Prathamesh Gorawala 
Agricultural Research Updates. Volume 42 

This volume includes eight chapters that provide updates in agricultural research. Chapter One focuses on elaborating the rice straw characteristics and its sustenance as a valuable material for commercial, industrial and environmental applications. Chapter Two aims to provide a literature review that assesses the role of ruminants, particularly cattle, for smallholder farmers in an integrated farming system and its economic impacts. Chapter Three aims to analyze the effect of fermented silage diets using agroindustrial by-products on milk production and cheese characteristics. Chapter Four describes the application of different machine learning algorithms in banana production systems in Venezuela. Chapter 5 shows an overview of published research studies about the features of nettle source, the extraction methodologies employed to obtain vegetable extracts, their bioactive chemical composition as well as some of their viable exploitation targets in order to summarize updated information for future development investigations on this plant. Chapter 6 investigates the competency factors influencing agricultural programmes. Chapter 7 examines the repercussions of climate change on production systems in small ruminants. Finally, in Chapter 8, the potential applications of drones for livestock management is discussed.