Understanding Of Food Security Research Articles

Food insecurity: The resilient, but “silent poverty” perspectives of older ethnic minority individuals within UK communities

AbstractFood insecurity is acknowledged as a key social determinant of health among older adults. Despite recording significantly higher levels of poverty in comparison to white ethnic groups, older individuals from ethnic minorities are under‐represented as recipients of food aid. Thus, there are knowledge gaps in our understanding of older people and their experiences of food insecurity within ethnic minority communities. Through the theoretical lens of Individual and Community Resilience, we empirically advance our understanding of food security and resilience within South Asian communities via in‐depth interviews with community stakeholders and older individuals from Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities across the Greater Manchester region. Our findings reveal that the integration of temporal, environmental and social constructs within a resilience framework reveals significant potential for further negative social, cultural and economic impact on older ethnic minorities in the future, especially as current food support services do not appear to cater for ethnic dietary preferences, language accessibility and/or cultural norms regarding asking for help/charity outside the home. We predict therefore, in combination with the identified persistent stressors, that food insecurity issues within older ethnic minority communities are likely to get much worse, resulting in the need for extensive resilient capacities to cope with future cost‐of‐living challenges. In acknowledging previous limitations within previous resilience frameworks, we propose an incremental contribution to theory and conclude by identifying culturally and operationally appropriate food support system approaches, which can be used to address the increasing prevalence of “silent poverty” within ethnic minority communities.

ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКИЕ АСПЕКТЫ ПРОДОВОЛЬСТВЕННОЙ БЕЗОПАСНОСТИ В УСЛОВИЯХ НЕОПРЕДЕЛЁННОСТИ

This article examines the theoretical aspects of food security, especially in the context of modern uncertainty and variability characterizing modern world conditions. In it, the author presents a new understanding of food security in conditions of uncertainty and risk. Particular attention is paid to considering food security not only as ensuring the availability of food, but also as a guarantee of their availability and acceptable cost for all social groups, including vulnerable segments of the population. The author presents a theoretical concept of food security, which includes three main elements: accessibility, sustainability and stability. They are interrelated and interdependent and together determine the ability of the food system to provide the population with suffi cient and stable food supplies. A key aspect of this concept is the “uncertainty” factor, which can arise due to various changeable and unpredictable factors, such as climate change, economic crises and natural disasters.

한국 대두산업의 식량안보수준에 관한 연구 －국제경쟁력과 산업통제력을 중심으로－

Korea''s soybean export volume is extremely low, while the import, highly concentrated in the United States, Brazil, China and other countries, has been maintained at a high level for a long time. What is the impact of this imbalance on the food security level of the Korean soybean industry. In this paper, two types of indicators, international competitiveness and industrial control, are selected to reflect the food security level of the soybean industry. Its soybean industry, between 1998 and 2019, is quantified and analyzed by setting alarm limits for the food security level of the soybean industry, using the mapping method to calculate the food security level scores of each indicator of the soybean industry security. Then weighting the comprehensive index of food security level in the soybean industry. The results show that the food security level of the soybean industry in Korea has been in a state of crisis since 1998, and the composite index of security level has been above 98 in most years, except for some years. Comparative analysis with Japan, which rolled out food security policies 10 years earlier than South Korea, offered further improvement solutions：(1) Expand soybean planting area and enhance food security；(2) Increase soybean productivity per unit area and double soybean industrial R&D investment；(3) Shift the government and the public''s understanding of food security.

Food Access Deficiencies in Sub-saharan Africa: Prevalence and Implications for Agricultural Interventions

Our understanding of food security in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been hampered by limitations in the temporal and spatial representativeness of data. Food balance sheets provide scalable estimates of per capita food availability, but fail to represent food access, stability and their causal linkages. In contrast, rural household surveys represent detailed conditions for one or multiple points in time, but are influenced by survey timing and are often limited in geographical coverage. This study draws on a large sample of rural land-holding households in SSA (n = 6,353) to identify household level food access deficiencies and to understand the associations with rural livelihoods and food sourcing behavior throughout the year. Food access deficiencies were identified using food security of access and diet diversity indicators. Dietary diversity and channel of access (farm or purchased) were enumerated for the “flush” and “lean” periods and food security of access was enumerated for the lean period only - making the results of this study independent of survey timing. As many as 39% of households were classified as severely food insecure (in terms of food access) and as many as 49% of households were likely to be deficient in micronutrients in the lean period. Vulnerability to food insecurity and micronutrient deficiencies differed by household composition, agricultural livelihood characteristics and agro-ecological zone. Dairy, fruit and vitamin A-rich produce were predominantly accessed through the farm channel. Households with a livestock component to their farm had a lower prevalence of severe food insecurity and higher diet diversity scores. These findings have implications for the development of nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific interventions. Interventions need to be tailored to agro-ecological zone, household composition, scale of operation and production mix. Increasing income will not necessarily result in improved diet diversity or healthy dietary choices. Interventions focused on income generation should monitor and promote crop and livestock production diversity and provide nutrition education.

Food Sovereignty: The Case and the Space for Community Led Agricultural Autonomy within the Global Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition

Much has been written about food security, nutrition security and the ability of people to access their food needs. Food sovereignty and the associated ability of people to participate in the production, distribution and consumption decisions of their food have been at the fringe of this discussion. Linked with this is the debate on the question of pursuing policies of food self-sufficiency or policies of self-reliance where food imports are considered a natural extension of food security. Examining the elements of food security through the food system participation framework of food sovereignty is an opportunity worthy of further exploration.This paper seeks to add a dimension to the understanding of food security by considering the value that a food sovereignty perspective has on the right to access food that is nutritious and safe for consumption. Current themes are cited and reviewed, and the implications of both food security and food sovereignty perspectives for the food system are argued. Agricultural trade liberalisation has benefited some societies and harmed others. To this end, the Global Strategic Framework (the Framework) on Food Security and Nutrition has recently incorporated the philosophy of the food sovereignty movement into its guidelines. The Framework provides an opportunity to view food security through a lens of food sovereignty providing guidance for all societies on how to safeguard their food security.

Food security: What does gender have to do with it?

abstractThe practice of gender mainstreaming has made inroads into food security policies and programmes in Ethiopia, resulting in integration of mechanisms to address the needs and priorities of women and men. Recognition of women-headed households and women within male-headed households for receipt of benefits, recognition of women-headed households as in the poorer category of Food Security Program (FSP) clients and the danger of women’s needs being overshadowed by the demands made by household heads are good examples here. Although positive results/outcomes have been recorded in consecutive evaluations of the FSP, challenges remain. The main challenges revolve around failure to articulate/understand factors that make women experience food insecurity more severely than other members of the family; traditional patriarchal practices which require women to prioritise feeding the husband and boy child in times of food shortages; and failure to articulate/address the added burdens which food insecurity puts upon women, including being forced to travel long distances in search of water as well as feed for animals at home, heavy workload and time poverty. These challenges arise due to an understanding of food security that takes households as units of analysis, and fails adequately to understand and articulate the gender-differentiated needs of different members of a household.Based on quantitative and qualitative methods with tools such as questionnaires and in-depth and key informant interviews as well as focus group discussions targeting beneficiaries of the FSP and implementers, this article examines the level of engagement of the FSP with gender and feminist concerns. This research is based on the most recent cycle of the FSP of Ethiopia (2010–2014) and a review of relevant literature, including evaluations of various components of the FSP.

The Russian Variant of Food Security

Russia’s political leaders have a different understanding of food security than traditional usage. The traditional usage of the term food security refers to access, availability, and nutritional aspects of food. According to the conventional application of food security, the vast majority of the Russian population is not food insecure by traditional measures. The Russian variant of food security connects food trade to national security. The Russian political leadership argues that Russia is food insecure based on food imports. Survey data are used to assess support for the government’s food security policy, and to analyze the impact of the self-imposed food embargo on Russian consumers.

From food security to the enactment of change: introduction to the symposium

Over the past five decades, the concept of food security (FS) has taken on various meanings (Smith et al. 1992; Maxwell 1996; Carolan 2013b). Although food is clearly the common denominator, it is the emphasis on security that is less consistent, swaying from yields to calories, from states to households, and from metrics to perceptions (Maxwell 1996). The changing emphases consequently lead to food security being enacted for different objectives and justifications. For one thing, food insecurity within the increasing global populations has become the main driver of producing food at an amazingly rapid rate (Godfray et al. 2010). Yet, food security is also one of the reasons for the flourishing of local and alternative food networks (AFNs) in many parts of the world—encompassing wider concepts such as food sovereignty and food justice (Jaroz 2014). This prompts the question: if food security is understood and valued through a variety of meanings (Mooney and Hunt 2009), how should we then re-frame actions emerging from food security within changing contexts? Inspired by a lively discussion in a working group session at the annual meeting of the Australasian Agrifood Network in 2013, this symposium offers various ways to contextualize food security to different urban and rural contexts. The symposium stems from a realisation that food security, despite being the subject of extensive literature, still lacks a satisfactory theoretical explanation to account for the large divergence of actions observed to date. Indeed, the current literature represents food security as a state/condition, in which a society is linked to food at a particular time and space (Godfray et al. 2010; Naylor and Dean 2012; Carolan 2013b). However, the definition also embodies multiple aspects of, and actions sprouting from, political, economic, social and ecological realms. If food security is to be seen as the desirable outcome against foodrelated uncertainty that is pervading our current times, then disagreement on how to get there implies a re-definition of the actors and relationships involved. Consequently, there is a need to shift emphasis from understanding ‘how food security is to be measured’ towards ‘how food security is to be performed’ in a given context. This symposium analyses limitations and strengths of local and AFNs in its contribution to the discourse on food security, opening a constructive dialogue between different theoretical approaches and grounded-empirical research on a wider understanding of food security, where the link with ‘local food’ and ‘alternative food networks’ is considered as central. & Cinzia Piatti cinzia.piatti@libero.it; cinzia.piatti@otago.ac.nz

The public health contribution to the discursive struggles surrounding food security and food sovereignty

This commentary adopts a public health perspective to shine further light on the different bases for legitimacy in relation to food security and food sovereignty. It describes, albeit briefly, the influential role that nutrition science has long played in the understanding of food security and in advancing a socio-technical approach to address malnutrition. The commentary then turns to the more recent public health ecology field and proposes that its framing of food security resonates with Jarosz’s call for greater attention to nature–society relationships. Along the way, the commentary argues that identifying food security with developmentalist forces is too simplistic, given the range of developmentalist positions currently being adopted. It also reflects on the actions of the state in relation to nutrition, and the as yet unclear relationship between governments and food sovereignty at household and community levels.

The food security challenge for southern Africa

This paper considers food security aims and instruments against a background of changed circumstances internationally and regionally. The international changes discussed are: a sharper focus on achieving macro-economic stabilization, which inter alia has led to closer scrutiny of what the public sector should be financing, and a decline in funding for agriculture; a reduced role for governments in commercial-type activities; the shift towards greater integration of world markets; and changing prospects for international aid flows. Regionally, southern Africa is moving away from a past of conflict and inward-looking economies, towards greater cooperation and trade, and less interventionist economic management. The commendable SADC food security strategy paper of June 1997 is considered, and its implications drawn out. The main messages are that (a) household food insecurity results from poverty, (b) national food insecurity results from faltering development and weak external trade performance, and (c) future strategies must therefore lie with greater efficiency in the use of resources and with patterns of development which are most effective in creating employment and incomes. Arguably there is therefore no case for a food security agenda that is separate from broad-based development aimed at poverty alleviation. This understanding of food security is at variance with some of the policies and development programmes in the region. Promotion of self-sufficiency in grains, specific food-security instruments, and controls over and interventions in markets may all be counter to improving food security for the region if they hinder policy and institutional reforms called for by the wider development agenda. The main roles for governments in promoting food security are discussed in terms of creating an enabling environment for development, correcting for market failures, and targeted measures to achieve social objectives. Food security needs both an urban and a rural focus, and involves all economic sectors. For rural areas, governments' roles may usefully be defined in terms of supporting household strategies aimed at raising and stabilizing incomes through livelihood diversification, intensification of farming, and migration. Two priority policy areas which are central to achieving food security objectives are discussed at some length: trade policy and the promotion of smallholder farming. The roles of government in these areas are discussed in the light of economic theory and past experiences in the region. A vision for a future trade regime is outlined, and strategic interventions by governments are identified. The challenge for governments in supporting smallholder farming is, first, to define with greater rigour than in the past the priority uses for public funds, and, second, to find much more efficient ways of delivering services than in the past. It will otherwise be difficult to make a case for reversing the decline in public funding for the sector. The paper ends with brief discussions of the roles for aid and for SADC in promoting food security, and with a question of whether a new initiative is needed to strengthen trade policy skills in the region.

Canadian Dietitians’ Understanding of Food Security

The Canadian Dietetic Association (CDA) has identified food security as a key action issue for its members. Since any course of action depends on how an issue is understood, we undertook a telephone survey of 487 CDA members to assess their understanding of food security. Dietitians were asked which of the following list they include in their definition of food security: (1) food safety; (2) food as a basic human right; (3) adequate food to maintain health; (4) sustainable agricultural systems; (5) affordability; (6) charitable food distribution systems; and (7) individual choice of personally acceptable foods. Overall, there was a fairly high level of awareness and broad conceptualization of food security. Ninety-three percent included food safety; 87% included food as a human right, adequate food for health, and sustainable agriculture; and 81% included affordability of food. Fewer dietitians included charitable food sources (62%) and individual choice of personally acceptable foods (51%) in their definition. Understandings of the term differed by area of practice but not length of time in practice. Different understandings of food security may lead dietitians to take different, but equally important, courses of action.This may make dialogue confusing and collaboration difficult until the differences are clarified and appreciated.

Drought and famine in Africa: Time for effective action

Optimism that famine in Africa could at last be prevented has been dashed by the drought that hit Southern Africa in 1991–1992. The droughts of the 1980s led researchers to make major advances in the understanding of food security and the design of early warning systems, but the critical transition from theory to effective response has not been made.