained by properly choosing feature values to distinguish diseased plants and healthy samples. The ANN model achieves an accuracy of 80%.

According to paper “Detection of unhealthy region of plant leaves and classification of plant leaf diseases using texture features” [3] by S. Arivazhagan, disease identification process includes four main steps as follows: first, a color transformation structure is taken for the input RGB image, and then using a specific threshold value, the green pixels are identified and removed, which is followed by segmentation process, and for getting useful segments the texture statistics are computed. At last, classifier is used for the features that are extracted to classify the disease. The efficiency of the proposed algorithm is proved by using test results of about 500 plant leaves in a database.

Kulkarni et al. in the paper “Applying image processing technique to detect plant diseases” [4], a methodology for early and accurately plant diseases detection, using artificial neural network (ANN) and diverse image processing techniques. As the proposed approach is based on ANN classifier for classification and Gabor filter for feature extraction, it gives better results with a recognition rate of up to 91%. An ANN based classifier identifies different plant diseases and recognizes these diseases with help of colour texture and features.

In paper “Plant disease detection using CNN and GAN” [5], by Emaneul Cortes, an approach to detect plant disease using Generative Adversarial networks has been proposed. Background segmentation is used for ensuring proper feature extraction and output mapping. It is seen that using Gans may hold promise to classify diseases in plants, however segmenting based on background did not improve accuracy.

[bookmark: _Hlk33338675]In the paper “Convolutional Neural Network based Inception v3 Model for Animal Classification” [6], Jyotsna Bankar et al. have proposed use of inception v3 model in classifying animals in different species. Inception v3 can be used to classify objects as well as to categorize them, this capability of inception v3 makes it intrumental in various image classifiers.

PROPOSED METHOD

• Dataset Classification
• Building the CNN using transfer learning
• Training our Network
• Testing

Dataset Classification

Selection of proper set of images for training of model is a significant task. Centroid of each image is calculated to retrieve select images. Centroid can be calculated by use of contours.

Contour is a curve that joins all the points along the periphary of a shape. Contours can much be detected much precisely on binary images. Hence, every image has to be converted to grayscale with a threshold applied on it. ‘findContours’ function can be use for this purpose. Three arguments provided to this funtion are Source image, contour retrieval mode and contour approximation method. Output of the funtion contains the images, contours and hierarchy. Output contains all contours in the image. Every contour is array of (x,y) coordinates of boundary points.

Contour Approximation Method is used to specify the coordinates to be stored. CHAIN_APPROX_NONE stores all boundary points. But all boundary points are not required. Because for finding contour of a straight line all points are not needed only two points are sufficient. CHAIN_APPROX_SIMPLE provides this kind of output by eliminating all redundant points and compressing the contour.

Having found the contours, the image moments are calculated. Image moments are used to calculate the centre of mass or the centroid of an object. The function cv2. Moments return a dictionary of all moment values. From this moments one can extract data such as centroid, area, etc. As we only need centroid of the image, it is given by the relations, here, M is the dictionary of moments.

After calculating the centroid of each image using the above method, we set a definite range for (x, y) coordinates after overlooking all the centroids. The images falling between the range are selected for further processing.

Building the CNN using transfer learning

Image identification has become feasible with the advent of Convolutional Neural Networks. But designing a CNN that identifies objects and classifies them into distinct classes is a complex task. By making use of transfer learning it can be simplified. In transfer learning we have trained our model that has been trained on Plant Village dataset using 12GB TESLA k80 GPU. Also Transfer learning significantly reduces training time and gives much better performance for relatively small dataset.

Google has released pretrained models on tensorflow’s official website. “Inception v3” is one of such models, that is trained on ImageNet dataset and can identify 1000 classes such as television, keyboard, car and some animals. It is one of the most widely used model for image classification.

The Inception v3 network is 48 layers deep and has an input image size of 299 by 299. The network takes image as input and gives label as output. The characteristic of Inception v3 is factorization. The aim of factorizing convolutions is to reduce the number of parameters and connections while retaining the efficiency of the network.

a. Factorizing Convolutions

By means of factorizing convolutions the no. of connections and parameters are reduced to a considerable degree without adversly affecting the efficiency of the system.

Factorization can be into smaller convolutions such as, two 3 by 3 convolutions replace one 5 by 5 convolution; or assymetric convolutions such as 3 by 1 convolution followed by 1 by 3 replaces 3 by 3 convolution.

b. Auxilary classifier

In Inception-v3, auxiliary classifier is used as regularizer. Batch normalization, introduced in Inception v2, is also used in the auxiliary classifier.

c. Efficient Grid Size Reduction

Usually feature map downsizing is done by max pooling. But the approach either tends to be too greedy or too expensive. In inception v3 320 feature maps are obatined by max pooling and these are concatenated to obatin 640 feature maps. Efficient grid size reduction in Inception v3 produces inexpensive yet effective network.

Training the network

The deep convolutional model can be used to classify labels specific to the task at hand. For this the Inception v3 model is loaded. New classes to be recognised are specified and Inception v3 model is trained over different batches for certain number of epoches, thus harnessing the image classifying abilities of Inception v3 to classify diseased plants.

Retrain script is an important medium to generate custom image classifier using inception v3. It traines a new layer which performs task of classifying the custom specified classes. The script can be can be altered for parameters such as:- image_dir, intermediate_output_graphs_dir, output_graph, output_labels, ditortion feature, number of training steps(epoches), learning rate, etc.

The dataset contains labelled folders with images, the path to these folders is provided to the retrain script. A portion of these images is retained for testing.

The Inception v3 model is iteratively trained over differrent batches for certain number of epochs. Labels for each of the disease is provided to the network along with the images belonging to the label. A separate set of images is kept aside for testing. Callback functions are used to obtain statistics during model traning. Parameters such as loss, validation loss and accuracy are obtained with callbacks. We use these values to monitor the performance of the model through different epoches. Callbacks enable us to interact with the model during the training of model. Callbacks can also be used to inhibit training after a certain level of required effeciency is achieved to stop model from overfitting.

Testing

The trained model is tested on a set of images.

Random images are introduced to the network and output label is compared to the original known label of the image. Parameters used for evaluation are F1 score, precision and recall. Precision is the proportion of predicted positives that are truly positives. Recall gives the proportion of actual positives correctively classifed. F1 score helps in maintaining a balance between precision and recall.

Conclusion

This paper proposes a CNN bassed method for plant disease classification using the leaves of diseased plants. Building such a neural network with high efficiency is a complex task. Transfer learning can be employed to achieve greater efficiency . Inception v3 is one of the models available that inherently have the capability to classify images and further can be trained to identify different classes. Thus, use of Inception v3 can play key role in obtaining fast and effective plant disease identifiers. Also by dataset classification using contour method, the training set can be choosen to ensure proper training of model for all features. This provides better feature extraction than randomly classifying the dataset. Optimal results were obtained by employing the methods specified in the paper. Thus, with implementation and use of these methods for plant disease classification losses in agriculture can be reduced.

REFERENCES

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I. Introduction

The concept of decentralization has been widely considered as a tool for efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of basic services (Kurmanov, 2018). It is a multifaceted phenomenon encompassing many geographic entities, (international, national, sub national, and local), societal actors (government, the private sector and civil society) and social sectors (all development themes – political, social, cultural and environmental). Additionally, it is a mixture of political, fiscal, and administrative functions and relationships that need to be considered in its designing process (UNDP, 1998). Many international organizations like World Bank (WB) have recommended that both developed and developing countries should adopt this form of governance (Devas, 2005). For the international donor community, decentralization is an instrument that is applied in order to push its global development agenda (Hyden, 2017; Devas, 2005).

The full application of decentralization is new in the political and administrative perimeters of Liberia. In Liberia, majority are of the notion that the backwardness of effective and efficient service delivery and the lack of inclusive development owed more to centralization, a form of governance inherited from the colonial master, American Colonial Society (ACS). To reverse this poor form of governance (centralization), decentralization has been alternatively looked to.

However, with the existence of the national policy on decentralization and local government, there still remain an argument on several issues. Notable amount these are constitutional reform and boundary harmonization (Nyei, 2014). With these issues unattended in the ongoing decentralization discourse, the feature of Liberia remains blurred.

Therefore, in an attempt to meaningfully contribute to the ongoing debate, the authors argued that constitutional reform and boundary harmonization are amount the best practices that should be adopted by a post conflict nation like Liberia. As they are very germane to the successful realization of the decentralization program in Liberia.

This paper is sectioned in to four: part one presents the introductory background and methodology, part two contains the discussion of constitutional reform, part three presents boundary harmonization, while part four presents the conclusion and recommendations.

Methodology

This study employed qualitative research approach particularly textual /document analysis to generate data. Textual analysis, which is also a form of secondary source of data collection, is important because “texts are source of evidence. They are valuable when you want to prove something, forward an argument regarding social structures, relations and processes or citing a basis to prove your point” (Kovala, 2002 as cited in Portus, Barrios, Conaco & Go, 2018 p. 121). Therefore, to prove or established that constitutional reform and boundary harmonization are best practices for the realization of the goal of decentralization in Liberia, this method (textual/document analysis) was appropriate.

Of the types of textual analysis (media criticism, rhetorical criticism and discourse analysis), the researchers employed discourse analysis which basically refers to “spoken or written language or communication” (Fairclough, 1995, p. 54 cited in Portus, Barrios, Conaco & Go, 2018 p. 123). In discourse analysis, the writer thinks on what can or cannot be discussed about the topic. Therefore, based on the objective (to present best practices for the successful realization of the goal of decentralization program in Liberia) of this paper, the authors selected and analyzed the contents of some scholarly documents (articles, and books ) on decentralization program, constitutional reform, and boundary harmonization particularly the scholarly work of Nyei, Knight, Siakor, & Kaba, as well as online documents from the department of Urban Affairs, Ministry of Internal Affairs to support their argument.

II. Constitutional Reform

Like many countries in Europe, Asia and Africa, Liberia, a post-war country is on the path to experience change in her emerging democracy by looking up to decentralization. To have this dream realized, there should be a provision in the constitution. As such, the exercise of constitutional reform has become an issue in the ongoing decentralization discourse not only in in Liberia, but in other parts of the world. For instance, (Fombad,2011) noted that for the past four decades, Africa has faced dictatorial, corrupt and incompetent rule, but starting from the 1990s, many African countries began to slowly and painfully move towards a new era of democratic and constitutionalism. One of the main reasons for this great move has been reforms designed to introduce constitutions that promote good governance.

The practice of constitutional reform is a must, if the existing constitution does not accommodate the kind of governance reform that is proposed. In Liberia, the desire for effective and efficient delivery of basic services and the need for practical and equal participation not only in the formulation and implementation of public policies, but in the equitable distribution of the wealth of the nation has necessitated the call for constitutional reform. In support of the above argument, (Fombad, 2015) argued that for countries in Africa to be successful in reducing disease, hunger and poverty, and to be economically sustainable and socially stable, certain changes or improvement must be made in their current constitutions.

True to Fombad’s argument, the current constitution of Liberia is not strong enough to create the conducive environment for the reduction of diseases, hunger and poverty, and to be economically sustainable and socially stable, because the power needed to decide on what and how to get what they(Liberians) want for their own development is highly centralized.

Constitutions are considered as documents that lay down the foundation of the relationship between the state and individual citizen as well as the structure and function of government. Therefore, each citizen should be able to understand his or her relationship with the government. He or she must know what to expect from the government and what can also be expected from him/her. This is one of the purposes for constitutional reform (Dakolias, 2006).

Constitutional reform is an all-inclusive process. This process requires the reconstruction of the constitution and the laws it governs through consultation and negation with the general public. Further, constitutional reform is also considered as a very significant instrument for the stimulation of good governance through the change of rules for the encouragement of more accountability, participation, transparency, and predictability (Dressel ,2005).

Now with the realization of the failure of past constitutions to meet up with current day realities, the concepts of constitutional reform have not only been fully welcomed and embraced but have been translated into practical realities in our contemporary democracy. For instance, scholar Bjorn Dressel clearly mentioned in his scholarly article titled Strengthening Governance Through Constitutional Reform” some of the countries that have gone through constitutional reform as well as the number of constitutions adopted. The table below show the number of constitutions adopted from 1990-2004 by some continents.

Constitutions Adopted by Region, 1990-2004

• Asia 38
• Asia Development Bank (ADB Member countries) 20
• Africa 54
• Europe 17
• Americas 13
• Total 122

(Dressel ,2005).

Linking constitutional reform to decentralization, it is important to note that in the United Kingdom, what is consider as the most sustained program of constitutional reform is devolution of administration (Dakolias, 2006). Like UK, many countries have considered devolution of administration to be equally important for the sustainability of their constitutional reform programs. That been said, a study also revealed that eight countries (Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Bolivia, Indonesia, Iraq and South Africa) have equally gone through a constitutional reform. The study further established that all of them share a number of generic characteristic and challenges in a specific way. However, all of them exacted efforts at awareness-raising, consensus-building, adoption and implementation (Vliet, Wahiu, & Magolowondo,2011).

Additionally, the study pointed out four principal phases with their characteristics upon which constitutional reform is implemented. For instance, the preparations phase. This first stage (preparation phase) requires that there should be goal setting, principles, roadmap, timeline, budget, institutions, commitment, issues and analysis. The second phase has to do with awareness and consultations. Included in this second phase are: information, education, participation, monitoring and compiling. The third phase is characterized by reform and deliberation. With this, the key characteristics include: inclusivity, decision making, transparency, autonomy, coherence, feedback and monitoring. Finally, the fourth principal phase of constitutional reform is adaptation and implementation. This phase includes modifications, popularization, education, referendum, subsidiary law and monitoring (Vliet, Wahiu, & Magolowondo, 2011).

Aside from the four principles stages upon which constitutional reform is conducted, it is worth noting some of the interesting questions that are asked when a country decides to go through constitutional reform. These questions are more concern about the process through which the reforms are conducted. The following questions according to (Dressel,2005) are: should the existing constitution be amended or entirely rewriting? Who will do the draft? By what means will they be selected? How much public participation is appropriate? Who will decide whether to accept the final draft?

The answers to these questions are intended to put the process of constitutional reform on the right footing for the successful attainment of the goal of the reform. Hence every country that is thinking of reforming their constitution must seriously take note and find a comprehensive answer to these questions.

Considering Ghana and Kenya out of the eight cases in this study, Ghana presented the following lesson from the constitutional reform process: a productive inter-party dialogue before and after the reform process; a well-defined democratic principle that guide the reforms in advance; legal framework that enable executive manipulation; civic education and popular consultations, political context and popular involvement (Vliet, Wahiu, &. Magolowondo,2012).

In the case of Kenya, there were inter-party negotiation and consensus building on problematic issues; sound decision making mechanisms that enable the adoption of progressive reforms; maintaining the impact of partisan interests throughout the process; non-governmental organizations positively lobbying and scrutinizing the process and the monitoring of the implementation of the new constitution by an independent body (Vliet, Wahiu, &. Magolowondo, 2012).

Similarly, Liberia has embarked on such a constitutional reform with the hope to successfully be a decentralized nation. The constitution of Liberia has been problematic since independent. It is recorded that since independent, Liberia has gone through constitutional suspension in 1980 and in 2003-2005. In 1980, it was the 1847 constitution that was suspended. In 1984, a commission was set up to draft a new constitution. This brought in the 1986 constitution (Guanue,2010), but it lacks the foundation of true participatory and representative democracy. This 1986 constitution was also suspended after the civil was in 2003-2005. It was a transitional period, a period of factionalized government of inclusion. This connotes that the there is a problem with the 1986 constitution. In support of this argument, (Nyei, 2013) noted that what Liberian have not learned is that the suspension of constitution clearly shows how problematic is that constitution. He further stated that the solution to the governance and developmental challenges of Liberia lies in the provision of a new constitution that sets and sustains a foundation for democratic governance and provide for a balance distribution of power.

After the civil war, a constitutional review committee was appointed by the former president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to review the 1986 constitution and draft proposition for amendment. This set the foundation for 2011 referendum. A referendum that protected only the interests of few government officials. For instance, simple majority election for members of the legislature, retirement age for Chief Justice, adjustment in the times for presidential and general election (Nyei, 2013).

Additionally, the desire for constitutional reform in Liberia has been influenced by several factors: no provision for the distribution of power (election of superintendents, district commissioners, city mayors) among local authorities (Local Government Act,2018) which could eventually reduce the power of the president, no provision for strong institutional building, reduction in the tenure of elected officials, emerging issues such as dual citizenship, granting citizenship to non negro, decentralization, property rights, national identity, national symbols, the application of customary justice and women’s representation and political participation (Nyei, 2013, 2014; 2015).

Unfortunately, the hope for smooth and peaceful transition to decentralization have been threatening by the lack of popular consensus among Liberia. Scholar Ibrahim al-bakri Nyei, a promising writer on decentralization and local government in Liberia placed emphasis on the legitimacy of the constitutional review process. He further cited that the outcome of the constitutional review process was not based on popular consensus, as such, the nation stands at risk of facing constitutional crises (Nyei, 2015).

III Boundary Harmonization

Boundary harmonization is a sensitive issue in the decentralization discourse especially for country that is transitioning from a centralized to a decentralize form of governance. Disputes emanating as a result of land demarcation require serious harmonization for the successful realization of the goal of decentralization. The concepts of decentralization from the perspectives of the rural dwellers also need to be considered. Looking at decentralization and boundary setting in Mali, particularly in the district of Kita, the concept of the rural people on decentralization is division of the country into various municipalities. With this word “division” many have developed the concept that decentralization is equated to boundary setting (Idelman, 2009).

However, linking decentralization to democracy at the local level and to land tenure, scholar Soumare observed that “if democracy and decentralization are magic options, they should be applied to land tenure” (Soumare 1998 as cited in Idelman, 2009 P 19). With this noted, and considering the fact that land tenure is highly problematic in Mali, and that boundary setting is conflict provoking between communities, the people of Mali initially set aside their ambitions for territorial demarcation and focused on establishing municipalities or functioning local governments across the entire country in less than a decade (Idelman, 2009).

In the case of Liberia, boundary harmonization is a critical issue (Nyei, 2014) that needs to be handled with care, as it is an antidote to land dispute. In Liberia, there have been several cases of boundary disputes both inter-county (between two or more counties), and intra-county conflict (boundary conflict with in counties-between certain localities) (Knight, Siakor & Kaba, 2013). These boundary disputes are the result of creating counties or districts to satisfied the desires of the so called political leaders without involving technocrat to properly to handle the issue of county or district demarcation.

To have these cases resolved, the department of Urban Affairs, a technical arm of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) which was legislated in 1972, reactivated the Special Joint Stakeholders Consultative Committee (SJSCC) in 2012 to interfere in the harmonization of conflict areas in Liberia. Eleven (11) hot zones were identified to be land boundary conflict areas after four Round- Table Discussion (RTD) by the SJSCC. Additionally, the Department of Urban Affairs (DUA) went into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Carter Center on boundary harmonization program implementation. Further, the DUA hosted a chief’s forum captioned: what is meant by governance decentralization and what is expected of the chief and traditional elders of the country? Resolution one hundred sixty-five (165) was developed by over one hundred and fifty (150) traditional leaders, elders, senior mothers, and governors as a result of the forum. A committee comprising of fifteen (15) chiefs was also established to buttress efforts in settling boundary problems across the country (www.mia.gov.lr).

In an effort to ensure that there is a successful boundary harmonization and how to secure community land rights, a two years’ study was conducted. The finding showed that: boundary harmonization efforts are conflict resolution exercises and should be treated with care, Map-making is not a middle-of-the-road process. Because it disclosures all bad faith appropriation of community lands and detects all natural resources and their locations. Hence, it has the potential to initiate intra-community conflict, that acquiring of community land documentation created a strong motivation for communities to amicably resolve long-running boundary conflicts, communities that were ready to resolve their boundary conflicts advanced more rapidly through the land documentation process, that harmonizing boundaries resolved lots of conflicts than it created, and aided communities to embrace new conflict resolution strategies, that the documentation of every boundary agreement should not only be tree planting but with the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), that some communities land certification process created conflicts of power, authority, and jurisdiction, Some communities hurriedly agreed to their boundaries in order to successfully complete the project within the given time period which is not necessary in conflict resolution, Once community land documentation processes is initiated, it should be successfully completed, and there should be a need for state support for enforcement of agreed boundaries over time (Knight, Siakor & Kaba, 2013).

In view of the above, it is clear that Liberia has gone a long way with boundary harmonization process which is a good footing for the decentralization process.

IV. Conclusion

Decentralization should not be regarded as the only panacea to Liberia’s problems, because every form of governance has its own pitfalls. But considering our conditions and the kind of unguarded political and bureaucratic insults that are emanating from the centralized system which the grass rooters or the locals continue to receive, it is important to consider decentralization as the best option for Liberia at this moment. By the same token, constitutional reform and boundary harmonization are not the only best practices, but they are very cardinal to the realization of the goal of decentralization in Liberia and should not be given left handed approach (overlook).

Recommendation

In view of the above mentioned, and considering the fact that decentralization is at the initial stage (de-concentration stage) and on a gradual footing, the researchers deem it necessary to advance the following recommendations for the successful realization of its(decentralization) goals in Liberia:

1. That constitutional reform should satisfy all of the prescribed processes mentioned above, and should meet the consensual of all Liberians.
2. That boundary setting or harmonization should not be done hurriedly all in the name of completing the process to acquire land documents.