5 pages, The scientific advice needed to inform national and regional policies addressing the key challenges we face today must take account of disparate requirements. The complex nature of the problems addressed in this article—which encompass food and nutrition security, global health and climate change—and the multitude of their interconnections, calls for an integrated and multi-disciplinary approach that spans aspects related to the use of natural resources; the adoption of new technologies all the way to issues related to food demand and human behaviour. The scale is also important: national policies need to respond to a set of heterogeneous local conditions and requirements and should be particularly mindful of the effect on vulnerable groups of the population. At the same time, the global interconnectedness of food systems and shared natural resources also necessitates coordinated action at regional and global levels. The InterAcademy Partnership sought to develop an innovative model for integrating and analysing multidisciplinary scientific evidence to inform governments and regional policy bodies for policymaking on food and nutrition security. This approach relies on IAP’s membership of over 130 science academies grouped in four regional networks for Africa, America, Asia and Europe. Our article reviews the model, in particular with regards to interdisciplinarity, exploring examples relating to yield gap, plant breeding and food processing, and reflects on lessons learned during the project discussions and when engaging with policy-makers and other stakeholders. We propose that the framework developed can be applied to integrated assessment of other societal challenges where the scientific community can play a significant role in informing policy choices.
Russo, Alessio (author) and Cirella, Guiseppe T. (author)
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2019-12-17
Published:
UK: Springer Nature
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 208 Document Number: D13216
Journal Title Details:
V.5, N.163
Notes:
9 pages, Urban and peri-urban agriculture can have negative effects (i.e., ecosystem disservices) to the city ecosystem. In the last two decades, urbanists and landscape planners have promoted urban agriculture and food systems with little attention to ecosystem disservices. At present, increased urbanisation, environmental degradation, population growth and changes in food systems require a novel concept that considers trade-offs between ecosystem services and disservices. Considering the Sustainable Development Goal 2 of ending hunger and all forms of malnutrition by 2030, as well as the food revolution 5.0 of feeding up to ten billion people, edible urbanism 5.0 is a supportive component in reaching these goals. In this comment, edible urbanism via an edible green infrastructure (EGI) approach is examined against current urbanistic concepts that have common food production systems in cities. Moreover, a discussion on issues and challenges of public policy and governance for the implementation of sustainable food systems is shown with findings that consider current industrial intensive farming as somewhat unsustainable. Edible urbanism integrates three main principles of sustainability by fulfilling food security, resilience and social inclusion. It links site-specific, best-practices by integrating EGI-based governance with modernised food production techniques. Example cities showing EGI- and sustainability-oriented food concepts are presented. Recommendations for future edible urbanism (as a part of the next food revolution) are established.
12 pages, The purpose of this descriptive survey research study conducted with agriculture teachers in North Carolina was to determine their in-service training needs in order to be effective for preparing students with the 21st century skills necessary for students to be successful. This study reaffirms the need for continuation of leadership education as an important skill and integration of reading, writing, and math concepts into all agricultural education curricula for preparing students to be successful in the 21st century. The role of agriculture in global food security; application of problem-based learning; planning and delivering lessons to utilize higher order thinking skills; teaching leadership skills; and development of teamwork and student collaboration were identified as the five most important in-service training needs for preparing agriculture teachers to be effective educators. Findings of this study are limited to North Carolina agriculture teachers. This limitation of applying findings for other states should be addressed by conducting a study with a diverse sample of agriculture teachers across the nation.
8 pages, Novel food technologies are important for food security, safety and sustainability. Consumers, however, are often hesitant to accept them. In this narrative Review, we organize the research describing how heuristics and individual differences among consumers influence the acceptance of agri-food technologies. Associations evoked by a food technology, its perceived naturalness and trust in the industry using it influence consumer acceptance. Food neophobia, disgust sensitivity and cultural values are crucial personality factors for explaining individual differences. Using gene technology, nanotechnology, cultured meat and food irradiation as cases, we explore factors that may explain consumers’ acceptance or lack of acceptance. Climate change, food supply shocks caused by crises such as pandemics and population growth are imminent threats to the food system. Therefore, disruptive food technologies will be needed to progress towards a more resilient food system. Taking into account the factors influencing consumers’ perceptions of novel food technologies during the early stage of development and introduction will hopefully result in a higher acceptance of such technologies.
1 page, abstract only, Food law, including traditional food safety regulation, antihunger programs, and food system worker protections, has received increased attention in recent years as a distinct field of study. Bringing together these disparate areas of law under a single lens provides an opportunity to understand the role of law in shaping what we eat (what food is produced and where it is distributed), how much we eat, and how we think about food. The food system is rife with problems— endemic hunger, worker exploitation, massive environmental externalities, and diet-related disease. Looked at in a piecemeal fashion, elements of food law appear responsive to these problems. Looked at as a whole, however, food law appears instead to entrench the existing structures of power that generate these problems.
This Article offers a novel conceptual critique of the food system. It argues that food law is built on two contradictory myths: the myth of the helpless consumer who needs government protections from food producers and the myth of the responsible consumer who needs no government protection and can take on the food system’s many problems herself. The first myth is self-actualizing, as the laws that it justifies disempower food consumers and producers. The second myth is self-defeating, as the legal structures that assume consumer responsibility impede meaningful consumer choice.
Food law, as it is shaped by these myths, constructs powerlessness by homogenizing— or erasing diversity within—the food system, paralyzing consumers through information control, and polarizing various food system constituents who might otherwise collaborate on reform. Ultimately, food law is designed to thwart food sovereignty. By revealing how the structures of food law itself obstruct reform, this Article also identifies a path forward toward true food sovereignty.
