Food Security最新文献

Despite a broad consensus on the necessity of fundamental change, endeavors to transform food systems appear to have reached an impasse. Greater engagement with the uncertainty of food systems could open up new ways of triggering transformation directed towards achieving more sustainable and inclusive outcomes. As a way of reorienting current food system change efforts to better embrace uncertainty, we propose a framework for a transformative learning system that serves two aims. First, the framework highlights the importance of locally led action, experimentation, and learning, providing a way of focusing on the core capacities and skills needed to act in the face of uncertainty. Second, it outlines the different types of learning functions that need to operate at different scales of food systems to trigger disruptive, coordinated, and more democratic change processes. The operationalization of this framework necessitates shifts in roles and ways of working across the landscape of food system interventions. The discussion will address the who and how of this potential change, as well as its subsequent impact on the operational modalities of individuals, the process of change itself, and the structures and institutions involved in the process. We argue that embracing uncertainty and the focus on learning has the potential to facilitate a more agile and locally relevant change process. This would allow actors to learn from decentrally pursued food systems reforms, leading to the emergence of diverse pathways that complement on-going efforts and potentially accelerate transformation efforts.

More than 2.3 billion people globally experience food insecurity. Concurrently, rapidly increasing human populations and effective conservation have resulted in greater need for human-wildlife conflict mitigation. This opinion article considers how lethal control of some wildlife species during human-wildlife conflict management can simultaneously advance food security as a secondary benefit. In the case of the United States, one federal agency donated 117–148 mt of meat annually during 2020–2023 from wildlife killed during conflict mitigation to programs addressing food insecurity, providing up to 1.74 million meals at a replacement cost of $1.7 million US. Though limitations exist in providing wild meat to people experiencing food insecurity, such as palatability and disease risk which can reduce cost effectiveness, species generally used for human consumption (e.g., recreationally-hunted species) killed during human-wildlife conflict mitigation should be used when possible to advance food security.

This study examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on various aspects of food related behaviors and how this impact varied by food insecurity status among low-income rural residents in South Carolina of the United States of America (USA) using data from telephone and in-person interviews of a purposive, convenience sample of 662 low-income residents in nine rural South Carolina counties from August 2020 to July 2021. About 21% of respondents reported moderate and 11% reported high food insecurity. The weighted results showed that food insecurity status was significantly associated with five out of the ten food-related behavioral changes after COVID-19; for four behaviors, there was a positive gradient relationship with higher levels of food insecurity associated with experiencing more frequent or more change in the behavior after the onset of COVID-19 than before. On increased frequency of adjusting children’s meals due to budget, experiencing more change in accessing fresh, locally grown food and eating habits, and having made a change in the ranking of the importance of food characteristics, the odds ratios for high food-insecure respondents versus for low food-insecure respondents ranged from 2.88 to 6.17 and all were statistically significant; the odds ratios for moderate food-insecure respondents versus for low food-insecure respondents ranged from 1.32 to 3.24 and two of them were statistically significant. In addition, high food-insecure respondents were 4.43 times more likely to experience an increase in frequency of adjusting one’s own meals due to budget than low food insecure respondents while moderate food insecure respondents were 5.18 times more likely to experience an increase in this behavior than low food-insecure respondents. Our results indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic aggravated both conditions related to food access and food behaviors among low-income residents in rural areas of South Carolina. The pandemic increased the gaps between comparatively food secure and food insecure residents, thus making some poor residents poorer in terms of food security.

Crop diversification has been proposed as a climate risk management strategy to increase food production and food security. However, few empirical studies have been conducted on climate risk attitudes and crop diversification's effects on Food security in Africa. This paper fills that gap by examining the relationship between the climate risk attitudes of food crop farmers and the extent of crop diversification; and subsequently, estimates the impact of crop diversification on farm household food security in the Central Region of Ghana. Data were obtained through a structured interview schedule from 420 food crop farmers who were selected using a multistage sampling technique. We used the Equally Likely Certainty Equivalent Model to estimate the risk attitudes of farmers towards climate change, and the Herfindahl–Hirschman Diversity Index to determine the extent of crop diversification on food-crop farms. We then employed a Heckit Treatment Effect model to examine the empirical relationship between them. We further examined how the extent of crop diversification impacts the Food security of farmers by estimating the Average Treatment Effect using the inverse probability weights regression adjustment estimator. The study found that over 50% of Food crop farmers highly diversified their farms where they cultivated more than four different types of crop, while 30.5% and 16.9% moderately and lowly diversified their farms, with the cultivation of three or less different crop types. The majority (87%) of the farmers had risk aversion attitudes towards climate variability and change. Food crop farmers who were risk averse are more likely to practice crop diversification as a climate-smart agriculture intensification strategy to reduce crop loss due to climate variability. We also found that farmers with more diversified farms were more food secure than their counterparts. By adapting to climate variation through crop diversification, food crop farmers benefit from more diverse food produced from their farms, resulting in greater food security. Our study recommends that farmers be encouraged to plant multiple crops including maize, cassava, plantains, cocoyam, and cowpea, as well as vegetables like tomatoes, pepper, okra, and eggplant/aubergine on their farms in the variable climate of central Ghana.

This study examines the extent and severity of rural and urban food insecurity and compares policy-relevant characteristics of food-insecure rural and urban households in Afghanistan. We collected data from 899 rural and urban households in three provinces administering a semi-structured questionnaire in August and September 2023. We calculate comprehensive food insecurity measures (CARI and FIES) to quantify the prevalence and severity of food insecurity, using the capability approach to guide the analysis. Our results show that, while food insecurity is relatively more prevalent among rural households, urban households are worse off in current consumption status and per capita daily energy intake. Food-insecure urban households display a lower average monthly income and per-capita monthly income than food-insecure rural households, and they also suffer from higher income volatility. A smaller fraction of urban household members was employed or self-employed. Food-insecure rural households typically have access to irrigated land and livestock, they also possess the skills to make productive use of these assets. Food-insecure households’ large food expenditure shares, adoption of coping strategies, and lack of savings not only indicate their vulnerability to shocks but also suggest that they are trapped in a vicious cycle. The results underline the recent calls for more attention to specific forms of urban food insecurity. Moreover, they suggest policy measures to improve income generating opportunities among the urban population that was especially hard-hit by the economic consequences of the regime change in August 2021.

Policymakers and non-government organizations (NGOs) are increasingly looking to democratically governed co-operatives to address food insecurity. We provide what is, to our knowledge, a first-ever scoping review of scholarly literature published between 2000 and 2023 that considers the link between co-operatives and food security on the African continent, with emphasis on East Africa where food insecurity is most acute. Our PRISMA-guided review identified 13 studies that touch on food security after exploring the economic effects of co-operatives. We identify only five studies proposing a direct association between co-operatives and food security based on an empirical strategy connecting the outcome of food security to a dummy variable representing membership in a co-operative. We conclude that the mechanisms connecting co-operative to food security are under-explored. We also observe that while the literature allows us to infer that co-operatives can help address food availability and food access -- two of the four core dimensions of food security -- the link to food utilization (nutrition) and stability is much less clear. Our scoping review further suggests that scholars need to consider how social norms shape the household distribution of available and accessed food, and how co-operatives, as part economic and part social entities, might influence those norms. We conclude by outlining the mechanisms that could provide a richer understanding of how co-operatives shape the components of food security and by setting out some research questions that, if answered, could provide a more solid basis for future policy and NGO interventions.

In Brazil, family farming is responsible for producing a large portion of the food that is part of the population's diet. However, its development is hindered by inequality in land distribution and access to productive resources, as well as the concentration of wealth generated by the expansion of large-scale agriculture. This situation is even more evident in the Midwest Region of Brazil, where there is a greater concentration of land at the expense of a greater environmental impact, particularly in terms of greenhouse gas emissions produced by agricultural practices. This study analyzed the spatial distribution of the proportion used for family farming (PFLA) and its spatial correlation and association with socioeconomic and environmental factors in municipalities in the Midwest Region of Brazil. Data from 466 municipalities in three states of the Midwest Region were analyzed. The Moran's Index (global and local) was used to analyze spatial correlation among municipalities. A Multiscale Geographically Weighted Regression model was adopted to analyze the association between PFLA and socioeconomic and environmental variables. The results show a greater predominance of non-family farming due to the existence of spatial clusters of municipalities with high or low values of the values of land used for family farming. Family farming was positively associated with population density, and the production value of corn and negatively associated with the land concentration index, GDP per capita, greenhouse gas emissions, and the production value of soybean. The study reveals spatial asymmetries in land use for family farming in Brazil’s Midwest, with non-family farming prevailing in areas of greater land concentration. Family farming shows positive associations with population density and corn production, and negative associations with land concentration, GDP per capita, soybean production, and greenhouse gas emissions. These patterns highlight structural constraints and suggest that, with adequate policy support, family farming may contribute to local food security.

Undernutrition remains a significant challenge among ethnic minorities in Northern Vietnam, possibly due to limited diet diversity. Our study explored the potential of a nutrition-sensitive agriculture intervention (NSA) to improve diet quality among the Thai, H’Mong, and Dao communities using a mixed-methods approach. Conducted between December 2020 and July 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic, the study involved 600 households across 36 clusters, divided into two treatment groups: one received nutrition and agricultural training, another received this training plus a variety of vegetable seeds, and a control group without any intervention. We focused on diet and crop diversity, especially in vegetables and legumes. Quantitative data were collected through one baseline and two end-line rounds to ensure sufficient statistical power, while qualitative data included 14 focused group discussions, seven in-depth interviews, and field notes from field assistants. Our findings revealed that diet diversity, particularly in vegetables and legumes, was limited among the H’Mong and Dao, underscoring the potential of NSAs to improve their diet. Market access and on-farm production were found to complement each other in enhancing both diet and crop diversity across all three communities. The impact of the NSA intervention highlighted the complexity of contextual factors, including initial conditions and the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which influenced the outcomes in unpredictable ways. Nonetheless, combining seed provision with nutrition and agricultural training emerged as a promising strategy to enhance both diet and crop diversity, particularly given the strong vegetable cultivation practices and limited market access in these communities.

While a rich literature has studied the impacts of trade on food security and nutrition, the debate is far from over. Both theoretical and empirical evidence show mixed effects, and several crucial research gaps remain. We outline three main avenues for further research to better understand how food trade influences food security and nutrition: 1) evaluation of distributional effects across and within countries, and across and within households, accounting for the nature of traded goods; 2) assessment of all forms of malnutrition, includingdietary quality and simultaneous effects; and 3) analysis of spill-overs between global and local food systems.