Food assistance through “surplus” food: Insights from an ethnographic study of food bank work

In Canada, food assistance is provided through a widespread network of extra-governmental, community-based, charitable programs, popularly termed food banks. Most of the food they distribute has been donated by food producers, processors, and retailers or collected through appeals to the public. Some industry donations are of market quality, but many donations are surplus food that cannot be retailed. Drawing on insights from an ethnographic study of food bank work in southern Ontario, we examined how the structure and function of food banks operate to facilitate the distribution of foods not marketed through the retail system. Our findings indicate that the handling of industry donations of unsaleable products is a labor-intensive activity, made possible by the surfeit of unpaid labor in food banks, the neediness of food bank clients, and clients lack of rights in this system. The marshalling of volunteer labor to serve a corporate need might be construed as a win-win situation because the work of salvaging edible foodstuffs from among industry surplus helps to feed the hungry while also diminishing the amount of refuse deposited in landfill sites, sparing corporations disposal costs and landfill tipping fees, and helping them forge an image of good corporate citizenship. However, the reliance of food banks on industry donations means that food assistance becomes defined as that which the corporate sector cannot retail. Moreover, the intertwining of food bank work with corporate needs may function to further entrench this ad hoc secondary food system and mitigate against initiatives to develop more effective responses to problems of hunger and food insecurity in our communities.     

Inspiration from Food Production in the Past 26 Years in China

通过对中国1978-2003年粮食生产发展历程和特点的回顾、分析,说明中国已经具备667m2产出300kg、总产5亿t的粮食生产能力,中国人对粮食丰欠和粮价波动的承受力大为增强,但是粮食生产进一步取得新突破的难度增加,粮食生产效益下降的趋势不可忽视。同时,提出了以科学发展观为指导,建立粮食生产长效机制的四条对策,即以年人均380kg作为中国粮食生产的安全线,立法保护足量、优质的耕地,逐步扩大粮食生产规模以提高粮食生产效益,粮食生产者要自强自立争取平等的市场经济地位。     

关于Food的译词

Food是常用词,一般译为食物或食品。而有关农业的译文中往往把它译为“粮食”。如“Food and Agriculture Organization",在我国已固定地译为“粮食和农业组织”,简称“粮农组织”;"World Food Day”译为“粮食日”,其它有关书籍文章中,把Food译为粮食的屡见不鲜。问题发生在‘Cereal’、‘grain’、‘food grain’有时也被译作粮食,不称谷物,这就混了。国外谷物指的是禾本科的小麦、稻谷、大麦、燕麦、黑麦、玉米、高梁、谷子(粟)等。我国粮食的概念除上述谷物以外,还加上薯     

The puzzle of the missing meat:Food away from home and China’s meat statistics

From 1985, an increasing gap has emerged between the ofifcial statistical measures of meat production and meat con-sumption in China, which has raised concerns from many researchers using such data. In...     

浅析“V…from…”结构的特点

本文从三个方面剖析了“V…from…”结构的特点,即:1) from是理解该结构的关键,并且具有否定意义,2) prevent是该结构动词的典型代表,在一般情况下,它可以释义同组其他动词,3) 有生命或无生命的名词和代词都可以做该结构的主语,但prevent,keep或stop多以无生命的名词或代词做主语。     

Welfare and Market Impacts of Food Safety Measures in China：Results from Urban Consumers’ Valuation of Product Attributes

This study provides an economics assessment of various food safety measures in China. A choice experiment approach is used to elicit Chinese consumer preferences for various food safety attributes using data from a 2008 urban consumer survey. An alternative welfare calculation is used to model aggregate market impacts of select food safety measures. Our results show that the largest welfare gains are found in the current government-run certiifcation program. The implementation of a third-party certiifcation system, a traceability network and a product label would generate signiifcant value and would help reduce current system inefifciencies in China. This study builds on previous research and provides an alternative approach for calculating consumer valuation of safety and quality attributes that can be used to estimate aggregate economic and welfare impacts.     

Impact of Africa Regional Food Security Program on Nigerian Farmers： The Case of National Special Program for Food Security

This paper examined the impact of National Special Program for Food Security （NSPFS） on the beneficiaries through a qualitative measurement of the food security status of the beneficiaries. A food insecurity index was estimated to measure the well-being of the beneficiaries as affected by the impact of the program. Beneficiaries were classified into four categories： food secure （41%）, food insecure without hunger （46%）, food insecure with moderate hunger （11%）, and food insecure with severe hunger （2%）. Perceptions of beneficiaries were measured. In conclusion, the program has had a positive impact and enhanced food security among the Nigerian beneficiaries. It is not without its short comings which include delayed and untimely disbursement of funds and lack of output markets, irrigation facilities, production inputs and adequate training on technology know-how. The default rate and number of debtors remain high among beneficiaries. Efforts should be made to correct the short comings to improve the effectiveness of the program and justify the huge financial resources that have been committed.     

Place,Taste, or Face-to-Face? Understanding Producer–Consumer Networks in “Local” Food Systems in Washington State

In an increasingly globalized food economy, local agri-food initiatives are promoted as more sustainable alternatives, both for small-scale producers and ecologically conscious consumers. However, revitalizing local agri-food communities in rural agro-industrial regions is particularly challenging. This case study examines Grant and Chelan Counties, two industrial farming regions in rural Central Washington State, distant from the urban fringe. Farmers in these counties have tried diversifying large-scale processing into organics and marketing niche and organic produce at popular farmers markets in Seattle about 200 miles away. Such strategies invoke the question, “How are ‘local’ agri-food networks socially and geographically defined?” The meaning of what constitutes “local” and/or “sustainable” systems merits consideration in the linking of these rural counties with distant urban farmers markets. Employing historical, in-depth interview and survey research, we analyze production and consumption networks and the non-market systems that residents in these counties access for self-provisioning and food security.     

Progress and Application of Plastein Reaction in Food Proteins

Plastein reaction is considered a reversal of the usual protein hydrolysis by proteinase, which was applied to prepare a higher-molecular, protein-like substance. It can improve biological value and functional properties of food proteins, meliorate flavor of protein hydrolysates and, especially, provide a way to synthesize new sources of proteins. Although the mechanism(s) of the plastein reaction is not clarified, it will have great values in food industry with the development of technologies in enzymology and microbiology.     

A Complete Set of Technologies for Green Food Pork Production

Key technologies for green food pork production were described in this article,as aspects of business standardization ;production ectuipments and facilities,product quality control ;and pork production site establishment.     

“In”-sights about food banks from a critical interpretive synthesis of the academic literature

The persistence, and international expansion, of food banks as a non-governmental response to households experiencing food insecurity has been decried as an indicator of unacceptable levels of poverty in the countries in which they operate. In 1998, Poppendieck published a book, Sweet charity: emergency food and the end of entitlement, which has endured as an influential critique of food banks. Sweet charity‘s food bank critique is succinctly synthesized as encompassing seven deadly “ins” (1) inaccessibility, (2) inadequacy, (3) inappropriateness, (4) indignity, (5) inefficiency, (6) insufficiency, and (7) instability. The purpose of this paper is to examine if and how the contemporary food bank critique differs from Sweet charity’s “ins” as a strategy for the formulation of synthesizing arguments for policy advocacy. We used critical interpretive synthesis methodology to identify relationships within and/or between existing critiques in the peer-reviewed literature as a means to create “‘synthetic constructs’ (new constructs generated through synthesis)” of circulating critiques. We analyzed 33 articles on food banks published since Sweet charity, with the “ins” as a starting point for coding. We found that the list of original “ins” related primarily to food bank operations has been consolidated over time. We found additional “ins” that extend the food bank critique beyond operations (ineffectiveness, inequality, institutionalization, invalidation of entitlements, invisibility). No synthetic construct emerged linking the critique of operational challenges facing food banks with one that suggests that food banks may be perpetuating inequity, posing a challenge for mutually supportive policy advocacy.     

Food sovereignty movement activism in South Korea: national policy impacts?

The transnational agrarian movement La Via Campesina (LVC) seeks to reestablish food sovereignty authority within national borders by removing agriculture from the WTO system. The WTO is a membership organization of participating nation-states that have agreed to abide by the rules of the WTO governance regime. Nominally, at least, changes in these governance rules must be approved by the nation-state members. This paper examines the extent to which South Korean affiliate organizations of LVC, the Korean Peasant League and the Korean Women Peasants Association, have been successful in placing food sovereignty issues on the national agri-food policy agenda in South Korea that challenge the WTO??s neoliberal global governance regime for agriculture. In effect, the success of transnational movements like LVC in challenging global institutions may rest on how well their member affiliates are able to play domestic agri-food politics.     

Food security and biodiversity: can we have both? An agroecological analysis

We present an extensive literature review exploring the relationships between food insecurity and rapid biodiversity loss, and the competing methods proposed to address each of these serious problems. Given a large and growing human population, the persistence of widespread malnutrition, and the direct and significant threats the expanding agricultural system poses to biodiversity, the goals of providing universal food security and protecting biodiversity seem incompatible. Examining the literature shows that the current agricultural system already provides sufficient food on a worldwide basis, but in doing so methodically undermines the capacity of agroecosystems to preserve biodiversity. However, the available evidence emphasizes the interdependence of biodiversity and agriculture, and the important role each plays in the maintenance of the other. Thus, our review supports the claim that the solutions to the problems of widespread food insecurity and biodiversity loss need not be mutually exclusive, and that it may be possible to address both using appropriate alternative agricultural practices.     

Trichoderma species from China

Seventeen species of Trichoderma, isolated from soil or tree bark from Ch ina are identified based on morphological and physiological characters, and from their phylogenetic position inferred from parsimony analyses of nucleotide sequ ences of the internal transcribed spacer regions of the rDNA cluster (ITS1 and 2) and partial sequences of translation elongation factor 1-alpha (te f1) . There were T.citrinoviride, T.longibrachiatum, T.sinensis in section Long ibrachiatum, T.…