Sustainable Food Security, A Paradigm for Local and Regional Food Systems (original) (raw)

Sustainable Food Security in the Era of Local and Global Environmental Change

2013

This volume discusses a broad range of vital issues encompassing the production and consumption of food in the current period of climate change. All of these add up to looming, momentous challenges to food security, especially for people in regions where malnutrition and famine have been the norm during numerous decades. Furthermore, threats to food security do not stop at the borders of more affluent countries – governance of food systems and changes in eating patterns will have worldwide consequences. The book is arranged in four broad sections. Part I, Combating Food Insecurity: A Global Responsibility opens with a chapter describing the urgent necessity for new paradigm and policy set to meet the food security challenges of climate change. Also in this section are chapters on meat and the dimensions of animal welfare, climate change and sustainability; on dietary options for mitigating climate change; and the linkage of forest and food production in the context of the REDD+ approach to valuation of forests. Part II, Managing Linkages Between Climate Change and Food Security offers a South Asian perspective on Gender, Climate Change and Household Food Security; a chapter on food crisis in sub-Saharan Africa; and separate chapters on critical issues of food supply and production in Nigeria, far-Western Nepal and the Sudano-Sahelian zone of Cameroon. Part III examines Food Security and patterns of production and consumption, with chapters focused on Morocco, Thailand, Bahrain, Kenya and elsewhere. The final section discusses successful, innovative practices, with chapters on Food Security in Knowledge-Based Economy; Biosaline Agriculture in the Gulf States; Rice production in a cotton zone of Benin; palm oil in the production of biofuel; and experiments in raised-bed wheat production. The editors argue that technical prescriptions are insufficient to manage the food security challenge. They propose and explain a holistic approach for adapting food systems to global environmental change, which demands the engagement of many disciplines – a new, sustainable food security paradigm.

Sustainability of food systems: The role of legal and policy frameworks

2018

Food plays a critical role in human life for sustenance, nutrition, cultural expression and socio-economic development. It is, therefore, imperative that food production, processing and consumption systems are managed in a manner that ensures access to adequate, quality, safe and nutritious food for all for present and future generations. However, the world continues to struggle with different nutritional challenges such as undernutrition, overnutrition and malnutrition. It is essential that a system of food production, processing and consumption be adopted that effectively responds to these challenges in a comprehensive and holistic manner. This article elaborates on the food sustainability approach as an alternative to the prevailing conventional industrial approach to food production that has failed to end the world’s nutritional challenge while, at the same time, adversely degrading the ecosystem. The food sustainability approach adopts a systems approach to the global nutrition...

Food system sustainability and food security: connecting the dots

Food security exists when all people at all times have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food. Food security is built on four pillars: availability, access, utilization and stability. Food and nutrition security embraces meeting energy, protein and nutrient needs for healthy life. Food systems overlap with agricultural systems in the area of food production, but also comprise the diverse set of institutions, technologies and practices that govern the way food is marketed, processed, transported, accessed and consumed. The food system activities are grouped into four categories: producing food, processing and packaging food, distributing and retailing food, and consuming food. The review paper aims at highlighting the connections and linkages between food sustainability and food security. There are very strong linkages between food and nutrition security, responsible environmental stewardship and greater fairness in food management. They intersec...

Local Food for Global Future, Classification, governance and knowledge for sustainable food security

A critical analysis of the post World-War II industrial agriculture and food system showed a number of drawbacks. To overcome these difficulties a new paradigm is needed: sustainable food security that requires a focus on local resources. Starting from recently published articles and new research the book "Local Food for Global Future" by Dr. Harry Donkers presents a structured approach, which offers opportunities and challenges for local and regional food systems, that we se re-emerging globally. Based on a new classification of local food system the book goes into adequate governance structures. This is demonstrated by a number of examples chosen from all over the world. Special attention is given to developments in The Netherlands and in Russia. A thorough overview is presented of the specific types of knowledge and innovation that is needed for a strong development of the local food systems. The book uncovers the power of local food beyond the local territory. Questions are answered about the consequences when developing regional food systems worldwide. A clear vision is presented on local and regional food and its significance and potential impact on global future, with a fascinating perspective for all people involved. About the author: Dr. Harry Donkers has a broad experience on research and -management. He was first author of the books "With every bite a better countryside" and "Regions, finger-licking good" and wrote about 200 publications on societal subjects. From 2006-2010 he joined the Arc of Taste Commission of Slow Food Netherlands.

Food security and sustainability: can one exist without the other?

Public health nutrition, 2015

To position the concept of sustainability within the context of food security. An overview of the interrelationships between food security and sustainability based on a non-systematic literature review and informed discussions based principally on a quasi-historical approach from meetings and reports. International and global food security and nutrition. The Rome Declaration on World Food Security in 1996 defined its three basic dimensions as: availability, accessibility and utilization, with a focus on nutritional well-being. It also stressed the importance of sustainable management of natural resources and the elimination of unsustainable patterns of food consumption and production. In 2009, at the World Summit on Food Security, the concept of stability/vulnerability was added as the short-term time indicator of the ability of food systems to withstand shocks, whether natural or man-made, as part of the Five Rome Principles for Sustainable Global Food Security. More recently, inte...

SUSTAINABLE FOOD PRODUCTION : NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL LINKAGES

The desire to satisfy food needs has left its mark on the environment. Hunger leads to desperate strategies for survival and attempts to meet the basic needs take precedence in the short term over longer term sustainability. There is a concern in the declining area under foodgrains, simultaneously, the excessive use of land for cultivation has lead to land degradation and depletion of ground water resources.

Managing Food Systems, Climate Change and Related Challenges to Ensure Sustainable Food Security: The Urgent Need of a Paradigm and Policy Shift

Sustainable Food Security in the Era of Local and Global Environmental Chang, 2013

Addressing the challenge of global food security in our era is strongly linked with other global issues, most notably climate change, population growth and the need to sustainably manage the world’s rapidly growing demand for energy, land, and water. Our progress in ensuring a sustainable and equitable food supply chain will be determined by how coherently these long-term challenges are tackled. This will also determine our progress in reducing global poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The challenge is to deliver nutritious, safe and affordable food to a global population of over nine billion in the coming decades, using less land, fewer inputs, with less waste and a lower environmental impact. All this has to be done in ways that are socially and economically sustainable. In this paper, we try to analyze the different challenges affecting the global capacity to build a food system with the potential to enhance a sustainable food security. Actions needed to make such a paradigm and policy shift, in both developed and developing countries, have been demonstrated.

Local Economic Development and Sustainable Global Development: Food Security and Food Sovereignty

2016

In this paper the author argues that sustainable development starts always solving the basic needs, mainly food needs and food security concerns of any community. Those concerns are key stones for any social‐economic development process, and need to be addressed in terms of guarantees in time and through time. Security concerns at several levels should be on the agenda, but food is a necessary condition to address the other dimensions of the human security concerns. The actual food system today represents one of the big achievements of the human community, at global/world level, in terms of solving the global needs in food, but it is still far away from solving the human needs at local community level and individual level where many problems are present. For example, hunger in the last 20‐30 years have been always between 800 million persons and 1 billion, and malnutrition is now even with bigger numbers, with estimations for obesity above 1,2 billion persons. The main argument of t...