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Abstract by the authors: The 2030 Agenda for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represents a common framework of international cooperation to promote sustainable development. Nutrition is the key point for the SDG 2 ‘End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture’ and is an essential component for achieving many of the other targets: overall, the nutritional aspects of the SDGs aim to promote healthy and sustainable diets and ensure food security globally. While undernutrition is of minimal concern in the European Union Member States, trends in childhood obesity are still alarming and far from any desirable target. European food production systems have improved over the last years, with immediate impact on several environmental aspects; however, a comprehensive regulatory framework to fulfil the environmental and climate targets is still lacking. Policy actions at multinational level are needed to achieve global nutrition targets designed to guide progress towards tackling all forms of malnutrition while preserving the environment through virtuous food production and food systems.
Abstract by the authors: The current period marked by addressing environmental sustainability challenges and the instability of government institutions has heightened the issue of food security, especially in developing countries as they work towards achieving Zero Hunger as highlighted in the Sustainable Development Goals. To assess the effect of environmental sustainability and government institutions on food security in West Africa with data from 1990 to 2021, two models have been deployed. The Generalized Method of Moments was deployed as the main model and while Two-Stage Least Squares was used as the robustness check. The findings of the study reveal that carbon emissions which represent environmental sustainability has no direct significant effect on food security, while government institutions has negative effect on food security. The study also reveals that income and urbanization promote food security, while renewable energy and population growth reduce food security. The findings of the study could be a reflection of the current political instability and attitude towards tackling carbon emissions mitigation in the region. Government institutions are encouraged to exercise authority without fear to implement policies that would encourage food security and restrict the use of high-emission technologies.
Abstract by the authors: Food security necessitates a multifaceted strategy, ranging from social protection to providing healthy food. Change in existing food systems is needed to create a more equitable and sustainable society. Hunger is one of the significant challenges in the world that arise due to food insecurity, bad quality, food waste, and losses that leads to damage of public health. The implementation of green food supply chain management (GFSCM) practices in the food supply chain helps in lowering food wastage, carbon emissions, food quality, and safety. To strengthen food security/safety and quality, digital transformation of the supply chain is required, and IoT and blockchain can help in achieving this. Digital transformation of GFSCM has helped to improve food security, safety and quality control. This study identifies modern enablers of food security, safety and quality that transform the GFSCM through Internet of things (IoT) and blockchain to reduce hunger. Zero hunger goal is far behind in India as India reported 117th rank in hunger index, indicating an urgent need to study the digital transformation in green food supply chain towards achieving food quality and security. In this study twelve enablers out of 16 suggested in earlier literatures has been selected and reconfirmed with the feedback of seventeen academia and Industrial experts from Indian food supply chain. We used a two-step combined Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) and Analytical Network Process (ANP) technique to examine the enablers contextual interrelationships and significance weights. Findings reveal that IoT and blockchain technologies are the main actuators of the contemporary GFSCM enabling system. ISM provides eight core enablers system that can transform the GFSCM digitally to achieve food quality and security along with achieving zero hunger (SDG2). Inventory management is the least ranked enabler, whereas IoT and blockchain are the top two. Towards achieving zero hunger, some management, theoretical, and policy implications have been suggested.
Abstract by the authors:The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) encourage nations to substantially increase food production to achieve zero hunger (SDG 2) while preserving life on land (SDG 15). A key question is how to reconcile these potentially competing goals spatially. We use integer linear programming to develop an ‘integrated land use planning framework’ that identifies the optimal allocation of 17 crops under different hypothetical conservation targets while meeting agricultural demands by 2030. Intensifying existing cropland to maximum yield before allocating new cropland would reduce land requirement by 43% versus cropland expansion without intensification. Even with yield gap closure, tropical and sub-tropical crops still require expansion, primarily allocated to Venezuela, eastern Brazil, Congo Basin, Myanmar and Indonesia. Enforcement of protected areas, via avoiding conversion in 75% of Key Biodiversity Areas and 65% of intact areas, is vital to attain biodiversity targets but bears large opportunity costs, with agricultural rents dropping from $4.1 to $2.8 trillion. Although nationally constrained forest conservation efforts would earn 9% less agricultural rents compared to globally coordinated conservation solutions, they were also able to reduce intact habitat and forest loss (43% and 35% reduction). Our results demonstrate that careful choice of the allocation of future cropland expansion, could dramatically reduce—but not eliminate—the tradeoffs between the SDGs for food production and land biodiversity conservation.
Abstract by the authors:Climate change is likely to worsen poverty, and agriculture-dependent groups and poorest countries are at the greatest risk. Farmers’ have begun developing and implementing climate change adaptations. This study investigates the extent to which climate change adaptations by smallholder farmers have the potential to contribute to the UN’s sustainable development goals of no poverty (SDG 1) and zero hunger (SDG 2). To this end, the study measures the impact of such adaptations on food production using farm-level survey data from Nepal. We utilize a matching technique and stochastic production frontier model to examine the productivity and efficiency of farmers. Results reveal that the group of farmers adopting adaptations exhibit higher levels of productivity and technical efficiency in food production as compared to the non-adopters. It is evident from the results that policy makers should encourage farming households in climate change adaptations, which have the potential to enhance farmers’ productivity and efficiency in agriculture, thereby contributing to two of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of eradicating hunger and poverty (SDG’s target indicators 2.3).
Abstract by the authors: The effects of FDI and foreign aids on ending poverty and hunger through agricultural production is examined. Agricultural production mediates the relationship between FDI and poverty reduction (PR). Agricultural production mediates the relationship between PR and both social infrastructure aid and agriculture-forestry-fishing aid. Agricultural production also explains the relationship between FDI, social infrastructure aid and food security.
Abstract by the authors: Global hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition are on the rise, partly resulting in furthering health inequities between classes and groups of peoples among and within countries. A systematic understanding of the links between inequities in food politics and health issues is a challenge, and it is partly complicated by the presence of 3 contending and shifting paradigms in food politics, namely, food security, food insecurity, and food sovereignty. These paradigms suggest competing views as to the causes of and solutions to hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition. We argue that food sovereignty offers a better alternative for understanding and responding to food issues in relation to the challenge of tackling health inequities. However, the ways in which and the degree to which the issues of health inequities are incorporated in the current narratives and practices of food sovereignty is rather thin, and vice versa. Our concluding argument is that an interactive dialogue in research and social actions between food sovereignty, on the one hand, and health inequity, on the other hand, can mutually enrich and strengthen both fields of research and spheres of social actions.
Abstract by the authors: COVID-19 has affected millions of people worldwide. Recently, international agencies have revealed that poverty and hunger could kill more people than COVID-19 victims. Many global workforces have lost their jobs during this pandemic situation. In developing countries, most of the workers and their families live hand to mouth, depending on daily wage, and loss of income would be a hunger pandemic. Globally, the proportion of undernourished and hungry people have been on an upswing due to climate changes and violent conflicts. The millions of people are facing chronic malnourishment and COVID-19 menaces undermining the endeavour of philanthropic and food security. COVID-19 has increased the risk of livelihood by the shortage of food and distraction of the supply chain especially in the developing countries where rural expanses depend on agriculture production and seasonal jobs. So, if they are forced to limit their activities, their livelihoods will be demolished.
Abstract by the authors: National food security in countries of sub-Saharan Africa requires an abundant supply of cheap and nutritious food for the burgeoning population. At the same time agriculture is a major contributor to the balance of payments for African economies. So agricultural production in Africa needs to increase strongly to meet the demands of both national and international markets. Yet fragmentation of land due to population pressure in rural areas, and the low prices farmers are paid for their produce, mean that in many rural areas in sub-Saharan Africa the farms are already too small to provide food security or a living income for the household. There is a high dependency on off-farm income and little incentive to intensify production. Thus rural households are often ‘reluctant’ farmers, lacking resources or the economic incentives to invest in agriculture. The conundrum that must be addressed is how to provide cheap, nutritious food to feed the growing urban and rural populations while creating incentives to stimulate increased agricultural production. This will require major transformations of the smallholder farming systems alongside creation of alternative employment.
Abstract by the authors: South Asia is one of the most densely populated regions in the world. With 5% of the global agricultural land, South Asian farmers have to feed over 20% of the global population. South Asia is also one of the poorest regions in the word with about one-third of the world's poor living in this region. Climate change has become a pressing issue in south Asia ravaging agriculture and threatening food security. Climate change is affecting the fundamental basis of agriculture through changes in temperature, rainfall and weather, and by intensifying the occurrences of floods, droughts and heat stress. Like climate change, a pandemic is a global risk. The novel Corona virus (COVID-19) has further disrupted many activities in agriculture and supply chains in South Asia, further compounding the challenges of food and nutrition security and sustaining livelihoods. South Asian farmers are now facing double challenges of addressing the impacts of changing climate and managing the disruption arising from the Covid-19 pandemic. The unprecedented challenge posed by the COVID-19 requires very urgent and decisive actions to ensure food and nutrition security and save people's lives and livelihoods. Regional and global cooperation are also necessary to address the ripple effects of COVID-19 and climate change. South Asian countries must act collectively to share experiences and improve the disrupted agriculture supply chain. Strategies and approaches are needed to address both the coronavirus and climate crises. Currently, there is a unique opportunity to use the disruptive forces of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated recovery policies to accelerate the transition to a more sustainable and resilient food systems. Some of the short-term support to address COVID-19 challenges can be linked to long-term sustainable food production by investing in natural capital to improve long-term productivity and resilience.
Abstract by the authors: The article informs that COVID-19 pandemic have laid risks to global food security. It mentions that major food shortages have emerged as yet, agricultural and food markets are facing disruptions because of labor shortages created by restrictions on movements of people and shifts in food demand resulting from closures of restaurants and schools as well as from income losses. It also mentions that economic fallout and food supply chain disruptions require attention from policy-makers.
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