Reweaving the food security safety net: Mediating entitlement and entrepreneurship

The American food system has produced both abundance and food insecurity, with production and consumption dealt with as separate issues. The new approach of community food security (CFS) seeks to re-link production and consumption, with the goal of ensuring both an adequate and accessible food supply in the present and the future. In its focus on consumption, CFS has prioritized the needs of low-income people; in its focus on production, it emphasizes local and regional food systems. These objectives are not necessarily compatible and may even be contradictory. This article describes the approach of community food security and raises some questions about how the movement can meet its goals of simultaneously meeting the food needs of low-income people and developing local food systems. It explores the conceptual and political promise and pitfalls of local, community-based approaches to food security and examines alternative economic strategies such as urban agriculture and community-supported agriculture. It concludes that community food security efforts are important additions to, but not subsitutes for, a nonretractable governmental safety net that protects against food insecurity.     

Food provisioning strategies,food insecurity,and stress in an economically vulnerable community: the Northern Cheyenne case

Living in poverty is associated with high levels of protracted stress associated with health problems. Economic and food insecurity are particularly poignant aspects of poverty and condition the work of securing basic daily needs of families. Recent studies suggest that levels of stress increase as family food needs rise. This paper presents new findings which clarify the relationship of food provisioning to stress levels, by examining actual food provisioning strategies and food insecurity among the Northern Cheyenne Indians of southeastern Montana. Results clearly show that stress varies by types of food acquisition strategies. Contrary to our expectations, more complex strategies, including relatively unpredictable and cumbersome food provisioning activities, are not linked to higher stress levels in our analysis. Controlling for food security levels, households using a combination of local programs and informal subsistence sources are the least stressed, despite the demands of managing a large number of food sources. Households primarily using Food Stamps are the most likely to experience high levels of stress. Interviews with Food Stamp recipients show that potential sources of stress include inadequate allocations of Food Stamps, difficulty achieving and maintaining eligibility, challenges to complying with paperwork and appointment requirements, as well as personal obstacles and community barriers to making food stamps last. Analyses indicate that contradictions between local cultural norms for food provisioning and the realities of food insecurity in this context promote strategies emphasizing greater independence from federal food programs.     

The rise of food banks and the challenge of matching food assistance with potential need: towards a spatially specific,rapid assessment approach

In the United States, food banks served an estimated 46 million people in 2015. A combination of government policy reforms and political economic trends contributed to the rising numbers of individuals relying on private food assistance in the US, the United Kingdom and other high-income countries. Although researchers frequently map urban food environments, this project is one of the first to map private food assistance and potential need at the census-tract scale. We utilize Geographic Information Systems, demographic data, and food assistance locations to develop a rapid assessment tool that could support food banks, pantries, soup kitchens, and government agencies that seek to answer the question of whether people with the greatest need have food distribution sites in close proximity. We define access based on distance and then calculate potential food insecurity using either poverty rates or a food insecurity index. We apply these methods in a case study analysis of Santa Clara County, California. Our findings suggest that food assistance distribution locations match the areas of potential need in more than 80% of urban census tracts. However, there are several potentially underserved locations and populations that could benefit from new food assistance operations. The poverty and index-based approaches show significant spatial overlap in mapped areas of high food insecurity and low access. The poverty only approach produces a higher estimate of food insecurity rates, is easier to calculate, and draws attention to the need to address poverty as a root cause of hunger.     

The development of guidelines for implementing information technology to promote food security

Food insecurity, and its extreme form, hunger, occur whenever the accessibility to an adequate supply of nutritional and safe foods becomes restricted or unpredictable. They are recurring problems in certain regions of the US, as well as in many parts of the world. According to nation-wide surveys conducted by the US Bureau of the Census, between 1996 and 1998 an estimated 9.7% of US households were classified as food insecure (6.2% being food insecure without evidence of hunger, and 3.5% being food insecure with moderate to severe hunger). This means that approximately 10 million households each year did not always have access to enough food to meet basic needs. A potential tool in the fight against food insecurity and hunger is information technology (IT), since its use and range of application continue to grow at astonishing rates. The study presented here examined the question of how information technology, particularly the Internet, can be used to promote food security. The study used an action science research approach, and a case study strategy, with the food security system of Oktibbeha County, Mississippi selected as the case for study. The research design was a two-phase process. Phase one consisted of a needs assessment among food assistance organizations in Oktibbeha County, and included interviews of key food assistance personnel. Phase one also included a survey of IT subject matter experts to seek their opinions about the current state of Web-based information technology. Phase two involved an analysis of various IT implementation issues, as well as the development of a Web-based food security information system prototype tool. The needs assessment results indicated that (a) certain food security system and information needs existed among the food assistance organizations in Oktibbeha County, and (b) appropriate information technologies existed that could be applied to these needs. The food security needs related to better communication and coordination of information, such as program information, food site inventory information, client history information, food donation information, and nutrition education information. In regard to technology development, a variety of scenarios were examined. These included client-side approaches, server-side approaches, simple e-mail-based systems, Java-based systems, systems based on the Common Gateway Interface (CGI), and commercial database systems. In applying the needs assessment and survey results, the researcher developed a prototype Web site (including a series of online database tools) that could be used to promote food security in counties such as Oktibbeha County. The results of this research show that appropriate, Internet-based, IT holds promise for the reduction of certain social problems, such as food insecurity and hunger.     

Food sovereignty in US food movements: radical visions and neoliberal constraints

Although the concept of food sovereignty is rooted in International Peasant Movements across the global south, activists have recently called for the adoption of this framework among low-income communities of color in the urban United States. This paper investigates on-the-ground processes through which food sovereignty articulates with the work of food justice and community food security activists in Oakland, California, and Seattle, Washington. In Oakland, we analyze a farmers market that seeks to connect black farmers to low-income consumers. In Seattle, we attend to the experiences of displaced immigrant farmers from Latin America and their efforts to address their food needs following migration. In both cases, we find that US based projects were constrained by broader forces of neoliberalism that remained unrecognized by local activists. In Oakland, despite a desire to create a local food system led by marginalized African Americans, emphasis on providing green jobs in agriculture led activists to take a market-based approach that kept local food out of the economic grasp of food-insecure neighborhood residents. In Seattle, the marginalization of the immense agroecological knowledge of Latino/an immigrant farmers rendered local food projects less inclusive and capable of transformative change. Taken together, these very different cases suggest that a shift towards food sovereignty necessitates a broad acknowledgement of and resistance to neoliberalism.     

Fruit and vegetable access in four low-income food deserts communities in Minnesota

Access to fruits and vegetables by low-income residents living in selected urban and rural Minnesotan communities was investigated. Communities were selected based on higher than state average poverty rates, limited access to grocery stores, and urban influence codes (USDA ERS codes). Four communities, two urban and two rural, were selected. Data were gathered from focus group discussions (n = 41), responses to a consumer survey (n = 396 in urban neighborhoods and n = 400 in rural communities), and an inventory of foodstuffs available at stores located in all the communities and at large grocery stores in neighborhoods adjacent to the urban communities. In the two urban neighborhoods, a significant number of foods (26% and 52%) were significantly more expensive than the Thrifty Food Plan’s (TFP) market basket price (MBP). Additionally, a significant number of foods in the two rural communities were more expensive (11% and 26%). In focus groups, participants identified major barriers to shopping in their community to be cost, quality of food, and food choice limitations. Results of the food inventory show that foods within the communities were costly, of fair or poor quality, and limited in number and type available, supporting complaints verbalized by focus group participants. Through focus groups and surveys, participants expressed concern that healthy food choices were not affordable within their communities and believed that people in their community suffered from food insecurity. The absence of quality, affordable food for low-income residents in these four Minnesota communities prevents or diminishes their ability to choose foods that help maintain a healthy lifestyle. Deja Hendrickson is currently a graduate student at the University of California and working towards obtaining her MS in nutrition in order to become a registered dietitian. Chery Smith, PhD, MPH, RD, is an associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Minnesota with research interests in the dietary behavior of low-income and homeless people, community and international nutrition, and food systems. Nicole Eikenberry is a Registered Dietitian and recently completed her MS in the Department of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Minnesota, with primary research emphasis on food access and food choice for low-income Minnesotan adults.     

Accessing food resources: Rural and urban patterns of giving and getting food

Reciprocity and redistribution economies are often used by low-income households to increase access to food, adequate diets, and food security. A United States study of two high poverty rural counties and two low-income urban neighborhoods reveal poor urban households are more likely to access food through the redistribution economy than poor rural households. Reciprocal nonmarket food exchanges occur more frequently in low-income rural households studied compared to low-income urban ones. The rural low-income purposeful sample was significantly more likely to give food to family, friends, and neighbors and obtain food such as fish, meat, and garden produce from friends and family compared to the urban low-income group. Further, 58% of the low-income rural group had access to garden produce while only 23% of the low-income urban group reported access. In a rural random sample of the whole population in the two high poverty counties access to garden produce increased chances of attaining recommended vegetable and fruit servings controlling for income, education, and age. Access to a garden also significantly increased the variety of fruits and vegetables in diets.

滇东南喀斯特石漠化地区粮食增产的主导因素分析——以西畴县为例

根据西畴县近17年（1990 ~ 2006年）的耕地资源和社会经济统计数据,运用多元统计分析中的主成分分析方法来分析西畴石漠化地区影响粮食增产的主导因素。结果表明,耕地质量对粮食增产的贡献率是69.85%,经济投入水平对粮食增产的贡献率是20.29%,说明耕地质量因素是西畴石漠化地区粮食增产的主导因素,而耕地质量的提高则主要得益于西畴土地整理模式的实施。在西畴石漠化地区后备耕地资源极为缺乏,以及因为经济建设发展需要耕地减少难以避免的情况下,只有坚定不移地推进土地整理,切实加强土壤改良和农田基础设施建设,从根本上改良耕地和提高耕地质量,才能提高耕地产出水平,进而提高粮食产量。     

Strategies for Promoting Rice Self-sufficiency in Sierra Leone

Rice is the main food of Sierra Leoneans and an important source of employment and income for rural communities. According to the West African Rice Development Association report, annual consumption of rice is amongst the highest in SubSaharan Africa（SSA）, 104 kg. Mainly, small scale farmers who are resource poor on both the upland and various lowlands grow rice. Sierra Leone has not been able to produce enough rice to meet its local consumption demand for a very long time now. 530 000 MT of milled rice is the required consumption need of the Sierra Leonean population per annum. In 2007, national paddy rice production was projected at 638 000 MT. The level of rice self-sufficiency rose from 50.57% in 2002 to 62.15% in 2006 and then to 63.49% in 2007. The remainder must be imported at increasingly expensive prices in the current situation of high food prices, which includes rice. The price of rice has seen a steady increase in the entire country. What most affected by this, is the low-income urban and peri-urban households. The promotion of domestic rice production is therefore a key element in the strategies for improving rice self-sufficiency, stimulating economic growth and increasing rural income. Therefore, supporting rice production programme is the only solution to pull the country out of the worsening rice situation and maintain the present trend in rice self-sufficiency. Therefore, having an understanding of the strategic interventions in rice production in Sierra Leone is an important ingredient in the promotion and attainment of rice self-sufficiency.     

不同收入农户的基本特征分析——基于河北省某县3个村259户农户的调查

根据城乡居民收入水平、国家贫困线划定标准及相关划分方法,将农户类型划分为贫困户（低收入户和中下收入户）、中等收入户和富裕户（中上收入户和高收入户）。基于河北省某县3个村259户农户的调查数据,对现阶段不同收入阶层农户的家庭构成特征、经济特征、观念特征和交际特征进行了分析。结果表明,不同收入阶层农户在家庭结构、行为观念、经济及沟通交际等方面存在较大差异,低收入户的家庭结构不合理,家庭负担重,行为保守,信息闭塞,而中高收入户擅于交际,敢于冒险,技能水平较高。基于此,提出了促进农户发展的相关建议：优化家庭结构,重点培育家庭核心成员的能力;因户制宜地指导农户选择合适的发展路径;多方面促使农户外出务工,保障农民工合法权益;繁荣农村文化,为农户交流构建良好平台。     

The goals and values of local economic development strategies in rural America

The goals and values of economic development strategies vary according to the individual communities that employ them. While economic development strategies are aimed at increasing jobs, income, and community wealth, the issue of who gains and who loses from economic change is often overlooked. The industrial development strategies of the 1960s and 1970s are giving way to local initiatives based on services. Although local efforts may mean greater local control, the globalization of the economy has exposed formerly remote areas to international competition. The challenge to communities will be to achieve a moderate, steady, and manageable pace of good growth. Each community will ultimately need to develop a strategy for economic growth that matches community desires with community resources.Thomas L. Daniels is Director of the Agricultural Preserve Board of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He is co-author ofRural Planning and Development in the United States, and has written several articles on rural ecconomic development.     

Farmer-Community Connections and the Future of Ecological Agriculture in California

While questions about the environmental sustainability of contemporary farming practices and the socioeconomic viability of rural communities are attracting increasing attention throughout the US, these two issues are rarely considered together. This paper explores the current and potential connections between these two aspects of sustainability, using data on community members’ and farmers’ views of agricultural issues in California’s Central Valley. These views were collected from a series of individual and group interviews with biologically oriented and conventional farmers as well as community stakeholders. Local marketing, farmland preservation, and perceptions of sustainable agriculture comprised the primary topics of discussion. The mixed results indicate that, while many farmers and community members have a strong interest in these topics, sustainable community development and the use of sustainable farming practices are seldom explicitly linked. On the other hand, many separate efforts around the Valley to increase local marketing and agritourism, improve public education about agriculture, and organize grassroots farmland preservation initiatives were documented. We conclude that linking these efforts more explicitly to sustainable agriculture and promoting more engagement between ecologically oriented farmers and their communities could engender more economic and political support for these farmers, helping them and their communities to achieve greater sustainability in the long run. Sonja Brodt is a former program evaluation specialist with the University of California Integrated Pest Management Program. Her current research focuses on extension and adoption of integrated pest management strategies by California growers and the impacts of pesticide safety training programs on farmworkers. Gail Feenstra is a food systems analyst at the University of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SAREP). She coordinates SAREP’s Community Development and Public Policy grants program and conducts outreach and education to academic and community-based groups to build their capacity and leadership skills for developing sustainable community food systems. Robin Kozloff is a social science researcher and consultant in agricultural and land use policy. Karen Klonsky is an extension specialist at the University of California at Davis in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. Her research focuses on the economic viability of organic and sustainable farming systems as well as the evolution of the organic market. Laura Tourte is county director and farm advisor at the University of California Cooperative Extension in Santa Cruz County. Her research and extension activities currently focus on farm management and marketing for small-scale growers.     

秦岭大熊猫保护区周边社区自然资源依赖度影响因素分析

分析保护区周边社区对自然资源依赖度的影响因素,对降低社区对生物多样性保护工作的干扰有重要意义。利用2012年4月和8月2次调研数据,建立Tobit模型、Logit模型和最小二乘法（OLS）模型估计了社区居民对自然资源收入性依赖度,运用Logit模型对社区居民的非收入性依赖度进行了估计。结果表明:非农就业是商业性非木质森林资源采集的重要替代生计策略;资源越丰裕,农户对资源的收入性依赖就越高;海拔高度对农户收入性资源依赖有正向作用;家庭经济条件对农户的自然资源依赖影响并不明显,但家庭债务承担对资源依赖有正向作用。农户非收入性资源依赖模型估计结果进一步验证了收入性资源依赖模型的稳定性和结论。表4参17     

Are local food and the local food movement taking us where we want to go? Or are we hitching our wagons to the wrong stars?

Much is being made of local food. It is at once a social movement, a diet, and an economic strategy—a popular solution—to a global food system in great distress. Yet, despite its popularity or perhaps because of it, local food (especially in the US) is also something of a chimera if not a tool of the status quo. This paper reflects on and contrasts aspects of current local food rhetoric with Dalhberg’s notion of a regenerative food system. It identifies three problematic emphases—the locavore emphasis, the Wal-Mart emphasis, and the Pollan emphasis—and argues that they are shifting local food (as a concept and a social movement) away from the deeper concerns of equity, citizenship, place-building, and sustainability. It is suggested that local food activists and advocates might consider the use of multiple methodologies and forms of expression to explore the integration and reintegration of local food into diverse and redundant place-based practice. A short case study of a low-income, urban neighborhood in Lansing, Michigan, illustrates the value of contextual analysis for more fully enabling the local food movement and a regenerative food system.     

广东省城镇居民收入和消费结构的对应分析

采用2009年《广东统计年鉴》相关数据,利用SPSS软件,对2008年广东省城镇居民收入和消费结构进行了对应分析。结果表明,广东省最低收入户、低收入户和中等偏下收入户的城镇居民大多数收入主要用于食品,中等收入户、中等偏上收入户和高收入户城镇居民收入主要用于医疗保健、衣着、交通和通讯以及教育文化娱乐服务,最高收入户城镇居民收入主要用于家庭设备用品及服务、居住和其他商品和服务。根据各个不同等级收入户,有针对性地提出了对策建议。     

江华县绿色食品生产现状及发展对策

阐述江华县绿色食品的发展现状,指出其存在的问题并提出相应的对策,以促进当地经济的发展。     

Consumer’s stated trust in the food industry and meat purchases

Research indicates that consumers are particularly concerned about the safety of meat. More highly processed meat is perceived as more unsafe than fresh or natural meats, i.e., consumers trust processed meat less. This paper studies the relationship between perceived trust and day-to-day purchase behavior for meat, giving special attention to the degree of meat processing. Controlling for trust in food chain actors and demographic and socio-economic variables, actual meat purchases of Canadian households are linked to answers from a commissioned food attitudes survey completed by the same households. Expenditures for processed and total meat (but not for fresh meat) are significantly different by three levels of trust in the food industry. Consumer with the lowest trust levels consume less (especially of processed meat) compared to those with higher trust levels. However, in a multivariate setting, trust shows no effect on fresh or processed meat purchases with or without demographic and socio-economic control variables, suggesting that the impact of trust on meat purchases is only small. However, the low trusting consumer segment could potentially be a target for marketing strategies focused on reputation and quality to increase sales in this particular group.     

西部典型山区农户的生计状况分析——以四川省宝兴县为例

为揭示山区农户的生计状况,采用可持续生计分析框架,以西部典型山区宝兴县为例,通过实地调研,对不同生计策略农户的生计资本和生计后果进行对比分析,结果表明:1)2次地震对宝兴县农户生计资本的影响主要体现在物质资本和金融资本两方面;2)农为主型生计策略农户的自然资本显著高于非农为主型和非农型农户,但其人力资本和物质资本显著低于后2种农户,不同生计策略农户的金融资本和社会资本差异不显著;3)农为主型生计策略农户的生计后果最差,其陷入贫困的比例最高,对生态环境的不利影响最大。但因其拥有较高的自然资本,可以选择特色农业、生计多样化和参加生态补偿等多种生计发展策略。     

越南南定省交水县交善乡对海平面上升的家庭和社区应对经验和对策

[目的]通过收集社会经济学数据,评估居民和社区对海平面上升的适应能力,评估海平面上升的负面影响及其对策,确定应对海平面上升备用对策.[方法]在越南南定省交水县交善乡选择99户居民,分成3组,采用半问卷调查、面谈、家庭群组讨论、重要人物访谈以及当地居民非正式会谈等方法进行调查.[结果]海平面上升已对当地社区造成了极大的负面影响,如作物产量降低、土地流失、盐碱地面积增加、基础设施损坏等.当地社区和居民已经意识到海平面上升的负面影响,并采取了各种应对方法.改变经济结构、选择适宜的作物品种、把水产养殖地转给家庭、鼓励渔民成立渔业合作社并建立早期预警系统是应对海平面上升的主要对策.[结论]应根据潮汐节律和台风、暴风雨发生等所确定的水面上升规律,采取不同的应对策略和方法,以减少海平面上升造成的破坏和损失.