Food Studies Commons^™

No. 09: Emerging Digital Technologies And Cross-Border Food Remittances Of Zimbabwean Migrants In Cape Town, South Africa, During The Early Covid-19 Pandemic, Sean Sithole, Daniel Tevera, Mulugeta F. Dinbabo

Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network

This paper examines the emerging unexplored synergies between digital-mobile technologies and cross-border food remittances in Southern Africa. Cell phones and apps or applications for smart mobile devices offer migrants new formal ways of sending food remittances. With large volumes of cash and non-cash items flowing through it, the South Africa-Zimbabwe remittance corridor is a priority market for these new fintech companies. However, recent discussions on digital remittances have focused largely on cash transfers. Similarly, limited attention has been paid to food remittances in the broad discussion on remittances, even though cross-border food transfers are crucial for food and nutrition security …

No. 08: Young People’S Mobilities, Farming Aspirations And Engagements In Northern Ghana, Siera Vercillo, Bruce Frayne

Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network

Development policies targeting young people and African agriculture tend to focus on their abandonment of the sector and the need to attract new generations to agricultural activities through its commercialization. This paper points to potential gaps in such interventions by investigating the diverse mobilities, aspirations, and engagements of young people in farming, through a qualitative case study in rural northern Ghana. Our study also challenges the prevalent assumption of African farmers’ movements from rural to rural areas, from rural to urban areas, and out of farming altogether, as we found evidence of young people migrating from urban to rural areas. …

No. 07: The Sdgs, Migrant Remittances And Food Security In Jamaica, Elizabeth Thomas-Hope

Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network

This paper raises questions about the implications of migration for inclusive social development in Kingston, Jamaica. This is based on an assessment of the relationship between remittances and food security at the household level. Emphasis is placed on whether remittances have made a difference in reducing the food insecurity associated with poverty and thus could contribute to inclusive social development. A city-wide survey of Kingston based on a sample of households in communities spanning different socioeconomic sectors was conducted to provide the data. Three indicators were used to measure food security/insecurity. Since there were the highest levels of food insecurity …

No. 06: Incomplete Documentation, Isolation And Food Security Among Central American Migrants In Mexico City, Tiana Bakić Hayden

Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network

This paper examines some of the factors that contribute to food insecurity among the growing populations of Central American migrants who reside in Mexico City. It contributes to a growing body of literature that focuses on the relationship between migration and food security by analyzing the specific challenges faced by migrants who are (semi)permanently settled in an urban area (rather than border region). The main argument of this paper is that although many of the challenges faced by migrants are parallel to those faced by low-income citizens and internal migrants in Mexico City, transnational migrants face unique challenges that contribute …

No. 05: Migrant Women’S Food Insecurity Experiences In The Breadbasket Of Ghana, Jemima Nomunume Baada, Moses Kansanga, Joseph Kangmennaang, Isaac Luginaah

Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network

Migration has become a safety net for smallholder farmers across Africa in response to rapidly deteriorating climatic conditions and the resulting low agricultural productivity. In semi-arid northern Ghana, especially the Upper West Region, many people migrate to rural farming communities in the Middle Belt of the country – popularly referred to as Ghana’s breadbasket – to meet their food security needs. In recent times, there has been an increase in the involvement of women in these migration patterns. This notwithstanding, many studies on migration and food security in Ghana continue to focus on the experiences of households or male migrants, …

No. 57: Pandemic Precarity And Food Insecurity In Urban Ghana During Covid-19, Elizabeth Opiyo Onyango, Bernard Owusu, Jonathan Crush

Hungry Cities Partnership

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on urban households in the Global South has not yet been adequately explored, despite an emerging consensus that impacts of the pandemic were more severe in urban than rural Africa. This paper addresses the knowledge gap by examining the relationship between pandemic precarity and food insecurity in Ghana’s urban areas during the pandemic in 2020. The data comes from the World Bank (WB) and Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) COVID-19 High-Frequency Phone Survey. Using a sub-sample of 1,423 urban households, the paper evaluates household experiences of the pandemic. Our findings show that household demographic characteristics …

No. 58: Wild Foods, The Nutrition Transition And Urban Food Security In Northern Namibia, Ndeyapo Nickanor, Lawrence Kazembe, Jonathan Crush

Hungry Cities Partnership

Rapid urbanization and food system transformation in Africa have been accompanied by growing food insecurity, reduced dietary diversity and an epidemic of non-communicable disease. While the contribution of wild and indigenous foods (WIF) to the quality of rural household diets has been of longstanding attention, research on their consumption and role amongst urban households is much more recent. This paper focuses on the consumption of WIF in three towns in northern Namibia with close ties to the surrounding rural agricultural areas. Based on data from a household survey of food sourcing and consumption patterns in 2018, the paper shows that …

No. 60: Opening Access To Urban Food Security Data In Africa From The Hungry Cities Partnership, Gareth Haysom, Bruce Mcdougall, Samuel Owuor, Ndeyapo Nickanor, Ines Raimundo, Lawrence Kazembe, Lynn Woolfrey, Jonathan Crush

Hungry Cities Partnership

The Hungry Cities Partnership (HCP) initiated a 7-year programme of food system research in eight cities of the Global South in January 2015: Mexico City, Mexico; Kingston, Jamaica; Windhoek, Namibia; Cape Town, South Africa; Maputo, Mozambique; Nairobi, Kenya; Bangalore, India; and Nanjing, China. This paper describes the research process in the four African cities of Cape Town, Maputo, Nairobi, and Windhoek. The HCP data provide rich and context-specific information useful in avoiding generalizations in theory and inserting a Southern and African perspective into wider food studies and global policy debates. The paper describes and compares the survey methodology in the …

No. 59: Increasing The Use Of Spatial Data In Urban Household-Level Food Security Measurement, Jordan Blekking, Kurt Waldman

Hungry Cities Partnership

Measuring urban food security in Africa is challenging because the current food security metrics were designed for rural contexts, and often feature a bias toward food availability, yet limited urban food production means urban food security measurement requires a multi-dimensional evaluation that also takes stock of the spatial and behavioural dimensions of food security. Current metrics are poorly suited to evaluate urban food security because they do not incorporate the spatial and behavioural dimensions of urban livelihoods, which relate to the variability of entitlements across space and how urban infrastructure accessibility enhances or constrains the choices available for a household …

No. 56: Towards A New Food Security Index For Urban Household Food Security, Cameron Mccordic, Bruce Frayne, Naomi Sunu, Clare Williamson

Hungry Cities Partnership

The multidimensionality of food security can confound both statistical modelling and clear policy narratives. That complexity can become amplified in urban areas where food security is often a function of both local and global factors. Rather than focusing on one dimension of food security metrics, this investigation proposes a method for building an index of urban household food access, utilization and stability. The performance of this index is compared across three aggregation methods using household surveys collected from five cities around the world. The findings indicate that each aggregation method was internally consistent, although one of the aggregation methods, relying …

No. 04: Pandemic Precarity And Food Insecurity: Zimbabwean Migrants In South Africa During Covid-19, Godfrey Tawodzera, Jonathan Crush

Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network

A notable silence in the emerging literature on migrant precarity is any consideration of the relationship between precarity and food insecurity. The links between migrant precarity and sudden economic, political or environmental shocks are relatively untheorized. Researchers were thus conceptually under-prepared to understand how and in what ways the COVID-19 pandemic intersected with general forms of precarity and food insecurity. More recently, the concept of pandemic precarity has been proposed as a corrective. At its most basic, pandemic precarity refers to the increased incidence and severity of pre-pandemic conditions of poverty, inequality and economic insecurity during COVID-19. In relation to …

No. 03: Covid-19, The Hukou System And Migrant Food Security In Urban China, Fei Xu, Taiyang Zhong, Jonathan Crush

Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network

The COVID-19 pandemic has issued significant challenges to food systems and the food security of urban and mobile populations. COVID-19 has had a disproportionate negative impact on household food security. In China, there have been no studies to date specifically focusing on the food security of migrants during the pandemic. This paper uses data from an online questionnaire survey of food security in Nanjing City, China, conducted in March 2020 to examine the different experiences of migrant and non-migrant households. The paper situates the research findings in the general literature on the migrant experience more generally during the pandemic and …

National Food Security, Immigration Reform, And The Importance Of Worker Engagement In Agricultural Guestworker Debates, Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern

Food Studies - All Scholarship

This article looks at the United States’ federal H-2A Temporary Agricultural Visa Program and reforms proposed by the Farm Workforce Modernization Act. In this policy analysis, we draw on media content analysis and qualitative interviews to compare the viewpoints of farmers, workers, grower and worker advocacy groups, intermediary agents, and politicians. We find that perspectives on the program are dependent upon actors’ level of direct interaction with workers. Moderate-sized farmers and regionally based worker advocacy groups tend to be the most concerned with day-to-day program operations and fair working conditions. In contrast, national-level advocacy groups, intermediary agents, and politicians are …

No. 54: Affordable Food Shops And Urban Food Security In China, Taiyang Zhong, Jonathan Crush, Yaya Song, Zhenzhong Si, Steffanie Scott, Yuxin Peng

Hungry Cities Partnership

Food subsidies have been widely implemented as part of government policies to mitigate food insecurity among the urban poor. The effectiveness of supply and demand-side subsidies have been a source of debate in the literature. One form of supply-side subsidy designed to make food more affordable to low-income consumers is to offer subsidies to retail outlets. China’s affordable food shop (AFS) program is one such example. The program was introduced by the central government in 2011 and implemented by municipal governments. Shops signing on to the program were required to sell a list of essential food items at a discount …

No. 55: Food Clusters, Food Security And The Urban Food System Of Northern Namibia, Lawrence Kazembe, Jonathan Crush, Ndeyapo Nickanor

Hungry Cities Partnership

A central feature of the transformation of urban food systems in cities of the Global South is the growing presence of supermarkets and their supply chains, often termed supermarketization or a supermarket revolution. A key issue in the African context is whether supermarkets are a threat to other sources of food including informal sector vendors. Most research on the supermarket revolution and competition with other food retailers focuses on large urban conurbations with little attention paid to the role of supermarkets in secondary urban centres. This paper aims to rectify this situation through a case study of the role of …

The Pet’S ‘Perfect Bowl’: Environmental And Welfare Discourse In Alternative Pet Food Movements, Carly Baker

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Marketing ‘sustainable and humane’ super-premium dog kibble has emerged alongside alternative food movements (AFM). Unfortunately, super-premium pet-food comprised of ‘high-quality’ protein is at odds with sustainability and affect for particular animals. This study analyzed social and geographical (mis)representations of nonhumans in the pet-food commodity chain by tracing how knowledge and value is produced, and mapping the geography of Open Farm dog food. I assess these geographies and discourses and I identify the following: (1) sustainability claims focus on transportation and packaging, ignoring the significant environmental and social impacts of animal agriculture. (2) Images of farmed animals on packaging often do …

Critical Perspectives On Produce Prescription Programs & Us Federal Nutrition Policy, Alanna K. Higgins

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Produce prescription programs, interventions operating at the intersection of food access and public health, are steadily increasing in number across the United States since 2010. I leverage key informant interviews, participant observations, and event ethnographies to form a four-year institutional ethnography of the implementation of produce prescriptions within West Virginia alongside a legal-policy archaeology methodology to understand how produce prescriptions have been institutionalized and funded within the US Farm Bill. While much of produce prescription program growth is attributed to an expansion of federal funding starting in 2014, this dissertation demonstrates that these programs and the federal legislation which has …

No. 01: South-South Migration, Food Insecurity And The Covid-19 Pandemic, Jonathan Crush, Diana Thomaz, Sujata Ramachandran

Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network

The implementation of global migration governance processes such as the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and the Global Compact for Migration has been stalled by the COVID-19 crisis as flows of and opportunities for international migrants shrink through the containment strategies adopted by most governments in response to the pandemic. Migrants have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 and the policies taken in response to the pandemic, with higher risk of exposure to the virus, greater likelihood of working in sectors that have experienced major economic downturn, lower rates of access to social support mechanisms and health care, and increased vulnerability to …

No. 02: Food Remittances, Migration And Rural-Urban Linkages In Kenya, Elizabeth Opiyo Onyango, Jonathan Crush, Samuel Owuor

Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network

Rural-urban migrants in Sub-Saharan Africa do not generally cut their links with rural homes and much has been written about the character, types and implications of connections between rural areas and rapidly growing cities. The persistence of circular migration and the perpetuation of rural-urban connectivity is a distinctive feature of Kenyan urbanization. Informal non-market food remitting from rural to urban areas has received little attention in comparison with cash remitting from city to countryside. This paper presents new evidence from a household survey in Nairobi on the extent, frequency and nature of informal food remitting from rural areas to migrants …

Understanding Food Policy Councils: Lessons For Extension Partners, Gail Feenstra, Clare Gupta, David Campbell, Jennifer Sowerwine, Katherine Munden-Dixon

Journal of Extension

This paper presents findings from a survey of 34 food policy councils (FPCs) in California. The survey addressed organizational structure and functions, policy priorities and achievements, and the use of research or other information. We find that most FPCs have formed in recent years, operate with small budgets and limited or no staff, and function primarily to foster network relationships. FPCs rely on community-based knowledge more than academic research, suggesting an opportunity for Extension professionals to lend expertise. We conclude by identifying specific ways Extension professionals can support FPCs as they seek to enhance local and regional food systems.

No. 53: Changing Priorities In Urban Food Security Research: A Bibliometric Analysis, Bruce Frayne, Truzaar Dordi, Cameron Mccordic, Naomi Sunu, Clare Williamson

Hungry Cities Partnership

The study of urban food security has evolved dramatically over the past few decades. This evolution has been punctuated, and catalyzed, by insights into the dynamic transformation of food systems in cities across the Global South. The evolution of this field provides an important vantage point for understanding both the dynamic transformation of urban food systems as well as the lens through which that transformation has been understood. This investigation of the field adopted a bibliometric methodology, blending quantitative and qualitative analytical techniques, to assess the dynamic evolution of the literature over time. The methodology included a quantitative analysis of …

No. 51: State-Led Localization Of Food Provisioning And Food Security In Urban China, Taiyang Zhong, Steffanie Scott, Zhenzhong Si, Jonathan Crush

Hungry Cities Partnership

Food localization has been extensively studied and advocated in Western countries, focusing on its oppositional stance to food system globalization, long food supply chains and agribusiness, the disconnect between producers and consumers, and a desire to reconnect urban consumers with small farmers in the hinterland of cities. More recently, these localization models have been taken up by international agencies and others and “exported” to the Global South. Rapid urbanization in the Global South has led to a major and growing crisis of food insecurity, which these models and approaches are ill-equipped to address. Hence, it is important to examine other …

No. 50: Food Security And Poverty Reduction Programmes In A Cape Town Community: A Qualitative Study, Sarah Duncan

Hungry Cities Partnership

Despite increased engagement with public programmes, low-income urban South African communities continue to experience high levels of food insecurity. More needs to be known about why progress in poverty alleviation and food security has plateaued (Shisana et al 2013). This discussion paper is based on a qualitative study that investigated how food insecure female-headed households in a Cape Town community made use of state (national) and local (government, NGO and community-led) poverty reduction programmes and social networks in their pursuit of food security (Duncan 2016). It revealed the study participants as skilled survivors who carefully navigated their environment, using both …

No. 52: Assessing Supermarket Patronage In Matola, Mozambique, Cameron Mccordic, Bruce Frayne, Naomi Sunu

Hungry Cities Partnership

As an indicator of a broader nutrition transition, the supermarketization of urban food systems in the Global South has become a growing area of research interest. While the rising dominance of supermarkets in urban food systems has been noted in several primate cities in the Global South, there have been few investigations into the spatial and demographic characteristics that may govern the patronage of supermarkets in smaller secondary cities. This paper assesses the supermarketization trend via an investigation of supermarket patronage in a secondary city through a 2014 household survey of Matola, Mozambique. Using a combination of descriptive statistics and …

No. 23: Inclusive Growth And The Informal Food Sector In Windhoek, Nambia, Ndeyapo Nickanor, Lawrence Kazembe, Jonathan Crush, Tobias Shinyemba

Hungry Cities Partnership

This report presents the results of the first comprehensive survey of Windhoek’s rapidly-growing informal food sector. As such, it aims to shed light on the food system of Windhoek, Namibia’s capital and largest urban centre. The report is part of a research programme on food security in cities of the Global South by AFSUN and the Hungry Cities Partnership (HCP) and builds on earlier publications on Windhoek’s food system including:

- The State of Food Insecurity in Windhoek, Namibia (Pendleton et al 2012);

- The Supermarket Revolution and Food Security in Namibia (Nickanor et al 2017);

- Urban Informal Food …

No. 49: Urban Food System Governance And Food Security In Namibia, Jonathan Crush, Ndeyapo Nickanor, Lawrence Kazembe

Hungry Cities Partnership

Namibia’s transition to an urban society is occurring extremely rapidly and with it has come a transformation of urban food systems, changes in diets and food consumption patterns, increased undernutrition and overnutrition, and the rapid growth of non-communicable diseases. This paper examines the policy response of the Namibian government to the nutrition transition and double burden of malnutrition with particular reference to urban centres and populations. The national government assumes responsibility for all food security and health-related programming, while local government’s mandate is largely confined to non-food related management issues such as housing, transport and sanitation. The paper shows that …

No. 46: Hunger, Anger, And Strangers: Precarious Status And Food Insecurity Among Refugees And Asylum Seekers In South Africa, Jennifer Kandjii

Hungry Cities Partnership

This discussion paper analyzes the impact of a multiplicity of actors, policies, and practices on the food security of refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa’s urban spaces. Building on recent work that focuses on the legal production of illegality, institutionalization of precarity, and the reproduction of bordering practices by the state and citizenry, the paper reviews how South Africa’s migration governance processes coalesce with societal xenophobic tendencies to shape food security outcomes for forcibly- displaced populations. The discussion paper aims to fill a policy and research gap through understanding the experiences of displaced persons at the intersection of food …

No. 47: Urban Food Security And Household Shocks In Nairobi, Kenya, Elizabeth Opiyo Onyango, Jonathan Crush, Samuel Owuor

Hungry Cities Partnership

Even though urban poverty is a key component of the development agenda in Nairobi with a focus on job creation, provision of basic infrastructure (such as roads and clean drinking water), food security has traditionally been omitted by city planners and managers despite its centrality to people’s health and wellbeing. One of the consequences of the lack of integration of food security into development planning is that emergency food preparedness planning has not been viewed as a priority. Rather, emergency procedures are only enacted when a food emergency is already in progress. This discussion paper demonstrates that female-centred households, households …

No. 48: Covid-19 And Emergency Food Security Policies In Urban China, Taiyang Zhong, Jonathan Crush, Zhenzhong Si, Steffanie Scott

Hungry Cities Partnership

The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to spread worldwide, threatening people’s health as well as their food security. Yet, empirical research investigating its impacts on food security is scant. Limited attention has been paid to the local food security management implications of an infectious disease pandemic. To narrow these gaps, this study investigated the development of emergency food policies in Wuhan and Nanjing in China and households’ food security, based on a combination of online surveys of household food security and policy document analysis. This study shows that COVID-19 and associated quarantine measures caused many households to experience food insecurity. There …

Broccoli Over Brownies: Factors Affecting Healthy Food Choices For Low Income Residents Of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Aileen Patricia Profir

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The world is on the cusp of a nutritional crisis: malnutrition, in all its forms, now directly affects one in three persons on the planet. Chronic malnutrition is closely associated with a wide range of public health issues such as stunted growth, increased incidence of disease, school or work absences, and obesity. Access to proper nourishment for food insecure individuals is often evaluated as a measure of distance to market, yet a causal relationship between proximity to food resources and improved health outcomes is unclear. Multiple dimensions of food access influence fruit and vegetable consumption for those who are food …