Citizen science for climate change preparedness and self-governance in the digital era: The Food Equity and Environmental Data Sovereignty (FEEDS) project (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasmin Bhawra ◽  
Kelly Skinner ◽  
Duane Favel ◽  
Brenda Green ◽  
Ken Coates ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Traditional Knowledge ◽  
Citizen Science ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Project Planning ◽  
Environmental Data ◽  
Knowledge Mobilization ◽  
Food Equity

BACKGROUND Despite having the tools at our disposal to enable an adequate food supply for all, inequities in food acquisition, distribution, and most importantly, food sovereignty, worsen food insecurity. Moreover, the detrimental impact of climate change on food systems is further exacerbated by lack of food sovereignty. We urgently require innovative solutions to enable food sovereignty and minimize food insecurity. Indigenous communities have a wealth of Traditional Knowledge for climate change adaptation and preparedness to strengthen food systems. Traditional Knowledge combined with Western methods can revolutionize ethical data collection, engagement, and knowledge mobilization. OBJECTIVE The Food Equity and Environmental Data Sovereignty (FEEDS) project takes a participatory action, citizen science approach for early detection and warning of climate change impacts on food sovereignty and security. The objective of this project is to develop and implement a sustainable digital platform that enables real-time decision-making to mitigate climate change-related impacts on food systems. METHODS Citizen science enables citizens to actively contribute to all aspects of the research process, from project planning and data collection, to co-created and self-determined knowledge mobilization. The FEEDS project is being implemented in four phases: i) Participatory project planning, ii) Climate change platform co-development and customization; iii) Community-led evaluation; iv) Refinement of innovative data analytics and community engagement, and v) Knowledge mobilization and exchange. The project is governed by a Citizen Scientist Advisory Council comprising Elders, Traditional Knowledge Keepers, key community decision-makers, youth, and FEEDS researchers. The Council governs all phases of the project, including co-conceptualizing a climate change platform, which consists of a smartphone application (app) and a digital decision-making dashboard. Apart from capturing environmental and health-related big data (e.g., weather, permafrost degradation, fire hazards, human movement, etc.), the custom-built app uses artificial intelligence to engage and enable citizens to report on environmental hazards, changes in biodiversity or wildlife, and related food issues in their communities. The app provides citizens with valuable information to mitigate health-related risks, and relays big data in real-time to a digital dashboard. RESULTS This project is currently in Phase 1 with the sub-arctic Métis jurisdiction of Île-à-la-Crosse, Saskatchewan, Canada. CONCLUSIONS The FEEDS project facilitates Indigenous self-determination, governance, and data sovereignty. All citizen data are anonymous and encrypted, and communities have ownership, access, control and possession over their data. The digital dashboard system provides decision-makers with real-time data, thereby increasing capacity to self-govern. The participatory action research approach, combined with digital citizen science, advances co-creation of knowledge and multidisciplinary collaboration in the digital age. Given the urgency of climate change, leveraging technology provides communities with the tools to respond to existing and emerging crises in a timely manner, as well as scientific evidence regarding the urgency of current health and environmental issues. CLINICALTRIAL Not applicable.

scholarly journals Climate change and food security in Sri Lanka: towards food sovereignty

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahinda Senevi Gunaratne ◽  
R. B. Radin Firdaus ◽  
Shamila Indika Rathnasooriya
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Global Learning ◽  
Policy Reforms

AbstractThis study explored food security and climate change issues and assessed how food sovereignty contributes to addressing the climate change impacts on entire food systems. The study aimed to contextualise food security, climate change, and food sovereignty within Sri Lanka’s current development discourse by bringing global learning, experience, and scholarship together. While this paper focused on many of the most pressing issues in this regard, it also highlighted potential paths towards food sovereignty in the context of policy reforms. This study used a narrative review that relied on the extant literature to understand the underlying concepts and issues relating to climate change, food security and food sovereignty. Additionally, eight in-depth interviews were conducted to obtain experts’ views on Sri Lanka’s issues relating to the thematic areas of this study and to find ways forward. The key findings from the literature review suggest that climate change has adverse impacts on global food security, escalating poverty, hunger, and malnutrition, which adversely affect developing nations and the poor and marginalised communities disproportionately. This study argues that promoting food sovereignty could be the key to alleviating such impacts. Food sovereignty has received much attention as an alternative development path in international forums and policy dialogues while it already applies in development practice. Since the island nation has been facing many challenges in food security, poverty, climate change, and persistence of development disparities, scaling up to food sovereignty in Sri Lanka requires significant policy reforms and structural changes in governance, administrative systems, and wider society.

scholarly journals The Food Equity and Environmental Data Sovereignty (FEEDS) Project Protocol: A Quasi-Experimental Study Evaluating a Digital Platform for Climate Change Preparedness (Preprint)

10.2196/31389 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasmin Bhawra ◽  
Kelly Skinner ◽  
Duane Favel ◽  
Brenda Green ◽  
Ken Coates ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Experimental Study ◽  
Environmental Data ◽  
Digital Platform ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
Food Equity

Fulfilling the Right to Food for South Africa: Justice, Security, Sovereignty and the Politics of Malnutrition

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 112-152
Author(s):  
Busiso Helard Moyo ◽  
Anne Marie Thompson Thow
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Food Justice ◽  
System Transformation ◽  
Right To Food ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right

Despite South Africa’s celebrated constitutional commitments that have expanded and deepened South Africa’s commitment to realise socio-economic rights, limited progress in implementing right to food policies stands to compromise the country’s developmental path. If not a deliberate policy choice, the persistence of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms is a deep policy failure.  Food system transformation in South Africa requires addressing wider issues of who controls the food supply, thus influencing the food chain and the food choices of the individual and communities. This paper examines three global rights-based paradigms – ‘food justice’, ‘food security’ and ‘food sovereignty’ – that inform activism on the right to food globally and their relevance to food system change in South Africa; for both fulfilling the right to food and addressing all forms of malnutrition. We conclude that the emerging concept of food sovereignty has important yet largely unexplored possibilities for democratically managing food systems for better health outcomes.

scholarly journals Grassroots and Global Governance: Can Global–Local Linkages Foster Food System Resilience for Small Northern Canadian Communities?

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 2415
Author(s):  
Carla Johnston ◽  
Andrew Spring
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Global Network ◽  
Global Networks

Communities in Canada’s Northwest Territories (NWT) are at the forefront of the global climate emergency. Yet, they are not passive victims; local-level programs are being implemented across the region to maintain livelihoods and promote adaptation. At the same time, there is a recent call within global governance literature to pay attention to how global policy is implemented and affecting people on the ground. Thinking about these two processes, we ask the question: (how) can global governance assist northern Indigenous communities in Canada in reaching their goals of adapting their food systems to climate change? To answer this question, we argue for a “community needs” approach when engaging in global governance literature and practice, which puts community priorities and decision-making first. As part of a collaborative research partnership, we highlight the experiences of Ka’a’gee Tu First Nation, located in Kakisa, NWT, Canada. We include their successes of engaging in global network building and the systemic roadblock of lack of formal land tenure. Moreover, we analyze potential opportunities for this community to engage with global governance instruments and continue connecting to global networks that further their goals related to climate change adaptation and food sovereignty.

scholarly journals Effect of Different Water Quality on the Nutritive Value and Chemical Composition of Sorghum bicolor Payenne in Cape Verde

Agronomy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1091
Author(s):  
Vanessa Mendoza-Grimón ◽  
Regla Amorós ◽  
Juan Ramón Fernández-Vera ◽  
Jose Manuel Hernádez-Moreno ◽  
María del Pino Palacios-Díaz
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Drip Irrigation ◽  
Water Reuse ◽  
Nutritive Value ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Cape Verde ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Climate Change Effects ◽  
Plant Maturity ◽  
Subsurface Drip

Cape Verde is a semiarid country where lack of rainfall exacerbates the scarce resources available for livestock which, therefore, make it very vulnerable to climate change. By providing reclaimed water (RW) for irrigation, it is possible to decrease forage importation. Subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) improves health security by preventing contact between water and harvested plants. Sorghum is a water-efficient crop that provides good nutritional value. The aim of this experiment was to study the nutrient and fiber contents of the Sorghum Payenne variety using subsurface (T1) and surface (T2) drip irrigation by RW vs. conventional water (T3) and plant maturity to assure the feasibility of water reuse to produce forage. Ntot–Ptot–Ca–Mg and Na were significantly higher in the RW plants than in the conventional water ones. Ntot–Ptot–K and Fe contents significantly lowered, while Ca–Na and Mn significantly rose as plant maturity increased. All the fiber values meet the Nos. 2 and 3 quality standards, and the Prime and No. 1 for NDF and ADF, respectively. The obtained good forage quality let to avoid the competence of conventional water and to reuse nutrients added by RW. If generalized, this solution would reduce forage importation by improving food sovereignty and farmers’ profitability, and would enhance resilience against climate change effects.

Indigenous climate change adaptation: New directions for emerging scholarship

2021 ◽  
pp. 251484862110224
Author(s):  
Danielle Emma Johnson ◽  
Meg Parsons ◽  
Karen Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Small Body ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Cultural Continuity ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Indigenous Development

Although Indigenous peoples’ perspectives and concerns have not always been accommodated in climate change adaptation research and practice, a burgeoning literature is helping to reframe and decolonise climate adaptation in line with Indigenous peoples’ lived experiences. In this review, we bring together climate adaptation, decolonising and intersectional scholarship to chart the progress that has been made in better analysing and responding to climate change in Indigenous contexts. We identify a wealth of literature helping to decolonise climate adaptation scholarship and praxis by attending to colonial and neo-colonial injustices implicated in Indigenous peoples’ climate vulnerability, taking seriously Indigenous peoples’ relational ontologies, and promoting adaptation that draws on Indigenous capacities and aspirations for self-determination and cultural continuity. Despite calls to interrogate heterogenous experiences of climate change within Indigenous communities, the decolonising climate and adaptation scholarship has made limited advances in this area. We examine the small body of research that takes an intersectional approach to climate adaptation and explores how the multiple subjectivities and identities that Indigenous peoples occupy produce unique vulnerabilities, capacities and encounters with adaptation policy. We suggest the field might be expanded by drawing on related studies from Indigenous development, natural resource management, conservation, feminism, health and food sovereignty. Greater engagement with intersectionality works to drive innovation in decolonising climate adaptation scholarship and practice. It can mitigate the risk of maladaptation, avoid entrenchment of inequitable power dynamics, and ensures that even the most marginal groups within Indigenous communities benefit from adaptation policies and programmes.

Regional Place-Systems Analysis Applied to Long-Range Transportation Planning

1996 ◽  
Vol 1518 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-21
Author(s):  
Leonard Voellinger ◽  
Claudia Oakes
Keyword(s):  
Long Range ◽  
Transportation Planning ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Project Planning ◽  
Environmental Data ◽  
Data Types ◽  
Transportation Projects ◽  
Environmental Considerations ◽  
Environmental Element ◽  
Cultural Similarity

The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) requires the integration of environmental considerations into transportation planning. Although previous legislation has required the consideration of environmental elements during project planning, ISTEA necessitates a different approach. During project-specific planning, each environmental element is researched to determine baseline conditions, and project plans are superimposed to determine potential impacts and the need for mitigative measures. This approach is appropriate for project-specific planning, but it presents only a snapshot of existing conditions because environmental data are changing constantly. The integration of environmental considerations into long-range plans requires a much broader focus. It must allow dynamic systems to change without affecting the plan's validity. A case study is presented of the Oklahoma statewide intermodal transportation plan, which uses recent geographic theory to integrate planning and human activity at varying scales. This theoretical framework is based on ecological and societal units of interaction called bioregions or place-systems. The environmental baseline and analysis for Oklahoma begin with the identification of place-systems in the state: areas of biophysical and cultural similarity and context. The delimitation of such regional place-systems is sufficiently generalized and flexible to accommodate many data types and sources, yet rigid enough to be useful for planning. Both quantitative data and descriptive information are included in an analytical framework suitable to relational data bases and geographic information systems applications. These are used to create a series of map and data overlays to project potential environmental impacts and constraints, as well as opportunities for developing future transportation projects. The methods used to delineate regional place-systems in Oklahoma and their subsequent use in environmental analyses and planning are described.

scholarly journals Special Issue “Levering Sustainable Food Systems to Address Climate Change (Pandemics and Other Shocks and Hazards): Possible Transformations”

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8206
Author(s):  
Andrew Spring ◽  
Erin Nelson ◽  
Irena Knezevic ◽  
Patricia Ballamingie ◽  
Alison Blay-Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Sustainable Food Systems ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Address Climate Change ◽  
The World

Since we first conceived of this Special Issue, “Levering Sustainable Food Systems to Address Climate Change—Possible Transformations”, COVID-19 has turned the world upside down [...]

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