Ensure Food Availability Research Articles

Metabolic responses of rice source and sink organs during recovery from combined drought and heat stress in the field.

BackgroundDrought and heat stress effects on rice have been extensively studied, in particular during the sensitive flowering and grain-filling stages. However, in the field these stresses usually occur together because reduced transpirational cooling under drought conditions results in increased plant tissue temperature. In addition, environmental stresses are usually transient and the ability to efficiently recover from stress may be at least as important for overall stress tolerance as the direct stress response itself. Nevertheless, nothing is known about recovery mechanisms after drought and heat stress in rice under field conditions.ResultsWe have used gas chromatography–mass spectrometry–based metabolomics to elucidate the metabolic responses of flag leaves, flowering spikelets, and developing seeds from 3 rice cultivars differing in their drought and heat tolerance to rewatering after stress in the field. Within 60 hours after rewatering, many stress-responsive metabolites returned to their control levels, although recovery was not complete. In addition, control plants showed developmental differences that were revealed by metabolite profiles during 60 hours of post-stress sampling, in particular in developing seeds. Correlation analysis identified several metabolites as marker candidates for the stability of grain yield or quality under conditions of combined drought and heat stress.ConclusionsThe rewatering responses of stressed plants seemed to be a combination of the reversal of stress effects and reinitiation of development after stress relief. The identified potential markers can be useful in efforts to breed stress-tolerant rice germplasm to ensure food availability under changing climate conditions.

Influence of Climate Change on Food Crop Yield in Benin Republic

World climate is projected to be more harmful and unforeseeable. A threefold combination of temperature, precipitation and potential evapotranspiration leads to climate change with a negative effect on staple food crop production. To understand the sensitivity of staple food crop yield to future change in climate, this paper uses the feasible generalized least square (FGLS) and heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation (HAC) consistent standard error techniques function to quantify the effects of climate variables on the mean and variance of crop yields. Data from FAOSTAT website and national institutions such as temperature, precipitation and crop areas cultivated for period 1961-2015 for Benin country are used. Climate variables are computed according to each crop growing season. The results showed that climate change could significantly influence the mean crop yields and could significantly affect the crop yield variability. The contribution of climate variables to crop yield varies across staple crop yields and they were predicted to decrease about 2025. In order to ensure food availability in the context of climate change, support to agricultural sector and especially to staple food crops production should be focused on seeds improvement by generating, developing and extending drought and flood-tolerant varieties. The results also implicate the promoting of irrigated agriculture.

Climate risk and food availability in Guatemala

AbstractIn this paper, we use a computable general equilibrium model to simulate the effects of drought and a decrease in agricultural productivity caused by climate change in Guatemala. A reduction in agricultural productivity would mean a considerable drop in crop and livestock production, and the resulting higher prices and lower household income would mean a significant reduction in the consumption of agricultural goods and food. The most negative effects of a drought would be concentrated in agriculture, given its intensive use of water. Because agricultural production is essential to ensuring food availability, these results suggest that Guatemala needs a proper water-distribution regulatory framework.

Pemanfataan Serbuk Sekam Padi Sebagai Adsorben Untuk Menurunkan Konsentrasi Senyawa Piridaben Pada Pestisida Samite 135EC

Pesticides are very useful in many areas of human activities, especially in agriculture to ensure food availability. However, pesticides also have a negative impact on the environment and health. Pesticides are classified as endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), which are chemicals that can interfere with the metabolic system, binding and eliminating hormones in the body, one of which is the danger of carcinogenicity. The concentration hazard present in Pesticide was experiment to decrease the concentration by using rice husk absorbent powder.
 This research is an experimental research that aims to reduce the concentration of pyridaben compounds contained in pesticides by using rice husk absorbent powder. By varying the sample treatment, variations of optimum concentrations of 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 mg/L, contact time of 12 hours, 24 hours, 2 days, 4 days and 7 days, and weight of rice husk powder 25, 50, 100, 150, 200 mg. Analysis performed on pesticides is the content of pyridaben in pestisida samite 135EC.
 From this research, the best result was obtained at concentration 30 mg/L with 29,74% absorption efficiency, 24 hours contact time with 92,36% absorption efficiency, and 150 mg of rice husk powder with 54,88% absorption efficiency. This condition indicates that rice husk powders are effectively used to decrease the concentration of pyridaben compounds because of their effectiveness above 50%.

From disaster management to adaptive governance? Governance challenges to achieving resilient food systems in Australia

ABSTRACTBuilding resilient food systems in the context of climate change and increased natural disasters depends on governance being more ‘adaptive’. Through a case study of events surrounding the extensive flooding that occurred in Queensland, Australia, in 2011, this paper examines how governance settings and processes affected food system actors’ engagement with three aspects of adaptive governance – responsibility, participation and collaboration – as those actors sought to ensure food availability and access during the crisis. We found that, despite the existence of formal governance instruments committed to disaster management, food security and resilience at local, state and national levels, responsibilities for ensuring food supply during a disaster were not clearly articulated. Responsibility was largely assumed by supermarkets, who in turn increased the influence of retailer–government coalitions. The participation of non-supermarket food system actors in governance was low, and there was limited collaboration between local, and other, levels of governance. The policy challenge is to ensure that responsibility, participation and collaboration become a stronger foci for adaptive governance during and after a disaster such as flooding.

Natural disasters and agricultural protection: A panel data analysis

We explore the impact of natural disasters on the degree of agricultural protection using data from 76 countries thereby covering more than 70 of the most traded agricultural commodities. Theoretically, the direction of this effect is not a priori directly clear as it balances the trade-off between protecting the economic interests of the domestic agricultural sector on the one hand and ensuring food availability for the society at large on the other. Our most important findings suggest that natural disasters generally raise agricultural trade controls to favor domestic farmers. These barriers are mainly provided by limiting imports in the aftermath of a natural event. However, the protection pattern differs among countries. To be more specific, floods and storms increase agricultural protection in high-income countries, while trade barriers in many LDCs are reduced during periods of extreme drought in an attempt to diminish food scarcity. Finally, it turns out that a large part of the change in agricultural protection caused by a natural disaster is explained by a number of commodity specific particularities (i.e., food vs. cash crops).

Food Security in Rural Bangladesh: Examining the Role of Women’s Earnings and Food Budget Control

Household food security is vital to measure of a country’s advancement and well-being. Three mostly usage determinants to measure household food security are per capita daily calorie availability, dietary diversity, and individuals body mass index (BMI) scores. Food security condition in rural Bangladesh is vulnerable due to poverty, unavailability and high prices of food. Almost every year food price is increasing in Bangladesh due to the low level of production, improper market management and fraud business syndicate from some top traders. In Bangladesh, food production is affected by natural calamities such as the flood in monsoon period. Rice is considering as the leading food and dominating 70% of total calorie intake in rural Bangladesh. Rural inhabitants are consuming protein and micronutrient-rich food very infrequent. The main barriers to decrease the malnutrition rate are a lack of access to protein and micronutrient rich foods and inappropriate health services. Women and children are the primary targets of ensuring nutrition security in developing worlds. However, in rural Bangladesh, in practice, both women and children are getting fewer privileges regarding food consumption and health facilitates. The main objective of this paper is to examine the role of women’s earnings and food budget control. Very authentic, recognized and useful datasets are needed to get the precise insights and information about food security condition and the role of women in food security in the rural Bangladesh. Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey 2011-12 datasets are used for this study. Regression method is used to analyze the research objectives. This paper found that women control over food budget has positive roles to ensure food availability in the house and more dietary diversity. However, the BMI scores indicate that rural people are heavily under-weight and under-nutrition.

Forecasting of wheat yield in various agro-climatic regions of Bihar by using CERES-Wheat model

Forecasting yield of crops is important for planners in taking tactical decisions for ensuring food availability. Crop simulation models are useful tool to forecast the crop yield. The CERES-wheat model calibrated and validated with experimental data was used to predict the district wise yield in Bihar. Based on the areas under different dates of sowing and crop cultivars, a correction factor was applied on simulated yield to predict the district wise and regional wheat yield. The simulated yield were higher than the actual yield in all the three agro-climatic zones, while the forecasted yields were very close to actual. The percentage deviation of the forecasted yield from the actual was ±4.0 %. The results clearly indicated that the CERES-Wheat model can be used to regional production estimates of wheat in Bihar.

Feeding preference and predation rate of Neoseiulus idaeus(Acari: Phytotseiidae) feeding on different preys

Soybean (Glycine max (L.): Fabaceae) is considered the most important agricultural crop in Brazil. Phytophagous tetranychid mites such as Mononychellus planki McGregor, Tetranychus ludeni Zacher, and T. urticae Koch are considered pests of soybean crops. Neoseiulus idaeus Denmark & Muma (Phytoseiidae) is a predatory mite of T. ludeni and T. urticae. This study aimed at analyzing the feeding preference of N. idaeus among three types of prey (M. planki, T. ludeni, and T. urticae), its prey-stage preference, and its predation rate under controlled conditions. During immature stages of N. idaeus, we carried out observations to monitor predator survival and to ensure food availability (eggs and different prey stages) throughout the study period. Neoseiulus idaeus preferred T. urticae compared to T. ludeni and M. planki, and it preferred T. ludeni compared to M. planki. This predator preferred T. urticae and T. ludeni when compared to leaves without prey; however, when analyzed with M. planki and leaves without prey, it showed no preference. Regarding oviposition site, T. urticae was preferred over T. ludeni or M. planki. However, between T. ludeni and M. planki, N. idaeus preferred T. ludeni. This predator preferred to oviposit where T. urticae and T. ludeni were located instead of leaves without prey. However, when it was assessed with M. planki and on dry leaves without prey, there was no preferred oviposition site. These results show a strong preference for T. urticae as food; however, in the absence of this prey, N. idaeus feeds on T. ludeni and M. planki. In all immature stages and as adults, N. idaeus preferred T. urticae eggs. In protonymphal, deutonymphal, and adult stages it also consumed prey larvae and nymphs. Only adult N. idaeus consumed adult prey. The total predation rate for eggs, larvae, nymphs, and adults of T. urticae was 55.9%, 14.34%, 22.11%, and 7.65%, respectively. The average lifespan of females of this predator was 16.07 days, when they consumed 3.05 prey/female/day. These results suggest that N. idaeus has potential to be used in an applied biological control program for T. urticae.

Local agriculture traditional knowledge to ensure food availability in a changing climate: revisiting water management practices in the Indo-Gangetic Plains

ABSTRACTClimate variations are considered one of several interacting factors affecting food security. Specifically, in the Indo-Gangetic Plains, increased exposure to droughts and floods are expected. Local traditional knowledge in agriculture (LTKA) is proposed in this article as valid knowledge to ensure food availability under climate change, given its long experience in dealing with climate variability. Focused on water strategies, we have conducted a literature review on LTKA practices in the Indo-Gangetic Plains complemented with a questionnaire of experts to identify LTKA-based practices that might be useful in climate-change driven water scenarios. The practices identified are categorized as a) water harvesting and recycling; b) local irrigation systems; and c) and maintenance, conservation, and water allocation. We found that a) despite acknowledging the potential of LTKA to face floods and droughts, very few studies explicitly make the link between LTKA and climate change; and b) LTKA in water management heavily relays on social norms and local institutions and, thus, any attempts to replicate it need to consider this. We conclude that agroecology can help to promote these practices since it emphasizes the collective management from below as the main approach for the design of sustainable agroecosystems and, thus, include local institutions as an essential strategy for adaptation.

Foraging behavior of the mangrove sesarmid crab Neosarmatium trispinosum enhances food intake and nutrient retention in a low-quality food environment

The large sesarmid crab Neosarmatium trispinosum has been reported to actively collect freshly fallen mangrove leaves and store them in its burrow where they are assumed to age prior to consumption. This leaf-catching behavior was hypothesized to improve the palatability and nutritional quality of leaves through leaching of feeding deterrent and microbial enrichment during storage. Earlier studies also hypothesized that N. trispinosum feeds on sediment or animal material to meet their N needs. A series of experiments was carried out to investigate the foraging behavior of N. trispinosum against these hypotheses. Study of foraging behavior using remotely operated cameras indicated that this crab spends the far majority of time (97.5 ± 2.5%, SD) underground and only a small percentage of time outside its burrow foraging (2.2 ± 2.3%). Collection of fresh mangrove litter was swift but no record of predation was evident over 31 h of video records. A field leaf tethering experiment showed that this crab started to consume the leaves immediately after collection rather than storing whole leaves, refuting the leaf-aging hypothesis. N. trispinosum also showed a preference for senescent yellow leaves over decaying brown leaves. This behavior may only aim to stock leaves (i.e. to ensure food availability) rather than conditioning them through decay (i.e. to improve food quality). Analysis of gut contents showed that vascular plant material was the dominant food item (83.3 ± 4.6%), followed by sediment (9.2 ± 4.6%) but no animal materials were recorded. N. trispinosum therefore relies minimally on animal food but are capable of removing 50% of the daily leaf litter production. Elemental C, N analysis shows that sediment inside the burrow is a sufficient potential food source (C/N = 13 to 15). While having a lower C/N ratio than fresh green or yellow leaves, the N content of sediment (∼0.1%) was significantly lower than those of mangrove leaves (0.3–0.9%), and may thus present as an inefficient source to meet N needs. Finally, stable isotope analysis indicated a dominant role of mangrove C in the diet of the crab but less important in terms of N. Behavioural coupled with physiological adaptations for a low-quality diet allows N. trispinosum to efficiently retain and recycle mangrove production in situ, with implications for local organic matter and microalgal distributions. Mechanisms by which N. trispinosum meets its N demand, however, remain obscure.

Beyond the dualities: a nuanced understanding of Brazilian soybean producers

Brazil has become one of the main agricultural commodity and food exporters in the world and countries of the Middle East are part of its consumer market. On the other hand, the increasing demand coming from these countries impacts the type of farming practices and categories taking place in Brazil. In many cases, commodity production is associated with the agribusiness model, criticized for its social and environmental costs. In this context, it is important to unveil who are responsible for production of commodities and what is behind the concept of agribusiness farming in Brazil. This paper aims at describing and discussing a more nuanced and multifaceted notion of soybean producers in the light of an empirical study conducted in Canarana at the Upper Xingu river basin, in the state of Mato Grosso. Land tenure, scale, and production models contribute to defining the farming categories in place. In this particular region, medium size farms prevail over large ones as a consequence of the type of colonization of the land as well as for historical reasons. This work suggests that, to understand the social dynamics taking place at an agricultural frontier, one has to break from the dichotomies that separate groups on opposite sides and recognize the heterogeneity that comprises farming categories in a food-export country, such as Brazil. This understanding will thus help to identify and formulate future public policies and strategies that can contribute to ensuring food availability as well as good quality of both life and the environment in an increasingly interconnected world.

Food and the City: Urban Scale Food System Governance

Food insecurity in urban areas, particularly in developing countries, is a persistent yet poorly understood phenomenon. Food security interventions have primarily focused on ensuring food availability, a focus that has resulted in predominantly production-oriented responses that presuppose a rural challenge, overlooking urban food insecurity challenges. This view generally precipitates welfarist or project-driven interventions in urban areas that are predominantly reactive, lacking strategic focus. Within the context of converging and mutually reinforcing global transitions, including the second urban transition, the food system transition and the nutrition transition, alternative urban food governance innovations are emerging. Urban food governance innovations are particularly evident in the Global North, with an emerging trend in South American cities. A gap exists in understanding food governance processes in growing South African cities, in particular how these processes intersect with a wider discourse on food system change. This paper draws on original analysis of emerging food governance trends and posits that a food lens offers opportunities to explore innovative forms of urban governance, participatory planning and citizen-driven food policy formulation.

Food predictability determines space use of endangered vultures: implications for management of supplementary feeding.

Understanding space use of free-living endangered animals is key to informing management decisions for conservation planning. Like most scavengers, vultures have evolved under a context of unpredictability of food resources (i.e., exploiting scattered carcasses that are intermittently available). However, the role of predictable sources of food in shaping spatial ecology of vultures has seldom been studied in detail. Here, we quantify the home range of the Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus), a long-lived raptor that has experienced severe population decline throughout its range and is qualified as endangered worldwide. To this end, six adults were tracked by satellite telemetry in Spain during the breeding season, from 2007 to 2012, recording 10360 GPS locations. Using Resource Utilization Functions, we assessed the topology of the Utilization Distribution, a three-dimensional measure that shows the probability of finding an animal within the home range. Our results showed how food availability, and principally, how food predictability, determines ranging behavior of this species. Egyptian Vultures showed consistent site fidelity across years, measured as the two- and three-dimensional overlap in their home ranges. Space use varied considerably within the home range and remarkably, places located far from nesting sites were used more frequently than some areas located closer. Therefore, traditional conservation measures based on establishing restrictive rules within a fixed radius around nesting sites could be biologically meaningless if other areas within the home range are not protected too. Finally, our results emphasize the importance of anthropogenic predictable sources of food (mainly vulture restaurants) in shaping the space use of scavengers, which is in agreement with recent findings. Hence, measures aimed at ensuring food availability are essential to preserve this endangered vulture, especially in the present context of limiting carrion dumping in the field due to sanitary regulations according to European legislation.

Investigating the Impact of Major Variables Influencing Food Security in Lahore, Pakistan

The current research examines the determinants of three aspects of food security in Pakistan that are food availability, accessibility and absorption. For this purpose a models is applied on household level data. The consumption of food related items relates positively with food security. Some other factors like infant mortality and sick person relates negatively with food security. For this purpose primary data approach was used. A representative sample of 90 respondents from high populated city (Lahore) of Pakistan The data about explanatory variables collected through questionnaire. This data was further analyzed using OLS technique. According to findings of the study value of R2 was 96% and F value was 23. Econometric analysis revealed that strong policy implications required increasing economic access to food. Production of food commodities should accelerate to ensure food availability. Further analysis demands that proper health facilities and education sector also should make appropriate policies to access the poor households which cannot afford it economically and this health and education related policies will lead to become food secure at domestic level.

Stockpiles and food availability in feeding facilities after the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Food stockpiles and methods of ensuring food availability after the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011 have been studied. Questionnaires were sent to 1911 registered dietitians and general dietitians who were members of the Japan Dietetic Association in August 2012. Four hundred thirty-five dietitians (22.8%) completed the questionnaire about work involved in feeding facilities, types and administration of meals, and food stockpiles. Methods of ensuring food availability, preparation, and accommodating food for special dietary uses were recorded for the three-day period immediately following the earthquake, and the period from 4 days to one month after the earthquake. Three days after the earthquake, differences in administration of meals at feeding facilities providing three meals daily, food stockpiles, organization, contactable facilities, and how to contact them for food items were assessed. Sixty-nine percent of all feeding facilities in this study had stockpiles of food before the Great East Japan Earthquake. Administration of meals in feeding facilities and the possibility of contact with cooperative feeding facilities were found to correlate positively with ensuring the availability of food groups. Food scores were higher in facilities providing three meals daily by direct administration of meals and with accessible public administrators, cooperative facilities and suppliers, and facilities that were contactable by landline telephone, mobile phone, fax or email. The necessity for natural disaster-readiness through continuous stockpiling food at feeding facilities is confirmed. Each prospective feeding facility must be required to plan its stockpiles, their turnover and replaceability to maximise food security in the face of disaster.

English

The performance of the food production sector in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is critical for a number of reasons. Domestic production is the principal avenue to ensuring access to affordable food in poor countries with limited capacity to import food. The multiplier effect of sustainable food production on the economy is considerable as it has direct linkage with other activities such as transportation, marketing, tourism and local trade. In countries where the growth of food production outpaces demand, social and political harmony as well as macroeconomic stability can be maintained, paving the way for sustained economic growth. This paper examines changes in food production performance among 30 SSA countries over the period of 1968 to 2008. The results support previous findings that not many countries have managed to achieve a food production growth rate in excess of 3% per annum. Annual food production performance averaged 3% or more in 60% of the sample countries following the policy reforms. Nevertheless, rates of output growth varied from one period to the other and the recent improved performances were achieved not only through unsustainable expansion of land under cultivation, but also failed to satisfy the rapidly growing food demand. With domestic supply lagging behind, most countries have experienced unaffordable food import bills. Addressing political instability and building institutions that foster partnership between governments, farmers, traders and other operators along the food value chain to address market failures and inefficiencies in input, output, credit and risk managementis critical to ensure food availability, accessibility and stability in SSA. Key words: Sub-Saharan Africa, food production performance, food security.

A Country Scenarioes of Food Security and Governance in Bangladesh

The Government of Bangladesh has identified food security as an important factor contributing to its socio-economic stabilization and development. Bangladesh has made a steady progress in the expansion of food production. But because of the increasing population pressure there has been an extensive use of land to meet the growing demand for food. Despite the growth in food production and its availability, food insecurity is still a major problem mainly because of the lack of purchasing power and thus of access to food, especially for the ultra poor community. This paper focuses on the availability of food as an essential element of the concept of food security and role of government to get food sufficiency. In addition to rice and wheat that constitute the staple food of Bangladesh, the paper deals with the production and availability issues of other major food commodities, such as potato, pulses, oilseeds, vegetables and fruits, and fisheries and livestock products. The food production of the country both rice and wheat, was 10.46 million metric tons in the 1971-72. Bangladesh attained self sufficiency in food production in 2010-2011 with a gross production of rice and wheat of 35.3 million metric tons which marginally met the country’s requirement of 23.64 million metric tones for the population of 148.69 million, taking 453.6 g per capita per day requirement. Production of vegetables and fruits has increased, from 1.5 million tons and 1.46 million tons in 2001-02 to 7.19 million tons and 3.56 million tons in 2009-10 respectively. Fish production increase from 2.0 million tons in 2001-02 to 3.0 million tons in 2010-11. Livestock product (meat, milk and egg) has also increase 50% over that last ten years. Of these, domestic production is critical in ensuring food availability at both national and household levels. Government of Bangladesh is trying to integrate and address all the elements associated with food security to achieve touch the MDG setting for the country. However, in recent years, the Government is putting additional efforts to increase production of important food crops as well as fisheries and livestock. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/jsf.v9i1-2.14646 J. Sci. Foundation, 9(1&2): 41-50, June-December 2011

Land administration for food security: A research synthesis

Food security remains an ongoing global concern: the challenge of ensuring food availability, access, and utility for all, at all times, is yet to be met. The body of literature relating to food security is growing immensely. Land administrators are part of the discourse. Their arguments are spread disparately across academic and professional publications. The distinction between scientific work and political rhetoric is increasingly blurry: the role of land administration needs to be more concisely articulated. This paper provides a new synthesis on the relationships between land administration and food security. It undertakes a review of land administration literature relating to food security. It aims at crystallizing understandings of how land administration supports, or fails to support, food security at a conceptual level, and also the strategic and operational levels of land administration systems. The relationship between land administration and food security appears to be conceptually agreed upon; however, at operational levels the link is less evident. Conceptually, land administration is argued to deliver (and sometimes not deliver) secure land tenure, support for implementation of agricultural policies, access to credit, less litigation, easier land dealings, land taxation, land inventories, and land transaction controls. This enables (or undermines) subsistence farming, development of local agricultural sectors and markets, credit to access to non-local food markets, farm subsidization, more efficient land utilization, fairer international investments, and national food planning strategies. In general, the examined literature tends to focus on problem identification rather than system design. Additionally, the large amount of positive viewpoints need better validation in many cases. Future work needs to concentrate on examining the utility of land information and geospatial tools for food security, extracting lessons from the land administration systems of developed contexts, and improving the links at an operational level.

Repeated radicle pruning of Quercus mongolica acorns as a cache management tactic of Siberian chipmunks

Many rodents hoard seeds as a means of ensuring food availability during scarcity. Siberian chipmunks (Tamias sibiricus) feed on acorns of white oak Quercus mongolica and hoard them for future use. Such caches may deteriorate due to the early germination of the acorns in autumn, which can be inhibited by radicle pruning or embryo excision. Siberian chipmunks are found to frequently prune the radicles of germinated acorns of Q. mongolica; however, whether this behavior is a kind of cache management tactic remains unclear. Here, we performed semi-natural enclosure and field experiments to test the role of radicle pruning in cache management of T. sibiricus. We found that T. sibiricus preferred non-germinated acorns and tended to prune radicles of germinating acorns when scatter-hoarding them, but did not perform the behavior of embryo excision by squirrels. Both semi-natural enclosure and field experiments showed that T. sibiricus not only pruned radicles repeatedly but removed radicles varied in length from acorns, which significantly postponed acorn germination and radicle growth. These observations suggest that radicle pruning would be an evolutionary tactic for cache management of Siberian chipmunks.