Food Security最新文献

In the context of accelerating climate change (CC), this study empirically examines climatic variations’ impact on household dietary diversity (DD) in India. The analysis period spans 2014–2020 and includes approximately 1.04 million observations from 198,238 households. We use linear and quadratic regressions under multiple model specifications (pooled, fixed effect, and fractional) to obtain robust results. Our results indicate that temperature anomalies positively impact DD up to a threshold, after which the relationship turns negative. However, the effect of precipitation variation is inconclusive. Furthermore, rising humidity undermines DD. This paper contributes to the literature on climatic variations and food insecurity by exploring whether Indian households are adapting to climatic variations. Anomalies show heterogeneous impacts on DD depending on the baseline climate and households’ socioeconomic characteristics. Climatic variation is expected to exacerbate existing vulnerabilities in food systems; thus, our findings underscore the urgency for climate-adaptive strategies to safeguard food security, particularly in developing nations vulnerable to CC impacts.

Requirements to obtain groceries from a food pantry (e.g., forms of identification) can create potential “documentation barriers” to participation. A more holistic understanding of potential barriers are obtaining assistance from food pantries, specifically in the United States of America (USA), is warranted due to inflation in food prices, reduction of enhanced COVID-related SNAP benefits, and the increased demand for food pantry participation. In May of 2022, a survey was administered to low-income households across the USA that received groceries from a food pantry the previous month. Food pantry participants were asked which pieces of information were required to obtain groceries during their food pantry visit, including requirements to provide a home address, place of employment, Social Security Card, driver’s license, household size, blood test, and an “other” option in case they were asked to provide something beyond the previous requirements listed. On average, respondents were asked to provide 2.4 pieces of information (out of seven) when visiting a food pantry. Results indicated that 56% of African Americans had to provide their Social Security Card, which was significantly higher than the 21% of White food pantry participants, and requiring a Social Security Card is one of the most significant known barriers to obtaining food assistance. Further, probit model results indicated that the groups most susceptible to being food insecure (e.g., minorities, females, and SNAP-using individuals) were between 11 and 28% more likely to experience more documentation barriers to accessing groceries from a food pantry.

Food insecurity is often highly differentiated within village contexts of the Global South. This paper argues that an everyday political economy approach provides a useful framework to account for such differentiation. We apply this approach in a rural village in Myanmar’s Central Dry Zone, utilizing a mixed-methods approach that incorporates (1) food security and dietary diversity indexes, (2) household interviews and (3) qualitative wealth rankings. Our analysis shows that patterns of food insecurity and diet emerge out of the conjuncture of everyday livelihood activities and political-economic relations between individuals and between social groups. Those who control the land of the village continue to enjoy better food security and diet quality above landless or smaller landowning households. However, the centrality of land ownership as an indicator of household food and nutrition security status is becoming blurred because of the increasing availability of non-farm livelihood activities. Differentiated opportunities for households to grasp non-farm livelihoods can sometimes challenge but more often reproduce unequal patterns of wealth and hunger. The everyday political economy approach brings into focus the lived experiences behind these processes of change, making visible the complexities of village life that are not able to be revealed in analyses dependent on socio-economic variables alone.

China's rapid economic growth has led to a significant increase in the number of people who are eating away from home. However, some studies show that increased meat consumption poses a health burden while others show dietary diversity promoted by away from home enhances health. As a result, the effects of away from home on dietary nutritional quality remain inconclusive. Moreover, estimates of total food consumption are underestimated without considering away from home. Herein, we constructed away from home models (R² = 0.59) to assess its impacts on the quantity and quality of food consumption. By 2020, away from home accounted for 18% (233.37 g) of total consumption in urban areas and 8% (81.80 g) in rural areas. Although, at the national scale, away from home consumption of meat, poultry, and aquatic products led to decreased dietary nutritional quality in urban areas from 2000 to 2020 and in rural areas since 2015, by 2020, three urban provinces and 12 rural provinces still showed improvements in dietary nutritional quality from such consumption. Additionally, overall dietary nutritional quality of away from home impact in urban areas improved from 2000 to 2015 but decreased in 2020, whereas rural areas saw consistent improvement across all years, suggesting the divergent impacts on diet nutrition quality across urban and rural China. Our findings underscore the urgency and necessity of extensively strengthening national nutritional education and developing specific nutrition-health policies tailored to economic conditions. This study also provides critical data for accurate food consumption and life cycle evaluations, promoting sustainability in the food system.

Graphical abstract

Animal-source foods provide essential nutrients for humans, however, the use of nutrient-dense (i.e., high in nutrients but low in calories) and digestible resources for animal feeds is controversial as it may reduce the net contribution of farmed animals to global food supply, and hence to food security. Redirecting resources edible by humans to direct consumption as food can increase resource use efficiency and food supply, however, what can be considered as edible by humans is context dependent. The objective of the present study is to assess the net contribution of ten contrasting tilapia production systems from eight different countries to the supply of nutrients of importance for human health. To do so we calculated the human-edible nutrient conversion ratio (HeNCR), which is the human-edible nutrients in the inputs (feed) divided by the human-edible nutrients in the outputs (animal products) of the systems. We showed that tilapia systems can be net producers of proteins, but that in general, much more human edible micronutrients (5 to 175 times) and EPA + DHA (about 7 times) were in the feed used than in the fish produced. Four scenarios combining different definitions for feed and fish edibility were tested to explore the effect of different dietary changes on the performances of the tilapia systems. Scenario analysis revealed that the direct use of edible ingredients as food generates more nutrients than the consumption of fish. Consumers’ preferences, and therefore our definition of what is edible, may have to evolve in order to maximize food resource use.

Livestock production is critical to food security and rural livelihoods across Southern Africa. Despite progress in livestock science research in recent years, the seasonal availability and quality of feed remains one of the key challenges to livestock productivity in Southern Africa. In particular, dry weather conditions, the lack of rain and lower temperatures in the dry season cause herbaceous plants to die back and browse species to defoliate, limiting the abundance, quality, and variety of feed available. This creates a ‘Nutritional Feed Gap’, defined here as the combined effect of the sharp reduction in both forage quantity and quality from the wet to the dry season and the risk that it poses to ruminant production systems and the food security of the people and communities reliant on them. Understanding the nature and extent of how seasonality impacts ruminant production potential can thus contribute towards mitigating negative impacts of extreme weather and climate change on food systems. In this review, we characterise this nutritional feed gap in terms of forage abundance and nutrition as well as discussing how climate change may shape the future nutritional landscape. Whilst some forage nutrient concentrations varied little by season, crude protein and phosphorus were consistently found to decrease from the wet season to the dry season. We also identify a shortfall in primary research that assess both forage quality and quantity simultaneously, which forms part of a broader knowledge gap of our limited understanding of the impact of limiting factors to ruminant production on short and long-term food security across Southern Africa.

Formation of aspirations and ensuring food security are pivotal developmental concerns, capturing the attention of development practitioners, researchers, and scholars. Although aspirations play a role in reinforcing external factors to reshape welfare outcomes, the influence of on-farm agronomic demonstrations on aspiration formation and food security remains understudied. This research leverages primary data from 1,099 farm households to explore the nexus between on-farm demonstrations (OFDs), aspiration formation, and food security. Utilizing instrumental variable (IV) estimates, our analysis highlights a positive association between OFDs and income aspiration formation, as well as food and nutrition security. Participation in on-farm demonstrations (OFDs) has a heterogeneous association with income aspiration and food and nutrition security. Farm households with higher income aspirations and those experiencing greater food insecurity derive more significant benefits from OFDs. The robustness of findings across alternative methods addressing endogeneity underscores their reliability. The study implies that increased public investment in OFDs, coupled with efforts to overcome participation barriers, can propel aspirations and enhance welfare outcomes.

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.