PurposeFoodborne diseases are common in the developing countries due to the predominant poor food handling and sanitation practices, particularly as a result of inadequate food safety laws, weak regulatory structures, and inadequate funding as well as a lack of appropriate education for food-handlers. The most frequently involved foods in disease outbreaks are of animal origin. However, in spite of the adequate legislation and laws governing the abattoir operation in Malaysia, compliance with food safety requirements during meat processing and waste disposal is inadequate. Therefore, the present study was designed to assess the food safety knowledge, attitude, and practice toward compliance with abattoir laws among the workers in Terengganu, Malaysia.Materials and methodsA cross-sectional survey was conducted using simple random sampling technique in the six districts of Terengganu: two districts were used for the pilot study and the remaining four were used for the main study. One hundred sixty-five abattoir workers from the selected districts were interviewed using a structured questionnaire.ResultsThe mean and standard deviation of knowledge, attitude, and practice scores of the workers were 6.02 and 1.954, 45.16 and 4.496, and 18.03 and 3.186, respectively. The majority of the workers (38.8%) had a low level of knowledge and 91.7% had a positive attitude, while 77.7% had a good practice of compliance. Sex had a significant association with the level of knowledge (P<0.001) and practice (P=0.044) among the workers. The females had a higher level of knowledge than the males, while the males had a better practice of compliance than females. Similarly, knowledge also had a significant (P=0.009) association with the level of practice toward compliance with abattoir laws among the workers.ConclusionThe abattoir workers had a positive attitude and good practice, but a low level of knowledge toward compliance with the abattoir laws. Therefore, public awareness, workshops, and seminars relevant to the abattoir operations should be encouraged.

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Ammonia-N (NH3-N) and Phosphorus (P) pollutions remain highly challenging pollutants to the Saudi environment. The sewerage treatment plant can be one of the main contributors to NH3-N and P pollutants. The main aim of this study is to investigate the concentration of NH3-N and P released from the Al Khumrah wastewater treatment plant in Jeddah. The treatment process used in this treatment plant consists of screening, aerated grit removal chambers, surface aeration, sedimentation and sludge thickening and de-watering via belt filter presses. For this study, primary data of N and P is obtained from the Ministry of Environment & Agriculture, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The data is collected from the wastewater treatment plant of Al Khumrah, Jeddah. A total of 101 data is collected for NH3-N and P within a period of 6 months from September 2019 to February 2020. Descriptive statistic was used to analyse the data. It was found that the highest mean concentration of NH3-N and P in the effluent are 4.2 mg/L and 1.7 mg/L respectively. The concentration of NH3-N and PO4 3- in the influent exceeded the maximum limit of 1.0 mg/L stated in General Environmental Regulations and Rules for Implementation (2001) provided by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Presidency of Meteorology and Environment. A low effluent concentration is set up by the authorities to meet the requirement of water reuse and recycling. The result has shown that the removal efficiency of NH3-N during the treatment is 55%. However, the removal efficiency of PO4 3- is very inconsistent with the percentage removal varied from 0%-61.5 %. This finding demonstrated that the treatment plant will continuously not be able to comply with the standard discharge limit especially if a higher concentration of NH3-N and PO4 3- entering the treatment plant. In this case, the changes of the current treatment process or addition of tertiary treatment would be needed to ensure the discharge wastewater met the reuse and recycling requirement.

Food production for the ever growing population without damaging the soil quality, fertility and productivity is a major challenge in the present agriculture scenario. The objective of this study was to determine selected soil properties of Samaru-Zaria that would be used in tillage research in order to address the problem of inadequacy of local design data and unsuitability and inadaptability of agricultural implements used in the area. Soil samples collected from different points in the field were analyzed for moisture content, bulk density, organic matter content, texture and particle size in the laboratory for the purpose of selecting suitable agricultural machines for land preparation and profitable crop production. Results obtained showed that the soil is loam, moisture content varies from 8.40 – 15.11%, bulk density varies from 1.62 g/cm3 from the shallow soil layer to 1.77 g/cm3 at deeper depth 15 – 20 cm and beyond, down the soil profile. Similarly, organic matter varies from 4.207 % by weight at 0 – 10 cm, 1.660 % between 10 – 15 cm and 0.652 % from 15 – 20 cm depths of the soil profile. Knowledge of soil type and its properties present in the soil profile would assist the designer in selecting the appropriate materials to be used in manufacturing the land preparation equipment.