Famine Research Articles

Effects of heat pump drying conditions on saponin content in hydroponic Centella asiatica (L.) URB tuber powder

Effects of heat pump drying conditions on saponin content in hydroponic Centella asiatica (L.) URB tuber powder

‘Every rotten slander’: Holodomor denial and the origins of the American popular front

‘Every rotten slander’: Holodomor denial and the origins of the American popular front

The Circular Economy of the Food Bank Supply Chain in Bandung City, West Java

Food banks play a crucial role in reducing food waste and addressing food vulnerability. Their operations involve an efficient supply chain that collects surplus food, processes it, and distributes it to those in need. This aligns with the goals of a circular economy, aiming to minimize food crises. This research aims to understand the supply chain of the Food Bank Bandung and analyze the implementation of circular economy principles within its supply chain. The study employs qualitative methods, with data gathered through interviews conducted with representatives from the Food Bank located in Bandung City. The collected information was used to design a comprehensive supply chain model, which was then meticulously analyzed. The analysis reveals that the Food Bank in Bandung effectively implements a circular economy by transforming surplus food, which would otherwise go to waste, into consumable items. Furthermore, the food bank adopts circular economy concepts by providing inedible food to Black Soldier Fly (BSF) cultivation for maggot consumption, which then can be used as an alternative source of protein for animal feed. The findings of the study show how circular economy practices can be integrated into food bank operations. By analyzing the circular economy approach in the Food Bank of Bandung, this research contributes to the existing body of knowledge and provides a foundation for future studies, offering a more extensive dataset for researchers and practitioners in the field.

Indonesian foodstuffs in facing global food crisis: Economic aspects of soybean farming

Indonesian foodstuffs in facing global food crisis: Economic aspects of soybean farming

Enhanced methanol-xylose co-utilization strategy in Komagataella phaffii.

Enhanced methanol-xylose co-utilization strategy in Komagataella phaffii.

Global analysis reveals persistent shortfalls and regional differences in availability of foods needed for health.

Global analysis reveals persistent shortfalls and regional differences in availability of foods needed for health.

Synergy of National Food Security System

The high population will have an impact on the food crisis and poverty if it is not balanced with food security. The Indonesian government must be able to formulate a national food policy that can improve food security. The food policy includes the availability of food Supplies in good quantity and quality as well as affordable food prices by the community and safe for consumption. The purpose of this study is to examine the synergy of the national food security system. This type of research is qualitative research with the aim of explaining the phenomenon by reviewing existing data. Data sources are obtained through bibliographic data from manuscripts obtained from Google Scholar and analyzed using the Systematic Literature Review (SLR) which is a method that uses previous evidence-based evidence through reviews, evaluations, structured evaluations, classifications and categorizations. Based on the results of the review, the results of this study include 1) Implementing good governance as a challenge and solution to food security; 2) Food security stability also affects price and distribution policies; 3) Increasing rice production will make a major contribution to rice production. Superior rice varieties will increase food security and reduce poverty; 4) Food distribution is still not optimal so that availability in each region and prices in each region vary.

Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) production in Burkina Faso: Nutritional benefits and challenges of its use in the context of food and climate crises

Burkina Faso is a developing country facing major challenges in terms of food and nutritional security. Agriculture is essentially rain-fed, and climatic hazards such as drought have a negative impact on the productivity of crops, namely, millet, sorghum, maize and rice. In this context, quinoa, introduced in Burkina Faso through the FAO in 2015, appears to be an interesting alternative for diversifying crops and improving the food and nutritional security of the population. The aim of this review is to highlight the nutritional potential, advantages and challenges facing quinoa cultivation in Burkina Faso. It also seeks to raise awareness of the opportunities offered by this alternative crop to improve food security and nutrition for the population in Burkina Faso. We reviewed previous works by several authors who revealed that quinoa is an important nutritional source. Different information was collected and synthesized to determine the correlation between the introduction of quinoa and its positive contribution to improving the food and economic situation in Burkina Faso. The literature shows that quinoa can be used as an alternative crop for diversification and food security due to its ability to adapt to climatic changes and can offer significant nutritional benefits. However, challenges related to cultivation and processing techniques, and low awareness of this crop among local consumers and agro-industry actors, may limit quinoa production and consumption in the country. This paper sheds light on the possibilities for quinoa processing, products and byproducts in Burkina Faso.

Plague and hunger. Epidemic-induced pressures on household purchasing power in fourteenth-century Flanders

In the late Middle Ages, surging grain prices frequently triggered subsistence crises, as grain was the primary staple of nutrition. When these price shocks coincided with major mortality peaks from virulent plague outbreaks, households faced extreme economic and social pressures. The Second Plague Pandemic, which began with the Black Death in the mid-fourteenth century, saw recurring epidemics approximately every decade. In Flanders, the first three outbreaks of the plague were accompanied by significant spikes in grain prices, exacerbating food insecurity—particularly in urban areas, where most residents relied on market access for sustenance and were highly vulnerable to inflation. This study assesses the short-term evolution of urban households’ purchasing power during these crises by analysing welfare ratios based solely on grain prices. Drawing on a newly constructed monthly grain price series—the first of its kind for fourteenth-century continental Europe—this paper examines how epidemic-driven price surges intensified food insecurity. It identifies grain price volatility as the principal driver of fluctuations in purchasing power, emphasizing the critical importance of monthly price dynamics, as mortality peaks often occurred in late summer or autumn. By incorporating wage data for skilled and unskilled building laborers, the study provides coarse estimates of undernutrition and offers a comparative analysis of the timing, duration, and severity of food crises across Bruges, Ghent, Lille, Douai, and Cambrai. The findings indicate that the first three plague outbreaks of the mid-fourteenth century were closely tied to episodes of hunger, though the intensity and length of food shortages varied. The plague of 1360–1361 stands out as particularly severe. Additionally, regional disparities emerge: larger cities in northern Flanders, such as Bruges and Ghent, experienced relatively milder crises than those in the south, where institutional differences influenced the extent of food insecurity.

The Food Crisis Issue and the Problem of the Holodomor in UkrSSR through the Eyes of Japanese Diplomats

The Food Crisis Issue and the Problem of the Holodomor in UkrSSR through the Eyes of Japanese Diplomats

Consumer-driven prepared food consumption policies: a sustainability perspective on reducing food waste

IntroductionFood waste is a global issue intricately linked to food crises and ecological degradation. The development of the prepared food industry and markets is a promising practice to reduce food waste globally and achieve carbon neutrality.MethodsThis study is grounded in the motivation -opportunity -ability (MOA) theory and employs a structural equation model (SEM) to establish an analytical framework to explore factors influencing the intentions of Chinese consumers to consume prepared food.ResultsEmpirical analysis reveals that motivation, opportunity, and ability positively influence consumers’ intentions to consume prepared food. Furthermore, opportunity and ability exert a mediating effect on motivation through convenience and health factors.DiscussionThis study innovatively applies the MOA theory to food waste issues, providing a new policy perspective. The conceptual framework developed offers a theoretical foundation for future research on pathways to reduce food waste, especially within the context of prepared food consumption in China, and serves as a theoretical starting point for academia, industry, and policymakers.

CropsDisNet: An AI-Based Platform for Disease Detection and Advancing On-Farm Privacy Solutions

Crop failure is defined as crop production that is significantly lower than anticipated, resulting from plants that are harmed, diseased, destroyed, or influenced by climatic circumstances. With the rise in global food security concern, the earliest detection of crop diseases has proven to be pivotal in agriculture industries to address the needs of the global food crisis and on-farm data protection, which can be met with a privacy-preserving deep learning model. However, deep learning seems to be a largely complex black box to interpret, necessitating a prerequisite for the groundwork of the model’s interpretability. Considering this, the aim of this study was to follow up on the establishment of a robust deep learning custom model named CropsDisNet, evaluated on a large-scale dataset named “New Bangladeshi Crop Disease Dataset (corn, potato and wheat)”, which contains a total of 8946 images. The integration of a differential privacy algorithm into our CropsDisNet model could establish the benefits of automated crop disease classification without compromising on-farm data privacy by reducing training data leakage. To classify corn, potato, and wheat leaf diseases, we used three representative CNN models for image classification (VGG16, Inception Resnet V2, Inception V3) along with our custom model, and the classification accuracy for these three different crops varied from 92.09% to 98.29%. In addition, demonstration of the model’s interpretability gave us insight into our model’s decision making and classification results, which can allow farmers to understand and take appropriate precautions in the event of early widespread harvest failure and food crises.

Establishment of a Direct Competitive ELISA for Camel FGF21 Detection.

Camels, with the ability to survive under drought and chronic hunger, developed exceptional efficient lipid reserves and energy substance metabolic characteristics. Fibroblast growth factor (FGF) 21 is a hormone that regulates important metabolic pathways and energy homeostasis. However, the absence of a specific detection method for camel FGF21 impacts research on camels' metabolic regulation. This study established a direct competition ELISA assay for detecting camel FGF21. Camel FGF21 antigen was expressed and purified through prokaryotic expression system. Polyclonal antibody was produced and purified via immunizing guinea pigs and affinity chromatography assay. Biotin-labeled FGF21 was synthesized artificially as the competitive antigen. After the determination of optimal conditions, including the working concentrations of the antibody and antigen, blocking solution, dilution buffer, and the competition reaction time, the standard curve with a typical "S" shape was generated using GraphPad Prism. The regression equation was Y = 0.1111 + (X-0.7894) × (2.162 - 0.1111)/(X-0.7894 + 15.76-0.7894), with the IC50 15.59 ng/mL, the limit of detection (LOD) 0.024 ng/mL, the limit of quantification (LOQ) 1.861 ng/mL, and the linear range IC20~IC80 2.0~119.22 ng/mL. The verification test showed that the recovery rate ranged from 91.34% to 98.9%, and the coefficients of variation for the intra- and inter-plate both were less than 10%, indicating that the ELISA method had high accuracy, good repeatability, and high stability. In addition, this ELISA method had the potential to detect FGF21 secretion levels in other species such as mouse, human, and pig. This study provided a rapid quantitative tool for conducting research on the FGF21 factor in camels.

Adaptive Mitigation of Warming-Induced Food Crisis and Nitrogen Pollution.

Feeding the world's population in the face of global warming is a challenging task. Warming poses a dual threat to both global food security and nitrogen pollution in croplands. However, a consensus remains elusive regarding the precise impact of warming on the nitrogen cycle in global croplands. Our study revealed that warming alone could reduce grain yields by 21% (with a 95% confidence interval of 15-27%) while increasing nitrogen losses to the environment by 54-169%. Under the 2050 warming scenario, the annual global nitrogen harvest is projected to decrease by 16 million tonnes (Tg), accompanied by an increase in nitrogen surplus (nitrogen lost to the environment) of 29 Tg relative to the baseline. Implementation of timely and robust adaptive mitigation strategies, including optimization of planting dates, cultivars, irrigation, and fertilization practices, could mitigate the warming-induced food crisis and nitrogen pollution, averting potential losses of US$ 530 billion at an estimated cost of US$ 73 billion.

Food security and crises: evidence from the Western Balkans

ContextThe world has experienced many global shocks in recent years, especially affecting vulnerable countries, people and groups. The analysis of recent impacts helps us to better understand how to build more sustainable agri-food systems.ObjectivesThis paper aims to analyse the situation and main determinants of food security in the Western Balkans in light of the recent crises to ensure higher resilience for the future.MethodsIt follows a threefold approach. First, the food security situation in the different countries was analysed quantitatively using descriptive statistics of the main indicators on a time-series basis and the main determinants of food security. Second, the results of the semi-structured interviews with local experts were presented to understand the reasons for the changing patterns of food security. Third, results were validated during a hybrid workshop.ResultsOur findings suggest that food security and food supply were stable in most cases, while a large number of small farms, rural depopulation, climate change and harmonisation of food systems were cited as the main challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic did not appear to have a serious impacted on food security, although it has certainly accelerated the restructuring within the agri-food sectors. However, the war in Ukraine has had a greater impact, particularly in terms of high price inflation and rising prices for agricultural inputs.ConclusionsThis paper analysed the food security situation in the Western Balkans in the light of recent crises. Although the region has made good progress in reducing poverty and inequality in recent decades, the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine appear to have stalled or, in some cases, even reversed this progress. This paper provides a number of policy recommendations based on the results to shape future policies of the region towards higher resilience.

Decision-making process regarding safety and crisis management for childcare workers: Focusing on food allergy management

When it comes to childcare, parents want to rest assured that, in their absence, their children are being provided with engaging activities, balanced nutrition and safety. Awareness of food allergies is key in childcare settings but most childcare workers donâ–™t have medical backgrounds and therefore staff training on food allergies and related crises is imperative. Kayo Tamura is a former childcare worker and lecturer at Aichi Gakusen University in Japan who is developing guidelines for decision making processes for food allergy and crisis management for childcare workers. Guidelines were implemented by the Japanese Government following incidents involving allergies and school lunches in 1988 and 2012. However, Tamura is concerned that some teachers and childcare workers may be unable to implement these, meaning that accidents will continue to occur. Therefore, she is working with childcare providers to better understand how guidelines and training are received and implemented in childcare settings. In order to assess how much knowledge about food allergies and sense of crisis awareness students have developed by graduation, Tamara conducted a questionnaire survey of university students studying childcare. She also conducted a survey using the same questions, this time posed to childcare workers and performed a statistical analysis of the results. She found that many students already had some awareness of food allergies, often through personal experience but they acquired more specialist knowledge through university by reviewing government guidelines and manuals and through childcare training.

Climate variability, population growth, and globalization impacting food security in Pakistan.

Global hunger has increased recently, returning to levels observed a decade ago. Climate change is identified as a key factor contributing to these increases and is a significant cause of severe food crises. When combined with population growth and globalization, future climate variability is expected to significantly affect global food security. This study examined the influence of climate variability, globalization, and population growth on food security (FS) in Pakistan from 1995 to 2023. Food security data was sourced from the Food and Agricultural Organization, and globalization data was obtained from the KOF Globalization Index. Datasets on climate variability, population growth, unemployment, and inflation were collected from the World Development Indicators. A two-layer principal component analysis was utilized to develop the food security index. Multivariate Generalized Auto-Regressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity was used to assess the impact of globalization, population growth, and climate variability on food security. All indexed components explained more than 50% of the variance, resulting in a food security eigenvalue of 3.603 with a 0.901 proportion. The findings indicated that population growth and climate variability significantly negatively affect Pakistan's food security. Furthermore, the study found that globalization notably mitigates the adverse effects of climate variability and population growth on food security. This research may help alleviate the risk of future undernourishment, reverse current trends of escalating food insecurity, and support the sustainable development goal of eliminating global hunger by 2030.

MEMBUMIKAN METODE PALS PADA DIGITALISASI PENGELOLAAN DASAR KEUANGAN FORUM UMKM MRANGGEN DEMAK

Current conditions based on a pre-survey by the Community Service Team, many members of Mranggen District MSME Actors are unable to manage their MSME finances properly, especially in managing income and expenses and separating personal finances from business finances. On the one hand, reduced income due to the global food crisis has an impact on irregular income for MSMEs. On the other hand, increased expenses, due to the needs and prices of consumer goods also make it difficult to manage MSME finances. This is what motivated the Community Service Team to be interested in carrying out community service for members of Mranggen District MSME Actors. The Community Service Method with Introductory Training on financial management literacy integrated with digital finance and Mentoring. The results of the Community Service, MSME actors understand and are able to manage MSME finances integrated with digital finance neatly and well

Underutilized and neglected crop species and their role in enhancing household food security amid climate change, Wolaita Zone, Ethiopia.

Underutilized and neglected crop species and their role in enhancing household food security amid climate change, Wolaita Zone, Ethiopia.

Optimizing potato leaf disease recognition: Insights DENSE-NET-121 and Gaussian elimination filter fusion.

Optimizing potato leaf disease recognition: Insights DENSE-NET-121 and Gaussian elimination filter fusion.