Giacchè, Giulia (author) and Silva, Wânia Rezende (author)
Format:
Proceedings
Publication Date:
2016
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D08819
Notes:
Pages 431-452 in Rob Roggema (ed.), Agriculture in an urbanizing society volume one: proceedings of the sixth AESOP conference on sustainable food planning. United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 549 pages.
14pgs, Background
Businesses and organizations involved in growing, distributing, and supplying food may face severe disruptions from natural and human-generated hazards, ranging from extreme weather to political unrest. Baltimore, Maryland, is developing policies to improve local food system organizations’ ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disruptive events and ultimately to contribute to food system resilience.
Objectives
To identify factors that may be associated with organization-level food system resilience, how these factors may play out in disaster response, and how they may relate to organizations’ confidence in their ability to withstand disruptive events.
Design
Semi-structured in-depth interviews with representatives of key food system businesses and organizations identified by means of stratified purposive sampling and snowball sampling.
Participants/setting
Representatives of 26 food system businesses and organizations in Baltimore stratified by two informant categories: organizations focused on promoting food access, such as governmental offices and nonprofits, and businesses and organizations involved in supplying and distributing food in Baltimore City, such as retailers, wholesalers, and producers.
Analyses
Interviews were analyzed using a phronetic iterative approach.
Results
The following 10 factors that may contribute to organization-level resilience were identified: formal emergency planning; staff training; staff attendance; redundancy of food supply, food suppliers, infrastructure, location, and service providers; insurance; and post-event learning. Organizations that were larger, better resourced, and affiliated with national or government partners typically demonstrated more resilience factors compared with smaller, independent, and nonprofit organizations.
Conclusion
To ensure reliable access to safe food for all people, food system organizations must strengthen their operations to safeguard against a variety of potential threats. This study’s examination of factors that contribute to resilience can help food system organizations, researchers, and government officials identify priorities for investigating vulnerabilities in diverse operations and potential strategies to improve resilience in the face of ongoing and growing threats.
Kemper, Denise (author) and Weltring, Wiebke (author)
Format:
Proceedings
Publication Date:
2016
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D08817
Notes:
Pages 235-259 in Rob Roggema (ed.), Agriculture in an urbanizing society volume one: proceedings of the sixth AESOP conference on sustainable food planning. United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 549 pages.
15 pages., Via online journal., Plant pests cause crop losses of 30–40%, contributing significantly to global food insecurity. The Plantwise program works alongside national agricultural extension services, who advise smallholder farmers on plant health issues and collect data on problems they face. In a 1-year pilot, Plantwise tested the use of information and communication technologies (ICT)—tablets and short message service (SMS)—with 60 Kenyan extension workers. They were able to assist more farmers with better advice, had significantly improved access to plant health information, valued being able to ask their peers for advice, and dramatically improved the quality and speed of the data they collected.
15 pages., via online journal, Radio is the most widely used medium for disseminating information to rural audiences across Africa. Even in very poor communities, radio penetration is vast; it is estimated there are over 800 million radios in Sub-Saharan Africa. The paper summarizes evidence on food insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa and strategies to provide information on innovative agricultural practices to smallholder farmers. The research in this paper is then discussed within the context of research on information and communication technologies (ICTS) for development. Next, the paper presents the ICT-enhanced participatory radio campaign approach and ICT innovations introduced by Farm Radio International, a Canadian nongovernmental organization. The paper analyzes two participatory radio campaigns that use both listening groups and ICTs to engage African farmers. Research on these radio campaigns in six African countries is reported to examine how the participatory approach impacted listenership, knowledge and initial adoption of agricultural techniques and practices presented in the radio campaigns. The authors conclude that the findings of research on these projects could be highly relevant for increasing awareness and adoption of agricultural practices in Sub-Saharan Africa. They also appear promising for other development sectors and for other developing regions
16 pages, Food insecurity is widely recognised as a global issue that requires immediate attention using multifaceted approaches. There is a generalised consensus about the positive role of home gardens in improving household income and food security. However, there is limited empirical evidence to support the above nexus worth exploring to enhance evidence of based programming. Therefore, this study used cross-sectional survey data from Ingquza Hill local municipality in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa (n = 200) to estimate the correlation between participation in home gardening, household food security, and household income. Results revealed that income from home garden sales was the least source of income for most households in the study area, contributing an average of 10.4% to total household income. An insignificant negative correlation was confirmed between home gardens and household food insecurity access score, suggesting that home gardens fall short of addressing household food security. A positive linear significant correlation was also confirmed between home garden participation and household income. The study concludes that home gardens designed for cash crop production may have a better food security premise than those intended for home food consumption and the sale of surplus.
Deswardi, Rio (author), Glaser, Marion (author), and Ferse, Sebastian (author)
Format:
Book chapter
Publication Date:
2012
Published:
Indonesia: Transcript, Bielefeld, Germany.
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D07335
Notes:
Pages 243-272 in Anna-Katharina Hornidge and Christoph Antweiler (eds.), Environmental uncertainty and local knowledge: Southeast Asia as a laboratory of global ecological change. Transcript, Bielefeld, Germany. 284 pages.
15 pages, A significant emphasis on scaling up food security efforts is needed to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 2 (Zero Hunger) by 2030. Scaling up sustainable intensification efforts for Cambodian smallholder farmers is key since they face greater exposure to the uncertainties of climate change, globalizing markets, and rural-to-urban migration. One way to increase the effectiveness of efforts and the scaling up of sustainable intensification technologies is through improving access to information about production and marketing technologies. This study aimed to identify sources of information about sustainable technologies available to smallholders and barriers that may be preventing adoption. Information was gathered from a household survey to document the sources of agricultural information for smallholders in Northwest Cambodia. This research suggests Cambodian smallholders are receiving agricultural extension services, however, the overall quality and effectiveness of these messages are unknown, since NGOs with competing foci are the primary provider of extension information. Smallholders face significant barriers that prevent the adoption of sustainable technologies and participation in markets, such as low price for goods, poor product quality, lack of time, and concerns for safety. Future endeavors to strengthen the price of goods and alleviate market-related challenges would likely result in increased smallholder income and food availability.