Foodsecurity

Natural disasters and food insecurity are directly interconnected. Climate change related hazards such as floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, droughts and other risks can weaken food security and severely impact agricultural activities. Consequently, this has an impact on market access, trade, food supply, reduced income, increased food prices, decreased farm income and employment. Natural disasters create poverty, which in turn increases the prevalence of food insecurity and malnutrition. It is clear that disasters put food security at risk. The poorest people in the community are affected by food insecurity and disasters; hence, there is a need to be prepared as well as be in a position to manage disasters. Without serious efforts to address them, the risks of disasters will become an increasingly serious obstacle to sustainable development and the achievement of sustainable development goals, particularly goal number 2 ‘end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture’. In recent years, countries in southern Africa have experienced an increase in the frequency, magnitude and impact of climate change–related hazards such as droughts, veld fire, depleting water resources and flood events. This research aims to reveal Southern African Development Community disaster risk management strategies for food security to see how they an influence and shape policy at the national level in southern Africa. Sustainable Livelihood approach was adopted as the main theoretical framework for the study. The qualitative Analysis is based largely on data from databases such as national reports, regional reports and empirical findings on the disaster management–sustainable development nexus.

There have being increasing debate on the prospects of biofuel becoming the next best alternative to solving the problem of CO2 emission and the escalating fuel prices, but the question is whether this assertion is true and also if it comes without any cost to pay. This paper seeks to find out whether this much praised alternative to solving these problems is a better option or another way for the developed countries to find more areas where they could get cheap land, labour and raw materials for the production of biofuel. This will focus mainly on some effects the growing biofuel production has on food security, livelihood of people, the environment and some land conflicts developing as a result of land grabbing for biofuel production in the developing countries.

Food Security means that all people at all times have physical and economic access to adequate amounts of nutritious, safe, and culturally appropriate food, which are produced in an environmentally sustainable and socially just manner, and that people are able to make informed decisions about their food choices. Food Security also means that the people who produce our food are able to earn a decent, living wage growing, catching, producing, processing, transporting, retailing, and serving food. At the core of food security is access to healthy food and optimal nutrition for all. Food access is closely linked to food supply, so food security is dependent on a healthy and sustainable food system. A food system includes the production, processing, distribution, marketing, acquisition, and consumption of food. This article examines the Food Security Bill 2013 of India and reports its benefits and also possible changes that can be taken into account to enable more food and nutritional security for people living in poverty and below poverty conditions in the country.

There have being increasing debate on the prospects of biofuel becoming the next best alternative to solving the problem of CO 2 emission and the escalating fuel prices, but the question is whether this assertion is true and also if it comes without any cost to pay. This paper seeks to find out whether this much praised alternative to solving these problems is a better option or another way for the developed countries to find more areas where they could get cheap land, labour and raw materials for the production of biofuel. This will focus mainly on some effects the growing biofuel production has on food security, livelihood of people, the environment and some land conflicts developing as a result of land grabbing for biofuel production in the developing countries. Keywords: Biofuel, Food security, Livelihood, Environment, Land Acquisition Received 8 July 2012; accepted 23 April 2013 urn:nbn:de:hebis:34-2014021044986

Avian influenza is considered a "global threat" and a biosecurity issue. How did that come to be? How did the avian influenza threat change as the virus spread? This book offers detailed, empirical accounts of avian influenza as the virus - and the knowledge about it - spread beyond Asia from 2005 onwards. It also offers insights into how the concept biosecurity has emerged in relation to recent disease outbreaks. Based on multi-sited fieldwork in Turkey and textual analyses this book contributes to new ways of understanding text and field, the global and the local, and the secure and the insecure as relational rather than opposed or unconnected; as enacted rather than pre-given.

Preview: http://www.lit-verlag.de/isbn/3-643-90843-8

Contemporary food production, given the degree of technology being applied in it and the present state of scientific knowledge, should be able to feed the world. Corresponding statistics show that in fact the volumes of modern food production confirm this statement. Yet, the present nutritional situation across the globe leaves much to be desired: on the one hand the numbers of undernourished and malnourished people are still high and even growing in some regions, and on the other hand there is an increasing number of overweight and obese people who are experiencing (or are at risk of) adverse health impacts as consequences. The question arises how this situation is possible given the present state of food production and knowledge, and also in terms of nutrition basics when talking about the latter. When arguing about the main causes of the present situation with nutrition across the globe, it is the modern food system with its distortions that is often criticised with emphasis placed on inappropriate food distribution as one of the key problems. However it is not only food distribution that shapes inequalities in terms of food availability and accessibility -there is a number of other factors contributing to this situation including political influences. Each of the drivers of the present situation might affect more than one part and have outcomes in different dimensions. Therefore it makes sense to apply a holistic approach when viewing the modern food system, embracing all the elements and existing relationships between them for this will facilitate taking appropriate actions in order to target the desired outcome in the best possible way. Applying a systematic approach and linking various elements with corresponding interactions among them allows for picturing all the possible outcomes and hence finding the way for a better solution on global level - a solution to the present problem with nutritional disbalance across the globe.

There is an increasing evidence that smallholder farms contribute substantially to food production globally, yet spatially explicit data on agricultural field sizes are currently lacking. Automated field size delineation using remote sensing or the estimation of average farm size at subnational level using census data are two approaches that have been used. However, both have limitations, for example, automatic field size delineation using remote sensing has not yet been implemented at a global scale while the spatial resolution is very coarse when using census data. This paper demonstrates a unique approach to quantifying and mapping agricultural field size globally using crowdsourcing. A campaign was run in June 2017, where participants were asked to visually interpret very high resolution satellite imagery from Google Maps and Bing using the Geo-Wiki application. During the campaign, participants collected field size data for 130 K unique locations around the globe. Using this sa...

There is an increasing evidence that smallholder farms contribute substantially to food production globally, yet spatially explicit data on agricultural field sizes are currently lacking. Automated field size delineation using remote sensing or the estimation of average farm size at subnational level using census data are two approaches that have been used. However, both have limitations, for example, automatic field size delineation using remote sensing has not yet been implemented at a global scale while the spatial resolution is very coarse when using census data. This paper demonstrates a unique approach to quantifying and mapping agricultural field size globally using crowdsourcing. A campaign was run in June 2017, where participants were asked to visually interpret very high resolution satellite imagery from Google Maps and Bing using the Geo-Wiki application. During the campaign, participants collected field size data for 130 K unique locations around the globe. Using this sa...