The Role of Bahrain Local Food Production System in Ensuring Sustainable Food Security

Abstract. Food security can be defined as stable access to food of good nutritional quality. In Sub Saharan Africa access to food is strongly linked to local food production and the capacity to generate enough calories to sustain the local population. Therefore it is important in these regions to generate not only sufficiently high yields but also to reduce interannual variability in food production. Traditionally, climate impact simulation studies have focused on factors that underlie maximum productivity ignoring the variability in yield. By using Modern Portfolio Theory, a method stemming from economics, we here calculate optimum current and future crop selection that maintain current yield while minimizing variance, vs. maintaining variance while maximizing yield. Based on simulated yield using the LPJ-GUESS dynamic vegetation model, the results show that current cropland distribution for many crops is close to these optimum distributions. Even so, the optimizations displayed substantial potential to either increase food production and/or to decrease its variance regionally. Our approach can also be seen as a method to create future scenarios for the sown areas of crops in regions where local food production is important for food security.

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The impact of COVID-19 on local government stakeholders' perspectives on local food production

Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development ◽

10.5304/jafscd.2021.102.035 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-18

Author(s):

Catherine Campbell

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Local Government ◽

Local Governments ◽

Food Production ◽

Local Food ◽

Public Health Emergencies ◽

Adoption And Implementation ◽

Local Food Production ◽

The Impact

Local food production (LFP) can play an important role in ensuring access to food during supply chain disruptions. Because the drafting, adoption, and implementation of policies regulating LFP is under the purview of local governments in many U.S. states, researchers at University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Extension conducted a study to assess whether COVID-19 affected local government stakeholders’ (LGS) (N=92) perspectives on LFP and the role that LFP can play in responding to public health emergencies. LGS who oversee the drafting, adoption, and implementation of LFP policies include staff responsible for code enforcement, sustainability initiatives, and planning, as well as elected and appointed leaders, such as mayors, city and county managers, and city and county commissioners. The survey assessed LGS’ attitudes and knowledge about LFP. The survey also asked LGS about their perceptions and awareness of LFP in their communities, including their perceptions of the benefits of and barriers to LFP and the ways in which LFP producers were using the food they produced. Survey questions also focused specifically on COVID-19 and the role of LFP in public health emergencies. In particular, survey questions asked whether LGS perceived a change in their own attitudes, knowledge, and perspectives; whether there had been a change in the LFP activities in their communities following COVID-19; and what they thought the role of LFP was in responding to public health emergencies. Direct comparisons of LGS who responded to a 2019 survey (N=43) were assessed for statistically significant changes in overall attitudes, knowledge, or perceived benefits of LFP following COVID-19. This study found that LGS have generally positive attitudes and perceptions of benefits of LFP, including its role in public health emergencies, but have limited knowledge about LFP or awareness of barriers to its implementation. The results of this study indicate that LGS understand the potential benefits of LFP in public health emergencies but would benefit from information and training to support the development of policies and programs in their communities.

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Diversified agriculture for higher productivity and profitability–A review

Agricultural Reviews ◽

10.18805/ag.r-1679 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

B. P. Meena ◽

A. O. Shirale ◽

A. K. Biswas ◽

B. L. Lakaria ◽

Pramod Jha ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Food Security ◽

Production System ◽

Food Production ◽

Agriculture Sector ◽

Indian Agriculture ◽

Holistic Approaches ◽

Starting Point ◽

Farm Profitability ◽

Food Production System

In the present scenario of food production system, one of the most important challenges the Indian agriculture facing today is how to sustain farm profitability and food security. In order to feed an increasing the population 2% per year and meet the food demand (341 million tonnes by 2025), the agricultural productivity and growth need to be sustained and further improved. Food security is multidimensional crisis, which directly hits the poorest and neediest and in turn decreases their already low quality of life. The agriculture sector is the starting point for finding sustainable solution to overcome the food crisis. This situation is nodding towards rethinking about the profitable agriculture. For this concern holistic approaches have to be continued with certain aspects so that the 60–70% population associated with agriculture remains in the profession. Else wise, everyone wants to have alternate entrepreneur rather than agriculture since it is less profit oriented with high risk and needs more hard work as compared to other entrepreneurs. Diversified agriculture is an integration of several crops and livestock’s, in production system for a higher food production and farm profitability.

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