Impact of stock health on fish prices: Evaluation and implications for food accessibility

The continuous rise of the world’s population has made food security a major point of the global agenda, with fisheries providing a key source of nutrition, especially in developing countries. Ensuring their health is key to maintain the availability of the resource, but its effect over accessibility is yet unclear. In this paper, we discuss the relevance of stock health for ensuring the price accessibility of the resource. A Least Square Dummy Variable panel model is proposed for bluefin tuna prices, with a biological explanatory component, and dummy variables reflecting changes in fishing trends. Both have proven to be significant to explain annual price variations, with improvements in stock health achieving price reductions.

Water-Energy-Food Accessibility and Tracking Progress towards Achieving Sustainable Development Goals in the Savannah Region of Katsina State, Nigeria

Although remarkable progress has been achieved in reducing hunger and poverty and improving people’s health in the past couple of decades, humanity still faces considerable socio-economic and sustainability challenges. Ensuring sustainable access to safe and sufficient water, improved sanitation facilities, clean energy sources and healthy food is a necessary requirement for ending hunger and poverty, advancing health and achieving all the goals of the sustainable development agenda. Socio-economic variables are determinant factors of water, energy and food accessibility. Ecological region, income and education are measures used in this study, which aims to examine a pairwise comparison of water and energy sources, sanitation facilities and food accessibilities in six sampling communities and tracking progress towards achieving the sustainable development goals (SDG) at a local scale using nine specific SDG indicators. A study involving questionnaire administration covering 1785 households across the three ecological regions of Katsina state was performed. Two communities representing urban and rural households from each of the ecological regions were selected. An analysis of variance was used to test the equality of resource accessibility across the investigated communities followed up by a post hoc analysis to identify significant mean groups. The results showed that the overall access level to safely manage water and sanitation facilities were 16.5% and 28.1%, respectively. Access indices of 1.83 and 1.24 for electricity and cooking fuel, respectively, were calculated in the study area. The study revealed that location, education and income are the key drivers of water, energy and food access and choice.

Factors Affecting Food Accessibility of Rural Households:A Study in Birbhum, West Bengal

In view of the goal of achieving ‘Zero Hunger’ by 2030 set in the United Nations Summit, 2015, the present study makes an attempt to identify the determinants of food accessibility of rural households in six selected villages of two blocks of the district of Birbhum, West Bengal. Food accessibility implies ability to acquire food through various means. The study is based on primary data collected from field survey in a few sample villages. The total sample size is 500. Food accessibility of the households is analysed in terms of their monthly per capita consumption expenditure (MPCE) on food. This calculated MPCE has been compared with the MPCE on food as per the minimum food basket for rural India set by the Planning Commission in 2014. The households have been classified into two groups, viz, households lying above the specified threshold of food accessibility are considered to be those having food accessibility and households below that cut off of food accessibility are taken to be those not having that accessibility. Logit regression, applied for finding out the determinants, reveals that number of years of education of the heads of the households, female literacy rate, monthly income of the households, work force participation rate positively influences food accessibility, while monthly expenses on intoxicants have a deterring effect on food accessibility of the households. The study suggests that access to sustainable employment opportunities for the poor can be the most important solution for achieving ‘Zero Hunger’.

Barriers to Long-Term Maintenance of a Gluten-Free Diet in People With Celiac Disease

Objectives Currently the only treatment for celiac disease (CD), an autoimmune disease triggered by ingestion of the protein gluten, is a gluten-free (GF) diet. This study aimed to examine some barriers (GF food accessibility, social support, GF food knowledge) to maintaining a GF diet. Methods A deidentified online survey with REDCap was shared with people with celiac disease via social media (celiac disease group and research survey exchange group via Reddit, research survey exchange groups via Facebook, celiac disease Discord server). The survey included questions about diagnosis, symptoms, social support, eating habits, GF food access, disease impact, gluten-free knowledge, and demographics. Analysis included descriptive statistics and qualitative measures were used to determine themes. Results Of the 123 responses, 54.5% were diagnosed with CD by small intestine biopsy, 85.1% maintained a GF diet, and 35.2% had CD symptoms for 1–4 years before receiving a diagnosis. Concerning accessibility, 47.9% reported having some difficulty affording GF foods and 49.2% that local grocery stores had limited selection of GF foods. An analysis of GF bread cost in one Washington State county showed a mean cost per loaf of $6.52 which was $4.98 higher than the average cost of all bread in the U.S. When it came to checking food labels for gluten, 59% reported feeling very confident and most participants were able to correctly identify foods that may contain gluten; however, less than half (47.5%) identified kamut (a type of wheat) as a gluten containing grain. 46.7% reported feeling that having CD impacts their life daily. The majority (64.2%) of participants stated that family and friends are supportive of needs, and 62.3% also shared that they did not live in a home that was free of gluten. Conclusions The results from this study suggest that there may be several types of barriers to maintaining a GF diet in people with CD. This study aims to bring better awareness of the prevalence of food accessibility, social support, and GF food knowledge barriers to those living with CD, and to the nutrition professionals who provide their healthcare. Funding Sources Bastyr University Faculty Student Research Grant