Food Security Discourse Research Articles

Flavour, culture and food security: The spicy entanglements of chile pepper conservation in 21st century Mexico

Societal Impact StatementPolitical interests and power structures shape state‐led crop conservation and food policy. As a crop that relates to culture and belonging, the chile crop is ideal for exploring how food security policy and crop conservation schemes integrate aspects beyond staple crops, calories and/or electoral incentives. What do these schemes mean for the food and ingredients we love? Reflecting from this perspective can be useful to grasp, re‐frame and create more effective and inclusive food policies—ones that embody and valorise flavour, identities and territories beyond statements on paper.Summary In line with the Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) international action plan for crop genetic resources, the Mexican state inaugurated the National System of Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (SINAREFI) in 2002. In this paper, I explore SINAREFI's interest in landraces and in situ conservation through the case of chile pepper, set under the Ministry of Agriculture's interests of promoting industrial agriculture and paternalistic food security welfare programmes. Through the analyses of existing literature on food security in Mexico state programmes, archival work and interviews, this article analyses how discourses on food security shape research trajectories, some of which are inevitably constrained by current market‐based agricultural systems. By exploring the state's chile research and conservation programme, this work demonstrates the complexity of international food security discourse and its application domestically. Particularly, this analysis highlights the limitations of state crop research and conservation efforts imposed by contradictory agricultural policies. In the case of chile, its link to Mexican culture and diet uncovers an important, but often overlooked, aspect of food security: flavour. In the case of chile, a non‐staple but culturally symbolic crop, welfare programmes remained paternalistic and focused on caloric intake despite the transformation of national discourse on food security towards the integration of landraces and local cultures through the inauguration of SINAREFI. This case study reflects on the limits of current framings and strategies regarding food security and the need to direct policies towards local food sovereignty to achieve the necessary stability for food security to endure.

Kontestasi Diskursus Ketahanan Pangan Keluarga

This study examines the contestation of food security discourses between actors in farming families in North Tanimbar District, Tanimbar Islands Regency. This research was conducted in North Tanimbar District, Tanimbar Islands Regency, Maluku Province in January-February 2022. This study used a qualitative research design using a constructivist paradigm. The results showed that there are three main actors in the discourse of food security, namely the government, community, and business actors. Each actor seeks to practice their discourse on farming families. When practicing discourse, there is a discourse interaction between actors that is synergistic. However, the most dominant discourse practiced by families is the community discourse, while the government discourse is a compliment and the business actors' discourse is a driver. The novelty of the research results of the contestation of family food security discourses found at the study site is the rationality and synergy efforts of family farmers in meeting family food needs.

Rural versus urban food security in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT Within contemporary global food security discourse, the difference in food security issues between rural and urban households has received scant attention. Since urban and rural livelihoods and lifestyles are different, we hypothesized that the determinants of food security between rural and urban households could also be different. This study is one of the first attempts to thoroughly examine the difference in food security between rural and urban households in Bangladesh. Using recent field survey data from Bangladesh, and applying the binary logistic model, firstly, we find that rural households are likely to be more food secure than urban households. Secondly, this study finds that the determinants of food security vary between rural and urban households. Hence, policymakers and administrators must understand the specific community-level conditions so that they can identify which of the key variables must be addressed in the development of programmes to improve food security both in rural and urban areas.

Tackling post-COVID-19 pandemic food crises through the adoption of improved maize seeds and technologies by smallholder farmers: The case of Ejura Sekyeredumase in Ghana

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to accelerate food production efforts to achieve the UN SDG two, i. e., zero hunger target by 2030, is gaining momentum across the global food security discourse. One way to accelerate food production is to adopt improved seeds and technologies that may close existing yield gaps and support food security efforts in regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper uses mixed methods, including key informant interviews, structured household questionnaire surveys and focus group discussions, to examine the factors influencing the adoption of improved seeds and complementing technologies in Ghana. In particular, we draw insight from theories of failed market-induced behavior, innovation diffusion and induced-innovation theories to explore farmers' perceptions and adoption of different specific improved maize varieties and technologies for agricultural productivity. Our findings suggest that the level of awareness of improved seeds, particularly hybrid seeds and technologies, and the adoption rate of these technologies are low among Ghana's rural farmers. The findings reveal that socio-demographic and economic factors such as gender, age, cost of seeds, the promise of more yields, market access, social networks' influence, seed availability and accessibility are essential determinants of adopting improved planting technologies among smallholder farmers. This paper argues that location and context-specific-targeted extension services delivery to enhance the widespread adoption of improved seeds and technologies across scales can build farmers' capacity to increase agricultural productivity.

The synergistic relationship between Amartya Sen entitlement theory and the systems theory in developing a food security implementation model in Matabeleland South Province, Zimbabwe.

Food insecurity has increasingly become a topical issue that needs to be addressed before it goes out of hand. The article explores the synergistic relationship that exists between Amartya Sen entitlement and systems theories. The article hypothesises that food insecurity in Matabeleland South Province is mainly caused by a lack of understanding of food security pillars and how all the concepts dove tail into the food security discourse. The article further propounds that, for communities to go out of the food insecurity quagmire, they need to work collaboratively as a system as substantiated by the systems theory. Sen argues that the law stands between food availability and access. This is further simplified as follows: food can be available in the markets but the people might lack the purchasing power to purchase the food. When people try to acquire food through stealing, the law catches on them. On the other hand, the systems theory argues that for a community to function well all the parts should play their roles towards the survival of the whole. The theory further informs that government stakeholders and non-state actors must work together in addressing food insecurity without a clearly defined direction. Interactions with provincial stakeholders, revealed that, a leaf can be borrowed and applied from the two theoretical models to achieve food security in Matabeleland South Province in Zimbabwe.

Why I Would Want to Live in the Village If I Was Not Interested in Cultivating the Plot? A Study of Home Gardening in Rural Czechia

Unsustainable food practices in the global North have brought a lot of attention to the concept of alternative food networks. However, prevailing research perspectives have focused on urban areas or market-related activities and tended to overlook the widespread yet neglected food growing in home gardens, especially in rural areas. This paper uses a mixed method approach to study home gardening in two villages in Czechia, focusing on the state of the art of gardening, its sustainability context, and the perception of gardening by the local citizens. We have found that the vast majority of households grow fruit and vegetables, while livestock is also present. Home grown food, which has a supplemental character, is mostly shared within networks of relatives. An understanding of food production as a part of rural identity and tradition is an important element of the perception of gardening. Our findings contribute to the rich debates about the sustainability of food systems. The paper is innovative because it steps outside of the typical poverty or food security discourse of rural informal food production, as well it reveals information on livestock breeding, discusses home gardening in the context of rural development and food policies, and emancipates the semi-peripheral locality as a regular source of new knowledge.

Human ecology and food discourses in a smallholder agricultural system in Leyte, The Philippines

Food systems are influenced by discourses held by individuals and institutions. Market oriented food security and food sovereignty are frequently presented as co-existing discourses in food systems. This paper documents how smallholder farmers embody market food security and food sovereignty discourses in their agricultural practices, and how these discourses prevent new forms of agriculture from developing given socio-political and institutional rigidity. A human ecology systems framework is used to analyse semi-structured interviews with 39 coconut producing smallholder farmers from Leyte, The Philippines. The results document how smallholders perceive market food security discourse as the main way out of food insecure situations, and thus continue to seek institutional support for maintaining a coconut based agricultural system. Farmers also perceive elements of the food sovereignty discourse, notably decision-making agency and agricultural diversification, as parallel strategies to improve their food security. The ongoing support for coconut production and inequitable access to training and knowledge in rural systems traps farmers into an agricultural system influenced by a long history of colonial institutions and social structures. The paper demonstrates that farmers are aware of the interventions required to diversify food systems towards higher value commodities, yet sovereignty is unlikely to be enabled due to maladaptive institutions and the associated access to new training and extension opportunities. The use of human ecology advances food scholarship through embedding a systems analysis into qualitative studies to reveal the influence of food discourses on food systems’ behaviour and outcomes.

The Politics of Hunger in an SDG Era: Food Policy in Malawi

This study focuses on the relationship between politics and hunger and the national political discourse on food security in Malawi. Our aim is to better understand the role of local and national actors in pursuing policies that aim to achieve the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The empirical focus is on the Farm Input Subsidy Program (FISP), introduced by the Malawian government in 2005–2006, which supports smallholder farmers to better access to agricultural inputs. We provide an overview of the food security discourse and highlight the importance of political commitment for policy coherence that is required for achieving the SDGs. Thereafter, we introduce the policymaking scene in Malawi and FISP before critically examining the policy narratives on food security in the country. Our goal is to examine why some issues are effectively dealt with and not others. We argue that food security policies in Malawi are influenced by the political incentives they provide for electoral campaigns and for securing a regular flow of financial resources in agriculture projects that are highly dependent on foreign aid.

The SNAP Challenge: Communicating Food Security Capabilities through Anti-Hunger Advocacy

This research brief reports preliminary findings related to the SNAP Challenge (SC), an anti-hunger initiative in which participants purchase their household groceries using the average food stamp budget benefit for one week. By simulating a SNAP budget, SC participants encounter food insecurity directly, recognizing how the food they are able to consume connects to income, nutrition needs, and other factors that contribute to quality of life, all of which can be considered capabilities of food security. Linking the experience of food hardship to conditions of poverty can address not only immediate food needs but also the interconnected material opportunities and disparities that constitute food (in)security. In this way, I suggest, a capability approach to food security can better align anti-hunger advocacy and food system policy. This initial study supports ongoing research related to anti-hunger advocacy communication, food security discourse, and capability-based approaches to food system reform. See the press release for this article.

‘Smart food city’: Conceptual relations between smart city planning, urban food systems and innovation theory

Abstract This paper develops a conceptual link between smart city planning and urban food systems research in terms of governance and innovation. The ‘smart city’ concept is linked to an urban research agenda which seeks to embed advances in technology and data collection into the infrastructures of urban environments. Through this neoliberal framework, market-led and technological solutions to city governance and development are prioritised. The urban food movement has a different trajectory compared to the smart city agenda, comprising a diverse mix of urban food production practices, including community and grassroots-based social innovations, and associated more recently with food security discourses. Recognising these ideological and epistemological differences (between the smart city and the urban food movement) is important for conceptualisations of ‘smart food city’ governance. Based on theoretical reflections, review material and findings from a European project on city-region food systems, the paper argues that smart technology can be an important part of the solution to city food challenges but in combination with social innovations to enable flexible modes of governance that are inclusive, technologically and socially-orientated and linked to specific city-region contexts. Key elements include city regionalism, new organisational structures and connectivities, a circular model of metabolism and social practices.

Vulnerability matrix of the food system: Operationalizing vulnerability and addressing food security

Food security is the major desired outcome of any food system, but its realization may be prevented by vulnerabilities in a food system. By shifting the focus of their vulnerability analysis from the discrete components of the food system to the food system as a whole, the authors of this article were able to develop a qualitative food system vulnerability matrix. The objective of the research was to make the concept of food system vulnerability operational by identifying vulnerability drivers, vulnerable systems and vulnerable subclasses in light of food security. The vulnerability matrix was set up with five classes of vulnerable systems (‘Vulnerability of what?’) on the horizontal axis and vulnerability drivers (‘Vulnerability to what?’) on the vertical axis. The authors analyzed the relationship between vulnerability drivers and vulnerable systems by using qualitative, abductive content analysis within the context of the Finnish food system. The data consists of public documents collected from the web pages of key organizations within the Finnish food system including ministries and their administration, interest groups and non-governmental organizations. It therefore covers various types of content related to food policy and management. Excerpts from the documentation data were coded according to which vulnerable system subclasses they addressed. The key findings of the study highlight the importance of using a systems approach that takes into account social, ecological and technical considerations. Such a framework covers multiple stressors, including exogenous natural drivers and endogenous social drivers, as well as the coalescence of vulnerability and food security discourses. The benefits of the proposed vulnerability framework for public food policy and food supply chain management include the explicit recognition of vulnerability drivers and vulnerable systems, a higher degree of specificity when speaking about food security, and opportunities for the identification of vulnerability-based innovations.

Relationalities and convergences in food security narratives: towards a place‐based approach

This paper addresses emerging calls for an enhanced relationality and convergence across different food security discourses. Based on a critical analysis of different narratives and concepts that have, over time, been deployed to address the food security problem, this paper asks: How, and to what extent, can the different narratives on food security and their different postulates be integrated to create a context that fosters closer connections between food system activities and more empowered relations between its actors? To address this question, the paper focuses on the governance frameworks embedded in different narratives on food security – i.e. the role attributed to different food system actors, their diverse views of rights and responsibility, and the types of interactions that are prioritised to achieve collective goals. The analysis exposes the limitations of conceptual frameworks as diverse as productivism, food sovereignty, livelihood security, the right‐to‐food, food democracy, food citizenship and community food security, which, we argue, tend to be locked into fixed levels of scale and generalised as well as oppositional assumptions. As the paper concludes, efforts to refine the food security agenda should start with a recognition of place as key and active meso‐level mediator – that is, as a progressive canvass for reassembling resources around more effective food production–consumption relations and as a multiscalar theoretical lens that offers the conceptual advantage of building far more complexity and diversity into aggregated food security debates.

The State of Food Security: From Availability, Access and Rights to Food Systems Approaches

Food security is a concept that features high on the development agenda. The meaning of the concept has evolved considerably over its 40 years' history in policy, practice and scholarly debate. Our focus in this essay is on three sets of interrelated issues. First, we critically examine the academic food security discourse from a historical perspective – from an initial focus on resource scarcity and availability to a multifaceted social framing – and discuss some of the key factors behind the shift in academic thinking and policy focus on the topic. We contend that the food price hike in 2007 and the increased focus on the projected negative effects of climate change have paved the way for a return of a biophysical framing with an emphasis on food production. Second, taking a starting point in a Norwegian government policy document, we explore how policy discourses on food security are currently framed in relation to the historical discourse. We argue that while the prevailing biophysical framing of food security may occur at the cost of other aspects of food security, it nonetheless presents opportunities for a better integration of social and environmental drivers and outcomes of food security. Third, in place of the fragmented nature of current practice, we discuss the potential of adopting a food systems approach as a promising frontier in food security research, policy and practice.

Africa's food security in a broken global food system: what role for plant breeders’ rights?

The food security discourse has moved from the historic emphasis on increased food production and the eradication of hunger to a holistic and multidisciplinary outlook under the food system model. However, the importance of the legal dimensions of the food system discourse has yet to be fully felt or demonstrated within the diverse disciplinary and policy spaces for understanding the food security and food system interface. This article focuses on contemporary developments in Africa on plant breeders’ rights (PBRs) – an important aspect of law and policy on innovation over plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. It observes that the focus of recent legal developments on PBRs in Africa diverges from the centrality of smallholder farmers as the principal food and agricultural producers on the continent. Critically focusing on Africa's emergent policy reversal in favour of PBRs, the article underscores how legal developments are integral to fully understanding the dynamics of food security within a fractured global food system, especially as they relate to the African continent.

Sovereignties of Food: Political Struggle and Life-World Encounters in Southeast Asia

In Southeast Asian societies, food has always been at center of diverse forms of contestation over access to land and other productive means, food self-sufficiency, and quality as well as food-based identities.Political struggles and socio-economic differentiation in terms of food production, distribution, and consumption have dramatically intensified in region. This has mainly been caused by enduring periods of agrarian reform, rapid global market integration, as well as processes of industrialization and urbanization in countries traditionally characterized as peasant societies.Scott (1976) elaborates on struggles and resistance of peasantry in Southeast Asia in context of emerging world capitalism and colonial hegemony - fighting against food shortages and exploitation of their subsistence means. Following region's independence from colonial exploitation, protests and other forms of contentious and 'everyday politics' of peasants and farmer organizations (Kerkvliet, 2009) have, of course, not withered but have redirected their claims against and adaptations to another 'food hegemon'. In this regard, Friedmann and McMichael (1989) critically analyze establishment of stateled large-scale plantations for cash crop production in Global South and new socio-economic dependencies produced by Green Revolution. Furthermore, authors address emergence of current corporate food regime during neoliberal phase of capitalism. In this regime, hegemonic power emanates from transnational corporations and international finance institutions, controlling whole food commodity chains on a global scale and subordinating food and agriculture to paradigm of profit-maximization.The region's pathway of Green Revolution technology and concurrent regional and international trade liberalization have gradually and comprehensively led to growing social inequalities and agrarian differentiation. The interests and life-worlds of small-scale producers, landless people, fisher folk, and consumers seem to be threatened by corporate food regime which favors large-scale and capital-and knowledge-intensive industrial food production (Manahan, 2011).Critically addressing this structural violence emanating from dominant food regime, a transnational social movement - La Via Campesina - emerged on global stage in 1990s. In sharp contrast to food security discourse, originally promoted by United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and related international aid agencies stressing need of agricultural modernization to combat world hunger, social movement calls for food sovereignty. Food sovereignty stands for attempt to radically transform global food-based inequalities by advocating an alternative path of small-scale agro-ecological and socially just modernity (McMichael, 2009). Aiming towards the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems (Nyeleni, 2007), it goes beyond global policy agendas aiming to 'feed world' through technocratic fixes that have shaped promotion of Green Revolution in Southeast Asia since 1960s/1970s (Ehlert & Vosemer, in this issue).The alternative agenda of food sovereignty, which continues to be critically addressed as romantic rural nostalgia (Collier, 2008), is making its way into national and international policy arenas, gaining recognition in view of old and new inequalities: The latest global food crisis and high prices of rice constituting Southeast Asia's main staple food (Arandez-Tanchuling, 2011) continue to hit poor households in region as competition over basic productive means like land, water, and seeds intensifies (LVC, 2008). Although strongly rooted in Latin American context (Martinez-Torres & Rosset, 2010), discourse of food sovereignty and its political struggle increasingly gains ground in Southeast Asia (Reyes, 2011). …

Finance Capital, Food Security Narratives and Australian Agricultural Land

The growing involvement of financial actors in food production has been one of the major recent transformations in the global agri‐food system. This ‘financialization’ of the agri‐food sector has been observed at various levels, from commodity speculation to direct investment in agricultural production, along with farmland itself. While there has been concerted effort to track new landownership and control associated with financial actors, especially in the Global South, there has been less impetus to examine the motives of financial actors' engagement in food production and the narratives upon which such engagement is based. This paper examines the way in which a productivist food (in)security discourse is employed by financial actors to legitimate their actions and to position themselves to win public approval. We analyse two cases of agri‐finance investors in the Australian context engaged in the discourse of food (in)security in relation to their agricultural investments – the Macquarie Group and Hassad Australia.

Withdrawing, resisting, maintaining and adapting: food security and vulnerability in Jumla, Nepal

The food security discourse has shifted from a narrow focus on food supply to a greater consideration of access, entitlements and sustainability. An emphasis on vulnerability has coincided with increased recognition that the causes of food insecurity are the result of a complex interaction between ecological, social, political and economic events and processes. Understanding the strategies that people employ to respond to these risks is critical to identifying pathways for change towards greater food security. We explore people’s explanations of and responses in the context of changes to their livelihoods and the wider social–ecological system (SES) in which they are embedded. An integrated vulnerability framework, drawing on a SES approach, was applied to structure data collection, analysis and discussion in a food insecure region in Nepal. Using in-depth interviews, focus groups and historical data, we have examined negotiation processes, decision-making, actions and interactions within social–ecological practices. Four distinct narratives and responses emerge—those of withdrawal, resistance, maintaining and/or adapting to food insecure situations. These stories reveal the complexity of managing the lived experience of food insecurity. They highlight the need for adaptive policy responses and point towards pathways that are likely to contribute to greater food security.

Food security and health in Canada: Imaginaries, exclusions and possibilities

AbstractIn recent years, food crises have heightened awareness of food security vulnerabilities even in rich nations. However, the extent to which various issues related to food security (such as consistent access to nutritious food in conditions which maintain human dignity) have been incorporated into Canadian policy and practice is not well documented. This article draws on a number of sources—including policy documents and media reports—to explore how food security is being conceptualized in Canada, particularly at the national level. The article chronicles changes in food security discourse over time, suggesting that recognition of food security as a “Canadian” problem has been partial and contested, and reflects persistent geographic imaginaries of Canada (e.g., as a land of agricultural abundance) and unrelenting social and cultural exclusions (e.g., of Canada's Aboriginal people).

Political Geographies of ‘Food Security’ and ‘Food Sovereignty’

AbstractThis review article situates the development of national and global food security discourses in their historical and political context. Geographical imaginations of ‘food security’ have shifted from a national to a global scale and, in some instances, back again. The dominant conceptualisation of food security, consolidated by the FAO Rome Summit on World Food Security, presents food security as a scientific problem rather than a political problem. ‘Food sovereignty’, on the other hand, is a counter‐hegemonic discourse that questions the organisation of the current food system and calls for its transformation. From the global food security perspective, nation states are an obstacle to food security. Out‐dated agricultural economies of the global south need to be improved through the adoption of biotechnology developed by scientists and corporations in the global north. Food sovereignty by contrast emphasises principles of rights and social justice over economics and technology. This article presents the different analyses of the problem and critically examines the internal assumptions of both discourses. We argue that the progression of the ‘food security’ debate will have clear geopolitical consequences with respect to the distribution of power in the global agri‐food system and with regard to the autonomy of local communities and nation states.

Analysis of Newspaper Coverage of Food Security through a Disability Studies Lens

Food security is an issue of global concern recognized by numerous international and national agencies. It has been mentioned over twenty times in the Rio+20 outcome document The Future We Want. It is recognized as an essential human security by the World Health Organization Commission for Human Security and as a social determinant of health. Food security agendas are enacted in many places locally to globally. Media are to inform the public on issues of importance for the public. Disabled people are part of the public and disabled people are one group experiencing over proportional levels of food insecurity. We investigated the food security coverage of various newspapers through a disability studies lens. To obtain quantitative data on the visibility of disabled people and other groups in the food security discourse the following newspapers were investigated: The Globe and Mail (Canada), National Post (Canada), Calgary Herald (Canada), New York Times (USA), The Guardian (UK), The Times (UK), and the Canadian Newsstand complete, a collection of 300 Canadian newspapers. Quantitative and qualitative data on what food security issues were reported was obtained from The Globe and Mail (Canada), Calgary Herald (Canada) and the New York Times (USA). We discuss how issues reported around food security are influenced by disabled people and how they could impact disabled people. We found very little to no mentioning of disabled people within food security coverage. Our data also reveals the absence of coverage of other socially disadvantaged groups such as indigenous people and immigrants and a lack of a human rights or ethics angle. We posit that many of the food security problems mentioned are of relevance to and experienced by disabled people and other socially disadvantaged groups such as indigenous people and immigrants however the reader won’t make the linkage by reading the newspapers we investigated. We conclude that the utility of the newspapers covered in advancing food security for disabled people and other socially disadvantaged groups is very low.