Food Security最新文献

This study examines food consumption patterns in Indonesia across urban, rural, and forested areas with varying levels of tree cover loss (TCL). Using household food consumption data from the National Socio-economic Survey in 2008 and 2017, and data from the Global Forest Watch website, we identify differences in food consumption patterns in urban, rural, and forested areas with high and low TCL. The results indicate a dietary transition is occurring in Indonesia, characterized by increased consumption of wheat, chicken, fish, sugar-sweetened beverages, processed, ultra-processed, and ready-to-eat foods, and a decline in the consumption of green leafy vegetables and fresh legumes across all area categories. Diet quality is declining in all area categories, however, urban areas showed the most accelerated decline, with declining dietary diversity, decreasing consumption of healthy foods, while increasing consumption of less healthy foods and the highest consumption of ultra-processed foods. Furthermore, foods consumed more in urban (vs. rural) and high-TCL (vs. low-TCL) areas, such as wheat, broiler chicken, dairy, and packaged foods, are associated with modern diets and sourced from farther away, indicating accelerated modernization and delocalization of diets. Conversely, foods consumed more in rural and low-TCL areas, such as traditional staple foods, free-range eggs, and dark green leafy vegetables, are considered more locally sourced and traditional. We conclude that dietary transitions occur across all regions, but the modernization of diets is more accelerated in urban and high-TCL areas. Given the mixed health consequences of modern diets, policies should anticipate negative impacts while preserving positive aspects.

Food security is a matter of both global and national concern in India. In a country such as India, where consuming leftovers and reducing food wastage is an ingrained moral and religious belief as opposed to other cultures, especially in some highly industrialised ones, this article explores the possibility that providing citizens with solutions that are mindful of their cultural acceptability will lead to the effective implementation of policies at micro levels. One of the facets of food security, food utilization, is an aspect which can be improved at the individual and household levels. It constitutes one such opportunity in India because of the inherent belief system of the country. My investigation is based upon the theory of Johan Pottier (1999) who stated that while food security is a global issue and much policies is directed at that scale, policies are not well-grounded in a bottom-up understanding of foodscapes of those at whom it was aimed. The paper uncovers unanimity regarding the notions of consuming leftovers and curbing food waste as religious beliefs among various religions across India. It also compares the cultural acceptability of reusing leftovers and reducing wastage in India with developed nations such as the USA and the UK. This work thus emphasizes on avenues for further exploration about how anthropologists can be mobilised in situations which involve purely qualitative solutions. This research is specific in regard to the Indian population.The article attempts to provide a solution to implement policies in India with the intervention of anthropologists as a supporting machinery.

Fungal activity in stored wheat grains can lead to quality deterioration, especially in the form of mycotoxin accumulation. This study proposes an approach for assessing wheat quality by analyzing the wheat grain mycobiome using high-throughput sequencing technology. Wheat grain samples were collected from China's major production areas during both the harvest and storage stages to investigate the temporal and spatial trends in fungal distribution. The results revealed significant differences in the fungal diversity and communities during different stages of wheat processing, with a more complex fungal co-occurrence network in stored wheat than in harvested wheat. Aspergillus was the keystone taxon in the network of the stored wheat mycobiome. It was assigned to the “Unspecified_saprotroph” group and was found to contribute significantly to the differences in fungal community structure between harvested and stored wheat. We also constructed a Random Forest (RF) model to predict the freshness of the wheat grains. The RF model exhibited a strong ability to correctly determine the wheat grain stage based on the mycobiome present on the surface of the wheat grains, achieving a 98.28% accuracy rate, which confirmed the potential of mycobiome analysis for assessing wheat grain quality. This study provides a new perspective for assessing grain quality and sanitation security, which is significant for the supervision of food safety.

The USDA Economic Research Service has monitored food insecurity at national and state levels since 1995 using the Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement. But if a food insecurity measure is to inform action and target interventions, it must be constructed for smaller geographic levels that consider geographic price differences. This article constructs a novel measure of food insecurity using an alternative approach based on financial needs of households, known as the household living budget (HLB). The HLB is defined as the income required to satisfy a household's essential needs, enabling it to maintain a modest yet sufficient standard of living while covering federal and state income taxes. The HLB is constructed at the census tract level and incorporates three key determinants of food insecurity: household size and composition, household income, and food costs. We demonstrate how the HLB along with publicly available data can be used to construct a food insecurity measure using a residual income approach to assess if households are able to afford paying for food expenditures and assess the qualification thresholds of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Food insecurity estimates are obtained for households in Washington, D.C. and benchmarked to regional results provided by a survey sponsored by the Capital Area Foodbank.

The Ugandan self-reliance integration mechanism is one of the most progressive refugee integration policy of the world. Within this policy framework, refugees are provided with a land to cultivate and are free to work and decide their residence. This work provides quantitative evidence on lights and shadows characterizing such policy. Final objective of this work is to guide interventions aimed at increasing effectiveness and sustainability of such mechanism in the light of the rising refugee population in the country. Taking advantage of a unique panel dataset representative of around 80% of Ugandan refugees (as of 2018), this study specifically investigates the impact of cash and food transfers on a range of outcomes related to food security and self-reliance. Results show that both transfers reduce the likelihood of implementing negative coping strategies. However, transfers’ relative effectiveness depends on beneficiaries’ characteristics, context specificity, and outcome assessed. In particular, food transfers improve households’ diet, while cash transfers are more suitable to support self-reliance, but only for refugees that cultivate a sufficient extent of land. These findings are expected to add insights for policymaking to alleviate the refugees’ short-term humanitarian needs while paving the way to build long-term and sustainable pathways towards self-reliance.

This study aimed to systematically review the literature on the association between food insecurity (FI) and common mental health problems (CMHPs). We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to investigate the existing evidence on the relationship between FI and CMHPs. We searched Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed for relevant articles published through December 2020. We reported associations between FI with CMHPs using odd ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). ORs were pooled using a random-effects model. Eighteen articles were identified resulting in 113,614 pooled individuals. FI was associated with the risk of depression and stress (OR = 2.01; CI: 1.64–2.46; OR = 2.07: CI; 1.64–2.61, respectively). Sub-group analyses based on gender showed that depression risk was higher among FI males (OR = 2.63; CI:1.74–3.98, I² = 72.2, P < 0.001). Participants with moderate and severe FI were more likely to be depressed (OR = 2.14; CI: 1.86–2.46, I² = 0.0, P < 0.001 for moderate; OR = 2.08; CI: 1.24–3.46, I² = 86.9, P < 0.001 for severe). Cross-sectional studies showed FI was associated with a higher risk of depression (OR = 2.32; CI: 1.86–2.88, I² = 95.4, P < 0.001) than cohort/longitudinal studies (OR = 1.24; CI:1.12–1.37, I² = 86.0, P < 0.001). The estimated risk of depression was higher among people with FI in Australia (OR = 5.77; CI: 2.88–11.55, P < 0.001) compared to other continents. FI Asians were at higher risk of stress (OR = 2.23; CI: 1.51–3.28, I² = 82.4, P < 0.001) than people in the US (OR = 1.88; CI: 1.58–2.39, I² = 5.7, P < 0.001). To alleviate the burden on CMHPs, the management of FI should be prioritized in the highest-risk regions including Australia, Asia, and Europe.

The change in immigration policy in state-level participation rates of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) in the United States by citizenship and ethnicity was estimated over the period 2013-2018 using the Triple Difference estimate method. The principal finding was that the state-level WIC participation rate for Hispanic non-citizens was lower by 8.6% relative to all other groups (Hispanic citizens, non-Hispanic citizens, and non-Hispanic non-citizens). This study then not only provides quantitative evidence concerning the ongoing debate about the impact of the immigration policy changes under the Trump administration but also extends the extant literature by estimating the causal effects of immigration policy regime change on WIC participation of non-citizens.

Insect pests in storage are causes of major losses worldwide. Acoustic sensors can detect the presence of insects in grain through their sound signature, thus enabling early warning to farmers and traders. This research investigates the applicability of an affordable acoustic sensor, which uses micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) microphone adapted to detect the sound produced by insect pests. Three major insect pests that commonly feed on paddy and milled rice (the lesser grain borer, Rhyzopertha dominica; the rice weevil, Sitophilus oryzae; and the red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum), were collected in rice mills and grain storage warehouses in Laguna The Philippines, and reared at the International Rice Research Institute. Baseline sound recordings were replicated for each insect over three days using a completely randomized design (CRD). Recorded sounds were analysed to determine the sound profiles of each insect. Waveforms, root mean square (RMS) energy values, frequency domain, and spectrograms provided characteristics for the sound signal signature specific to each insect. Primary insect pests (R. dominica and S. oryzae) were differentiated from the secondary insect pest (T. castaneum) through signal analyses. Such data are useful to enable insect pest classification, which can be incorporated into more effective and timely postharvest pest management tools.

The relationship between agricultural commercialisation and nutrition is empirically contested, with findings suggesting different trends for different indicators, and across different contexts. Using novel cross-sectional survey data from a study of commercialisation in four African countries, this paper aims to understand associations and trade-offs between agricultural commercialisation and food consumption using three different indicators: household perceptions of their own food security; the dietary diversity of adult women and men; and the consumption of unhealthy ultra-processed foods and drinks. We find that a higher level of commercialisation is associated with respondents perceiving the household as more food secure in three countries and hypothesise that this relationship only holds where food price inflation remains low. Perception of better food security is subsequently associated with better reported dietary diversity, but diversity remains low in all countries even in the most commercialised households, and men’s dietary diversity overtakes women’s, on average, at higher levels of commercialisation. Ultra-processed foods were not highly consumed in our samples but were also linked with increasing commercialisation. Through this analysis, we show that commercialization and food consumption outcomes are linked in both positive and negative ways – and that both, retaining own food production, and the food market context, plays a moderating role, as does household experience of uncertainty in transition to commercial agriculture. Findings for policy in the context of inevitable but highly varied forms of agricultural commercialisation in Africa therefore include ensuring that diverse nutritious foods are available and affordable in local markets, but also that household food security and diets are socially supported through the process of transition where commercialisation is pursued.

To investigate the potential of food security and nutrition programmes to simultaneously address the global syndemic of undernutrition, obesity and climate change, a policy document analysis of World Food Programme (WFP) activities was carried out, using Laos as a case study. A framework for the double burden of malnutrition was adapted, defining six intermediate-level modifiable factors for the global syndemic. Information on 11 WFP food security and nutrition programmes in Laos for all populations was extracted from 33 WFP documents and assessed using the framework method approach. Firstly, current programmes were assessed to determine if they could serve as a platform to address the six factors. Next, identification of pathways to undernutrition, obesity and climate change outcomes was used to determine which programmes were already double or triple duty. Finally, potential adaptations to retrofit programmes into triple duty actions were proposed, drawing on double and triple duty actions from the literature. The analysis found that all 11 programmes provided the opportunity to address two or more factors, four programmes were already double duty and five triple duty, and all programmes in theory could be retrofitted to become triple duty actions through adaptations identified in the literature. These findings suggest that food security and nutrition programmes do have potential to address the global syndemic.