Book of Abstracts
Food (In)Security Research Network
International and trans-disciplinary perspectives
16 October 2013
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CONTENTS
Professor Wyn Grant ............................................................................ 1
Dr Stephen Biggs .................................................................................. 1
Dr Leandro Vergara-Camus .................................................................. 1
Dr Dwijen Rangnekar ........................................................................... 1
Dr Ben Richardson and Dr Joao Nunes ................................................ 1
Emily Krüger ........................................................................................ 1
Ruth Segal ............................................................................................ 1-6
Chris Maughan ..................................................................................... 6-9
Katie Hartless Rose............................................................................... 9-11
Thomas Henderson .............................................................................. 11-12
Laura Muñoz Lopez .............................................................................. 12-14
David Blake ........................................................................................... 14-15
Mohammad Nayeem Aziz Ansari ......................................................... 16-17
Yagya Prasad Tubedi ............................................................................ 17-19
Christopher Coghlan ............................................................................ 19-20
Hasan Iessa ........................................................................................... 20-22
Prapimphan Chiengkul ......................................................................... 22-23
Marika Mura ........................................................................................ 23
Sarah Goler........................................................................................... 24-25
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SESSION 1: ACADEMIC PANEL
Professor Wyn Grant
Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick
Europe and Food Security
Dr Stephen Biggs
School of International Development, University of East Anglia
Title
Dr Leandro Vergara-Camus
Department of Development Studies, School of Oriental and African
Studies
The Politics of Food Sovereignty in Latin America: From Movements to
Governments and Back
Dr Dwijen Rangnekar
School of Law, University of Warwick
Farmer’s Rights and Intellectual Property
SESSION 2: INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS, CONCEPTUALISATIONS, AND DISCOURSES ON FOOD SECURITY
Dr Ben Richardson and Dr Joao Nunes Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick
Power, vulnerability and harm: Exploring the politics of food security
In recent years, security has become a prevalent theme in many policy
and academic debates relating to food. This paper interrogates the
concept of food security, arguing that the political nature and
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implications of the latter have so far been left largely unexplored. Food
security has often been defined as technical project of nutritional
sufficiency; alleviating hunger is thus conceived as a managerial process
of providing an appropriate diet to individuals. This paper argues that the
security dimension calls for a broader and deeper engagement with the
politics of food. The argument suggests that achieving food security
entails an engagement with structures and relations of power that
propitiate and reproduce vulnerability to, and actual, hunger. Looking at
the case of Brazil’s food policy, the paper argues that conceptualizing
food security in this way is crucial for devising effective policies that can
address the problem of world hunger.
Emily Krüger Department of Political Science, Specialization in International Relations, Sciences Po Paris
The Role of Brazil in FAO (2007-2013) – motivation, strategies and impacts
Ruth Segal SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex
Contested framings of ‘agricultural research for development’
Area of research:
Prior to joining Sussex, I have worked in both UK-based and international
organisations on food, agriculture, development and sustainability issues.
My research interests focus on the functioning of the global agri-food
system, the development of global policy and the impact of policies on
food security, sustainable development and livelihood security for poor
and marginalised communities in developing countries. My PhD research
focuses more specifically on the role of international agricultural research
in meeting the needs of the poor, and how international actors and
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institutions interact to influence policy and the direction of change within
the global agri-food system.
Since the 2008-9 global food price crisis, there has been a renewed
interest in the functioning of the global agri-food system, in particular
how to ensure that a growing global population can be fed sustainably
and equitably. However, understandings of ‘sustainability’ are debated,
and the policy, development and technology approaches needed to
create a ‘sustainable’ system are contested between different groups.
What constitutes a sustainable food system? Sustaining what, producing
what and for whom? And how do different answers to these questions
affect policy and technology choices which shape the global agri-food
system?
As part of this debate, there has been an increased focus on the role,
direction and effectiveness of international public agricultural research in
helping to reduce hunger and increase food production ‘sustainably’ and
‘equitably’.
This research aims to increase understandings of how different ways of
framing debates about the global agri-food system (and different
conceptualisations of ‘food security’) have affected decisions on the
direction of public agricultural research at the global level. It will examine
whether – and how – changing pressures on the food system are leading
to new framings of the debate that might challenge, or reinforce, the
mainstream ‘productionist’ paradigm.
It will do this through an examination of recent attempts to reform public
agricultural research institutions, specifically the CGIAR (Consultative
Group on International Agricultural Research), and ask how CGIAR has
responded to changing pressures and new challenges such as the
Agricultural Research FOR Development (AR4D) agenda; how institutional
arrangements enable (or not) research outputs to address poverty and
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food security needs; and how diverse voices have (or have not)
influenced institutional change.
It will examine CGIAR’s evolving understandings of its role in the provision
of International Public Goods (IPGs); and how this role has been
negotiated within the context of increased private sector engagement
with agricultural research in developing countries, donor interests and
the AR4D agenda. It will examine influences on the CGIAR reform process,
and the mechanisms by which different perspectives gain and maintain
dominance in shaping the direction of change in public agricultural
research. It will consider the implications of the reform process for
CGIAR’s intended beneficiaries, including access to and appropriation of
IPG outputs of agricultural research.
The research aims to examine this process in order to shed light on the
dynamics of the debate in food and agriculture research, in particular
how dominant development models maintain their dominance or are
challenged by alternative approaches.
SESSION 3: FOOD SECURITY, FARMERS, AND GROUND-UP RESPONSES FROM NORTH AND SOUTH
Chris Maughan Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, University of Warwick
Producing Radical New Forms or Reproducing ‘Neoliberal Governmentalities’? – Literary Representations of Agro-Ecological Resistance Movements
Agro-ecological resistance movements have attracted much praise in
recent years, especially those operating in the Global South (such as Via
Campesina and the Landless Workers Movement (Desmarais (2007), Patel
(2007), McMichael (2008), Shiva (2010)), though also those emerging in
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the Global North (CSAs, Food Co-ops, Organics, etc. (Tudge (2007) and
Reed (2012)). Part of the interest in such phenomena is undoubtedly
explained by the dynamic which defines them; i.e. ‘“ordinary” resistance
and/or political engagement [which] develops outside established or
existing networks’. In order that these movements continue to be seen
positively and achieve their respective aims, it has been argued (Aerni
2011) their operation and influence cannot remain ‘outside’ mainstream
agricultural networks. This paper will compare the representation of
agro-ecological resistance movements in two novels, Ruth Ozeki’s All
Over Creation and Michael Cliff’s No Telephone to Heaven – based,
respectively in the Global North and South – for alternative accounts of
the problems confronted by such movements, ones imbued with the
detail and nuance characteristic of the literary imagination.
Whilst this paper acknowledges that agriculture clearly ‘represents a
significant site for the refashioning of contemporary social critique’ the
problems it faces are huge and bound up in longue-durée, world-
historical processes (Moore 2001). There is, correspondingly, a sizeable
sociological and political discourse aimed at interrogating these new
forms of agro-ecological resistance (Guthman (2008), Patel (2009), Aerni
(2011), etc.) pointing, inter alia, to the lack of clarity with which they
describe and represent themselves, as well as the extent to which they
may be inadvertently reproducing behaviours characteristic of the
productive and consumerist patterns which they ostensibly emerged to
critique, resist, and overturn.
The discourse surrounding the success or failure of these movements
raises many questions, not least those concerning how agro-ecological
resistance groups name their adversaries and frame the debates of which
they are part. Terms like ‘food security’, ‘neo-liberalism’, and ‘agri-
business’, are regularly deployed without rigorous qualification, thereby
contributing to difficulties commonly encountered by those who wish to
imagine beyond them. The political and sociological discourse on ‘food
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security’, I will argue, stands to gain a lot by being reconceived and
critiqued in terms of the imaginative and representational possibilities
which have been occluded, even by those mobilising democratically for
agricultural change.
In an effort to contribute new perspectives on this emerging site of
resistance this paper offers an analysis of how such models of resistance
are being imagined and explored in contemporary novels. Following Imre
Szeman, I will examine two texts (named above) for a picture of the
‘social life’ of agro-ecological resistance movements in order that their
problems are “named and solutions to [them] proposed” (Szeman 2012).
In recent decades, literatures of the Caribbean, Central and South
America, and East Asia have shown an increasing appetite for thematising
the cultural and ecological impacts of the intensification of agricultural
production specific to their regions, as well as the agro-ecological
resistance movements which have emerged in their wake. Agro-
ecological resistance movements in the Global North have been less
frequently depicted. Despite a growing interest in food, attention has
been more keenly focused (in the UK popular media at least) on celebrity
chefs, cookery-themed TV shows, dieting trends, etc. (Germov & Williams
(2008) and Aphramor (2010)). Despite this disparity, my evidentiary
material has been selected to represent sites of resistance in both the
Global South and the Global North in an attempt to find affinities
between groups struggling towards new forms of agriculture.
Bibliography
Aerni, P. (2011) ‘Food Sovereignty and its Discontents’, ATDF Journal 8(1-2): 23-40.
Aphramor, L. (2010) 'Validity Of Claims Made In Weight Management Research: A Narrative Review Of Dietetic Articles'. Nutrition Journal, 9, 30.
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Germov, J. & Williams, L. (eds) (2008) A Sociology of Food and Nutrition: The Social Appetite, 3rd edn. Victoria, Australia: Oxford University Press.Desmarais, A. (2007) La Via Campesina - Globalization and the Power of Peasants. London: Pluto Press.
Guthman, J. (2008) ‘Neoliberalism and the making of food politics in California’, Geoforum 39(3): 1171-1183.
Kneafsey, M. et al. (2008) Reconnecting producers, consumers and food: exploring alternatives. Oxford: Berg.
McMichael, P. (2008) ‘Peasants Make Their Own History, But Not Just as They Please’, Journal of Agrarian Change 8(2-3): 205–228.
Moore, J.W. (2001) ‘Capitalism, Territory, and Hegemony over the Longue Durée’. Science & Society 65(4): 476-484.
Patel, R. (2007) Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World Food System. London: Portobello Books.
Patel, R. (2009) ‘What Does Food Sovereignty Look Like?’, Journal of Peasant Studies 36(3): 663-706.
Reed, M. (2012) ‘Contesting “sustainable intensification” in the UK: The Emerging Organic Discourse’. In Reed, M., ed. (2012) Organic Food and Agriculture - New Trends and Developments in the Social Sciences. London: InTech.
Shiva, V. (2010) Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace. Dehradun: Natraj Publishers.
Tudge, C. (2007) Feeding People is Easy. London: Pari Publishing.
Katie Hartless Rose Department of Geography, Environment and Disaster Management, Coventry University
Exploring Sustainable Behaviour Change amongst the UK Agricultural Community
This abstract hopes to stimulate discussion through a ‘work in progress’
two pronged presentation on the different ways to promote sustainable
behaviour change within the UK agricultural community. Whilst the focus
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on the conference is international, the author feels that despite focusing
on UK farmers, lessons can be applied further afield.
The author is in the third year of her part time PhD, studying the different
methods farmers can use to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The
author will share her investigation of the values and cultural viewpoints
that influence the approaches of UK farmers and her exploration of what
can promote or inhibit behaviour change to more sustainable farming.
Firstly, the author would like to look at how, when exploring sustainable
agricultural behavioural change for farmers or any individuals, there must
first be an understanding of the different behavioural change theories
and models, which exist to promote change.
Having reviewed reports discussing over 40 theories and models, four
models from psychological and applied theories will be presented as a
work in progress with reference to how they can be used advantageously
for behavioural change amongst farmers (along with any disadvantages
to using the model). Additionally, when promoting sustainable
agricultural behavioural change, there must also be an exploration into
obvious opportunities, drivers, barriers, disincentives and incentives for a
farmer to become sustainable, and the best approaches or activities to
promote change and understanding for the change amongst the farming
population (i.e. the different ways to adapt and mitigate for climatic
impacts). The presentation will also look at these factors and whether
they hinder or help farming sustainably.
Secondly, the research for the PhD will include surveying both farmers
already farming sustainably from organic, to using permaculture, along
with farmers who show no interest in adapting their farming methods,
with a second stage of interviewing farmers in focus groups to drill down
from the survey data.
As the results of the survey will only begin to emerge from August
onwards, there are currently none to present. However, this author is
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confident that by October, there will be at least survey results to explore
and questions for focus groups will have begun to be developed.
Tom Henderson Department of Development Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
Via Campesina organizations in Mexico and Ecuador: Collaboration, Conflict and Issues of Representation from the Grassroots to the International
My ongoing research addresses the ways in which agrarian movements in
Latin America are confronting the ‘corporate food regime’ (McMichael,
2007) and in the process reframing current debates and understandings
of the agrarian question. I hope that the research will help contribute to
filling an important gap in the literature by investigating the internal
dynamics of, and interconnectivity between, contemporary peasant
organizations with international reach through Via Campesina
membership, as well as how representation and accountability work in
practice from the grassroots to the national and international levels
(Borras et al, 2008: 179). The extent to which the ideas and demands of
the grassroots shape organizational discourse and practice is analysed, as
well as how national level organizations influence and are influenced by
the Via Campesia experience. How or whether these organizations
engage with rural labour issues given growing dependence on wage
labour for rural people across the region is also a major theme of the
investigation. The relationship between contemporary peasant
organizations and local and national level government is also discussed
given that movement and organizational ‘autonomy’ is a central concern
of Latin America’s peasant organizations yet its (negotiated) form is rarely
investigated with concrete examples. The strategy of ‘critical engagement’
with government, often espoused by Latin America’s peasant groups, is
also rarely analysed for what it means in practice. The research is ongoing
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and in July 2013 I returned from 11 months of fieldwork between Mexico
and Ecuador. In Mexico I was working with the CIOAC (Central
Independiente de Obreros Agricolas y Campesinos – Independent Central
of Agricultural Workers and Campesinos), and in Ecuador with the
FENOCIN (Federacion Ecuatoriana de Organizaciones Campesinas,
Indigenas y Negras – Ecuadorian Federation of Campesino, Indigenous
and Black Organizations), both national level peasant organizations
affiliated to the Via Campesina Transnational Agrarian Movement. The
research is based primarily on CIOAC’s coffee producers in Mexico’s
Southeastern states of Chiapas, Oaxaca and Guerrero and on FENOCIN’s
cacao producers on the Ecuadorian coastal plain.
References: Borras Jr SM, Edelman M & Kay C (2008) Transnational Agrarian Movements: Origins and Politics, Campaigns and Impact. Journal of Agrarian Change 8 (2 & 3), pp. 169–204. Mc Michael P (2007) Reframing development: global peasant movements and the new agrarian question. Revista Nera 10(10), pp.57-71.
SESSION 4: LAND, WATER, AND SCARCITY: STUDIES FROM AFRICA
AND ASIA
Laura Muñoz López Department of Economics, Politics and Philosophy, Centre for Applied Human Rights, University of York
Understanding land rights in Tanzania in the context of the global land grab. Empowering visions from below
The purpose of this research is to contribute to the expanding land
governance agenda exploring how local understandings of land rights are
changing due to global and local struggles over landgrabbing. According
to several policy makers and researchers, about 56 million hectares of
land have been sold or leased since the global food crisis in 2008, an area
bigger than Spain. Demographic pressures, climatic conditions, agrofuel
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requirements and price speculation are the main causes for landgrabbing,
a strategy through which different actors try to safeguard their own food
security, natural resources and economic needs. Landgrabbing has
fostered the debate about land tenure systems. On the one hand, the
property rights school has long been claiming that formalization of land
titles increases tenure security, and therefore promotes foreign
investment and economic growth. On the other hand, competing
narratives to such approach argue that land reforms and individualization
of land rights in developing countries causes damage in communities’
rights and increase tensions between the state and its population,
especially in those societies where land access is a highly valuable asset
for livelihood. This grievance in their rights has led communities to
mobilize to contest the current wave of landgrabbing using a different
array of strategies. Such mobilizations have informed transnational
activist networks, which in its turn have informed local struggles,
performing an empirical pattern that Santos1 has theorized such as
‘subaltern cosmopolitanism’, and which is one of the process bring about
by globalization. Subaltern studies are the framework for research in
counter-hegemonic and –from below globalization, which aims to bring
into focus the visions and influence of those more marginalized and
excluded in the evolution of institutions and law. One of such subalterns
is the food sovereignty movement: a peasants’ movement which
postulates a valid and alternative model to international agribusiness in
order to achieve food security empowering peasants, promoting the
protection of local rights and the preservation of biodiversity and
traditional knowledge. The peasants’ movement has acquired a relevant
role as an actor in global arenas, such as the FAO, and also has influenced
several governments to implement changes in their legal frameworks
adopting the food sovereignty postulates. Methodologically driven by
participant observation at community and grassroots organizations level;
and drawing on land rights debates and -from below scholarship, this
research argues that (i) local understandings of rights and governance are
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different from Western conceptions of property rights, and tenure
security is possible without ‘titling’ schemes, (ii) local understandings of
rights have more in common with food sovereignty movements rather
than agri-business models and (iii) local understandings of rights are
influenced by local context and by global interventions, and in turn have
shaped global understandings of rights.
1 Santos, B. de S. (2002). Toward a New Legal Common Sense. London: LexisNexis Butterworths Tolley.
David J.H. Blake School of International Development, University of East Anglia
How about irrigation – are hydropower dams the only villain in Mekong Basin food security debates?
Both news media articles and academic research addressing the current
rapid expansion of hydropower dams in the Mekong Basin are
increasingly focusing international attention on perceived threats to
regional food security resulting from complex, often cumulative socio-
ecological impacts. At the “Mekong River Basin Workshop on Food
Security” convened in Chiang Rai, Thailand in early 2013 by the Stockholm
International Water Institute (SIWI) and the International Water
Management Institute (IWMI), a common narrative of the key note
speeches and workshop rationale emphasised “the long-term threats to
the food security and livelihoods of millions of people” posed by
unrestrained growth of the hydropower industry (Jagerskog and Glauman,
2012). The conference strove to promote new approaches to analysis of
food security issues, especially risks to freshwater fisheries, under the
rhetorical framework of a “Water, Energy, Food Security” nexus, currently
popular with sections of the Western development aid community. It was
notable that the majority of papers and discussion focused on the
hydropower sector and overlooked the parallel construction of irrigation
dams in the Mekong region. This suggests something of a paradox, as
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there appears to be little conclusive evidence to demonstrate the
irrigation sector’s contribution to regional food security, while
presumably a migrating fish is unable to differentiate between an
irrigation dam and a hydropower dam in its efforts to navigate manmade
river barriers. Moreover, there seems to be an underlying assumption
operating as a dominant trope that irrigation projects, that because
irrigation systems are perceived as food producing enterprises necessarily
beneficial for national food security and hence poverty reduction, while
hydropower development is portrayed to entail a controversial trade-off
between energy and food security. However, the dominant assumption
appears to be largely unproven, while data exists to suggest that
irrigation sector investment in Northeast Thailand has provided the
lowest impact on both rural poverty reduction and net agricultural
productivity growth, when compared against government expenditure on
agricultural research and development, rural education, and
infrastructure development (including roads and electricity) (Fan et al,
2004). At the same time, irrigation development expansion forms a
central pillar of all regional nations’ poverty alleviation policy and
programmes. This paper considers the dilemmas posed by an almost
exclusive focus on the hydropower sector and drawing upon evidence
from the author’s PhD thesis, challenges elements of the present
hegemonic discourse, suggesting alternative narratives that question the
role of irrigation development in food security.
REFERENCES
Fan, S., S. Jitsuchon, et al. (2004). The Importance of Public Investment for Reducing Rural Poverty in Middle-Income Countries: The Case of Thailand. Washington D.C., International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI): 54.
Jagerskog, A. and Glauman, K. (2012) Concept Paper – Mekong River Basin Workshop on Food Security. September 2012. Stockholm International Water Institute, Stockholm.
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Mohammad Nayeem Aziz Ansari Department of Geography, Durham University
Community Dhan Bank in combating Monga in Northwest Bangladesh: Assessing its Role through Households’ Experiences
In local Bengali term ‘Monga’ is used to describe the seasonal hunger and
food insecurity in northwest Bangladesh in which the poor, particularly
those who rely on farm work, suffer acute deprivation caused by their
lack of purchasing power arising from seasonal scarcity of gainful
employment. With some variation this seasonal distress recurs each year
in two periods: the severe one is from mid-September to mid-November;
and the less severe period is in between mid-March to April. The poor
households, even the marginal and small deficit farmers have to survive
an extended period without proper meals and sometimes with no food at
all. The Monga is now one of the serious challenges in ensuring food
security in this region.
Considering this acute situation, with the help of local NGOs, an
independent research group of Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh
established a dhan (rice/paddy) bank in 2006 in Laxmichap union of
Nilphamari districts - one of the severely Monga-affected areas. The
funding in the initial stage was through private donations by
philanthropic Bangladeshi individuals living abroad. The general concept
of the dhan bank is to help the poor households not to go hungry during
the Monga by lending them paddy and also to help them generate
additional paddy stock when they have surplus, particularly after the
harvest. The sustainability of the dhan bank means that the first cycle of
grant support in kind, i.e. rice, will be recycled without further grants to
the same poor families, and the responsibility of executing the
programme at village level is by the community itself. Though evidences
shows that rice/paddy banks are increasingly popular in south-east Asia,
especially in Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand in enhancing food security,
this is totally a new approach enabling communities not only to face the
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Monga but also allowing them to access a wider range of social needs and
services including cash savings, education, health facilities and women’s
empowerment. Many NGOs have taken this idea further and set up a few
more community dhan banks in other Monga-affected areas and these
follow the model of Laxmichap union’s emphasis upon storage, exchange
mechanisms as well as activities. Despite the general conclusion that such
new ventures may be suitable options in fighting the Monga, there
remain questions regarding their sustainability as earlier some similar
initiatives introduced by other NGOs did not succeed for several reasons.
So far there has been little research to understand dhan bank
effectiveness in reaching the poorest, i.e. linked to regular repayments of
rice, reduction of exploitative practices, meeting specific basic needs,
promoting collective decision-making, increasing the household’s
resilience, and so on from the participated households’ perspectives. This
paper is an attempt to fill this gap by documenting the experience of
households with reference to community dhan banks in Laxmichap union
of Nilphamari district.
Key words: Monga, hunger, food insecurity, community dhan bank,
resilience.
SESSION 5: POSTERS
Yagya Prasad Subedi College of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Aberdeen
Nexus between economic and nutrition transitions in Nepal: preliminary observations from time series data
YP Subedi1, D Marais1, and D Newlands2
1 College of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Aberdeen, Public Health Nutrition, [email protected]; [email protected] 2
Department of Economics, University of Aberdeen, International Health Economics, [email protected]
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Introduction: The nutrition transition involves economic, demographic,
dietary and epidemiological shifts, which are each affected by one
another. The patterns and trends of the nutrition transition are not
uniform in the different regions of the world. Although some information
is available about Asian transitions, Nepalese patterns and transitions are
not known.
Aim: The objective for this part of the study was to describe economic
and nutritional shifts and their relationship in Nepal over the past 40
years.
Methods: Time series data for economic and food supply were collected
in five years intervals from 1970 to 2010 from government databases
such as the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Agriculture, Central Bureau of
Statistics Nepal and Nepal Rastra Bank, and food balance sheets from
global databases maintained by the Food and Agricultural Organisation,
respectively. Average annual rate of change was computed using the
natural logarithmic estimate method to measure the shift.
Results: The structure of the Nepalese economy is gradually shifting from
an agricultural (60% value added in GDP from agriculture in 1970) to a
modern industrial economy (74% value added in GDP from industry and
services sectors in 2010). The proportion of urban population, considered
as a proxy of urbanisation in Nepal, increased from 4% in 1970 to 21% in
2010. This includes natural increase and migration to the cities. The
number of international tourists in Nepal has increased by an annual
average of 5% between 1990 and 2010, increasing the tourist
contribution towards the national income by an annual average of 3.2%.
Average real per capita income has increased by an annual average of
1.6%. Nepalese dietary patterns have changed over the past forty years.
Energy intake has increased from 1795 kCal/day in 1970 to 2450 kCal/day
in 2010. Plant fat and sugar are the main contributors to this increased
energy intake trend; followed by meat, fish, milk and eggs. The trends
indicate that the percentage energy from plant fats significantly increased
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from 12% in 1970 to 17% in 2010 (p<0.05). These trends in dietary
changes seem to be following a similar pattern to Nepal’s one neighbor
India, but different to the other neighbouring country, China.
Conclusion: In conclusion, real per capita income and urbanisation seem
to be two of the major driving forces for the nutrition transition in Nepal
but tourism has also been identified as a unique trigger in this region.
These drivers are impacting on the traditional Nepalese diet especially in
terms of increased energy mainly from higher plant fat intake.
Christopher Coghlan School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford
State Food Potential (SFP): The Case of India and the Himalayas
The State Food Potential (SFP) of internal administrative boundaries
within countries is best captured using five main indicators. Nutrition,
Economic, Development, Social and Environmental proxies are used as
such indicators to create an index of food potential for 28 Indian states
(excluding Sikkim). This paper demonstrates that SFP is by construct a
flexible method which is able to adopt proxy indicators for each category
as relevant data is available. The application of this model actively works
to fill in the previous conceptual gap of domestic food security analysis
which has often rendered direct comparisons between the states and
regions of various nations difficult due to large data shortcomings. In
India SFP results show that there is somewhat of a geographic clustering
of states. The most favourable scores tend to be found in the northwest
part of the country and along part of the west coast, while the lowest
scores can be found in the northeast. The eastern and western Himalayan
regions show stark contrasts with both one another and the rest of the
country. The seven states of the east have shown themselves to be
heavily dependent on the National Rural Employment Scheme, with the
majority of households in the region receiving assistance from the
government. It has been shown that states with higher SFP scores have a
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higher percentage of their cultivatable land used for the production of
fruit and vegetables in addition to meat. A similar relationship is present
when looking at recent climate impacts expressed in the expected rainfall
in India. Results show that across all four seasons: pre-monsoon, south-
west monsoon, post-monsoon, and winter monsoon that states in groups
with higher SFP scores experienced more rainfall relative to the expected
amount. In the case of the highest group there was a surplus of rain
across all seasons while in stark contrast the lowest group showed deficits
across three of the four seasons. The Himalayas in this instance were
outliers to the general trend, with all 10 states experiencing rainfall
deficits in varying degrees and seasons and divided along clear sub-
regional lines.
Hasan Iessa School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Newcastle University
Concentrating Food Materials Using Electrokinetic Enhanced Filtration to Decrease Power Consumption and Nutrient Loss
Countries around the world are suffering from many problems
caused by the misuse of their resources either by using non-renewable
resources or destroying the valuable features of the resources that are
available.
Some of the most important challenges of facing humanity are
related to food and energy security. Food security includes many aspects
besides providing people with an adequate amount of safe and healthy
food; it also includes improving food processing to produce acceptable,
high quality food products with reduced losses of nutrients.
Continued use of conventional and traditional methods of
producing and consuming food products will not be sufficient to feed the
world’s burgeoning population. Many of these traditional methods
require very high energy inputs, and they also destroy some important
food nutrients and reduce their benefits.
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Dried and concentrated foods have become an important category
in the food products marketplace. The development of processing
techniques and the customers’ wants has increased the need to improve
product quality especially with the increase in competition in this
category.
Most of the current drying/concentrating methods have several
disadvantages and some have significant negative impacts on the
foodstuffs produced by these methods, especially their chemical
properties such as loss of essential nutrients, as well as their appearance,
aromas and flavour. In addition, most of the existing methods require
high energy inputs.
This project aims to combine the electrokinetic phenomena of
electro-osmosis with the traditional functions of filtration to form a
process of electrokinetically enhanced filtration (EEF). This process is
based on electrokinetic enhanced filtration to concentrate foodstuffs at
low temperature which saves energy, time and product constituents
associated with product quality especially the temperature-sensitive
components such as Vitamin C, vegetable and fruit colours and key
aromas.
This study is concerned with the changes that occur in indicators of
food quality using the application of EEF, such as Brix degree, total
carbohydrate content, Vitamin C and carotenoid preservation/retention,
colour as well as the energy inputs.
The general system contains two steps: Firstly ultra-filtration (UF)
to capture all particles larger than 1 Micron in size, and secondly reverse
osmosis to capture all other particles and save them from being lost.
Electrokineticsis combined with the UF to speed up the process and
save time and energy. This is carried out in an EEF-rig which was
designed to meet the project needs with an ability to change all the
dependent parameters to find the optimum conditions to run this
application.
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The initial results showed that the performance of the
Electrokinetics process is dependent upon several parameters such as the
sample’s conductivity, the applied voltage used, the applied pressure, the
residence time and the starting moisture content of the sample. These
results also showed an efficiency gain by using this process in speeding up
the flow rate of the filtration process and less negative impact on the
quality compounds within the foodstuff and also an efficiency gain by the
saving in power used by up to 50%or more, compared to the power
consumption of existing thermal methods.
Prapimphan Chiengkul Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick
Community land title deeds (CLTDs) and the Land Reform Network in
Thailand
For the past 10-15 years in Thailand, there have been hundreds of
cases of occupation of un-utilised land in the form of community land title
deeds (CLTDs), mainly for agricultural purposes. This poster draws on
qualitative interviews of people involved in the promotion and
implementation of CLTDs and sustainable agriculture in Thailand, as well
as secondary sources in the Thai language that are collected during a field
research in Thailand from October 2012 to February 2013. It is a case
study which forms part of an ongoing PhD thesis calls "Hegemony and
counter-hegemony in the agri-food system in Thailand (1990s to
present)".
First, the poster covers some of the main principles, origins and
development of the Land Reform movement, as well as actual practices
of CLTDs in different communities in Thailand. CLTDs were designed to
prevent land grabs by not allowing land controlled by the community to
be sold to people outside of the community who do not work the land, as
CLTDs are meant to safeguard agricultural land for small-scale farmers for
the development of sustainable agricultural food production. People in
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the community are allocated some private plots of land for agricultural
purposes while land usage as a whole, both private and common, is
governed by community rules that are established through democratic
means. CLTDs contest the primacy of the private property system, using
inspirations from pre-capitalist norms of the governance of common pool
resources (Na-moo rights). The people involved in the movement have
also drawn inspirations from other sources, such as from the socialist
struggles in Thailand in the 1970s, Via Campesina, and the experiences of
the Brazil's landless workers' movement (MST). In many ways, CLTDs
initiatives have positive influences on their members, local communities,
sustainable agriculture development and on civil society in the country.
Second, the poster summarises main challenges facing the
implementation of CLTDs, and in using CLTDs as stepping stones to
strengthen sustainable agriculture movement in Thailand. Challenges
include, for example, how the Thai state resisted having to de-centralise
political-economic power, how CLTDs might be suitable only where there
is still a sense of community, and how there are still no national plan to
safeguard prime agricultural land for food security purposes. In addition,
sustainable agriculture requires a lot of knowledge, time and labour;
hence it is very difficult for small-scale farmers to switch to such
production methods, as they are concerned with short-term economic
survival.
Marika Mura Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick
Separating the wheat from the chaff: Observations on food insecurity and farmers’ action in rural Tanzania
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Sarah Goler Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick
Living Life Like a Varenyk in Sour Cream: The evolution and meaning of cooking, eating and food security in Ukraine
This poster details a project funded by the Warwick Lord Rootes
Memorial Fund that enabled me to travel through Ukraine to document
personal stories of cooking and eating for three weeks from September
18th to October 8th, 2012. The finished product is a written and
photographic narrative cookbook that includes 24 personal recipes and
explores different Ukrainian culinary traditions and culture, with a special
focus on varenyky, and issues confronting food and agriculture in the
country.
Varenyky are more than dough-stuffed dumplings similar to Polish pierogi.
The endless variety of seasonal and regional fillings – mashed beans,
buckwheat, grilled mushrooms, sour cherries, potatoes, cabbage (fresh or
pickled), you name it - distinguishes them from their dumpling-cousins in
other countries. Practically revered by Ukrainians, varenyky are also
featured in countless sayings, folk tales and riddles. Monuments are
erected in their name, such as one featuring a giant bowl of halušky in the
city of Poltava.
To express desire for someone to ‘live life like a varenyk in sour cream’ is
to wish for them to have an easy life, something that has not been the
case for most Ukrainian’s throughout the country’s history. The project
explored the changes that people of Ukraine have encountered with
regards to their eating practices, as a result of political and economic
changes. I interviewed volunteers of both older and younger generations
to see how societal changes and perceptions of their own food security
are reflected through narratives of cooking and eating, and how
Ukrainian cooking has evolved from pre to post-Soviet times.
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Ukraine’s history, culture and evolving position as future global food
guarantor is fascinating. Its geopolitical position has caused it to be torn
between dominating neighbors in the east and west. But this turbulent
history has contributed to a vibrant, strong and unique culture, and a
specifically interesting approach to food. Ukrainians have had to weather
famines and scarcity, and adjust to a wide range of political, social and
economic changes. People have had to be inventive in order to feed
themselves, and many practices including jarring, pickling and home
gardening are still an important part of everyday life.
At the same time, Ukraine is considered in the minds of many to be a
bastion of agrarianism and traditional rural lifestyles. Upholding its
‘breadbasket’ reputation, a majority of its land is still devoted to growing
food. Today the world focuses on Ukraine as it recently joined the United
Nations Program on Food Security and is one of only a few countries
projected to be able to help maintain global food demands in the future.
This is especially crucial when food landscapes are changing all over the
world, with less people employed in agriculture and technology replacing
previously labor-intensive work. Agriculture and food issues are at the top
of government agendas as issues of food security are of constant concern
in a growing and continuously prosperous world.
A copy of the project report and cookbook may be found on the Lord
Rootes Memorial Fund Website:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/insite/topic/teachinglearning/rootes/pastpr
ojects/projects2012
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