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In this research brief, we report on findings from research on organizations that distribute recovered food in Metro Vancouver, Canada in the context of widespread food waste. Our findings suggest ...

Governments tend to focus on short-term policies to address the immediate effects of high food prices when spikes occur, while in the long term, urban residents are left to their own devices strugg...

For farmers in rural Africa, climate change could significantly alter the natural environment, leading to a loss of income, food security and well-being; however, much remains unknown about the way a change in climate may affect a person's decision to migrate away from their home. Using a framework based on migration aspirations and capabilities, this paper examines how climate stresses (such as droughts that cause a long-term decline in harvests) and climate shocks (i.e. acute food shortages and sudden flooding) may affect migration decision-making in rural Malawi. Drawing on survey (n = 255), interview (n = 75) and focus group (n = 93) data from rural and urban dwellers, we find that climate stresses typically do not change rural dwellers’ aspiration to leave their homes, except for a small group of younger farmers from better-off households. However, these same stresses may erode human, financial and social capital, thus reducing migration capability. Data also reveal that acute shocks erode both the m...

This article examines different depictions of the challenges presented by food insecurity and how these depictions influence programming and policy. Using a content analysis methodology, we contrast 3 distinct bodies of food security literature: (1) recently published scientific papers; (2) international development agencies project documents; and (3) reports and policy documents produced by Sub-Saharan African governments. Analysis reveals 2 main narratives: a “crisis narrative” that views food insecurity as a “production” crisis, common in the scientific and aid agency documents, and a “chronic poverty narrative” that views food insecurity as fundamentally linked to poverty and low economic development, predominantly in the African policy documents. By identifying and describing these 2 distinct narratives, our goal is to initiate a debate around the hegemony of narratives, especially the production crisis narrative. In particular, we are concerned that the notion that we are facing a “food production c...

Current agroecological approaches to farming have provided a limited understanding of transformations to sustainability, particularly in subsistence agrarian economies of geographically isolated regions of the world. Some suggest mitigating social and ecological impacts of modern industrial farming while others advocate for local adaptation to changes in socioecological systems, such as climate change, extreme weather events, and biodiversity loss. This article investigates effective pathways of fundamental transformations in technologies, livelihoods, and lifestyles referred to as “agricultural sustainability transitions” in the Karnali Mountains, the most impoverished region of Nepal. Findings suggest that neither management of change referred to as transition management nor adaptation to change referred to as adaptive management effectively leads to agricultural sustainability transitions in this region of the country. An integration of these two approaches, which this article theorizes as “adaptive tr...

This article presents results from a survey of community food projects, and explores the relationships between organisational type, rationales and the barriers that prevent each from increasing the scale of their operations. Organisations were divided according to their primary rationale (e.g. rural economic development and distribution), and then subdivided – by form – as a non-profit, private business, governmental agency or cooperative. Data from the interviews and surveys were coded using a qualitative grounded theory approach, to reveal the barriers experienced by each. Overall, access to long-term stable income is a recurrent theme across all types of projects, but income sources dramatically change how these organisations prioritise barriers. Similarly, the organisation's primary rationale and experiences influence the interpretation and approach to collaboration and education. Despite these differences, our results suggest a large degree of convergence that cuts across organisational forms and rat...

Understanding farmers’ perceptions of how rainfall fluctuates and changes is crucial in anticipating the impacts of changing climate patterns, as only when a problem is perceived will appropriate steps be taken to adapt to it. This article seeks to: (1) identify southern African farmers’ perceptions of rainfall, rainfall variations, and changes; (2) examine the nature of meteorological evidence for the perceived rainfall variability and change; (3) document farmers’ responses to rainfall variability; and (4) discuss why discrepancies may occur between farmers’ perceptions and meteorological observations of rainfall. Semi-structured interviews were used to identify farmers’ perceptions of rainfall changes in Botswana and Malawi. Resulting perceptions were examined in conjunction with meteorological data to assess perceived and actual rainfall with regards to: what was changing (onset, duration or cessation), and how it was changing (amount, frequency, intensity or inter-annual variability). Most farmers pe...

Current research on food security is dominated by crop, climate and demographic modellers who project how changes in weather and population may affect the global demand and supply of food. But socioeconomic factors also play a crucial role in determining the amount of food we produce. In this paper, we present spatially explicit multiple regression models that demonstrate 65% of maize, 49% of rice and 35% of wheat harvests (globally) can be explained by four socioeconomic variables: income distribution, gross domestic product/capita, human development index and fertilizer use. Using these insights, we model the effect that different hypothetical policy scenarios may have on boosting yields and demonstrate that it could be possible to increase global cereal harvests by 70%. This research demonstrates that to understand threats to global food security, and develop strategies to avert problems, scientists must integrate socio-economic data with biological and demographic factors if they want to provide comprehensive advice to policy makers.