Substrate flexibility of laccase enzymes makes them highly interesting for various applications such as textile dye bleaching, pulp bleaching, and production of chemicals from lignin, bioremediation & development of biosensors to check the presence of xenobiotics. For industrial applications discovery of novel laccases with different substrate specificities and improved stabilities is important. Microbes that produce laccases have been screened on solid media containing colored indicator compounds such as guaiacol that enable the visual detection of laccase production. Optimized condition for Laccase enzyme production by fungal isolate HM1 was: incubation period- 10 days, pH- 5, carbon source- maltose, nitrogen source- peptone, CuSO₄ concentration-50µM and temperature-50°C. This research summarizes that the production of laccase for application in bioremediation was easily achieved by production from cost effective economic process of solid state production from corn cobs, rice bran, wheat bran etc.

This study examined the effect of COVID-19 on poverty status of farming households in selected LGAs of Kwara State, Nigeria. A Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 289 respondents for the study using semi-structured interview schedule. Descriptive statistics and Foster-Greer and Thorbecke (FGT) poverty index were used to analyse data. The result of the findings show that the mean age of the respondents was 44.7 years. About 61.9% of the respondents were married, with 78.7% having one form of formal education or another. Farm size, food expenditure, non-food expenditure and total income lost due to covid-19 pandemic are statistically significant at 1% while household size is statistically significant at 5%. Also, prevalence of poverty among the farm households in the state was 68 percent with consumption expenditure level below the poverty line. The poverty depth was 61 percent while average consumption expenditure was below the poverty line. The study recommends that efforts be made at helping the rural farmers reduce the incidence, depth and severity of poverty through conditional cash transfer programmes targeted towards rural farmers, as well as distribution of necessary farm inputs at highly subsidized rate to enable rural farmers benefit maximally from agricultural activities.