Online ISSN: 1876-4525
Print ISSN: 1876-4517, Via online journal., Despite recent improvements in the national average, stunting levels in Afghanistan exceed 70% in some Provinces. Agriculture serves as the main source of livelihood for over half of the population and has the potential to be a strong driver of a reduction in under-nutrition. This article reports research conducted through interviews with stakeholders in agriculture and nutrition in the capital, Kabul, and four provinces of Afghanistan, to gain a better understanding of the institutional and political factors surrounding policy making and the nutrition-sensitivity of agriculture. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a total of 46 stakeholders from central government and four provinces, including staff from international organizations, NGOs and universities. We found evidence of interdisciplinary communication at the central level and within Provinces, but little evidence of vertical coordination in policy formulation and implementation between the centre and Provinces. Policy formulation and decision making were largely sectoral, top-down, and poorly contextualised. The weaknesses identified in policy formulation, focus, knowledge management, and human and financial resources inhibit the orientation of national agricultural development strategies towards nutrition-sensitivity. Integrating agriculture and nutrition policies requires explicit leadership from the centre. However, effectiveness of a food-based approach to reducing nutrition insecurity will depend on decentralising policy ownership to the regions and provinces through stronger subnational governance. Security and humanitarian considerations point to the need to manage and integrate in a deliberate way the acute humanitarian care and long-term development needs, of which malnutrition is just one element.
14 pages., Food ecologies and economies are vital to the survival of communities, non-human species, and our planet. While environmental communication scholars have legitimated food as a topic of inquiry, the entangled ecological, cultural, economic, racial, colonial, and alimentary relations that sustain food systems demand greater attention. In this essay, we review literature within and beyond environmental communication, charting the landscape of critical food work in our field. We then illustrate how environmental justice commitments can invigorate interdisciplinary food systems-focused communication scholarship articulating issues of, and critical responses to, injustice and inequity across the food chain. We stake an agenda for food systems communication by mapping three orientations—food system reform, justice, and sovereignty—that can assist in our critical engagements with and interventions into the food system. Ultimately, we entreat environmental communication scholars to attend to the bends, textures, and confluences of these orientations so that we may deepen our future food-related inquiries.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 84 Document Number: D10845
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178 pages., OCLC No. 950952213, Via UI Library Catalog., America has a perplexing, multifaceted problem that combines hunger, obesity, and unhealthy food. This book examines how this situation was created and shows how people working together can resolve this longstanding issue. The United States--one of the world's wealthiest and resource-richest nations--has multiple food-related problems: declining food quality due to industrialization of its production, obesity across all age groups, and a surprisingly large number of households suffering from food insecurity. These issues threaten to shorten the lives of many and significantly reduce the quality of life for millions of others. This book explores the root causes of food-related problems in the 20th and 21st centuries and explains why collective impact--the social form of working together for a common goal--is the method that needs to be employed to reach a successful resolution to hunger, obesity, and the challenges of the industrial food system. Authored by Mark Winne, a 45-year food activist, the book begins with background information about the evolution of the U.S. food movement since the 1960s that documents its incredible growth and variety of interests, organizations, and sectors. The subsequent sections demonstrate how these divergent interests have created a lack of unity and constitute a deterrent to achieving real change and improvement. Through examples from specific cities and states as well as a discussion of group dynamics and coalition-building methods, readers will come away with an understanding of a complicated topic and grasp the potential of a number of strategies for creating more cohesion within the food movement--and realizing meaningful improvements in our food system for current and future generations
