Food Security最新文献

Foodborne disease is a major challenge for food systems worldwide, particularly in lower-income countries. In the absence of developed, enforced regulation and inspection systems, informal actors like market food vendors play a critical role in ensuring the safety of food. Understanding their perspective is thus essential for reducing the burden of foodborne disease. This study examines this topic among traditional market vendors in Hawassa, Ethiopia using in-depth qualitative interviews and cognitive mapping techniques. We synthesize the data to consider vendors’ capacity to provide safer food and their incentives to do so. The results show that vendors’ food safety actions were limited, and they saw considerable barriers to enacting recommended practices, particularly due to the limited infrastructure available in the market. Capacity is limited by the fact that, while vendors have some understanding of key concepts related to food safety, there are also large gaps in their knowledge. Generally, vendors face few regulatory incentives: they have limited interactions with authority figures, including for food safety. Social incentives are also limited: food safety was not a top concern for vendors nor was it prominent in their interactions with consumers, who focused mostly on price. Results are interpreted to discuss the way forward for improving food safety in traditional markets in Ethiopia, taking into account these constraints.

The aim of this study is to assess the impact of the rural electrification program on food security in Togo. To achieve this objective, micro-econometrics methods for impact evaluation, along with Propensity Score Matching techniques, are employed. The study examines various outcomes, including production levels, household consumption expenditures, access to basic social services, rural households’ consumption behaviors, and poverty levels. The study utilizes data from the 2020 Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS) conducted in 2018 in Togo. The findings reveal that the rural electrification program positively influences both production levels and household consumption expenditures. It facilitates access to health and educational services and essential product outlets through their expansion and/or establishment, enhancing the quality of these basic social services. Regarding consumption behavior, households benefiting from the rural electrification program engage in fewer food reduction strategies (such as reducing meal quantities or the number of daily meals). Ultimately, access to electricity in rural areas significantly reduces poverty levels. In conclusion, the rural electrification program has played a crucial role in alleviating food insecurity in Togo.

Malnutrition, in all its forms, poses a significant threat to human development and economic growth. Consequently, enhancing food security and consumption is a moral and social imperative for fostering development. Despite the substantial evidence on the relationship between caloric intake and labour productivity, research on the connection between labour productivity and diet quality, measured by micronutrient intake, is scarce. This paper, focusing on Kenya, estimates the linkages between micronutrient intake and labour productivity, measured by household labour income. The daily intakes of energy and micronutrients per adult male equivalent at the household level is computed employing food consumption data collected in the 2015–2016 Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey. Econometric results show that daily micronutrient (haem iron, zinc, folate, calcium, vitamins B2 and A) intakes are significantly and positively correlated with labour productivity. The quality of diets, reflected by micronutrient intakes, has a bigger impact on labour productivity than the daily energy consumed, measured by caloric intake. This paper contributes to the nutrition–productivity literature and provides a basis for designing policies to improve the nutritional quality of diets.

Forests are widely recognized for their significant role in achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs), particularly those related to livelihoods and food security. However, there is little empirical quantitative evidence regarding their contribution to household income and food security. Therefore, this study aims to (a) illustrate the contribution of forests to total household income, considering not only cash income but also income from subsistence activities; (b) provide insights into how forests contribute to food security; (c) identify the drivers related to food insecurity; and (d) investigate the importance of forest-related coping strategies used by households when facing food insecurity. We used quantitative survey data from 400 households across fifty villages in the northern Peruvian Amazon, which vary in tenure regimes and remoteness. Our findings reveal that forests play a crucial role in supporting the subsistence needs of rural households facing food insecurity, particularly those in villages under common ownership regimes and in remote areas. Both groups rely heavily on forest foods, such as non-timber forest products and game, serving not only as regular source of food but also as important coping strategies during times of inadequate food access. Furthermore, non-timber forest products such as fruits not only contribute to subsistence, but also provide valuable cash income sources. These findings underscore the essential role of forests in enhancing rural livelihoods and food security, highlighting the need for policy makers to prioritize forest conservation through the sustainable use of forest products, especially in areas facing deforestation and limited alternative income sources.

As sustainable intensification is a major pathway for improving agricultural productivity and reducing the environmental impacts of land use, the Government of Ethiopia and international development organizations have been promoting several practices and technologies for sustainable intensification. Using panel data from 368 farming households in Ethiopia from 2014, 2016, and 2019, this study gauges the poverty and food security impacts of Integrated Soil Fertility Management technologies and their combined use with conservation agriculture practices, specifically minimum tillage and crop rotation. We find significant positive effects of ISFM adoption in terms of increasing dietary diversity and food expenditure and reducing food insecurity. In terms of poverty, ISFM adoption decreases the probability of being poor, the poverty gap, and the severity of poverty. When combined with CA practices, we find that the effects are consistently larger for farmers who integrate ISFM and CA for all food security and poverty measures. Our findings strongly suggest that the adoption of ISFM technologies has significant positive implications for poverty reduction and improved food security. These benefits are likely to gain a considerable boost if ISFM technologies are applied together with CA practices.

In West Africa, increasing rural–urban flows of food, driven by growing urban populations, require functional, efficient links between cities and production areas. However, underlying mechanisms of urban food sourcing in West Africa are poorly understood. This study deepens understanding of spatial interactions between cities and production areas by examining the effects of settlement size, geographical distance, and agricultural suitability on food inflows to four West African cities. The analysis was informed by theoretical spatial models and data on food flows, road network, agricultural suitability, and settlements. Results showed that food travelled further from larger supplying settlements, and towards the two larger destination cities. This supports the idea of a hierarchical system, where food provisioning area and upstream supply chain length increase with settlement size. Overall, towns with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants, often representing aggregation centres, were among the major suppliers to the cities. Complementary agricultural suitability between origin and destination shaped food flow direction and length, but poor road access and international borders impeded trade. Spatial models did not fully explain food flows: they were also influenced by historical factors shaping certain settlements’ importance as sources. Study cities were supplied by a diversity of more and less concentrated food sources, representing production sites or aggregating markets, which should theoretically support food supply resilience. Improvements to storage and road infrastructure, and removing trade barriers, could improve food supply to cities, and producer and trader livelihoods. Emerging research on urban food systems governance could support understanding of how best to do this.

Small-scale aquaculture (SSA) is still far behind other forms of aquaculture in recognition and focused strategic policy at the global and local levels, despite contributing over 40% to seafood production together with small-scale fisheries. In addition, global food security is a pressing issue and its management is part of an ambitious international goal involving both economically developed and developing countries, with the need for policy coordination across several sectors. One of the most sustainably farmed seafood groups and that attracts investment as small operations is suspension-feeding shellfish (bivalves), which are in the spotlight for scalability as future food. Therefore, reporting on small-scale seafood farming operations and the aforementioned sustainable species' contributions to seafood security is both crucial and timely. This article provides a review of the favorable environment for small-scale shellfish aquaculture (SSSA) in the context of the largest world economy and major seafood consumer, the United States of America, based on the IYAFA Global Action Plan. In summary, the review analysis indicated that basic data and supporting structure for SSSA are often missing within the United States of America. Thus, SSSA’s long-standing sustainability will depend on strategic courses of action, which are discussed in hopes of serving also as a starting point for the SSA sector recognition in other nations.

This paper estimates consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for meat certified to be safe for human consumption in Peru. Citizens in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are increasingly concerned about the safety of food they consume. Across LMICs, urban markets remain the most important source of fresh and nutritious produce and therefore policymakers need to ensure food safety in urban markets. Much focus has been put on providing producers and supply chain actors with economic incentives to improve food safety. However, such effort has had limited effect without addressing the overall market and food safety governance. In this paper, based on an innovative policy experience from Peru, we explore if and how much consumers are willing to pay for meat sold at market stalls that are certified to provide safe meat. Peru has employed a series of economic packages to incentivise market vendors to improve their practices, and in turn increase their revenue. Our analysis based on a consumer survey across three cities in Peru reveal that consumers are willing to pay 7.1%, 5.8% and 5.3% of the average retail prices of chicken, pork and beef, respectively. This amounts to an average of about 216USD/month of extra revenue for vendors.

Millets are known for their nutritive value: they are high in protein, dietary fibre, micronutrients and antioxidants. Millets are also drought-resistant crops that can withstand extreme temperatures and be grown in semi-arid regions with poor soils. In India, the area sown to millets has declined for decades and production of millets is less than 20 million tonnes as compared to over 200 million tonnes of cereals. From the late 1990s, the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), based in south India, began a set of interventions in the Kolli hills block, Namakkal district, Tamil Nadu, to conserve millet biodiversity and expand the production and consumption of millets. This paper begins by describing the basic interventions and the impact pathways from these interventions to outputs, outcomes and impact. It then attempts to provide evidence for each of the impact pathways drawing on different types of evidence gathered over the last 25 years of grassroots activities. The paper argues that reversing the decline in millet cultivation is feasible.