Global Food Security-Agriculture Policy Economics and Environment最新文献

The aim of this study was to create a composite food security index that takes into account the four aspects of food security, which are availability, accessibility, usage, and stability, and to analyze how families' food security status changes over time. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) methods were used to create food security indices for each dimension of households. The results of the aggregate food security indices showed that in 2013, 2015, and 2018, 44%, 57%, and 45% of households, respectively, were food secure. Only 20% of households had consistent food security, while 67% had transitory food insecurity, meaning they had at least one instance of it during the study period. The remaining 13% of households were labeled as having chronic food insecurity because they experienced it continuously during the course of the research.

Food security is touted as an essential condition for social growth. Yet, the food deficit is rampant among smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Besides, farm productivity is considered the theme for improving household food security outcomes. As one of the sub-Saharan African countries, Uganda is affected by food insecurity caused by the declining availability of cropped farmland. Sustainable intensification (SI) is a critical farming practice that enhances crop yield and reduces environmental degradation. However, there is scanty empirical evidence on if farming practices contributing to sustainable intensification can improve the household livelihood and food security. In this research, we used multinomial endogenous treatment effects and a balanced Uganda National Panel Survey to evaluate the impacts of SI technologies on maize farming households' livelihood and food security. We ranked households into four groups depending on the inputs and soil management practices they use on their maize farms, namely “non-adopters”, intensification group”, “sustainable group”, and “sustainable intensification group”. The multinomial endogenous treatment effect (METE) model's findings suggested using the SI cluster is associated with improved food consumption score, household dietary diversity score, and per capita expenditure using non-adopters as the baseline group. Further, these improvements are determined by combining maize-legume intercrop and inorganic fertilizer practices. The results indicate that experts and researchers should espouse multidimensional and all-inclusive technological evaluation methods instead of conservative reductionists methods that concentrate on a solo farming practice at a time. Also, the findings can guide the sustainable vector that highlights and strengthens all-inclusive agricultural growth with policymakers and scientists working with marginalized farmers.

This paper reviews knowledge generated over the past 10 years on gendered patterns to engagement, returns on engagement, and power relations in agrifood value chains. It examines how research has advanced, evidence of improvements in gender equality and women’s empowerment, and the circumstances under which any advances have happened. Gender inequalities in value chains remain significant though they vary by value chain type and node. Over the past decade, research questions have shifted from ‘why’ to ‘how’ women participate in agrifood chains and intersectional dimensions of gender inequality and power imbalances are increasingly a part of analysis, though the collection of intersectional data – quantitative, in particular – is still limited. Research and practice have shifted to include a focus on restrictive gender norms and gender transformative approaches that engage with both men and women. Robust, national and multi-country data on gender relations beyond the primary agricultural sector is scarce, which hinders the tracking of changes in gender relations and inclusivity in value chains over time and across contexts as well as on intersecting forms of inequalities and their impacts on value chain performance. Beyond production node, national surveys continue to provide limited insights about gendered patterns of participation and benefits in different value chains and different nodes such as processing, trade, and transport. Companies have a role to play to ensure that their value chains do not contribute to gender inequality and can use international instruments for responsible business conduct, and gender specific supporting materials that have become available. However, evidence will need to be collected on how and to what degree they do. Voluntary standard systems may have a role to play but need guidance to improve the incorporation of gender equality metrics.

Partial shifts from animal-based to plant-based proteins in human diets could reduce environmental pressure from food systems and serve human health. Grain legumes can play an important role here. They are one of the few agricultural commodities for which Europe is not nearly self-sufficient. Here, we assessed area expansion and yield increases needed for European self-sufficiency of faba bean, pea and soybean. We show that such production could use substantially less cropland (4–8%) and reduce GHG emissions (7–22% current meat production) when substituting for animal-derived food proteins. We discuss changes required in food and agricultural systems to make grain legumes competitive with cereals for farmers and how their cultivation can help to increase sustainability of European cropping systems.

Small island developing states in the Pacific face multiple development challenges driven by rapid population growth and high transportation costs due to remoteness and isolation. Combined with the adverse consequences of extreme weather events and climate change, these challenges exacerbate poverty and food insecurity. Agricultural value chain development presents a pathway to poverty reduction and food security. In this paper, we assess the impacts of two value chain development projects in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands on dietary diversity and food security of small-scale producers. Project impacts on dietary diversity are positive and significant in both countries, but improved food security is only observed in Solomon Islands. These impacts are mainly driven by crop yields, value of crop production and sales, crop diversification and share of crop sales. We find that treatment households are more likely to consume less nutritious foods such as sweets and oils. Our findings expand the literature in a data-scarce region and caution that value chain interventions without nutrition-focused components to induce behavioral change may have unintended impacts on healthy diets.

Understanding the global economic importance of farmed animals to society is essential as a baseline for decision making about future food systems. We estimated the annual global economic (market) value of live animals and primary production outputs, e.g., meat, eggs, milk, from terrestrial and aquatic farmed animal systems. The results suggest that the total global market value of farmed animals ranges between 1.61 and 3.3 trillion USD (2018) and is expected to be similar in absolute terms to the market value of crop outputs (2.57 trillion USD). The cattle sector dominates the market value of farmed animals. The study highlights the need to consider other values of farmed animals to society, e.g., finance/insurance value and cultural value, in decisions about the sector’s future.

Seed is life and can be a source of empowerment and disempowerment for women and men farmers. In this study, to close the gender gaps in seed, the Community Enterprises Development Organization, the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT and the National Agricultural Research Organization developed a seed credit model available to men and women belonging to farmer groups. A mixed method was used to collect information from two districts in central Uganda on how the seed credit model reconstructed access, use, control and resulting benefits. Results showed that the provision of the seed credit model was considered a blessing even though it had many nuances. As a result of the seed credit model, we saw increased productivity in women's fields, increased income and decision making over income incurred from the sale of their crops. Their social status has been enhanced, and they now occupy a place of respect in their communities and households, where they can make decisions and get assets like houses and land. While it increased productivity, income and enhanced food and nutrition security needs of the family, it also changed power dynamics within the household as women become more empowered. To maintain power relations, men limited women's access to fertile land and family labor, which defined the quantity of seed gotten from the seed credit model. Women's participation and involvement in the seed credit model decreased over time as they were expected to pay their spouses' seed loans. Men's participation decreased because they were no longer entrusted with seed loans as their payment rate was very low. As we reap positive benefits, we have to ensure we don't ‘do harm’ when empowering our beneficiaries.

There are major gaps in our understanding of food environments (FE) in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) witnessing differential and complex social and economic transition. The present integrative review was conducted to develop a conceptual framework of FE for LMICs using socio-ecological and access theory. The FE framework has four layers: public policy, community/neighborhood (including organizational e.g., markets, schools), household, and individual. Availability, accessibility, and affordability with built-in socio-cultural and contextual factors were the major domains in every layer. The following additional domains emerged: global influences, marketing and regulation, nutrition programs, time-constrained family members, and food behavior. Wet and informal markets are important components of FE. The next step is determining the model's resilience to accommodate and capture nuances across LMICs.

This paper analyses to what extent it would be possible to ensure food availability to the world population by 2050 with two objectives: healthy diets and no farmland expansion. Assumptions were made to project exogenous demand and supply variables. Climate change impacts on crop yields, grazing use intensities and maximum cultivable areas were taken into account. Cropland and pastureland needs were then estimated for 21 regions using a global biomass balance model. Simulation results established for two sets of crop yield projections (‘moderate’ versus ‘high’ growth) show that several regions (India, Rest of Asia, Near- and Middle-East countries and North Africa, as well as West Africa in the case of ‘moderate’ yield growth) would be constrained by their maximum cultivable areas with no deforestation. Our scenarios would be technically infeasible because of additional pastureland needs notably in sub-Saharan Africa. As a consequence, we analyse to what extent additional levers could reduce pastureland needs in sub-Saharan Africa.

Research on food system responses to COVID-19 has remained largely disconnected from the broader risk governance scholarship. We connect both literatures by adopting a risk governance lens to study how governments have dealt with COVID-19 induced food system risks across different phases of the crisis. Studying responses in five low- and middle-income countries – Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Mexico, Nigeria and Vietnam – we find that food system risks and actors related to the food system were largely absent from initial risks assessment and policy responses, leading to growing food insecurity risks for vulnerable groups. Feedback and involvement from local governments and societal actors improved the capacities to assess and mitigate food system risks. We suggest developing future arrangements that involve actors with knowledge on food system risks to allow for more adequate responses.