The rise in consumption of energy-dense foods has resulted in the displacement of several essential dietary gaps, causing numerous long-lasting diseases, including obesity, stroke, hypertension, and several forms of cancer. Epidemiological studies encourage more fruit consumption to prevent these diseases. The defensive mechanisms provided by these fruits against illness are due to the existence of several antioxidants. Recent studies proved that (poly) phenolic compounds are ideally the core phytochemicals with both functional and health-promoting properties found in the plant’s kingdom, and low intake could result in the risk of certain diseases. Phytonutrients are powerful antioxidants that can modify metabolic activation and detoxification of carcinogens. The ideal motive of this review is to provide an overview as well as illuminate the polyphenolic merits of fruits in general. Fruits have several merits, including weight maintenance, proper health development, and satiety. There are many analytical methods for determining and measuring the phenolic content of different products. Phenolic compounds are of nutritional interest since they aid in the retardation and inhibition of lipids by acting as scavengers that prevent and protect the proliferation of oxidative chains. Future studies are required to help identify the physiological metabolic activities as well as to improve human health.

This study investigates the relationship between climate variables such as rainfall amount, temperature, and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission and the triple dimension of food security (availability, accessibility, and utilization) in a panel of 25 sub-Saharan African countries from 1985 to 2018. After testing for cross-sectional dependence, unit root and cointegration, the study estimated the pool mean group (PMG) panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL). The empirical outcome revealed that rainfall had a significantly positive effect on food availability, accessibility, and utilization in the long run. In contrast, temperature was harmful to food availability and accessibility and had no impact on food utilization. Lastly, CO₂ emission positively impacted food availability and accessibility but did not affect food utilization. The study took a step further by integrating some additional variables and performed the panel fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) regression to ensure the robustness of the preceding PMG results. The control variables yielded meaningful results in most cases, so did the FMOLS and DOLS regression. The Granger causality test was conducted to determine the causal link, if any, among the variables. There was evidence of a short-run causal relationship between food availability and CO₂ emission. Food accessibility exhibited a causal association with temperature, whereas food utilization was strongly connected with temperature. CO₂ emission was linked to rainfall. Lastly, a bidirectional causal link was found between rainfall and temperature. Recommendations to the national, sub-regional, and regional policymakers are addressed and discussed.

Polyphenols are bioactive compounds occurring in plant foods, which are considered significant owing to their contribution to human health and the prevention of chronic diseases. Phenolic compounds mainly depend on plant food structure and the interaction with other food constituents, mostly proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates. The interaction with the food matrices can obstruct or enhance nutrient accessibility and availability and even impair others. Food digestion is a complex process where ingested foods are converted to nutrients via mechanical and enzymatic alterations. The absorption of nutrients predominantly occurs in the small and large intestine, respectively. The metabolised product, however, is the main bioactive component due to their ability to enter the systemic circulation and reach the targeted organs. There is limited knowledge on the cellular uptake, phenolic metabolite, and polyphenolic effect in the gastrointestinal ecosystem. Therefore, improved understanding of the biological properties and stages of dietary phenols is essential for the effective utilization of their therapeutic potentials. This review will explore, summarise, and collate current information on how polyphenols influence nutrient metabolism, bioavailability, and the biotransformation stages.

Climate-smart agriculture is one of the most important actions for agricultural climate change adaptation, especially in Togo, a sub-Saharan African country with a fragile ecology and where agriculture is profoundly impacted by climate change. Using a multinomial endogenous switching regression (MESR) and a multinomial endogenous treatment effect (METE) approach, we conducted empirical research to identify the factors influencing the adoption decisions of climate-smart agricultural practices (CSAPs) and their impact on household food security among smallholder farmers in Togo. The findings of this study revealed that the adoption of CSAPs by farmers is influenced by a range of factors, such as age, marital status, the household head’s gender, engagement in off-farm activities, level of education, farm size, agroecological zone, regional location, land ownership, distance between homestead and farm, access to credit, the presence of agricultural associations and cooperatives, and access to extension agents. On the one hand, the MESR analysis demonstrated a positive correlation between the number of adopted CSAPs and households’ food consumption score. Similarly, greater adoption of CSAPs resulted in a significant reduction in the food insecurity experience scale. On the other hand, the METE model portrayed an increase in acceptable food consumption when households adopted up to three CSAPs. Likewise, it significantly alleviated severe food insecurity. Further results based on the propensity score matching technique showed that the adoption of a crop rotation system, utilization of improved varieties of seeds, plant protection products, inorganic fertilizer, organic fertilizer, and irrigation improved adopters’ food consumption scores while reducing their level of food insecurity.

This paper explores the effect of meteorological factors such as rainfall, temperature, sunshine, wind speed, and relative humidity on the yield of maize (Zea mays L.) and sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) at different growth stages in Togo’s Plateau, Central, and Savannah regions. For this purpose, data from 1990 to 2019 on weather variables and maize and sorghum yields were used. The study applied Fisher’s meteorological regression and Chebyshev polynomial function. Our findings revealed that rainfall had a more beneficial than detrimental effect on maize and sorghum yield across stages and regions. Contrariwise, temperature influence was as beneficial as detrimental and more significant across all growth stages of maize and sorghum in the Savannah and Plateau regions. Furthermore, the sunshine effect on maize yield was more significant in the Central and Savannah regions, while negative on sorghum yield in all the growth stages in the Central region. Similarly, the wind speed was also beneficial and detrimental to maize and sorghum yields, although it was more significant for sorghum in Plateau and Savannah regions. Lastly, relative air humidity positively and negatively influenced maize and sorghum yields in all the growth stages and regions for maize and the Plateau and Savannah regions for sorghum. Therefore, there is a need for real-time agricultural meteorological information to help farmers plan crop production more efficiently and increase crop yield.