Everyday Approaches to Food Safety in Kunming

The article explores how people in Kunming have interpreted and acted upon food-related environmental health threats, particularly within the contexts of everyday food shopping. It is argued that an increasingly intensified, delocalized food supply system and a state-led emphasis on individual responsibility and choice have produced growing uncertainties about food. However, the article takes issue with the claim that new forms of risk and institutional changes have produced “individualized” responses, arguing that many of the practices Kunmingers have developed to handle food-related risks and their understandings of what constitutes “safe” food have been developed within the frameworks of family ties and regional cuisine. Further, shoppers and purveyors of food have forged new ties of trust and re-emphasized connections between people, food and place. Nevertheless, concerns about the food supply are a source of discontent which is feeding into wider ambivalences towards modernization. This is particularly acute among the economically disadvantaged.

The article asks why it is that projects celebrating regional cuisine may be unsuccessful in gaining recognition from people in the region. It explores how a recent campaign in Yunnan, China attempted to construct a “modern” image for the province through promoting a distinctive, “green” regional cuisine. However, in a context of rapid changes to urban space and the food supply, residents in the provincial capital, Kunming, were ambivalent towards the notion of a regional cuisine. It is argued that to gain recognition locally, public celebrations of regional cuisine must resonate with people’s lived experiences and performances of “their” foods.

HOW ARE WE TO UNDERSTAND PATTERNS OF LAND REFORM in post-communist Russia? What explains patterns of behaviour exhibited by Russian rural dwellers, and how do we explain continuities in behaviour from the Soviet period? Despite enormous institutional and policy changes since 1991 the Russian countryside has remained essentially collectivist and egalitarian. Why? In 1994 I published an article in this journal that attempted to shed light on these questions.1 In that article, which was based on several years of field work, I used a political culture approach to help us understand ongoing rural behavioural patterns that were evident during the land reform process in Russia. In addressing a series of 'why' questions I posed a triad of factors that were important in reinforcing and continuing basic political cultural attributes. This triad included the way in which reform institutions were defined, rural attitudes, and various social agents in the countryside. In that article I presented a two-staged analysis to explain rural behaviours. First, I argued that it was necessary to look at the nature of reform institutions in order to understand patterns of land reform in Russia. In particular, I was impressed by the degree to which cultural continuities were reflected in the definition of reform institutions. The definition of rural reform institutions was instrumental in framing the behavioural options that were available to rural dwellers. I argued that cultural continuities were influencing elite definitions of reform institutions. The second stage of the analysis asserted that, owing to cultural influences on reform options, individual behavioural choices were affected. Those individual choices were reflected in patterns of land reform. The policy prescription was that institutional change was not sufficient for successful rural reform. Instead, culture and rural attitudes would need to change and I suggested that this would be a long-term process. Recently, my article and the political culture approach were attacked by William

Oncological diseases are in a special focus of social policy programmes. They are multifactorial, attributable to individuals’ lifestyle, genetic predispositions, and the external environmental factors. In the Russian healthcare system, the attempts to build a model of individual rational responsibility of individuals for themselves and for their health were being made, while sufficient institutional conditions that would allow citizens to implement the patterns of self-preservation behavior of developed countries are not fully provided. The environment, being one of the systemic factors of health, depends on infrastructural, economic, political prerequisites. At the same time, it requires a proactive subject that uses structural opportunities to manifest one’s agency. Thus, using the example of oncological diseases and their link with the environmental conditions, we aim to identify individuals’ attitudes to health and agency in selfcare. Based on the theoretical premises of interconnection between structure and agency, this study addresses the justifications that individuals apply to their health-preservation practices and oncological risks in connection with the quality of the environment or lack thereof. We take Muscovites as an example since they are the residents of a metropolis who, on the one hand, are prone to greater environmental health risks, especially in the long term, but, on the other hand, have greater access to healthcare and diagnostics.Based on the materials of 39 in-depth interviews, we conclude that environmental conditions are perceived by Muscovites as a significant factor in health, however, currently, environmental risks are insufficiently perceived as individual responsibility and an encouragement for personal proactivity. We suggest that a refusal to take a proactive position about cancer risks due to environmental factors turns is a locally rational strategy of Muscovites. Thus, Muscovites are characterized by an industrial type of self-care, in which health has a utilitarian value and is considered a ‘price’ for the benefits of an urban lifestyle, for industrialization and self-realization. Yet, Muscovites, in our opinion, would be ready to respond to environmental institutional changes.

We should be grateful to Dr Zimmern for drawing our attention to the several ways in which the genomic revolution could have important implications for the practice of public health. Given that human beings are not genetically identical, it is certainly conceivable that what is sound public health policy for one group might be irrelevant for another group and possibly even damaging to health for a third group. Indeed, we have become accustomed to the consideration of some such claims; for example that cannabis is especially dangerous for those who have a pre-disposition to psychosis. It is entirely possible that genetics might hold the key to why this is so, and thus enable us to segment the population into risk groups, not just for cannabis use, but for all manner of behaviours. Promise, though, is one thing and actuality another. Zimmern sets out his case in very general terms and I am unsure whether he believes that progress in genetic analysis is yet in a position to inform public health policy. He offers mammography as an example of where genetic information could be used to stratify risk populations, but the authors of the study that he cites conclude, ‘stratifying women according to genetic risk may improve the efficiency of screening programs. There are many questions to be answered and barriers to be overcome, however, before such potential could be realized’. As a political philosopher interested in public health, rather than a public health specialist, I keenly await to hear of relevant scientific breakthroughs, but at present, genomics does not seem to provide a challenge to public health practice, and so no basis for the thought that those who continue to follow standard approaches are Luddites. However, openness to the possibility of future developments is clearly prudent. Zimmern also draws our attention to the quite distinct issue of patient autonomy and individual responsibility, and thus to the overturning of older, paternalistic modes of practicing medicine. In itself this is not new. Medical ethics is essentially built on the idea of informed consent and thus the rejection of paternalism, which in turn reflects broader social trends. We may, however, ask how the ‘autonomy revolution’ has impacted upon public health. Oddly, it appears to have gone in reverse. We seem to have moved away from an ‘education plus individual choice and responsibility’ model to far less consensual public health policies. Prohibiting driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, requiring the use of seat belts and motor-cycle helmets, banning smoking in public places and a whole host of health and safety regulations are all highly interventionist, and at least partly paternalistic. These were introduced, presumably, because consensual policies failed. In this respect medicine and public health have taken different trajectories, with medicine moving from paternalism to individual autonomy, and public health from individual autonomy to paternalism. Should we fight this trend in public health? Philosopher David Hume argued that human beings suffer from a type of irrationality, suggesting that we often find ourselves unable to resist putting short-term pleasures over long-term interests, however much we may regret this ‘infirmity’ in our natures, and however much we may try to school ourselves into more prudent behaviour. Accordingly, Hume thought, we need official compulsion through punishment to align short-term and long-term interest for individual and collective good. On Hume’s view one justification of government is to protect us from

<p><strong>Addressing climate change requires urgent and impactful action. This includes reducing consumption of red meat for people living in high-income countries. Underpinned by critical realism and critical ecofeminism, this work aimed to expose how power manifests in the climate-meat association in two connected studies. The thesis explores media frames of meat reduction and the rhetorical arguments deployed in 58 news articles from 2019-2022 in Stuff Ltd. Media adopted a ‘risk’ and a ‘responsibility’ frame. A ‘risk’ frame was adopted for both pro-reduction and anti-reduction positions. Arguments favouring reduction considered the risks of meat consumption to both human health and ecological systems. Arguments against reduction focused on risks to humans, particularly for the ‘vulnerable’ and risks related to meat production systems. Positions for and against reduction emphasised individual action and responsibility, presenting dietary ‘choice’ as the foremost way to manage risk. Responsibility was mainly framed in terms of ‘individual responsibility’ and aggregated individual choices were given power to influence political action. A ‘collective responsibility’ frame and ‘political responsibility’ were also present but to a lesser extent. While engaging a single country focus and investigating one media outlet limits understanding, the implications of the research findings are important. Media shape how people think, feel, and act towards climate change. These findings highlight an over-emphasis on individual responsibility and this reduces media attention on mobilising collective action and holding powerful actors to account. In the second study, ten men participated in qualitative research that drew on Foucauldian-inspired discourse analysis augmented with an analysis of extra-discursive elements (embodiment, materiality and structures). A discourse of ‘green responsibility’ was constructed, and meat reduction was also produced as ‘easy and flexible’. Media influence was discernible in the way men took up the subject positions of ‘(rational) climate-activist’ and ‘citizen-consumer’. Other subject positions included ‘good and green’ and ‘social-omnivore’. For these men, socioeconomic status appeared to have no negative bearing on meat reduction. Discourses of the ‘normality of meat’ were re(produced) by the participants, hindering meat reduction in some social situations, and a ‘conformist-flexitarian’ subject position deflected unwanted scrutiny of dietary choice. This study provided rich insight into the way masculine identity was re(negotiated) and (re)constructed. Meat reduction was produced as a rational response to climate change that had no negative health impact. Hegemonic forms of meat-eating and hunting animals for sport were rejected as outdated and made suspect. Care for the environment and multiple justice orientations, alongside an increased compassion for animals made visible traces of more ecological forms of masculinity. Climate advocacy could focus on the inclusion of plant-based protein in social situations to further disrupt the meat-masculinity association. While this research increases knowledge regarding the psychology of meat reduction as climate action, gaps remain. Future research could investigate larger media data sets and compare how different news outlets frame the meat-climate association, and a deeper exploration into the experiences of meat reduction as climate action in non-Western cultures is warranted.</strong></p>

Current trends in demography, agricultural production and rural environment in the developing countries suggest that so-called must play a larger and probably growing role in food supply and economic development for the foreseeable future. To fulfill this critical role, public policy towards these lands needs to be revised. A key policy focus should be to strengthen incentives for local land users to not only maintain, but to improve the natural resource base for food and fiber supply. Such land-improving investments are needed to reduce production and subsistence risks and permit more intensive use without degradation. Under population and market pressure, one can expect an endogenous process of intensification, through land improvements, tenurial and institutional changes and re-ordering of the landscape. But this process is not automatic. Factors influencing the pace and scale of land transformation include: farmer knowledge of degradation of the degrading resource; incentives for long-term investment; capacity to mobilize resources for land investment; level of economic returns to such investment; and factors affecting the formation and function of local groups to help mobilize resources and coordinate landscape-level change. Current policies often work to constrain, rather than support, this process. New research is needed to support policy change for marginal lands.

Responsibility, fairness and rationing in health care

Harvey Levenstein's Fear of Food is an extension of his previous work tracing the development of the American public's relationship to the evolving industrialized food system in relation to an increasingly globalized form of capitalism. For Levenstein, Americans' understanding of what is on their plates—how it gets there, what it contains, and what it should be—is the result of the nation's history as punctuated by specific events, which, though isolated as unique moments within Levenstein's narrative, are situated along a continuum of the constantly changing social world. Through these circumstances, as manifest from the inextricable connection between the political, cultural, and economic, Americans come to have seemingly rapid shifts in their understandings of food and diet. Thus, while Levenstein emphasizes the paramount role of the ideologies of choice and personal responsibility in individuals' food consumption, his focus on the hands of government, science, and industry in the formation, continuation, and renovation of American food discourse clearly reveals the historical situatedness and societal construction of personal decision-making regarding what to eat.

The Food Supply Veterinary Medical Coalition (FSVMC) was formed in 2004 with a mission to assure the public that food continues to be abundant, safe and wholesome by ensuring that veterinarians are appropriately involved throughout the food supply system. The premise of the Coalition is that food production is enhanced, both in safety and wholesomeness, when veterinarians are included in all steps of production and processing. Listed alphabetically, the following organizations are the founding members of the Food Supply Veterinary Medical Coalition (FSVMC): American Association of Avian Pathologists, American Association of Bovine Practitioners, American Association of Food Hygiene Veterinarians, American Association of Small Ruminants Practitioners, American Association of Swine Veterinarians, American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges, American Veterinary Medical Association, Association of Veterinary Consultants, and the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service. Although not officially a member, the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association was very supportive of this research program, and was instrumental in data collection in Canada. This study was commissioned by the FSVMC in May 2004 to implement a far reaching research program to examine the demand and supply trends for food animal veterinarians and the issues shaping those trends. The study was funded by the FSVMC and a grant from Bayer Animal Health. Similar in spirit to earlier extensive research on the veterinary profession provided in the KPMG mega study and the Pew report, the final report, entitled "Estimating FSVM Demand and Maintaining the Availability of Veterinarians for Careers in Food Supply Related Disciplines in the United States and Canada" consists of over 1600 pages that describe many different studies on various facets of the supply and demand for food supply veterinarians. Representing 16 months of literature review, data collection and analysis, the entire report can be found at the following website: http ://www.avma.org/public_heal th/f svmc/fsvmc_toc.asp. Three summary articles have also been published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA) that highlight the major findings from the research program. The first article deals with veterinary student career path attraction to food production medicine in the USA and Canada. The second article, examines career switching and the retention of food supply veterinarians in the career. The third article15 addresses the patterns of growing demand for food supply veterinarians. Each article contains recommendations to improve the profession based directly upon the results from this research. The research program that examined demand issues from 2004 thru 2016 in food supply medicine was comprised of thirteen panels of experts who participated in a multiple-round Delphi forecasting exercise. The research program addressing career attraction and career retention issues consisted of 1 7 studies, seven focus group studies and ten surveys, which provided insight into FSVM career path attraction and retention in the United States and Canada. Unlike some previous studies, this study found that there will likely be a 4% to 5% yearly shortfall in bovine-interested veterinarians graduating from US and Canadian veterinary colleges over the next 10 years. As demand for these veterinarians will rise only a modest 1% per year, most of this shortfall will be due to a lack of supply of new bovine-interested veterinary college graduates. To alleviate this shortfall, multiple tactics were suggested to: increase the likelihood of recruiting bovine-interested veterinary students into veterinary college, create cattle interest in students already in veterinary college, help these students as they begin their careers post-graduation, and provide further ongoing support to prevent them from switching from bovine medicine in their first five years of practice.

Much of the world's food supply is supported by crop varieties developed from plant genetic resources by plant breeders in the public, private and smallholder spheres. International movement of plant genetic resources has changed markedly in recent decades due to changes in international treaties, such as the Convention on Biodiversity and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources. This study uses the SSP institutional analysis paradigm to describe the performance outcomes of the interaction of international treaties with inherent interdependencies such as high information costs, high contracting costs, high exclusion costs and economies of scale. It examines some of the driving forces of institutional change in the negotiation of the three treaties, identifies possible useful institutional linkages at the national level and suggests area for later empirical research.

Hunger continues to be an ever-present com panion of many millions of people. Although the farmers of the world have grown more food, they have not grown enough more to correct the serious undernutrition which has long existed in many countries. Since the end of World War II, food production has increased about as rapidly as world population, but it increased more rapidly in the richer, better-fed countries, while the poorer countries lagged behind. Two-thirds of the world's 3.3 billion people live in countries with national average diets which are nutritionally inadequate. The diet-deficient countries generally have high rates of population growth, about 2.1 per cent per year compared with about 1.3 per cent per year in the diet-adequate areas. In recent years the gap in available food supplies per person between the rich and the poor countries has been widening rather than narrow ing. A growing share of the increase of population in the less developed countries is being sustained by food shipments from the developed regions, especially North America. The possibilities of increasing food production are very large, and they are primarily dependent on increasing the yields of crops and of livestock. New methods, new strains of plants, im proved methods of cultivation, greatly increased use of fertiliz ers, and greater and more effective use of water are major elements in increasing yields. Nonconventional sources of food may in the future add significantly to available food supplies. In many countries, institutional changes are neces sary in order to enable farmers to benefit directly from in creased production and to make available the information, credit, tools, and supplies needed to increase yields. Rising educational levels are an essential element in programs for such increases.

Integrated One Health surveillance is pivotal to Africa's future health security, particularly in preventing and managing zoonotic and environmental health threats. The One Health strategy recognizes the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health, allowing a holistic framework for tracking and responding to emerging and re-emerging pathogens. The One Health approach facilitates cross-sectoral data sharing and enhances surveillance, enabling the early detection and response to potential outbreaks. This proactive approach shifts the paradigm from reactive crisis management to preventive containment strategies. However, challenges such as funding gaps, limited infrastructure, limited diagnostic capacity, and weak multi-sectoral and cross-border collaborations remain. This perspective paper aims to 1) explore the effectiveness of integrated One Health surveillance in early detection and response to zoonotic diseases and environmental threats in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and 2) identify key challenges and proposed solutions to strengthen regional health security. A multisectoral laboratory working group (MLWG) emerged as a pillar to enable active surveillance targeting humans, animals, and the environment. This paper highlighted essential strategies for enhancing One Health surveillance in SSA in light of the recent Marburg virus disease in Rwanda. It emphasizes environmental sampling through animal excreta and wastewater surveillance for early zoonotic detection, advocates for point-of-care polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing platforms, and multiplex models to improve decentralized diagnostics. With 48% of African nations incorporating One Health in national agendas, a unified continental framework is needed to support broader adoption and advance regional health security.

Today’s energy transition is a paradigmatic change from fossil fuel-based systems to those centered on renewable energy sources. This transformation spans technological, economic, social, and ethical dimensions and is deeply rooted in the philosophical principles of sustainable development. Ethical considerations are gaining prominence, particularly through the emerging frameworks of energy ethics and energy justice. These approaches emphasize the moral responsibilities of governments, corporations, and individuals toward both the environment and future generations. Historically, concepts such as ecological modernization and intergenerational justice have shaped the discourse, reinforcing the need for equitable and responsible energy governance. However, despite these guiding ideals, many dominant actors such as international oil companies within the global energy sector do not consistently prioritize the principles of the common good. In practice, the energy transition is often hindered by entrenched interests, stakeholder conflicts, and the prioritization of short-term corporate gains over longterm societal benefits. This paper analyzes the fundamental theoretical foundations underlying the energy transition and the integration of renewable energy sources into existing energy systems, with particular attention to the role of international oil and gas companies. It argues that ensuring a just and effective transition requires a rethinking of corporate strategies through the lens of justice, sustainable development, and ethical responsibility toward future generations. Based on theoretical analysis, the author demonstrates that a successful energy transformation entails not merely a technological shift, but institutional change, reassessment of values, and a long-term commitment to sustainability. The article concludes by emphasizing the importance of reconciling economic and environmental priorities through innovation, stakeholder engagement, and ethical governance. In doing so, it offers a comprehensive theoretical framework for scholars and practitioners seeking to navigate the complexities of energy transition in the 21st century. demonstrates that a successful energy transformation entails not merely a technological shift, but institutional change, reassessment of values, and a long-term commitment to sustainability. The article concludes by emphasizing the importance of reconciling economic and environmental priorities through innovation, stakeholder engagement, and ethical governance. In doing so, it offers a comprehensive theoretical framework for scholars and practitioners seeking to navigate the complexities of energy transition in the 21st century.

There is widespread belief that the fat body is a product of individual choice. However, in recent years, public discourse has begun to acknowledge environmental influences on body size. For example, nutritionists now point to the food industry's role in creating a “toxic environment” that facilitates weight gain. This paper explores how the food industry shapes consumption patterns, various public responses to induce corporate responsibility, and the food industry's position on fat—a “market-choice frame” that emphasizes agency. Additionally, using original survey data (n = 456) and interview data (n = 42), the paper examines the resonance of this industry frame. As a whole, the data point to support for industry views, a strong belief in individual responsibility, and the pervasiveness of moral models of fatness. The social implications of these findings are discussed.