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In recent years, numerous examples of food system dashboards have been developed with the goal of offering users the opportunity to monitor or assess (their) national food systems. One of the many challenges faced by these initiatives has been to strike an acceptable balance between the complexity, local-specificity, and multi-sectoral nature of these food systems while also ensuring that the information remains accessible and usable for decisionmakers. Perhaps even more critical, yet rarely discussed or implemented in most of the current food system dashboard initiatives, is the imperative of coconstructing these initiatives with local stakeholders. The case presented in this study puts participation at the center of the design and construction of a food systems' monitoring dashboard. Using a replicable yet rigorous methodology, we demonstrate the feasibility of co-creating food system dashboards that integrate comprehensive and multi-sectoral inputs from national stakeholders while ensuring these dashboards are functional, evidence-based, and reflective of the country's specific features. The approach is illustrated with the empirical cases of three pilot countries within the low-and middle-income countries group (Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Honduras), where the methodology was tested between 2021 and 2022. We conclude by succinctly examining the ongoing challenges in constructing actionable food system dashboards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is increasing recognition that sustainable diets need to be 'culturally appropriate'. In relation to food consumption, however, it is often unclear what cultural appropriateness–or related terms, such as cultural or social acceptability–actually means. Often these terms go undefined, and where definitions are present, they vary widely. Based on a systematic literature review this paper explores how cultural appropriateness of food consumption is conceptualised across different research literatures, identifying six main themes in how cultural appropriateness is understood and applied. The paper then critically analyses these themes in relation to sustainable food system transformation. We explore how the themes conceptualise change, finding that cultural appropriateness is viewed in two main ways: either as a relatively static obstacle to be overcome, or as a dynamic and negotiated process. Both perspectives, we argue, entail different scientific, practical and political effects. Each perspective offers particular affordances for understanding and governing sustainable food system transition, although between perspectives there is likely to be a trade-off between theoretical sophistication and practical operationalizability. Based on this analysis we argue that researchers, policymakers and practitioners should be explicit about their commitment to a particular understanding of cultural appropriateness, as this will have implications for scientific and societal applications of their work. This is particularly the case, we suggest, in relation to the transdisciplinary collaborations necessary to effectively address the 'wicked problem' of food system sustainability. We conclude by offering a tentative general definition of cultural appropriateness as it relates to food consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate adaptation and resilience scholars are struggling to address distributive and procedural justice in climate resilience efforts. While the capability approach (CA) has been widely appraised as a suitable justice basis for this context, there are few detailed studies assessing this possibility. This paper addresses this gap by advancing discussions about the prospects of the CA for guiding justice work in climate resilience. With its emphasis on the final value and mutually irreducible character of the concrete beings and doings of individuals, we find the CA relevant for tackling salient aspects of adaptation, such as the multi-faceted and locally specific nature of climate vulnerability. We also present and discuss a capability application that has particular relevance for including distributive and procedural justice considerations in climate resilience. On the other hand, we find that extant arguments in support of the CA neglect the limitations of the CA and some dilemmas involved in applying it, also overestimating the differences between the CA and other justice approaches, especially those based on resources and needs. These problems lead us to advise against treating the CA as a one-size-fits-all solution to the ills of climate resilience and they further raise a need for joining efforts with complementary approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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COVID-19 laid bare many failings and shortcomings of state systems, institutions and structures which aim to protect citizens against harm. As observed from the outcomes of the pandemic in many parts of the Global South and Global North, the resilience of health, social protection, governance, economic, education, and social welfare systems has been significantly eroded or challenged, leaving large segments of the population open to heightened risk and vulnerability. This has been noted to have significantly eroded social capital, namely the trust, communication, and dialogue between citizens in the state as well as citizens with each other. Based on comparative research carried out on the return to schooling process in five countries, Lebanon, Nigeria, Colombia, Georgia, and Zambia, the paper highlights the important role and function that educational governance, decision-making, and control throughout the pandemic has played a key role in either maintaining or erode social capital, and ultimately the resilience of the entire education system. Much of this was based on how well state officials and local education officials both considered and communicated their actions to educators, students and their families. The importance of education as a site where both bridging and linking social capital is both strengthened, but also capitalized on is also discussed. Specifically, the paper highlights, using the example of COVID-19 education responses, how a state that is responsive and accountable to its citizenry in a time of crisis, stands the greatest chance of ensuring such periods do not lead to an erosion of social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there were significant restrictions on the transportation of food products in Indonesia. The research objective of this study was to investigate the extent to which these restrictions impacted changes in marketing margins at the provincial level in Indonesia. The approach taken was through the examination of trade and freight margin statistical data before the pandemic (2019) and after the pandemic (2020) across a number of different commodity markets: rice, shallots, red chilli pepper, beef, chicken meat and eggs, sugar, and cooking oil. The evidence indicates that the pandemic brought a rapid rise in Indonesian domestic prices as a result of purchasing panic at its start. But after the imposition of transportation restrictions, there were wide variations: some durable food options experienced increased marketing margins, whereas non-durables tended to experience decreased marketing margins in some regions, as fresh products such as red chillies and shallots were discarded as a result of declining consumer purchasing power. The conclusion for policymakers is that any future restrictions should take into account this likely difference in response, in order to minimise economic disruption by calibrating support along the supply chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to identify which resilience-oriented policies are being enacted and factors that influence policy adoption. We develop clusters of policies related to three types of resilience: ecological, engineering, and community. Among large U.S. cities, we find wide variation in the number and type of policies enacted. Through multivariate analysis, we identify factors that are associated with the adoption of these policies. Similar to earlier work on sustainability and climate change policy, our results show that larger cities are more likely to adopt all three types of resilience policies. Wealthier and liberal cities adopt more ecological resilience policies. Cities that are members of city networks also adopt more policies, but not all networks significantly influence policy adoption suggesting that network goals and connections are important. We also find that among these large cities, it is the smaller of them that appear to benefit most from membership in networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The livelihood changes due to the COVID-19 policies in low-income and transitional economies serve as a lever for gauging the structural resilience of national food systems. Yet, few studies have addressed the cascading effects of the pandemic policies on the livelihood changes of farming system actors or modeled and provided coherent hypotheses about the transitory structural shifts at the micro-level. Other studies on the subject have either captured the early impacts of the pandemic on food systems with limited or no insight into the sub-Saharan African context or have used macro-level data, due to sparsely available micro-level data. These early insights are relevant for the design of early warning systems. However, an ongoing and deeper insight into the effects of pandemic policies is critical, since new and more comprehensive policies are needed to address the economic fallout and the extenuating effects of COVID-19 on food supply chain disruptions. The overriding questions are as follows: what are the effects of the pandemic policies on the livelihoods of food system actors and are there spatial-economic variations in the effects of the pandemic policies on the livelihoods of the farming system actors? Using 2019 and 2020 primary data from 836 farming system actors in Ghana, we offer fresh insights into the transitory micro-level livelihood changes caused by the COVID-19 anticontagion policies. We analyzed the data using the generalized additive, subset regression, classical linear, and logistic regression models in a machine learning framework. We show that the changes in the livelihood outcomes of the food system actors in Ghana coincide with the nature of pandemic mitigation policies adopted in the spatial units. We found that the lockdown policies had a negative and significant effect on the livelihoods of the farming system actors in the lockdown areas. The policies also negatively affected the livelihoods of the farming system actors in distant communities that shared no direct boundary with the lockdown areas. On the contrary, the lockdown policies positively affected the livelihoods of the farming system actors in the directly contiguous communities to the lockdown areas. We also document the shifts in the livelihood outcomes of the farming system actors, such as income, employment, food demand, and food security in the different spatial policy areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the coverage and effect of cash transfers and food subsidies in India during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is based on a primary survey of rural women in the state of Bihar – an underdeveloped state with poor public delivery systems – undertaken in January–March and September–November 2020. Although the coverage of cash transfers was wider than that of food subsidies, respondents receiving cereals and pulses under the Public Distribution System reported a lower probability of suffering from food insecurity vis-à-vis cash subsidies. The study suggests that food subsidies may be more effective when supply chains break down. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food security is a requirement for meeting household food demands and is expressed in the availability of enough food that is sufficient both in quantity and quality, safe, equitable, and inexpensive. Academics and practitioners have attempted to revise food security models that may depict disaster-prone places, particularly Pamijahan District; however, these varied models each have their setbacks when compared to the world's various global conditions. This study aims to examine how food security is affected by the availability, accessibility, and consumption of food under the influence of climate change and the COVID-19 outbreak in the period 2017–2022. The methods used in this study were mixed-methods (quantitative and qualitative). In this study, participants underwent SMART PLS 3.0 analysis, followed by quantitative analytic techniques. Study results showed that the total food security condition of Cibunian Village in Pamijahan District in the period 2017–2022 can be categorized as vulnerable. Based on the FSVA analysis, it revealed that Cibunian Village was in the category of being vulnerable to food insecurity in general for the 2017–2022 period, while based on the SKPG analysis from the perspective of food access, there has been a 33.3% increase in food insecurity. The COVID-19 outbreak, climate change, and food consumption are the causes, and they all significantly and positively affect food security. This work advances our knowledge of food security in the COVID-19 outbreak age and the issues posed by global climate change. Everywhere, even in disaster-prone areas, complete food security should be attained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have seen widespread calls to transform food systems to address complex demands such as feeding a growing global population while reducing environmental impacts. But what is a food system and how can we most effectively work to change it? "Food System" can be found describing more limited dietary regimens as well as sector-specific supply chains going back to the 1930s, but its use to describe very large, dynamic, coupled socio-ecological systems gained traction in academic and civil society publications in the 1990s and this use of the term has increased dramatically in recent years. When the influential food system actors from non-governmental organizations, foundations, consultancies, and the UN that this research focuses on talk about food systems, they seem to be talking about the same thing. Yet the interpretive flexibility of the concept obfuscates that people may have very different framings that may be deeply incompatible. Drawing from interviews, participant observation, and document analysis, this paper examines what food systems thinking does in terms of setting the stage for how we enact the food system and efforts to intervene in it. It reveals that rather than leading to more expansive understanding, the unexamined use of the concept food system might actually serve to sharpen divides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]