Food Security and Farmer Empowerment
Author: Lorenz Bachmann
Publisher:
Published: 2009
Total Pages: 152
ISBN-13: 9789719438106
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Womens Empowerment in Agriculture
Author: Esha Sraboni
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Published: 2013-11-01
Total Pages: 36
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWomens low status and persistent gender gaps in health and education in South Asia contribute to chronic child malnutrition (Smith et al. 2003) and food insecurity (von Grebmer et al. 2009), even as other determinants of food security, such as per capita incomes, have improved. This is particularly relevant for Bangladesh, where chronic food insecurity continues to be an important issue despite steady advances in food production. To be able to leverage agriculture as an engine of inclusive growth, there is a need to develop indicators for measuring womens empowerment, examine its relationship to various food-security outcomes, and monitor the impact of interventions to empower women. Using nationally representative survey data from Bangladesh, we examine the relationship between womens empowerment in agriculture and two measures of household food security: per adult equivalent calorie availability and dietary diversity. We use the Womens Empowerment in Agriculture Index to assess the extent of womens empowerment in agriculture and instrumental variables techniques to correct for the potential endogeneity of empowerment. We find that the overall womens empowerment score, the number of groups in which women actively participate, womens control of assets, and a narrowing gap in empowerment between men and women within households are positively associated with calorie availability and dietary diversity.
Food Security Governance
Author: Nora McKeon
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-12-17
Total Pages: 265
ISBN-13: 1134695616
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book fills a gap in the literature by setting food security in the context of evolving global food governance. Today’s food system generates hunger alongside of food waste, burgeoning health problems, massive greenhouse gas emissions. Applying food system analysis to review how the international community has addressed food issues since World War II, this book proceeds to explain how actors link up in corporate global food chains and in the local food systems that feed most of the world’s population. It unpacks relevant paradigms – from productivism to food sovereignty – and highlights the significance of adopting a rights-based approach to solving food problems. The author describes how communities around the world are protecting their access to resources and building better ways of producing and accessing food, and discusses the reformed Committee on World Food Security, a uniquely inclusive global policy forum, and how it could be supportive of efforts from the base. The book concludes by identifying terrains on which work is needed to adapt the practice of the democratic public sphere and accountable governance to a global dimension and extend its authority to the world of markets and corporations. This book will be of interest to students of food security, global governance, development studies and critical security studies in general.
Empowerment and agricultural production
Author: Wouterse, Fleur Stephanie
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Published: 2016-02-19
Total Pages: 28
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKNiger is a landlocked Sahelian country, two-thirds of which is in the Sahara desert, with only one-eighth of the land considered arable. Nevertheless, more than 90 percent of Niger’s labor force is employed in agriculture, which is predominantly subsistence oriented. Since the great famines of the 1970s and 1980s, the country has pursued agrarian intensification through technological change to address challenges to the food security situation. However, this approach has failed to recognize that the main characteristic of the Sahelian part of West Africa is the intricate complexity of the social, environmental, and economic dimensions that differentially affect male and female rural dwellers. One example is the patrilineal tenure system, which under increased population pressure has led to the exclusion of women and youth from agriculture in some areas. The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) indicates that access to land is one important dimension of empowerment. In order to assess the role of empowerment in agricultural production, we use new household- and individual-level WEAI data from Niger and regression analysis. Our results show that empowerment is important for agricultural production and that households in which adult individuals are more empowered are more productive. This means that other and possibly more effective pathways to agrarian intensification exist and important agricultural productivity gains could be made by empowering men and women in rural households.
Food Security Governance
Author: Nora McKeon
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-12-17
Total Pages: 297
ISBN-13: 1134695683
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book fills a gap in the literature by setting food security in the context of evolving global food governance. Today’s food system generates hunger alongside of food waste, burgeoning health problems, massive greenhouse gas emissions. Applying food system analysis to review how the international community has addressed food issues since World War II, this book proceeds to explain how actors link up in corporate global food chains and in the local food systems that feed most of the world’s population. It unpacks relevant paradigms – from productivism to food sovereignty – and highlights the significance of adopting a rights-based approach to solving food problems. The author describes how communities around the world are protecting their access to resources and building better ways of producing and accessing food, and discusses the reformed Committee on World Food Security, a uniquely inclusive global policy forum, and how it could be supportive of efforts from the base. The book concludes by identifying terrains on which work is needed to adapt the practice of the democratic public sphere and accountable governance to a global dimension and extend its authority to the world of markets and corporations. This book will be of interest to students of food security, global governance, development studies and critical security studies in general.
Womens Empowerment and Nutrition
Author: Mara van den Bold
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Published: 2013-11-01
Total Pages: 80
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMany development programs that aim to alleviate poverty and improve investments in human capital consider womens empowerment a key pathway by which to achieve impact and often target women as their main beneficiaries. Despite this, womens empowerment dimensions are often not rigorously measured and are at times merely assumed. This paper starts by reflecting on the concept and measurement of womens empowerment and then reviews some of the structural interventions that aim to influence underlying gender norms in society and eradicate gender discrimination. It then proceeds to review the evidence of the impact of three types of interventionscash transfer programs, agricultural interventions, and microfinance programson womens empowerment, nutrition, or both. Qualitative evidence on conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs generally points to positive impacts on womens empowerment, although quantitative research findings are more heterogenous. CCT programs produce mixed results on long-term nutritional status, and very limited evidence exists of their impacts on micronutrient status. The little evidence available on unconditional cash transters (UCT) indicates mixed impacts on womens empowerment and positive impacts on nutrition; however, recent reviews comparing CCT and UCT programs have found little difference in terms of their effects on stunting and they have found that conditionality is less important than other factors, such as access to healthcare and child age and sex. Evidence of cash transfer program impacts depending on the gender of the transfer recipient or on the conditionality is also mixed, although CCTs with non-health conditionalities seem to have negative impacts on nutritional status. The impacts of programs based on the gender of the transfer recipient show mixed results, but almost no experimental evidence exists of testing gender-differentiated impacts of a single program. Agricultural interventionsspecifically home gardening and dairy projectsshow mixed impacts on womens empowerment measures such as time, workload, and control over income; but they demonstrate very little impact on nutrition. Implementation modalities are shown to determine differential impacts in terms of empowerment and nutrition outcomes. With regard to the impact of microfinance on womens empowerment, evidence is also mixed, although more recent reviews do not find any impact on womens empowerment. The impact of microfinance on nutritional status is mixed, with no evidence of impact on micronutrient status. Across all three types of programs (cash transfer programs, agricultural interventions, and microfinance programs), very little evidence exists on pathways of impact, and evidence is often biased toward a particular region. The paper ends with a discussion of the findings and remaining evidence gaps and an outline of recommendations for research.
Confronting Hunger in the USA
Author: Adam M. Pine
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-07-01
Total Pages: 178
ISBN-13: 1317162072
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFood insecurity in the US is a critical issue that is experienced by approximately 15% of the population each year. Hunger is not caused by an inability to produce enough food for the population, but is instead a manifestation of federal agricultural policies that support the overproduction of commodity crops and neoliberal social policies that seek to lower the amount of benefits dispersed to those in need. This book focuses on how four different food-based community programs address both the physical sensation of hunger as well as the political and economic disempowerment that work against the ability of people experiencing food insecurity to mobilize as a political force. Confronting Hunger in the USA argues that most food programs do more to create community among their volunteers than among program participants and tend to reinforce neoliberal understandings of citizenship. Community food programs reach out to the most vulnerable members of society in caring and gentle ways and often use the language of alternative economies to articulate a different relationship between the individual and the state. However, the projects in this study act as individual pieces of the state's insufficient social safety net and are only beginning to articulate a new relationship between food and society.
Food Security in Practice
Author: Maria Agnes R. Quisumbing
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Published: 2006
Total Pages: 156
ISBN-13: 0896297551
DOWNLOAD EBOOKGender transformative approaches for food security, improved nutrition and sustainable agriculture – A compendium of fifteen good practices
Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.
Published: 2020-12-09
Total Pages: 154
ISBN-13: 9251333971
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Compendium is a product of the Joint Programme on Gender Transformative Approaches for Food Security and Nutrition implemented by FAO, IFAD and WFP and funded by the European Union. The compendium of 15 good practices of gender transformative approaches (GTAs) includes the individual templates of the 15 good practices, provides a synthesis of the main features of the 15 GTAs presenting the core characteristics of 15 GTAs and describing the implementation arrangements, implementation cycle, the potential results of GTAs and their key success factors and challenges. It also includes ideas as to how GTAs could be taken to scale. The purpose of the Compendium is fourfold: (i) to take stock and draw lessons from experiences from existing practices of GTAs; (ii) to be a resource for agencies already working with GTAs to identify opportunities for strengthening their GTA work or to link up with complementary interventions; (iii) to provide guidance on how to apply GTAs in any organization or institution working for enhanced food security, nutrition and sustainable agriculture; and (iv) to raise awareness of and advocate for GTAs by showcasing examples of good practices or successful approaches that contribute to positive gender-related and non-gender-related changes towards food security, improved nutrition and sustainable agriculture and rural development.
Sustainable Agriculture for Food Security
Author: Acharya Balkrishna
Publisher: CRC Press
Published: 2021-10-01
Total Pages: 374
ISBN-13: 1000485935
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSustainable Agriculture for Food Security: A Global Perspective takes an analytical approach to issues related to current agricultural practices. It looks at global geographical data and key statistical reports to aid readers in comparing, understanding, and making agricultural decisions. The book is divided into chapters with each dealing with a specific problem and its solutions, keeping in mind the context of geographical variations. The book first provides a historical overview of the socioeconomic importance of agriculture around the world along with a discussion on threats and opportunities in the agricultural sector. It goes on to explore the importance of water sources for agriculture, including rain-fed agriculture practices, water harvesting techniques, sustainable irrigation practices, and irrigation water management. Guidance on the usage of agrochemicals and solutions to their detrimental effects from non-standardized consumption is also addressed. The volume also includes a discussion on organic farming methods, certification standards, and key restrictions in crop production. Part 2 goes on to examine postharvest management practices used in different geographical areas along with analysis on the role of technology and obstacles in implementation. The commercialization of agriculture through food processing, branding, and retailing is reviewed along with suggestions on available marketing platforms and promotional aspects. It goes on to outline the situational analysis of food adulteration as well as norms and regulations of food security at the international level. Lastly, the concept of biofortification is explained along with methods and strategies of biofortified food production. The impact of biofortification over socioeconomic development of a specific country is also analyzed. Written for a wide audience, this volume is a thoughtful overview and analysis of the increasingly necessary topic of sustainable agriculture for food security and will be of interest to faculty and research scholars, working professionals, social activists, policymakers, farmers, and institutions and organizations involved in agricultural education, research, and development.
