Download or read book Validation of the World Food Programme s Food Consumption Score and Alternative Indicators of Household Food Security written by Doris Wiesmann, Lucy Bassett, Todd Benson, and John Hoddinott and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Validation of the World Food Programme s Food Consumption Score and Alternative Indicators of Household Food Security written by Doris Wiesmann and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 91 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The objective of this study is to validate the World Food Programme's (WFP) method of establishing the prevalence of food insecurity. WFP's method has two parts: (1) the construction of a Food Consumption Score (FCS) and (2) the classification of food security status based on the FCS. Our validation work has the following components: (1) collecting and analyzing survey data from three countries--Burundi, Haiti, and Sri Lanka--that contain information about calorie consumption at the household level and information needed to construct the FCS; (2) establishing the extent to which an assessment of food security status based on the FCS mimics food security status based on household calorie consumption; and (3) assessing whether changes to the construction of the FCS would improve its predictive power and whether such changes are feasible, given the environment in which these assessments are typically conducted. To achieve the third objective, alternative dietary diversity and food frequency indicators are constructed by either modifying WFP's calculation method for the FCS or following a different approach, such as that for the Household Dietary Diversity Score developed by the Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance Project. By comparing indicator performance, we can answer the questions of whether the FCS could be simplified by using food group diversity instead of food frequency by food group, if further disaggregation of food groups would improve its validity, and what the merits and demerits of other aspects of WFP's standard method are. Based on our findings about the validity of the FCS and the results for alternative proxy indicators, we then suggest changes to the construction of the FCS. Our findings on the usefulness of the FCS are encouraging. The same holds true for the alternative indicators of dietary diversity and food frequency we considered. There are positive and statistically significant associations with calorie consumption per capita, particularly when small quantities are excluded from food frequencies. In two out of three study sites, food frequency scores are clearly superior to simpler measures of diet diversity (food or food group count). Higher levels of disaggregation are advantageous, but with diminishing marginal returns. We note, however, that the provision of food aid seems to weaken the association of the FCS with calorie consumption. All of these observations support the use of WFP's FCS for food security assessments. However, the cutoff points used by WFP to define poor, borderline, and adequate Food Consumption Groups are too low when the FCS classification is compared to estimates of calorie deficiency from our survey data and other sources. As a food security classification device, the FCS could be improved by excluding foods consumed in small quantities from the FCS and, even more important, adjusting the cutoffs used to classify households as having poor, borderline, or acceptable food security. Minor gains in the validity of the FCS could be achieved by making several technical adjustments to the calculation of the FCS, for example, using a 12-group food classification instead of an 8-food group classification. This study has several limitations.

Download or read book Measures and Determinants of Urban Food Security Evidence from Accra Ghana written by Tukolske, Cascade and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2018-11-22 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The urban population in Africa south of the Sahara (SSA) is expected to expand rapidly from 376 million people in 2015 to more than 1.25 billion people by 2050. Measuring and ensuring food security among urban households will become an increasingly pertinent task for development researchers and practitioners. In this paper we characterize food security among a sample of low- and middle-income residents of Accra, Ghana, using 2017 survey data. We find that households tend to purchase food from traditional markets, local stalls and kiosks, and street hawkers, and rarely from modern supermarkets. We characterize food security using three established metrics: the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS); the Household Food Insecurity Access Prevalence (HFIAP); and the Food Consumption Score (FCS). We then estimate the determinants of food security using general linear models. The food security metrics are not strongly correlated. For example, according to HFIAP, as many as 70 percent of households sampled are food insecure, but only 2 percent fall below acceptable thresholds measured by FCS. Model results show that household education, assets, and dwelling characteristics are significantly associated with food security according to HFIAS and HFIAP, but not with FCS. The poor correlation and weak model agreement between the dietary recall metric, FCS, and the experience-based metrics, HFIAS and HFIAP, call for closer attention to measurement of urban food security. Given Africa’s urban future, our findings highlight the need for an urban-oriented comprehensive approach to the food security of urban households.

Download or read book Household dietary patterns and the cost of a nutritious diet in Myanmar written by Mahrt, Kristi and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2019-08-01 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite significant poverty reduction over the past decade, undernutrition in Myanmar remains widespread. Food prices play an important role in influencing diets and nutrition outcomes, especially for poorer households. In this study, we use national household food expenditure data to assess dietary patterns and estimate regional costs of nutritious diets in Myanmar relative to a recommended diet derived from food-based dietary guidelines. We estimate these costs following the cost of a recommended diet method (CoRD), which is based on minimum food group prices. We also develop and demonstrate an extension of this method using food group prices that reflect typical food consumption preferences (CoRD-FP). We assess the affordability of the recommended diet by comparing observed household food expenditure to the CoRD and the CoRD-FP. In 2015, 52 percent of the Myanmar population lived in households with food expenditure below the CoRD-FP, compared to 70 percent in 2010. Even the CoRD, which measures the lowest possible cost of meeting the recommended diet, exceeded household food expenditure for 32 and 24 percent of the population in 2010 and 2015, respectively. Low affordability is driven by high costs of animal-source foods and vegetables, which account for half the CoRD-FP. A majority of households over-consume staples and under-consume micronutrient-dense food groups. This imbalance is driven in part by the high caloric price of nutrient-dense foods relative to rice. The inability of more than half of households in Myanmar to afford a recommended diet at existing food expenditure levels suggests the need for policies that reduce the prices of micronutrient-dense foods, ideally through pro-poor improvements in agricultural productivity and marketing.

Download or read book The impact of cash and food transfers Evidence from a randomized intervention in Niger written by Hoddinott, John F. and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is little rigorous evidence on the comparative impacts of cash and food transfers on food security and food-related outcomes. We assess the relative impacts of receiving cash versus food transfers using a randomized design. Drawing on data collected in eastern Niger, we find that households randomized to receive a food basket experienced larger, positive impacts on measures of food consumption and diet quality than those receiving the cash transfer.

Download or read book A Sustainability Challenge written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2012-03-28 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The National Research Council's Science and Technology for Sustainability Program hosted two workshops in 2011 addressing the sustainability challenges associated with food security for all. The first workshop, Measuring Food Insecurity and Assessing the Sustainability of Global Food Systems, explored the availability and quality of commonly used indicators for food security and malnutrition; poverty; and natural resources and agricultural productivity. It was organized around the three broad dimensions of sustainable food security: (1) availability, (2) access, and (3) utilization. The workshop reviewed the existing data to encourage action and identify knowledge gaps. The second workshop, Exploring Sustainable Solutions for Increasing Global Food Supplies, focused specifically on assuring the availability of adequate food supplies. How can food production be increased to meet the needs of a population expected to reach over 9 billion by 2050? Workshop objectives included identifying the major challenges and opportunities associated with achieving sustainable food security and identifying needed policy, science, and governance interventions. Workshop participants discussed long term natural resource constraints, specifically water, land and forests, soils, biodiversity and fisheries. They also examined the role of knowledge, technology, modern production practices, and infrastructure in supporting expanded agricultural production and the significant risks to future productivity posed by climate change. This is a report of two workshops.

Download or read book Food Price Volatility and Its Implications for Food Security and Policy written by Matthias Kalkuhl and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-12 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides fresh insights into concepts, methods and new research findings on the causes of excessive food price volatility. It also discusses the implications for food security and policy responses to mitigate excessive volatility. The approaches applied by the contributors range from on-the-ground surveys, to panel econometrics and innovative high-frequency time series analysis as well as computational economics methods. It offers policy analysts and decision-makers guidance on dealing with extreme volatility.

Download or read book Nutrition and Fitness written by Riccardo Dalle Grave and published by MDPI. This book was released on 2020-12-22 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mens sana in corpore sano (a healthy mind in a healthy body) is a Latin phrase taken from Giovenale (Satire, X, 356) that remains relevant and is supported by today’s data regarding genetics and nutrition, and their contribution to mental health. The purpose of this Special Issue on “Nutrition and Fitness: Mental Health” is to provide an update on the latest evidence regarding the association between nutrition, physical activity (and inactivity) and physical fitness, and the mental health of children, adolescents, and adults. Particularly, papers (reviews and clinical or experimental studies) dealing with the association between nutrition, physical fitness, and mental health both in general and with regard to specific mental disorders, and nutrients and physical activity as agents for prevention, treatment, or augmentation of treatment for mental disorders, will be included.

Download or read book Handbook on Urban Food Security in the Global South written by Jonathan Crush and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2020-12-25 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ways in which the rapid urbanization of the Global South is transforming food systems and food supply chains, and the food security of urban populations is an often neglected topic. This international group of authors addresses this profound transformation from a variety of different perspectives and disciplinary lenses, providing an important corrective to the dominant view that food insecurity is a rural problem requiring increases in agricultural production.

Download or read book Handbook on Food written by Raghbendra Jha and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2014-01-01 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'This volume is a welcome and timely contribution to a topic of enduring importance. The global consequences of recent food price crises underscore the need to examine food security issues from diverse perspectives. This volume meets that need, featuring accessible yet cutting-edge analyses of food security by leading experts in fields as diverse as trade, nutrition, public health, production, political economy, and behavioral economics. It will be of interest to a wide range of scholars and practitioners.' --Steven Block, Tufts University, US. 'This excellent volume offers a compact but wide-ranging survey of recent research on important changes in global food markets. Its 20 chapters accurately capture important areas of scholarly agreement as well as on-going debates among economists studying agriculture and nutrition, with several provocative original contributions from other fields. The book draws particularly on the authors' long experience in Asia, offering widely-applicable insights for scholars and policy analysts seeking to understand the past, present and future of food around the world.' --William A. Masters, Tufts University, US. The global population is forecasted to reach 9.4 billion by 2050, with much of this increase concentrated in developing regions and cities. Ensuring adequate food and nourishment to this large population is a pressing economic, moral and even security challenge and requires research (and action) from a multi-disciplinary perspective. This book provides the first such integrated approach to tackling this problem by addressing the multiplicity of challenges posed by rising global population, diet diversification and urbanization in developing countries and climate change. It examines key topics such as: the impact of prosperity on food demand, the role of international trade in addressing food insecurity, the challenge posed by greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and land degradation, the implication on labor markets of severe under-nutrition, viability of small scale farms, strategies to augment food availability. The Handbook on Food would be a welcome supplementary text for courses on development economics, particularly those concentrating on agricultural development, climate change and food availability, as well as nutrition.

Download or read book Mapping the linkages between agriculture food security and nutrition in Malawi written by Aberman, Noora-Lisa and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2015-12-16 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Smallholder agriculture is the mainstay of Malawi’s economy. Its importance for livelihoods cannot be overstated. 94 percent of rural residents and 38 percent of urban residents engage in agriculture to some extent (Jones, Shrinivas, and Bezner-Kerr 2014), the vast majority as smallholder farmers with landholdings of less than one hectare. Smallholder crops are primarily maize—which accounted for nearly 80 percent of smallholder-cultivated land in 2011 —followed by cassava and other food crops (FAO 2008; IFAD 2011). These foods are grown for household consumption and for sale at local and regional markets. As such, the Malawian food supply, especially in rural areas where markets are thin with few buying or selling options, is shaped largely by trends in smallholder food-crop production

Download or read book Research Handbook on Measuring Poverty and Deprivation written by Jacques Silber and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2023-03-02 with total page 777 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Encompassing chapters that address both unidimensional and multidimensional poverty, this timely Research Handbook explores all aspects of poverty and deprivation measurement, not only detailing broad issues but also scrutinising specific domains and aspects of poverty, such as health, energy and housing. Its succinct and highly focussed chapters, written by a diverse range of authors, employ a combination of theoretical and empirical methodologies to offer well-rounded explorations of complex topics.

Download or read book The Feeding of Nations written by Mark Gibson and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2012-02-15 with total page 687 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last decade, the world has grown richer and produced more food than ever before. Yet in that same period, hunger has increased and 925 million remain underfed and malnourished. Exploring this troubling paradox, The Feeding of Nations: Re-Defining Food Security for the 21st Century offers a glimpse into how the simple aspiration of global food security has evolved and unfolded—with sometimes contradictory and counterproductive policies, agendas, and ideologies. Providing a holistic analysis of the issues surrounding food security, this volume engages in a cross-disciplinary approach that makes the subject accessible to readers and academically rigorous in delivery. Topics discussed include: A brief overview of our current understanding of the prevalence of hunger and malnutrition Historical perspectives on the feeding of nations, to understand how we arrived at this point Contemporary motivations that led to the creation of the modern concept of food security The many different sectors related to food security, including agriculture, environment, and policy The goals that society has set regarding food security, the means by which these are to be achieved, and current thoughts on solutions The book contains a broad set of appendices that enable focused study on critical topics presented in the text. Uniquely amalgamating all the disparate elements of food security into one volume, it sets the record straight about the origins and evolution of the phenomenon while dispelling myths along the way.

Download or read book Measuring resilience in a volatile world written by and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2014-04-30 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Substantial numbers of the world’s chronically poor and malnourished population live in an increasingly volatile world. The dangerous nexus of climate change, rapid population growth, conflict, and food price volatility already appears to have pushed several poor regions into states of permanent crisis, even as the rest of the world has seen unprecedented progress against poverty. This disturbing state of affairs, along with our expanded knowledge of the intimate interactions between short-term shocks and long-run development, has catalyzed widespread interest in resilience building, and in what such a framework implies for understanding the causes and consequences of acute vulnerability to natural and man-made disasters. In this paper we ask what this paradigm implies for the measurement and analysis of resilience. Resilience is fundamentally about complex dynamics. Slower-moving ecological, economic, demographic, and social stressors create vulnerability to short-run shocks, which in turn can have long-term consequences by reinforcing preexisting vulnerabilities. In our view, this basic conception of resilience has fundamental measurement implications. First, resilience can be measured and understood only through higher-frequency surveys that capture the causes and consequences of time-varying stressors and shocks, including seasonal shocks. Second, resilience can be understood only through surveys that capture the multidimensional complexity of stressors, shocks, and feedback loops, including the complex interactions between economic, social, and ecological forces. Third, the underlying stressors that create vulnerability, and the resilience-building interventions that reduce vulnerability, can be gauged and evaluated only over the longer term. This conceptualization of resilience motivates us to go a step further than existing research on resilience and on food and nutrition security measurement, by outlining a far more expansive strategy for improving and scaling up the monitoring, measurement, and analysis of the world’s most vulnerable populations. We propose the development of a multicountry system of high-frequency, long-term sentinel sites in the world’s most vulnerable regions. If implemented along the lines we conceive, this system could be a high-return investment for resilience-building efforts, since it would serve multiple purposes. This system offers the only rigorous means of monitoring vulnerability and resilience in the world’s most volatile regions. This system would bolster existing early-warning systems by complementing them with household-level indicators. This system would improve the targeting of emergency resources. This system would be instrumental for diagnosing the underlying sources of vulnerability, for identifying key thresholds of resilience, and for designing appropriate resilience-building strategies. And this system would provide a rigorous foundation for large-scale evaluations of resilience-building activities. While there are strong justifications for such a system, the devil is necessarily in the details, and much of this paper is concerned with those details. Largely to learn from existing experience, we first review existing measurement strategies that are similar in purpose or design to the sentinel system outlined above. When implemented, long-term, high-frequency measurement systems have often yielded great benefits but been hampered by cost, lack of institutional coordination, and insufficient dissemination and usage of data. The need to keep costs down and benefits widespread therefore motivates us to consider which countries in the world have the highest priority for the development of sentinel sites, based on indicators such as child nutrition and health outcomes, exposure to disasters, and past emergency assistance levels from the international community. We then turn to crucial issues of data collection design by outlining a hybrid sampling and survey design that will help achieve the various objectives outlined above while keeping costs down. We also argue that the proliferation of mobile phones and other information and communications technologies offers substantial scope for a cost-effective system of this kind, far more so than would have been available in the past. Finally, we consider who should lead and contribute to this ambitious effort. Since the principal advantage of this approach is that it can yield benefits for a wide range of institutions and purposes (relief and development, operations and research, social and biophysical sciences), and since the costs of a long-term commitment to these sentinel surveys would be large indeed for any single agency, we propose the need for a relatively broad consortium of international donors. This consortium should first focus on establishing partnerships with national governments and then commit to long-term resilience monitoring as well as domestic capacity building. With this essential commitment in place, this consortium would then need to secure implementing partners with a permanent presence on the ground, as well as the technical expertise of international organizations of various sorts. Ultimately, we argue, it is only this kind of long-term, cooperative commitment that will provide a scientific evidence base for diagnosing and resolving the world’s worst problems of hunger, poverty, and malnutrition. Only this kind of sentinel system can generate the data and evidence needed to inform actions to build resilience and to help the global community eliminate extreme poverty in the generation ahead. The status quo is simply not enough.

Download or read book Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Smart and Innovative Agriculture ICoSIA 2022 written by Josaphat Tetuko Sri Sumantyo and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-04-16 with total page 709 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an open access book. Held as part of the Universitas Gadjah Mada Annual Scientific Conferences (UASC 2022) series, the 3rd International Conference on Smart and Innovative Agriculture (ICoSIA 2022) provides an ideal academic platform for researchers to present the latest research findings and describe emerging technologies and directions in agriculture. This year, the conference will take the theme “Digital transformation, technology, and its solution for agriculture” with seven symposia: Agricultural Big Data Analysis symposium; Agricultural Geography symposium; Land and Environmental Management symposium; Precision Nutrition Technology symposium; Smart and Precision Farming symposium; Smart Genetics Resource Management and Utilization symposium; and Sustainable Food Production symposium.

Download or read book Agrobiodiversity written by Karl S. Zimmerer and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-04-05 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experts discuss the challenges faced in agrobiodiversity and conservation, integrating disciplines that range from plant and biological sciences to economics and political science. Wide-ranging environmental phenomena—including climate change, extreme weather events, and soil and water availability—combine with such socioeconomic factors as food policies, dietary preferences, and market forces to affect agriculture and food production systems on local, national, and global scales. The increasing simplification of food systems, the continuing decline of plant species, and the ongoing spread of pests and disease threaten biodiversity in agriculture as well as the sustainability of food resources. Complicating the situation further, the multiple systems involved—cultural, economic, environmental, institutional, and technological—are driven by human decision making, which is inevitably informed by diverse knowledge systems. The interactions and linkages that emerge necessitate an integrated assessment if we are to make progress toward sustainable agriculture and food systems. This volume in the Strüngmann Forum Reports series offers insights into the challenges faced in agrobiodiversity and sustainability and proposes an integrative framework to guide future research, scholarship, policy, and practice. The contributors offer perspectives from a range of disciplines, including plant and biological sciences, food systems and nutrition, ecology, economics, plant and animal breeding, anthropology, political science, geography, law, and sociology. Topics covered include evolutionary ecology, food and human health, the governance of agrobiodiversity, and the interactions between agrobiodiversity and climate and demographic change.

Download or read book Socio Economic Evaluation of Cropping Systems for Smallholder Farmers Challenges and Options written by Subhasis Mandal and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2023-11-23 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The FAO estimated that five out of six farms in the world are operating less than two hectares of land, suggesting that small-holder farmers are producing over one-third of the global food. The cropping systems practiced by smallholder farmers play a vital role in agri-food production systems and help to reduce hunger, improve nutrition, and provide livelihoods to millions across the developing countries. The performance of these cropping systems has a direct impact on achieving the multiple Sustainable Development Goals (2030) of No Poverty (SDG 1), Zero Hunger (SDG 2), and Good Health and Wellbeing (SDG 3). System intensification is now widely recognized as an essential pathway to achieve food and nutrition security in developing countries. The numbers of smallholder farmers are rapidly increasing in both developing and underdeveloped countries, however, they are increasingly facing challenges to run profitably. Cropping system intensification (CSI) could be one of the ways to make such production systems more remunerative for these farmers.