Food Security最新文献

The uncertainties, such as the pandemic (COVID-19), natural calamities, and war, disrupt agricultural production and supply chains, leading to concerns about food access in developing countries. Therefore, this study uses panel data collected through three survey rounds in June and September 2020 and January 2021 to analyze changes in household food expenditure and consumption behaviors and to investigate the association between household characteristics and food insecurity. The results show that households with diverse income sources, including multiple farm products, non-farm businesses, and remittances from absent members, are less likely to reduce food consumption quality and quantity, and be in the lower tail of food expenditure distribution. -However, households in the upper tail of the food expenditure distribution aggressively stock up on food in the second quarter of the year, fearing that lockdown measures would interrupt the food supply. These households tend to have an urban way of living characterized by salaried jobs, small family size, high educational attainment, and proximity to the capital city. The levels of food expenditure remain high even after the lifting of lockdown and movement restrictions, and the reason might be possible uncertainty about crop harvests, despite the eventual good harvests in the year. Overall, these findings suggest that diversification of income sources for rural households in developing countries can help households cope with disruptions to food production and supply chains. The findings also suggest that policies to ensure food access during the pandemic should target households with limited income sources and those in the lower tail of the food expenditure distribution.

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.

Scholars have proposed agroecology as a promising method for promoting sustainable and socially just agricultural production systems. However, the extent to which agroecological practices will generate the yields required to ensure sufficient food globally remains unclear. This notion is particularly true in the context of Africa, where agricultural productivity is low but levels of hunger and malnutrition are high. To address this knowledge gap, this article undertakes a systematic review of empirical studies to assess the overall status of agroecology-related research in Africa. Using descriptive and meta-analytical methods, we evaluate empirical evidence on the effect of agroecological practices on land and labour productivity. Our analysis of 501 peer-reviewed articles reveals that the body of agroecology-related literature in Africa has been growing in the past 10 years from approximately 10 to more than 70 studies per annum before and after 2014, respectively, with a strong focus on East Africa, particularly Kenya. The majority of the reviewed studies relate to but do not mention agroecology in the title or abstract. Thus, solely relying on studies that use the term may introduce bias and overlook valuable research contributions to the field. The meta-analysis could identify 39 agronomic studies with 392 observations in which agroecological practices were compared to monocrop systems (defined as plots where similar plants grow alongside each other simultaneously and sequentially from one season to the next) with or without inputs as the control groups. The meta-analysis indicates that agroecological practices are associated with a positive and significant difference in land productivity, compared to that for monocrop systems especially so when monocrops are grown without inputs. However, the size and direction of yield differs by practice, crop, climatic factor, soil property and type of control.

In the context of rapidly growing African cities, a thorough understanding of the complexities of urban food systems is essential for addressing the challenges of food insecurity and undernourishment for city dwellers. Particularly in South Africa, where pre-existing inequalities drive disparities in food access and diet-related health outcomes, a comprehensive perspective including the spatial distribution of malnutrition in urban environments is required to develop effective interventions. The present study examines the essential elements of an urban food system by employing a Bayesian network as a causal framework. By integrating survey data from households and food outlets with spatial information, a food systems model was created to test policy interventions. The study demonstrates the challenges of intervening in complex urban food systems, where dietary choices are shaped by various factors, often in a spatially heterogeneous manner. Interventions do not always benefit the targeted groups and are sometimes ineffective as result of system interactions. Our study shows that Bayesian network models provide a powerful tool to effectively analyse the complex interactions within such systems, thereby enabling the identification of optimal combinations of multifactor interventions. In our case study for Worcester, South Africa, the results reveal that the largest potential for improvement of food and nutrition security lies in the informal food sector, and support for affordable and local fresh produce is a viable measure for enhancing local nutrition, though the extent of impact varies across the city.

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.

Climate change has increased the frequency and severity of climate extremes, but the influencing magnitudes of climate extreme events on maize yield in China remain unclear. Here, the impact of climate extremes on maize yield over Mainland China during the past four decades is assessed based on the concurrence of climate extremes (mean climate) and maize yields using the event coincidence analysis. Climate extremes during the maize growing season are represented by 14 extreme climate indices. Results showed that 95% of maize planting regions over Mainland China showed significant increases in maize yields, with an average increase of 0.071 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ from 1982 to 2016. Correlations between maize yields and climate indices are spatially heterogeneous. The area where maize is significantly affected by temperature extremes changes (2.7–15.4% of grids) is greater than the area affected by precipitation extremes (3.8–10.7% of grids). Positive maize yield events are more likely to coincide with positive temperature extremes and negative precipitation extremes. The proportion of years with significant events coincidence rates between positive yield events and positive evapotranspiration events is the highest, accounting for 94.29%. Our results implied that to adapt to the impact of climate events on maize yield, reliable extreme climate projection and maize planting growth season adjustment are required to ensure food security.

Over the recent years, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has seen an increase in population growth, urbanization, and per capita income. As a result, there has been a corresponding increase in the demand for animal source foods. In order to meet this demand, most countries have resorted to intensifying the production of conventional livestock. However, this increase in production comes with several environmental, nutritional, gender-related and economic challenges that are a rising concern. It is therefore imperative to explore the comparative advantages and disadvantages of other livestock species, which are currently consumed in SSA but are not recognised in widely adopted policies. Herein, using a novel conceptual framework, we present a systematic review of four selected neglected species, namely, grasscutter, guinea fowl, guinea pig, and rabbit. The review was conducted following the checklist for Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA), and 89 sources of literature were included. The results highlight that embracing these neglected livestock species could confer several benefits, including an enriched nutritional profile (high-quality protein, low fat, high dressing percentage), increased gross economic returns, environmental sustainability, and sustained empowerment of minority groups, especially women. Overall, this review shows the untapped nutritional and socio-economic potential of neglected livestock species, which, if incorporated into mainstream production, could improve food security and reduce unemployment in SSA.

This study investigates the household food self-sufficiency of smallholders in the upper Mekong region of Southwest China, where traditional self-sufficient farming has rapidly transformed into a commercialized economy. Using household survey data from 945 smallholders in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, the study employs a two-stage Tobit model to estimate the impact of agricultural transformation on the household food self-sufficiency of smallholders. The results, which are based on 2018 data, reveal that the average self-sufficiency rate for all foods was 40.7%, and that of grain was even lower at 33.4%. Changes in land use, specifically the substitution of food crops with cash crops, and labor allocation, namely, engagement in off-farm labor markets, are the main drivers of the reduction in household food self-sufficiency. A 10% increase in the share of cash crops results in a 4.2% decrease in the rate of household food self-sufficiency, whereas adding one additional crop to the portfolio leads to a 6.4% increase. Moreover, households with at least one family member engaging in off-farm labor have a 13.1% lower self-sufficiency rate than those without. This study contributes to a better understanding of the household food self-sufficiency of smallholders in the context of land use change and rising off-farm employment, while the findings provide a reference for policy design to ensure household food security for smallholders in the upper Mekong region.

Around the world, food security assessments are used by Non-Governmental Organizations and states to assess caloric sufficiency, hunger, and dietary diversity in order to evaluate health and nutrition, orient development programs, including food aid, and offer an early warning of hunger and famine. And yet, scholars tell us that the concept of food security has historically been muddy, and difficult to pin down, resulting in a plethora of assessments, tools and indicators, with significant variability. There is growing scholarly agreement that moving beyond “food security” is essential and that scholars, practitioners, and policymakers would do well to conceptualize agri-food systems as complex, and pay more attention to socio-ecological dynamics, political systems, culture, and health and well-being. Food Sovereignty offers a conceptual framework to bring together these dynamics and in the past decade, there has been an emerging body of Food Sovereignty metrics, assessments and indicators that highlight the complexities of the relationships between food, health, environments, culture, gender relations, and economies through a food sovereignty lens. At the local level, food-sovereignty assessments have gained traction in the past decade, but we know very little about these tools, where they align and diverge, and whether they engage with multi-scalar analysis of food systems. In this paper, I examine these community-based food sovereignty assessments, paying attention to how they align and diverge and illustrating what researchers, communities and policymakers can learn from community-based FSAs to date.

Variations in agricultural and energy prices have direct and cascading effects on economic and agri-food systems. In this study, we developed a dynamic general equilibrium model to simulate the impact of the global price shocks induced by the Russia-Ukraine war on welfare and food security in Nigeria. In addition, we analysed the effectiveness of different policy options, specifically a reduction in indirect taxes and an increase in cash transfers to affected households, in the short and long term. The results showed that the shocks create opportunities for Nigeria, particularly in the trade, livestock, and agricultural sectors. This leads to an increase in GDP, employment, and incomes. However, these effects fade over time due to the rise in food prices that negatively affects food consumption and some food security indicators. Moreover, the comparative analysis of mitigation scenarios revealed that targeted public cash transfers to households are more effective than reduction in consumption taxes on food in mitigating the negative effects on households.