scholarly journals Is the quest to eat healthy a route to enhancing consumer’s food security?

2022 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Kerr ◽  
Jill E. Hobbs

Abstract Background On an individual level, food security has multiple dimensions and consumers exhibit heterogeneity in the extent to which different attributes matter in their quest for enhanced food security. The aim of this paper is to explain how the quest for individual food security arises and its dynamic nature and its implications for how food security-enhancing attributes are defined and how they are signaled, and for the role of regulators and food supply chains in establishing credible signals. Results The paper finds that the quest for enhanced individual food security is a dynamic process that responds to the disequilibrium that change brings. The changing role of standards and grades as signals in food markets is discussed as a precursor to considering the implications for both market and non-market (regulatory) failure in determining the appropriate role for the public sector in regulating food safety and quality standards and labeling. The rise of private standards is examined, along with a consideration of how these standards differ in terms of scope and objective and their implications for international trade in increasingly globalized food supply chains. Conclusions Despite the growth of private standards, a clear role remains for mandatory public standards, yet challenges arise when these standards differ across countries.

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia Tortajada ◽  
Nicole Sher Wen Lim

Across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted food supply chains and threatened food security. Singapore is highly dependent on food imports and has an open economy that exposes it to volatile global markets, so it is acutely vulnerable to the effects of the pandemic on other countries, the effectiveness of measures taken by foreign governments to combat the spread of the virus and overall disruptions of international trade links. Proactive and reactive steps have been taken to protect Singapore's food supply chains against the adverse impacts of COVID-19. In this paper, we discuss food security in the city state, the impacts of COVID-19 in the population, the local production, and imports from two main trade partners: Malaysia and China. We conclude by acknowledging the complexity of achieving food security under the very difficult circumstances.


2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Brent Ross

Technological innovation, globalization and market segmentation have led to increasingly complex agri-food supply chains and networks. At the same time, they have also created opportunities for entrepreneurial firms to create new wealth. The objective of this study is to investigate the differences in entrepreneurial performance between firms that discover and exploit new wealth creation opportunities within existing supply chains as opposed to those that decide to establish the supply chain themselves. Using agent-based simulation, this study finds that agents that link with existing supply chains outperform those that do not both in terms of survival and wealth creation per firm. It also finds, however, that the presence of existing supply chains has positive effects for non-linked entrepreneurial firms as well.


2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 51-59
Author(s):  
Jarosław Gołębiewski ◽  
Nina Drejerska

A food supply chain integrates three important economic sectors: agriculture, food processing, and distribution sectors. Integration processes are one out of different ways of efficiency’s improvement of supply chains; they are also the key challenges of contemporary management in the global economy. Common activities of partners in a supply chain can take different forms, starting from general agreements in supply operations, common forecasting and planning of production to cooperation in the field of design and implementation of new products. The aim of the study is to investigate an economic role of agricultural cooperatives in Poland from a perspective of changes in food supply chains. In order to realize it, data of the General Agricultural Census 2010, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development as well as the ranking of the top 500 companies in Poland by “Rzeczpospolita” (2017, 19th edition) were applied. Research results show that a significant number of cooperatives stopped their activities or limited their scale or range after 1989. However, some cooperatives have been developing and as for example dairy cooperatives belong to the top 500 companies in the Polish economy. There is also an increasing trend of establishment of agricultural producer groups, often in a form of cooperatives, that have been observed recently.


2020 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 102077
Author(s):  
Grammatoula Papaioannou ◽  
Anne-Marie Mohammed ◽  
Stella Despoudi ◽  
George Saridakis ◽  
Thanos Papadopoulos

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie Stone ◽  
Shahin Rahimifard

PurposeResilience in agri-food supply chains (AFSCs) is an area of significant importance due to growing supply chain volatility. While the majority of research exploring supply chain resilience has originated from a supply chain management perspective, many other disciplines (such as environmental systems science and the social sciences) have also explored the topic. As complex social, economic and environmental constructs, the priority of resilience in AFSCs goes far beyond the company specific focus of supply chain management works and would conceivably benefit from including more diverse academic disciplines. However, this is hindered by inconsistencies in terminology and the conceptual components of resilience across different disciplines. The purpose of this study is to use a systematic literature review to identify which multidisciplinary aspects of resilience are applicable to AFSCs and to generate a novel AFSC resilience framework.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses a structured and multidisciplinary review of 137 articles in the resilience literature followed by critical analysis and synthesis of findings to generate new knowledge in the form of a novel AFSC resilience framework.FindingsFindings indicate that the complexity of AFSCs and subsequent exposure to almost constant external interference means that disruptions cannot be seen as a one-off event; thus, resilience must concern the ability to not only maintain core function but also adapt to changing conditions.Practical implicationsA number of resilience elements can be used to enhance resilience, but their selection and implementation must be carefully matched to relevant phases of disruption and assessed on their broader supply chain impacts. In particular, the focus must be on overall impact on the ability of the supply chain as a whole to provide food security rather than to boost individual company performance.Originality/valueThe research novelty lies in the utilisation of wider understandings of resilience from various research fields to propose a rigorous and food-specific resilience framework with end consumer food security as its main focus.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (13) ◽  
pp. 5473
Author(s):  
Konrád Kiss ◽  
Csaba Ruszkai ◽  
Antónia Szűcs ◽  
Gábor Koncz

The scientific examination of short food supply chains is justified by consumer interest and their role in the European Unions’ subsidy policy and rural development. In our current article, we present the results of a consumer survey of more than a thousand people from Hungary. It was conducted in the North Hungarian (rural) region. Our research goals were: (1) To access consumer demand for short food supply chains and to determine the characteristics of consumers who prefer local foods; and (2) to examine the role of short food supply chains in rural development by a territorial comparison. The results showed that consumers’ willingness to pay a theoretical premium for local products was high (averagely +20.7%). Compared to that, we considered their monthly purchased quantity low. We found a statistically valid, yet weak, correlation that on a monthly basis, the purchase of local products was more significant for consumers from smaller settlements and villages than those from (greater) cities. Furthermore, there were factors in some consumers’ preferences that indicated a greater interest for small producers’ goods. Although it was not possible to assess the absolute demand of the studied rural area, these results (at a certain level) confirm the potential of short food chains in rural development.


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