Food Security and Insecurity

This article considers relationships and intersections between place, community and foodscapes. We present a case study of the making of a foodscape in The Whau, a local authority area of Auckland, New Zealand, involving place-making activities generated by the food-oriented initiative, Kai Whau (food in The Whau). We examine how food is invoked as core for place-making in response to community disruption following re-drawing of regional electoral boundaries. Findings are drawn from interviews and discussions with key stakeholders from food-related community organisations in the region, secondary materials (policy and scoping documents, funding applications, educational outreach materials from Kai Whau), and historical documentation of the region. We overview the historical significance of food in this region and briefly outline governance reforms that facilitated the Kai Whau initiative. Drawing on theoretical work on centring, we show how Kai Whau, and its associated food-related community initiatives and organisations, function as both centres and centring agents for place-making and community-building. This is accomplished through facilitating food flows and food knowledge across the community and promoting gatherings around food. We conclude that relational processes of placemaking underpin food-related activities across The Whau, acting to build, connect, and strengthen communities.

In chronically food insecure areas, long-term provision of food aid is usually associated with peoples' dependency syndrome which is often perceived as peoples' unwillingness to initiate activities by their own to improve their wellbeing. This discussion is very strong in Ethiopia due to the country's dependence on food aid for over three decades. This study explores this discussion to analyse local peoples' behaviour in a chronically food insecure district where food aid has been central for more than two decades. Based on an Ethnographic fieldwork undertaken for about 18 months, the paper analyses a group of 112 food aid beneficiary households. Results show that, food aid constitutes a very small amount as a share of households' overall food needs. It shows that food aid is one of the many types of livelihood portfolio poor peoples' use to cover household food gaps. People pursue different livelihood activities in their effort to cover their food shortages. The paper argues that dependency syndrome is simply a construct of outsiders rather than an existing risk among food aid beneficiary households who receives a tiny amount of aid that cannot cover entire household food gaps.

A community structure analysis compared cross-national coverage of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) with variations in national-level demographics from 19 newspapers worldwide, yielding combined article "prominence" and "direction" "Media Vector" newspaper scores emphasizing either "favorable" (42%) or "unfavorable" (58%) coverage of GMOs. Regression analysis revealed "poverty level" (24.2% of variance) and "percent of agricultural land" (4.7%) totaled 28.9% of the variance, confirming that "vulnerability" indicators are associated with favorable media coverage of GMOs. Contrary to conventional "guard dog" assumptions that media mirror elite interests, systematic research on demographics and GMO coverage reveals that media can mirror the interests of society's most "vulnerable."

Most of the conflicts in Nigeria, both past and present, have been linked to religion and ethnicity. Today, aside from the alarming case of underdevelopment in the country, the upsurging waves of violent conflicts and crimes have left much to wonder. This study seeks to examine ethno-religious conflicts and insecurity in Nigeria's 4th Republic. The study relied heavily on secondary data sources. Findings revealed that ethno-religious conflicts have brought about instability, loss of lives and has disrupted the peaceful coexistence of the Nigerian people. The paper concludes that there is the need to take the fight against insecurity to the next level where all hands must be on deck and every individual and institutions must join in the fight to restore security in Nigeria. The study recommends, among others, that some non-military approaches should be adopted to compliment the efforts of the Nigerian Military. Also, religious leaders, traditional rulers and chiefs, the media and other stakeholders should lend their supports to the government by sensitizing the youths on the need for unity and peaceful coexistence. State policing should also be considered, with adequate strategies to funding it, as well as eliminating any form of political interference.

In the wake of expanding urbanization and increased urban unemployment, backyard crop production has become an important approach to urban food security. In view of this, the paper examined households' socioeconomic characteristics that affected backyard crop production in Osun State,Nigeria with a view to identifying the factors driving backyard cropping as well as the constraints to its extension among urban households. Data were collected from 105 respondents with the aid of structured questionnaire across the major urban communities in the four geo-political zones in the State. The result showed that average age of backyard farmers was 49±29years with6 years farming experience. Both the male and female headed households were involved in the practice and have average household size of 6±2 members. The practice is observed mostly among the self-employed households and mainly done to provide food supplements(63%) as well as fresh vegetables (37%) for the households. Regression analysis showed that age, sex, educational status, household size, economic status of children, land acquisition method and membership of association, significantly affected backyard crop production. Vegetative destruction of crops by goat and livestock (50.0%), lack of sufficient farmland (20.0%) and low soil fertility (15.7%) were constrained backyard crop production in the study area. Policies that abrogate communal extensive livestock and goatrearing,sensitize the social associations about the benefits of backyard cropping, and ease the process of land access among households in the urban communities are necessary to improve the practice of backyard crop production in the Osun State.

Agriculture in The Bahamas has much changed since the 17th and 18th century.  The country has devolved from self-sustaining and self-dependent or being in control of its own food system to almost total reliability on imports to provide food for its citizens.  80% of the food consumed by Bahamians is imported (Eisenhardt, 2010).  This paper is designed to answer the question that has been pondered upon by agriculturist, both locally and internationally, average citizens and even governing bodies, can The Bahamas feed itself for a period of three months through the use of sustainable farming methods?  This research paper summarizes the findings of the research topic from over a period of ten (10) weeks.  Despite the downfall in agriculture and farming in The Bahamas, this study suggests that there is still the possibility of The Bahamas sustaining and feeding itself and citizens for a period of more than three months.  The improvement of agriculture in The Bahamas can benefit the country in different perspectives.  Ensuring food security through the use of sustainable methods would ensure the provision of jobs for citizens, the country’s economy and commerce will be improved and as much as skyrocket if only from exports and lastly it will make the country independent and free from dependency on other countries for food.  Food insecurity is an issue that is rampant throughout the entire Bahamas; it is my purpose, through this paper to educate not only Bahamians but readers over the world as to how important obtaining food security through sustainability is for a country.  The information collected from my research, will serve as a mean of better educating persons with regards to food security in The Bahamas.

Most studies of Mississippi during the American civil rights era focus almost exclusively on the strategies and tactics of proponents of the movement in response to white resistance and violence. Lunch counter sit-ins in Jackson, marches in the Delta, demonstrations in Oxford, and boycotts in the southwest and southeast regions of the state are often rehearsed when people learn about the Mississippi movement. While these studies extend our understanding of the struggle for civil rights in the state, they simultaneously limit our understanding of white resistance to the movement. This resistance took many forms, and local, state, and national actors in Mississippi used “food power”—the use of food as a weapon or an element of power—to maintain white supremacy and undermine the civil rights movement. In this essay, I transpose the concept of food power into the context of local politics and inequality in the Mississippi civil rights era to interrogate how these actors converged to use food as a weapon to stabilize what they saw as a civil rights crisis.

Food Ladders is a novel, evidenced-based approach for creating household and community resilience by capitalising on the capacity of food to bring people together. Food Ladders is not like existing household food insecurity approaches that focus on the lack of good food within households and then feeds that gap. Instead, Food Ladders activates food and its related practices progressively to reduce local vulnerability to food insecurity and its knock-on effects. Specifically Food Ladders advocates for: • Mobilising the more than nutrient, calorie and commercial aspects of food, such as its capacity to bring people together to foster shared understanding and collaboration; • Creating safe and inclusive spaces for experimentation and interaction with food; • Using a positive language of empowerment around food; • Building place-specific levels of support that enable the recognition and enhancement of locally based assets to create transformations in communities.

Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) is a species mostly consumed in the form of grass by animals; however it also presents gastronomic and medicinal uses by humans. This species has been used as antianemic, antirheumatic, hemostaticand other medicinal uses. Its commercialization is common in the form of natural juice or milkshake (RÍOS et al., 2007).
Alfalfa has a great nutritional value, its leaves have 24 % protein in dry matter, 10 % protein in stems and their roots are nitrogen fixers by symbiosis.
On the other hand, it has been described as a biaccumulative plant, which immobilizes and recovers 80-90 % of the heavy metals in the soil (COYAGO and BONILLA, 2016), mainly lead and cadmium in its roots, which are then transported to the aerial parts. The bioaccumulation of alfalfa makes this species become a vehicle of food contamination.
In addition, with respect to human nutrition, it has been found that the consumption of fresh products carries a high microbiological risk (BEJARANO and CARRILLO, 2007).
Pathogens identified as risks on fresh vegetables include Shigella spp. Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, Aeromonas hydrophila and the spore-formers Bacillus cereus, Clostridium botulinum and C. perfringens. However, the ones implicated in most outbreaks involving fresh fruits and vegetables are Salmonella, Escherichia coli O157:H7 (FAOUR-KLINGBEIL et al., 2016). Also, vegetables as alfalfa could participate in the life cycle of important helminths (Ascaris lumbricoides, Fasciola hepatica) and protozoa (Entamoeba histolytica and Giardia sp.). The helminth and protozoa infections are among the most common diseases in the world, which can affect the nutritional balance, causing significant complications such as intestinal obstruction and rectal prolapse in humans
(CÉLIA et al., 2012).
In general, no bromatological, nutritional and toxicity studies have been found in alfalfa juices used in human food, causing the need to compare certain parameters with regulations applied to juices, pulps, nectars and fruit concentrates (INEN-2337, 2008).
For this reason, the objective of this study was evaluate the possible health risks associated with the content of heavy metal and microorganisms in the consumption of alfalfa juice in the markets of the Metropolitan District of Quito, to raise awareness about food safety.

The paper explores how food production and accessibility has become problematic within the developing nations. The problem
will be more acute in the years to come due to boosting migrations from rural areas. Mismanagement of food distribution and
processing is also counted as an issue. Modernization of agriculture could be recommended as a solution. Hunger and shortage
of food have highly impacted the cities of developing countries to be unbearably densely populated. The UN has positively
recommended that food problem within the developing world could be solved only if improved technologies are used. However,
while more demands for food is observed today, more food needs to be produced. Similarly, as in urban areas more money is in
circulation, people’s lifestyle is ever changing demanding more food in quantity and quality. Sustainable agricultural revolution
emphasizes on efforts to be made to ever raise yields to feed the increasing population. The paper points to the increasing number
of world countries facing malnutrition creating challenges. They all need solutions and remedies

The paper explores how Asia as the largest continent with over fifty countries is facing food supply. While some well off and
industrial countries of the continent have adequate access to food services, many others are not so. One of the social groups being
seriously hurt by food problems, is the increasing aging people with no income, no pensions and isolated from work. Many Asian
countries with longer life expectancy and increasing socio-economic expectations are in constant shortage of food and other items.
Therefore, such countries with increasing elderly people need improved policies and financial security to get rid of food poverty.
While the Western world started terminating food insecurity in early 20th century, Asian countries still have a long way to go, to
change the lifestyles of their aging populations as far as their food services, housing, health and well-being are concerned. However,
the consequences of aging are reflected in all facets of life, such as quality of life, food shortage, isolation and loneliness. All such
characteristics and many more, need problem-solving approaches to bring about peaceful and normal conditions in the lives of such
people