Global food security: challenges and policies

Global food security will remain a worldwide concern for the next 50 years and beyond. Recently, crop yield has fallen in many areas because of declining investments in research and infrastructure, as well as increasing water scarcity. Climate change and HIV/AIDS are also crucial factors affecting food security in many regions. Although agroecological approaches offer some promise for improving yields, food security in developing countries could be substantially improved by increased investment and policy reforms.     

On food security and alternative food networks: understanding and performing food security in the context of urban bias

This paper offers one explanation for the institutional basis of food insecurity in Australia, and argues that while alternative food networks and the food sovereignty movement perform a valuable function in building forms of social solidarity between urban consumers and rural producers, they currently make only a minor contribution to Australia’s food and nutrition security. The paper begins by identifying two key drivers of food security: household incomes (on the demand side) and nutrition-sensitive, ‘fair food’ agriculture (on the supply side). We focus on this second driver and argue that healthy populations require an agricultural sector that delivers dietary diversity via a fair and sustainable food system. In order to understand why nutrition-sensitive, fair food agriculture is not flourishing in Australia we introduce the development economics theory of urban bias. According to this theory, governments support capital intensive rather than labour intensive agriculture in order to deliver cheap food alongside the transfer of public revenues gained from rural agriculture to urban infrastructure, where the majority of the voting public resides. We chart the unfolding of the Urban Bias across the twentieth century and its consolidation through neo-liberal orthodoxy, and argue that agricultural policies do little to sustain, let alone revitalize, rural and regional Australia. We conclude that by observing food system dynamics through a re-spatialized lens, Urban Bias Theory is valuable in highlighting rural–urban socio-economic and political economy tensions, particularly regarding food system sustainability. It also sheds light on the cultural economy tensions for alternative food networks as they move beyond niche markets to simultaneously support urban food security and sustainable rural livelihoods.     

基于城乡差异的韶关市城乡一体化研究

介绍统筹城乡一体化的时代背景和推进城乡一体化现实意义,然后通过数据收集,对韶关市城乡差异进行比较分析,采用城市化水平、城乡居民收入差异系数、人均GDP、城乡居民恩格尔系数、二元对比系数指标对韶关市城乡一体化现状进行了测算,判断其城乡一体化实现程度。得出目前韶关市城乡二元结构明显,尚处于二元结构向城乡一体化过渡前期,城乡一体化任务艰巨。最后提出推进韶关市城乡一体化的措施。     

Increasing food sovereignty with urban agriculture in Cuba

Urban agriculture in Cuba has played an important role for citizens’ food supply since the collapse of the Eastern Block. Through the land reform of 2008 and the Lineamientos of 2011, the Cuban government has aimed to support agriculture in order to increase national food production and reduce imports. However, the implementation of the designed measures faced obstacles. Therefore, the research objective was to display how the government’s measures aiming to support domestic food production influenced urban agriculture. The qualitative research comprised semi-structured interviews with 15 urban farmers in Havana and revealed the respondents’ experiences with the land reform and the Lineamientos and the potential of the reforms to implement food sovereignty. Findings show that the land reform has facilitated access to land for newcomer and existing farmers. However, availability of agricultural inputs has been limited and they were often expensive. Thus, urban farmers frequently produced farm inputs at their plots and applied sustainable farming practices to minimize their dependence on external inputs. The reforms have generated private marketing opportunities and have stimulated urban farmers to increase production. At the same time, subsidies have been reduced and consumers have faced increasing food prices. In conclusion, the land reform and the Lineamientos have created framework conditions for food sovereignty. However, the challenge is to increase the coherence of the theoretic aim and the practical implementation of the reforms.     

我国粮食安全的区域性和结构性差异

我国粮食安全不仅是总量上的满足,还包括区域间协调和结构上匹配.笔者将全国划分为三大区域:北方农区、南方农区和牧区,进而考察不同区域粮食和畜产品生产的变化趋势及其结构差异和匹配程度.结果表明:南方农区粮食总产量占全国粮食总产量的比重呈明显下降趋势,而北方农区则明显上升.南方农区是我国肉类主产区,肉类产量占全国肉类总产量的比重始终维持在50%以上.猪肉在我国肉类生产中占绝对优势地位,1995-2007年间,猪肉产量占我国总肉类产量的比重平均达到66.1%.南方农区是我国猪肉的主要产区,1995-2007年间,南方农区猪肉产量占全国猪肉总产量的比重平均为64.0%.1995-2007年,作为主要饲料粮的玉米在南方农区的产量仅占全国玉米总产量的20.5%.因此,应充分提高南方地区粮食生产能力,特别是玉米生产潜力,不仅可以减轻粮食生产给北方农区带来的资源和环境压力,而且可以缓解自身面临的严重饲料粮短缺问题.     

马克思恩格斯有关农业危机的论述对我国粮食安全的启示

马克思、恩格斯有关农业危机的论述,深刻揭示了资本主义制度下影响粮食安全的因素,为现阶段我国实现粮食安全提供了理论指导。     

Low-carbon food supply: the ecological geography of Cuban urban agriculture and agroecological theory

Urban agriculture in Cuba is often promoted as an example of how agroecological farming can overcome the need for oil-derived inputs in food production. This article examines the geographical implications of Cuba’s low-carbon urban farming based on fieldwork in five organopónicos in Pinar del Río. The article charts how energy flows, biophysical relations, and socially mediated ecological processes are spatially organised to enable large-scale urban agricultural production. To explain this production system, the literature on Cuban agroecology postulates a model of two distinct modes: agroecology versus industrial agriculture. Yet this distinction inadequately explains Cuba’s urban agriculture: production in the organopónicos rather sits across categories, at once involving agroecological, organic-industrial, and petro-industrial features. To resolve this contradiction, a more nuanced framework is developed that conceptualises production systems by means of their geographical configuration. This provides analytical clarity—and a political strategy for a low-carbon, degrowth agenda.     

Closing crop yield and efficiency gaps for food security and sustainable agriculture

正The world population is estimated to reach 10 billion by 2050. The rise in population coupled with improving living standards will require a doubling of the crop yield to fulfill food demand and livestock feed, which means crop yield will need to increase by 60–110% between 2005 and 2050(Tilman et al. 2011).     

都市型农业与城郊型农业的特征比较与本质差异

本文从城郊型农业与都市型农业的内涵入手，进而从生成起点，生长区域，产业结构，产出形态和产业布局等方面，揭示了都市型农业与城郊型农业的特征，指出了都市型农业，具有比其他农业形态无可比拟的与城市及其产业融合的本质条件，从而使其从内涵内质到外延外表都将发生重大而深刻的变化，逐步成为与城市其他产业，除了劳动对象外，具有基本相同一致的产业形态和生产方式，而这，恰恰构成了都市型农业与城市郊型农业的本质特征及其差异。     

Western hegemony over african agriculture in Southern Rhodesia and its continuing threat to food security in independent zimbabwe

Zimbabwe's communal farmers are now less food secure than they were two generations ago. The roots of this decline lie not only in the confinement of Africans to marginal land but also in the historic forced replacement of their sustainable, indigenous farming system with one whose productivity now relies on the use of large amounts of expensive chemical inputs. Environmentally-friendly, traditional farming practices such as pyro-culture, minimum tillage, mixed cropping, and bush fallowing were completely wiped out and replaced with a highly technical western or ganic farming system based on plough cultivation and continuous monocultures of commodity crops, that were supposed to be sustained by liberal amounts of green and animal manures. This gave rise to an effective agricultural hegemony that was due, mainly, to the zealous dedication of an American Mormon missionary whose motives were evangelical rather than scientific.     

粮食安全视域下生态低碳农业的发展战略与路径选择

实现粮食安全战略与“双碳”目标是加快农业农村现代化步伐、加快建设农业强国的关键。为助推粮食安全战略与“双碳”目标的同步实现,本研究立足粮食安全视域,阐释生态低碳农业的科学内涵,厘清粮食安全与生态低碳农业的辩证关系,剖析粮食安全战略下生态低碳农业发展面临的问题与挑战,并针对性提出发展战略与推进路径。研究发现,在“大食物观”“大产业观”“大农业观”指导下,生态低碳农业涉及全食物品类、全产业流程、全生活环节。粮食安全是发展生态低碳农业的底线要求,生态低碳农业是可持续保障粮食安全的应有之义。当前,发展生态低碳农业面临自然资源约束、科学技术瓶颈、小农生产模式、居民观念局限等现实困难,亟需探索水地资源拓展、技术创新应用、居民素质提升等有效路径,推动生态低碳农业实现“藏粮于地”“藏粮于技”“藏粮于民”。     

统筹城乡发展与农村社会保障制度的构建

在城乡分割的二元社会经济结构下,我国农村的社会保障制度具有社区性、低层次性和制度的非正式性等特征。应以促进城乡社会保障制度的衔接为农村社会保障制度建设的切入点,构建以城乡一体化为目标的中国特色的农村社会保障制度。     

农业生态环境与食品安全

主要分析了农业生态环境与食品安全的关系,并着重分析了农业生态环境中,可能通过食物链富集而对食品安全构成危害的污染物及其在生态环境中存在的数量、形态和生物富集作用。     

北方农牧交错带不同退耕方式下土壤水分变化特征

研究退耕还林、退耕还灌、退耕还草不同退耕方式对土壤水环境的影响.结果表明:北方农牧交错带植被耗水主要靠降水满足;3种不同退耕方式的植被生育期内土壤水分含量均随降水量而变化;土壤表层(0～30 cm)水分含量相差不大;在30～100 cm土层,林地土壤水分含量始终高于灌木地和草地,草地的最低;对于0～100 cm土层,林地相对于灌木地和草地能更好地维持土壤水分;2005年3种退耕方式的植被在生长季中对水分的消耗均超过降水补给.     

Urban agriculture, social capital, and food security in the Kibera slums of Nairobi, Kenya

Much of the developing world, including Kenya, is rapidly urbanizing. Rising food and fuel prices in recent years have put the food security of the urban poor in a precarious position. In cities worldwide, urban agriculture helps some poor people gain access to food, but urban agriculture is less common in densely populated slums that lack space. In the Kibera slums of Nairobi, Kenya, households have recently begun a new form of urban agriculture called sack gardening in which vegetables such as kale and Swiss chard are planted into large sacks filled with topsoil. This paper examines relationships among sack gardening, social capital, and food security in Kibera. We used a mixed methods approach, combining qualitative interviews with a household survey, as well as focus group discussions with both farmers and non-farmers. We present evidence that sack gardening increases social capital, especially for those households that undertake sack gardening in groups. We also find that sack gardening in the Kibera slums has a positive impact on household food security by improving household dietary diversity and by reducing the need to resort to painful coping mechanisms that are used during food shortages.     

Protein security and food security in China

Food security, the need to meet nutritional requirements, and four main problems for food protein security in China are analyzed. From the perspective of residents’ nutritional requirements and balanced dietary patterns, the conclusion is that food security in China is in essence dependent on protein production and security of supply and that fat and carbohydrates supply in China can reach self-sufficiency. Considering the situation of food protein production and consumption in China, policy suggestions are made, which could ensure a balanced supply and demand for food protein and food security in China.