Food Security最新文献

The shift from subsistence to more market-oriented agriculture is viewed as essential to increase smallholder farmers’ welfare. However, its impact on farmers’ nutrition and informal sharing arrangements and associated solidarity within African farming communities remains uncertain. To analyse these trade-offs, we study the growing commercialization of African indigenous vegetables (AIV) in Kenya. These vegetables are an essential component of local diets in rural areas but also of informal sharing arrangements that provide access to food outside of markets. This article combines quantitative data from a 2016–2022 panel survey of farmers with qualitative data from focus group discussions. Results based on household fixed-effects models show a significant increase in households’ non-food expenditures due to selling AIV. The results suggest that selling AIV did not negatively affect nutrition outcomes but did not improve them either. Informal AIV sharing between households decreased further with growing market participation. Panel data models indicate, however, inconsistent and insignificant changes in associated solidarity indicators. We attribute this to the multiple and sometimes opposing effects of market-oriented farming on solidarity, as revealed by focus group discussions. While some farmers perceive reduced solidarity due to less informal AIV sharing, others perceived this traditional solidarity to be partially forced. Other forms of social interaction have also emerged, such as cooperatives and more intensive knowledge sharing. Despite concerns about the loss of informal sharing and community solidarity and limited improvements in nutrition outcomes, the tangible income gains generated by selling AIV are likely to foster further growth in the AIV sector.

Triple duty actions have been proposed as a way to address the global syndemic of undernutrition, obesity and environmental sustainability with finite resources, by targeting the three components simultaneously. This scoping review investigated which triple duty actions had been carried out or recommended in the literature. A search of 4747 peer reviewed studies identified 27 articles describing triple duty actions. Information on the action, actors and pathways to outcomes was extracted and assessed. Nine triple duty action areas were identified in addition to those summarized in existing reviews. Despite recent interest in this topic, only six articles covered existing (as opposed to recommended) actions, and many articles were weak on addressing one of the three components, despite being framed as triple duty. Many articles stopped short of suggesting how actions could be carried out in practice and by whom. These gaps suggest that evidence on the explicit integration of nutrition and environmental sustainability in policies and programmes is nascent in the literature.

Across the globe, an ongoing urban food system (UFS) transformation has made street food trade (SFT) fundamental for urban food security (FS). It also highlights the central role of city governance in SFT. However, large gaps exist in understanding of the regulatory arena, that constrains policy discussion, hinders traders, and inhibits access, affordability, and availability of safe street food. This paper examines implications of SFT regulations on FS and urban livelihoods. We focus on a cross-section of 260 street food enterprises (SFEs) in urban Kumasi, Ghana, and explore interactions of compliance with SFT regulations, adoption of improved practices, enterprise performance and their links to FS in UFSs. We find that though vendors are generally aware and willing to invest in improved practices, compliance levels with regulations are below average due mainly to insufficient, inconsequential, and uneven regulatory enforcement. We also find that compliance costs are high whilst detected non-compliance neither bears sufficient legal nor financial consequences. Lastly, compliance requirements negatively impact urban FS such that, annual compliance costs inhibit the supply of over 103,000 food servings from the UFS whilst compliance-induced innovations siphon out over half a million food servings from it annually. The later also increases prices of street-vended food by about 6%. From a modern urban food policy perspective, our findings suggest urban food policy and city management efforts could enhance the FS role of SFT, if they prioritize promoting improved practices, simplifying regulations, and assisting vendors in compliance.

Mexico enacted a decree to ban the sale of genetically modified (GM) maize seed and maize for human consumption. Maize is particularly important to the average diet in Mexico as it is the main feed for the primary source of protein (poultry) and the main ingredient for the primary source of calories (corn tortillas). This study aimed to assess consumer awareness of the decree, support for the decree, and sensitivity of support given possible economic outcomes related to the decree. Additionally, we estimate the premiums consumers were willing to pay (WTP) for non-GM products relative to GM products (i.e., chicken meat, eggs, and corn tortillas). Results show that 54% of the Mexicans were unaware of the ban and that 77% of those aware supported the ban. Many consumers were willing to pay premiums to cover potential price increases due to the ban; however, not all low-income consumers would pay the potential premiums. Focusing on low-income consumers is particularly important, given they will likely be affected disproportionately more by the burden of increased food prices.

Despite recent attention, the concept of food agency has been largely overlooked in academics as a food security dimension. In this study, we define lack of food agency as the inability to make food choices and the consumption of non-preferred and undesirable foods, and examine its relation to other food insecurity domains and household characteristics. Our analysis is based on data collected from 486 households in the impoverished regions of northern Burundi. Specifically, we use the responses to two questions of the Household Food Insecurity Access Score scale that examine the consumption behavior of non-preferred and undesirable foods. The results highlight a worrying lack of food agency in this area of research, as more than 80% of households admitted to consuming such foods. Our study also shows that only households with additional off-farm income are able to avoid non-preferred foods. This study serves to highlight the critical issue of food agency, particularly among low-income consumers in the Global South, and underscores the widespread nature of this problem.

Malawi smallholder farmers are facing climate-induced challenges that have increased food and nutrition insecurity in the country, thus sustainable intensification practices has been widely recommended. The objective of this study was to assess the effects of cropping systems with improved varieties on total system productivity and nutrition under different environments. The study involved on-farm experiments in ten communities in Central and Southern Malawi, incrementally established from 2005/2006 to 2018/2019 cropping seasons. Each community had six demonstration plots with three main treatments: conventional ploughing (CP): sole maize grown on seasonally constructed ridges and furrows; no-tillage (NT): sole maize grown on retained ridges with minimum soil disturbance and residue retained; and Conservation agriculture (CA): maize intercropped either cowpea, pigeon pea or groundnut on retained ridges as in NT. Our results show that total system nutrition was higher in CA treatments than NT and CP. The yields of maize were at least 800 kg ha⁻¹ higher in CA and NT than CP despite the variety that was grown. Legume yields were also higher under CA and NT than CP. High protein yield was observed in CA systems (at least 100 kg ha⁻¹ higher than CP) where maize and legume intercrops were rotated with grain legumes. Our results show nutrients and energy gains in CA and NT systems that can be invested in practices that increases the resilience of smallholder farmers to climate change. Conservation agriculture and NT systems have more influence on productivity of smallholder farms, despite the genotypes used (hybrids or OPVs).

This study aims to determine (1) food security (FS) status of Syrian refugees who arrived in Canada under the Government’s 2015 initiative, and (2) whether the province of residence and type of refugee resettlement program are associated with refugees’ FS. In a cross-sectional design, 282 Syrian refugee households resettled in Ontario, Quebec, and Saskatchewan were recruited. The status of FS was determined using the validated Household Food Security Survey Module used by Statistics Canada. Binary logistic regression analysis was used to determine sociodemographic and geographic predictors of food insecurity (FI). Overall, the rate of household food insecurity (HFI) was high (77.0%) compared to that of Canadian households (18.4%) and recent immigrants (17.1%) in in 2021. Households in Saskatchewan and Ontario experienced a significantly higher rates of HFI (87.5%, P < 0.001, 79.2%, P = 0.001, respectively) compared to Quebec (52.1%). The rate of HFI was significantly higher among government-assisted refugees compared to privately-sponsored refugees (79.5% vs 62.2%, P = 0.039). Households living in Saskatchewan and Ontario were almost three and a half times and over two times, respectively, more likely to experience HFI compared to those in Quebec (OR = 3.43, 95% CI [1.070–11.010]), (OR = 2.30, 95% CI [0.860–6.120], respectively). Recent Syrian refugees in Canada are at high risk of experiencing HFI, with the province of residence and income level, but not the type of refugee resettlement program, being significant predictors of HFI. The link between refugees’ FS and provincial variations in the resettlement program policies and practices should be examined to better understand how they shape refugees’ FS.

In this longitudinal study we explore how changes in food environments have shaped the acquisition and consumption of wild foods among people living near forests. Our study conceptually improves food environment frameworks by including evidence on changes in wild food consumption. We used data collected in both the dry and rainy seasons in 2009 and 2021/2022 in four villages in the East Usambara Mountains, Tanzania. Across data collections, we conducted qualitative interviews, focus groups and repeated household surveys, including questions on dietary intake, food sources, agricultural practices, and use of wild resources. We found that the proportion of people who collected wild foods within the past seven days had declined from 90 to 61% in the dry season and from 99 to 72% in the wet season. The main reasons were 1) decreased availability caused by, for example, loss of biodiversity, 2) lack of access due to government forest regulations, and 3) increased desirability towards marked-based foods. Our results show how changes in both availability, access and desirability of wild foods have shifted dietary choices from wild foods towards cultivated and purchased foods. Also, we see less widespread consumption of sentinel food groups such as dark green leafy vegetables. Our results highlight the need for an additional dimension in existing food environment frameworks: “Legal access to wild resources” that would cover access to wild foods. This dimension is important as loss of legal access and declining consumption can have negative dietary implications, since the most commonly consumed wild foods, such as leafy vegetables, are nutritionally important.

Rapid urbanisation in low- and middle-income countries, which has encroached on agricultural lands but has not been consistently accompanied by corresponding improvements in water and sanitation services, has raised questions about its impact on the food and nutrition security of households living in transitional, peri-urban areas. Through an analysis of survey data collected from 518 households living around the town of Eldoret, Kenya, we investigate the existing links between peri-urban households’ engagement in agriculture, their dietary behaviour, and their children’s nutrition outcomes. We find that peri-urban households engaged in agriculture, particularly in crop growing and in the sales of their agricultural produce, have more diverse and nutritious diets than agriculturally non-engaged households, all other things being equal. However, a significant improvement in children’s health outcomes is observed in these households only when coupled with improved water, sanitation, and hygiene conditions.