scholarly journals Urban Food Security of the Colombo Metropolitan Region (CMR) in Covid times

2021 ◽  
Vol 01 (01) ◽  
pp. 46-48
Author(s):  
Asanka O.R.B.E.W. D. Ovitipana ◽  
◽  
Sarath W.S.B. Dasanayaka ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Food System ◽  
Metropolitan Region ◽  
Urban Food Security ◽  
Disaster Situation ◽  
Guidelines And Recommendations

Colombo Municipality Region (CMR) consists of a highly complex food system that relies on the supply from distant outstations which literally collapsed during the pandemic situation. A requirement exists for empirical research to derive guidelines and recommendations to increase the sustainability and security in the food supply in CMR during a disaster situation.

scholarly journals How to guarantee food supply during pandemics? Rethinking local food systems from peri-urban strategic agents’ behaviour: The case study of the Barcelona Metropolitan Region

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sònia Callau-Berenguer ◽  
Anna Roca-Torrent ◽  
Josep Montasell-Dorda ◽  
Sandra Ricart
Keyword(s):  
Food Supply ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Food Policy ◽  
Local Food ◽  
Metropolitan Region ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Strategic Agents ◽  
Agricultural Areas

The Covid-19 pandemic has acted as a warning for the world’s current food system, especially in urban contexts with global food dependence. This article aims to analyse the food system behaviour of the Barcelona Metropolitan Region (in the northeast of Spain) during the first stage of the pandemic by deepening the behaviour of different peri-urban agricultural areas in which local food supply is promoted. Semi-structured interviews to 11 entities and institutions located in the peri-urban area of the BMR based on its productive and management profile have been carried out from March to May 2020. The results obtained highlight the socio-economic, environmental, and health perspective of food supply during the pandemic. Main results show 1) shortcomings in the operation and logistics of the metropolitan food system; 2) the complicity between the local producer and the urban consumer through new sales and distribution initiatives, 3) the role of peri-urban agricultural areas for ensuring food supply and land preservation, and 4) the need to initiate cooperation and mutual aid activities between the different agents involved in the food system. Furthermore, agents underlined the need for rethinking the agroeconomic model to strengthening the producer-consumer nexus and promoting local food policy based on food sustainability, sovereignty, and governance.

scholarly journals A Year following the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Existing Challenges and Ways the Food Industry Has Been Impacted

Foods ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 2389
Author(s):  
Márcio Vargas-Ramella ◽  
José M. Lorenzo ◽  
Benjamin M. Bohrer ◽  
Mirian Pateiro ◽  
Jesús J. Cantalapiedra ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Food Safety ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Food Industry ◽  
Food System ◽  
Food Distribution ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Food Supply Chain ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

The COVID-19 pandemic has created significant impacts for nearly all industrial and societal sectors in the world. As closures and social distancing mandates were implemented to help control the spread of the novel coronavirus designated as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the food industry was immensely affected. This review explores the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the food supply chain from a multi-disciplinary viewpoint and provides perspectives on the consequences on food safety and food security, a risk assessment on human–animal interactions, and considers logistical/protocol adjustments required for the food industry. While foodborne transmission of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is not a significant factor for food safety as direct transmission of the virus through food products is not evident, food security has been significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic threatens food accessibility, especially for vulnerable populations of people, through its effects on food cost and infrastructure, food distribution and public transit access, and social inequities. Currently, global interest for COVID-19 is focused on human health and rightfully so, but adverse effects on the food supply chain are already evident and will likely continue to occur for several years after the pandemic is over, let alone if other global health pandemics of this magnitude surface in upcoming years. Uncertainties over the novel coronavirus have interrupted global trade and supply chains. The pandemic has underlined the importance of a robust and resilient food system, which presents an unprecedented challenge for competent authorities in upcoming years.

scholarly journals Food Secure Metropolitan Areas: The Transition Support System Approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (13) ◽  
pp. 5376
Author(s):  
Marijke Dijkshoorn-Dekker ◽  
Vincent Linderhof ◽  
Thomas J.M. Mattijssen ◽  
Nico Polman
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Decision Support ◽  
Support System ◽  
Food System ◽  
Metropolitan Areas ◽  
Systematic Change ◽  
Decision Support Tools ◽  
Urban Food Security ◽  
Support Tools ◽  
Transition Support

Metropolitan areas are highly complex systems where a transition towards food security encompasses a systematic change in the whole food chain. Existing decision support tools that have been developed to inform policy-makers are mostly data-driven but hardly consider the activities and preferences of different stakeholders in the food system. The aim of this article is to contribute to urban food security by combining stakeholder participation with model-driven decision support. For this purpose, we developed and tested the Transition Support System (TSS) approach. In this TSS approach, decision support tools and participatory processes are mutually employed to promote urban food security in an ongoing, stakeholder-inclusive and reflexive process of governance. Our application of the TSS approach in two contrasting case studies highlights how this can contribute towards the development of new perspectives on urban food security, building a joint agenda towards the future and better (mutual) understanding of the issues at stake. We conclude that promoting a transition in the urban food system demands joint learning and reflexive evaluation in order to adapt governance, requiring researchers to play a supporting role in a broader process of change.

scholarly journals What Opportunities Exist for Making the Food Supply Nutrition Friendly? A Policy Space Analysis in Mexico

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gloria Cervantes ◽  
Anne-Marie Thow ◽  
Luis Gómez Oliver ◽  
Luis Durán Arenas ◽  
Carolina Pérez Ferrer
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
System Transformation ◽  
Policy Space ◽  
Policy Objective ◽  
Space Analysis ◽  
Public Agenda

Background: As part of a global policy response for addressing malnutrition, food system actions have been proposed. Within food system interventions, policies directed to supply chains have the potential to increase the availability and affordability of a healthy diet. This qualitative study aimed to identify opportunities to integrate nutrition as a priority into the food supply policy space in Mexico. Methods: Data were collected through analysis of 19 policy documents and 20 semi-structured stakeholder interviews. As an analytical framework, we used Policy Space Analysis and embedded the Advocacy Coalition Framework and the steps of the food chain of the conceptual framework of food systems for diets and nutrition. Results: Policy issues relevant to nutrition were viewed differently in the economic and agricultural sectors versus the health sector. Overall, the main policy objective related to nutrition within the economic and agricultural sectors was to contribute to food security in terms of food quantity. Nutrition was an objective in itself only in the health sector, with a focus on food quality. Our policy space analysis reveals an opportunity to promote a new integrated vision with the recent creation of an intersectoral group working on the public agenda for a food system transformation. This newer integrative narrative on food systems presents an opportunity to shift the existing food security narrative from quantity towards considerations of diet quality. Conclusion: The political context and public agenda are favorable to pursue a food system transformation to deliver sustainable healthy diets. Mexico can provide a case study for other low- and middle-income countries for putting nutrition at the center of food policy, despite the ongoing constraints on achieving this.

scholarly journals Resource Use in Deep Litter Poultry System: Implications for Urban Food Security

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 37-44
Author(s):  
A. Etim Nsikak-Abasi ◽  
N. Etim NseAbasi ◽  
Jamal Mohammed
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Resource Use ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Food System ◽  
Sampling Procedure ◽  
Poultry Production ◽  
Stochastic Production Frontier ◽  
Estimation Of Parameters ◽  
Urban Food Security

As urbanization increases, the locus of poverty is slowly shifting from rural to urban areas in what is known as urbanization of poverty. Thus, understanding how urban food system operate and finding ways to ensure that they remain sustainable is a mounting preoccupation. But urban livestock production has the potential to provide a significant contribution to the urban food security now and in the future and can lift the urban poor out of poverty. Information on resource use in deep litter poultry system is largely limited. Stochastic production frontier functions was used for data from deep litter poultry farmers to examine their efficiency technically, output orientation and level of farm. Farmers’ consideration was through the multistage sampling procedure. Maximum likelihood based on estimation of parameters helped in the determination of efficiency. The study revealed that, land, water,medication, capital and labour. The result 0.76 mean efficiency suggests output from deep litter poultry production could be increased with available technology. Policies aimed at encouraging farmers to access productive resources would be sensible decision. Citation: Etim, N. A., Etim, N. N. and Mohammed, J. Resource Use in Deep Litter Poultry System: Implications for Urban Food Security, 2020; 5(3): 38-44. Received: April 4, 2020Accepted: September 30, 2020

scholarly journals Food for Thought: Addressing Urban Food Security Risks through Urban Agriculture

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1267
Author(s):  
Jorinda Steenkamp ◽  
Elizelle Juanee Cilliers ◽  
Sarel Stephanus Cilliers ◽  
Louis Lategan
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Supply Chains ◽  
Urban Agriculture ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Potential Method ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Urban Food Security ◽  
Food Supply Chains

Food and nutrition security has been neglected in the planning field for reasons of a lack of connection between food and planning and the perception that agricultural activities have no place in the modernizing world. However, considering increasing climate change impacts and implications on industrialized agriculture, there is a clear need to establish shorter, more sustainable agricultural production practices and food supply chains. Urban agriculture is proposed as a potential method of intervention for planners to support sustainable food production and supply chains. The paper utilized a multiple-case study design to analyze four best practice examples of urban agriculture in the Global South to uncover its potential to address food security associated risks and contribute to sustainable development objectives. The results delivered evidence of the potential to harness the multifunctionality of urban agriculture to not only improve the food security of the most at-risk populations, but to also address other urban risks such as unemployment, community decline and food deserts. The recommendations for this paper relate to establishing a food security department, mapping and encouraging more sustainable food supply chains, creating land uses and zonings specific to urban agriculture and to utilize its multifunctionality to address other urban risks.

What Is Food-water and Why Do We not Account for It?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Keulertz ◽  
Tony Allan
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Supply Chains ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Food System ◽  
Food Choices ◽  
Green Water ◽  
Food Supply Chains ◽  
Food Retailers ◽  
Global Food System ◽  
Global Food

With 92 percent of the water used by society for food-water, the behavior of consumers determines the demand for food and water. This chapter examines the extent to which global society can manage sustainably the water resources on which its food security depends. Many market players ensure the demand for food is met in supply chains that are embedded in the global food system, linking farmers, agri-industries that supply inputs, food traders, food manufacturers, and food retailers. Food-water risk highlights the importance of the food choices of consumers, as their wasteful practices squander volumes of water and energy along the food supply chains. It is important to recognize that food supply chains are often blind to the costs of blue and green water as an input and to the impacts of misallocating and mismanaging water. This chapter thus discusses the politics of food and the need to account for water.

Phosphorus: Past History and Contributions to the Global Food Supply

2019 ◽  
Vol 103 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Past History ◽  
Phosphate Fertilizer ◽  
Global Food ◽  
Global Food Supply

Since its early rudimentary forms, phosphate fertilizer has developed in step with our understanding of successful food production systems. Recognized as essential to life, the responsible use P in agriculture remains key to food security.

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