Food Studies Commons^™

No. 24: Achieving Urban Food Security Through A Public-Private Hybrid Food Provisioning System: A Case Study Of Nanjing, China, Taiyang Zhong, Zhenzhong Si, Jonathan Crush, Xianjin Huang, Steffanie Scott, Menglu Yan, Shuangshuang Tang, Xiang Zhang

Hungry Cities Partnership

Private and public markets are two models of urban food retailing governance. This paper examines the public-private hybrid model of urban food provisioning system and its governance in Nanjing, China. Based on data from surveys, non-structured interviews, and bibliographical material analysis, we examine the public-private hybrid model and its linkages with urban food security. Our analysis shows that the public-private hybrid model of food markets and its governance ensures a relatively high-level urban food security in Nanjing. We argue that the hybrid food market governance system effectively integrates public and private capital into a government-supported and regulated, small-business-based system in …

No. 23: Food Vending And The Urban Informal Sector In Cape Town, South Africa, Godfrey Tawodzera

Hungry Cities Partnership

In South Africa, the informal food sector is either criminalized or ignored, despite the important role it plays in the economy in terms of employment, income generation, food distribution, and general livelihoods. This paper assesses the nature, operations, strategies, and challenges of the informal food sector in Cape Town. Data was collected through a survey of over 1,000 informal food vendors in the city. Survey results indicate that most of the enterprises were single-owner businesses, financed from personal savings, and started by owners seeking employment, independence, and improved financial security for their families. Most businesses had little or no access …

No. 34: The Political Economy Of Informal Food Vending In Kingston, Jamaica, Robert Kinlocke, Elizabeth Thomas-Hope

Hungry Cities Partnership

Small-scale food enterprises occupy a critical space in the food system of Kingston, Jamaica. While smallscale food retailers serve the entire population, they are disproportionately relied on by poor urban households. The nodes and networks of retailers play an important role in the value and commodity chain by providing access to comparatively cheap food but are often affected by economic vagaries and state-level regulation, among other factors that potentially challenge the sustainability of trade. These issues are potentially offset by a highly dynamic system where entry into the trade is maintained by the high levels of unemployment and limited alternatives. …

Mn Food (In)Security: Are Anti-Hunger Interventions In The Twin Cities Perpetuating Food Insecurity And Poverty?, Emma Kiley

Departmental Honors Projects

While anti-hunger organizations across the nation have been doing important work to address this issue, we have yet to see a significant decrease in food insecurity or poverty. This project uses a literature review and interviews with Twin Cities anti-hunger organizations to answer the following questions: How are anti-hunger interventions and the root causes of food insecurity mismatched? And what would it look like if anti-hunger organizations who are heavily engaged in the ‘feeding movement’ shifted their understanding to see food insecurity as a symptom of poverty, rather than an isolated issue? Working through themes of food charity models, privatized …

Increasing Low-Income Residents’ Access To Fresh Produce Through A Local Mobile Pantry, Laura E. Wasson, L. Lanier Nalley, Mechelle Bailey, Laura Hill

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

Seeds that Feed (STF) is a mobile food pantry located in Fayetteville, Arkansas. STF receives produce from local farmers to distribute to residents in low-income housing sites throughout Northwest Arkansas. According to Feeding America, food insecurity affected 14.3% Washington County, Arkansas’ population in 2016. The purpose of this study was to determine if STF’s model is an effective way to increase individuals’ access to fresh fruits and vegetables and increase their potential to meet the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Patterns (USDA-FP) for to fruit and vegetable consumption. Twenty-three participants from three sites completed the study. A survey was …

Towards Food Justice: Strategies Of Community Engagement For Local Food Nonprofits, Garrett Stern

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Nonprofit Studies Capstone Projects

Over the past two decades there had been a significant shift in American values around food and health. The increase of diet-related illness and the growing awareness of the local food movement have helped to shape the discourse on healthy, nutritious, sustainably grown food. Food justice advocates and organization have inserted social justice principals of equity and self-determination into the dialogue of health and food. There has been a similar shift in the nonprofit sector in regard to local food programing, with local food nonprofits advocating for equity and inclusion in nonprofit food programing. Community engagement is key to putting …

Water And Life. A Cross-Sectional Study On Determinants Of Beverage Consumption And Water Access In One Tribal Community, Christina White

All Master's Theses

Increasingly, poor diet has been shown to be one of the most crucial factors associated with cause of death, even more critical than smoking. Research in the past two decades has consistently linked increased consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) to the obesity epidemic contributing to a public health crisis all over the United States. Native Americans, among other minority groups, suffer obesity disproportionately from the rest of the US population, yet they continually fail to be included in research on the subject. Traditional research methods, sparse care coverage on reservations, consolidation of unique tribes into one classification, and failure to …

Criar Y Dejarse Criar: Trans-Situ Crop Conservation And Indigenous Landscape Management Through A Network Of Global Food Neighborhoods, Cass Madden

Capstone Collection

As climate change progresses, global food security is likely to become increasingly threatened and crop biodiversity will be a significant source of resiliency and adaptability. However, these adaptations will only be fully realized through cooperative in situ and ex situ conservation and cultivation of domesticated crops, crop wild relatives, and wild foods. This conservation is best realized in places where communities have the cultural resources to invest meaningfully in the cultivation of native crops, and where the cultivation of those crops can reinforce place-specific livelihoods and identities. To this end, the principal objective of this research is to propose a …

No. 18: Gender Inequality, Poverty And Urban Household Food Security In Cape Town, Mary Caesar, Liam Riley

Hungry Cities Partnership

This discussion paper aims to advance our understanding of the gendered nature of urban household food security and how it is shaped by the relationships between internal household gender dynamics and external social factors of gender- and race-based inequalities. The manifestation of the gender inequalityfood security nexus at the household level is most evident in the different food-related roles and responsibilities adopted by women and men. These differences typically centre on tasks such as growing, purchasing, and preparing food as well as household members who undertake none of these responsibilities. Other gender-based household food security determinants include the gender of …

No. 19: Food Insecurity And Alternative Food Networks In Cities Of The Global South, Gareth Haysom

Hungry Cities Partnership

Using the concept of Alternative Food Networks (AFNs), this discussion paper interrogates these networks and asks how they manifest in the context of food insecurity in cities of the global South. AFNs evident in Northern cities generally present a perspective of the food system that prioritises sustainability and a deep green and often local ethic, embodying aspirations of food system change. In Southern cities, food system engagement is less about engagement for change, but rather to enable food access. Traditional value chain parlance sees a value chain extending from producer to consumer. Drawing on research from food security studies carried …

No. 20: Cross-Platform Food Shopping And Household Food Access In Nanjing, China, Cameron Mccordic, Zhenzhong Si, Taiyang Zhong

Hungry Cities Partnership

Modern urban food systems have evolved into international, multi-scalar and complex networks. The historical evolution of the food system in Nanjing, China, exemplifies this complexity. Nanjing’s food system has undergone successive waves of modernization, bringing changes in consumer food sourcing behaviour along with it. Using household survey data, this investigation assesses the cross-platform food sourcing behaviour of households in Nanjing to untangle some of the complex relationships linking food retailers to consumers in the city. The findings indicate that the surveyed households largely prefer purchasing fresh food from wet markets over prepared food from fast food retailers, restaurants and online …

No. 21: Urban Informal Food Deserts In Windhoek, Namibia, Ndeyapo Nickanor, Lawrence Kazembe, Jonathan Crush

Hungry Cities Partnership

Informal settlements in rapidly-growing African cities are urban and peri-urban spaces with high rates of formal unemployment, poverty, poor health outcomes, limited service provision and chronic food insecurity. Traditional concepts of food deserts developed to describe North American and European cities do not accurately capture the realities of food inaccessibility in Africa’s urban informal food deserts. This paper focuses on a case study of informal settlements in the Namibian capital, Windhoek, to shed further light on the relationship between informality and food deserts in African cities. The data for the paper was collected in 2016 and involved a survey of …

Allergy Training Or Lack Thereof, Madelyn Freeman, Mary Kate Klenke

Human Nutrition and Hospitality Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

Food allergies affect many people in our society today, and the food service industry must keep up with the demand for allergen-free food from their customers. The objective of this research is to gain insight from the employee’s perspective of the importance of food allergies and what training method would help them learn best. Through this research we intend to learn how we can engage employees during training, increase training retention, and stress the importance to change their behaviors and utilize safe practices in regards to allergens. We compared both quick and full-service restaurants’ food-allergy training methods in this study …

No. 16: Cheap Industrial Food And The Urban Margins, Tony Weis, Marylynn Steckley, Bruce Frayne

Hungry Cities Partnership

From the middle of the 20th century onwards, the productivity gains associated with high-input, high-yield monocultures and livestock operations have become increasingly central to global food security and to dynamics of urbanization across the global south. On one hand, competition has deflated prices and helped undermine the viability of small farm livelihoods in many places. On the other hand, rising flows of cheap food have effectively subsidized urban migration in impoverished urban and peri-urban settings. But this cheapness is highly deceptive, as it hinges on the failure to account for an array of biological and physical costs – which can …

No. 17: Revisiting Africa's Supermarket Revolution, Jonathan Crush, Ndeyapo Nickanor, Lawrence N. Kazembe, Jeremy Wagner

Hungry Cities Partnership

Africa is urbanizing at an unprecedented rate and food systems are undergoing rapid transformation. This transformation is being driven in part by a global supermarket revolution. However, the idea of an inexorable supermarket revolution on the continent has recently been contested. This paper examines the role of supermarkets in Namibia’s capital city Windhoek to test the applicability of the model. The paper is based on (a) a review of the literature on South African supermarket expansion; (b) a survey of the food purchasing behaviour of a representative sample of 875 households in Windhoek; and (c) a comprehensive product inventory of …

No.03: Devising Urban Food Security Policy For African Cities, James Sgro

Hungry Cities Partnership

■ Informal food services are one of the few options for financially disadvantaged families. Food access policy needs to be created in partnership with informal economy actors to ensure that those who rely on informal systems are not ignored.

■ As household size increases, the likelihood of food insecurity grows exponentially. Adequate social protection programs are required to support household dependants including children and the aged and improve food security.

■ Secondary school completion is a specific milestone that significantly increases one’s food security outlook. Free primary and secondary school policies could return dividends in terms of nation-wide food security, …

No.01: The Sdgs, Food Security And Urbanization In The Global South, David Celis Parra, Krista Dinsmore, Nicole Fassina, Charlene Keizer

Hungry Cities Partnership

■ Urban food insecurity is distinct from that experienced in rural areas and must be addressed through a different set of policies.

■ While supermarkets are increasingly prevalent in urban centres of the Global South, the informal economy and state food distribution programs continue to play an important role in meeting food security needs of the urban poor.

■ The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, as part of a new in-ternational directive, recommends that governments aim to improve food security and nutrition over the next 15 years in response to the global challenge of fostering sustainability.

■ SDG …

No.02: An Urban Perspective On Food Security In The Global South, Michael Chong, Lucy Hinton, Jeremy Wagner, Amy Zavits

Hungry Cities Partnership

■ Food insecurity challenges in the Global South are changing as a result of rapid urbanization and the globalization of food supply chains.

■ Urban food insecurity is not distinct from rural food security challenges and policy seeking to address either should adopt a systems approach that strengthens their interdependence. There is an opportunity to increase the effectiveness of rural food security programming while concurrently addressing the growing food security needs of vulnerable urban populations.

■ This brief recommends that food security policy should prioritize intra-urban stages of informal food value chains and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their …

Justice Served Fresh: Associations Between Food Insecurity, Community Gardening, And Property Value, Micajah Daniels, Courtney Coughenour Ph.D

McNair Poster Presentations

Numerous stakeholders in Nevada have used a variety of efforts to combat the growth of food insecurity facing Nevadans. The purpose of this research project is to understand the association between food insecurity, community gardens, and property value. Following the wealth of scholarship on these topics and data collected from community garden agencies in Southern Nevada, the research questions for this project include: (1) Where are community gardens located in SNV? (2) What efforts community gardens agencies are doing to address food insecurity (most interested in their efforts using community gardens)? (3) What are the perceptions of supports and barriers …

The Politics Of Service: Affectivity, Social Relations, And The Power Of Tipping In The Restaurant Industry, Jacqueline A. Ross

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The #MeToo movement and the growing spotlight on sexual harassment and misconduct has increasingly brought industries and individuals into the public eye. The restaurant industry is one such industry to receive this spotlight. While most of the coverage has stemmed from celebrities, the misconduct of celebrity chefs has been paralleled by the stories of servers and their customers. The NY Times published several articles on harassment in the restaurant industry and some specifically focusing on the abuses that tipped workers face. Often these workers were women. When asked about experiences of harassment, responses were often that servers felt that they …

Raw, Roast Or Half-Baked? Hogarth’S Beef In Calais Gate, Piers Beirne Phd

Department of Criminology

Scholars of human–animal studies, literary criticism and art history have paid considerable attention of late to how the visual representation of nonhuman animals has often and sometimes to great effect been used in the imagining of national identity. It is from the scrutinies of these several disciplines that the broad backcloth of this article is woven. Its focus is the neglected coupling of patriotism and carnism, instantiated here by its deployment in William Hogarth’s painting Calais Gate (1749). A pro-animal reading is offered of the English artist’s exhortation that it is in the nature of ‘true-born Britons’ to consume a …

The Social Construction Of Understanding & Neoliberal Multiculturalism: Analysis And Critique Of The Peruvian Moratorium Gmos, T. W. Dondanville

Student Research – Stevenson Center

No abstract provided.

A Land Not Forgotten: Indigenous Food Security & Land-Based Practices In Northern Ontario By Michael A. Robidoux And Courtney W. Mason, Tonia L. Payne Ph.D.

The Goose

Review of Michael A. Robidoux and Courtney W. Mason's (eds.) A Land Not Forgotten: Indigenous Food Security & Land-Based Practices in Northern Ontario.

Hunger In A Food Lover's Paradise: Understanding Food Insecurity In Singapore, Emma Glendinning, Siew Ying Shee, Tania Nagpaul, Jinwen Chen

Lien Centre for Social Innovation: Research

This report provides a deeper understanding of the food insecurity situation in Singapore. Food insecurity refers to the lack of physical and/or economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food. The report sheds light on those experiencing food insecurity and the factors affecting this experience. In addition, it identifies gaps in food support provision and makes recommendations on how these gaps might be filled for a smoother and targeted food support distribution system.

Fair Trade, Daniel Jaffee

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Chapter 16.

This lesson begins by discussing the dynamics behind the structural inequity in the global trade in agrifood products. We then take a brief look at fair trade’s history, the basic mechanisms of the fair trade model for food products, and the current state of fair trade. Two case studies of fair trade in action will give a taste of the social benefits that participating in this alternative market can generate for producers, but also the limits to fair trade’s impact and the contradictions that can arise. We will also examine some key controversies that have caused major divisions …

Remembering Forgotten Foods: A Collaborative Project, Azher Jaweed, Sophia Alhadeff, Claire Roberts, Avery Perkins

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Our final project aimed to validate indigenous knowledge and empower younger generations about their rich, organic farming practices while also debunking the stereotypes of American food culture. Additionally, we aimed to reverse the sense of inferiority about agricultural practices in Sikkim amongst young people. The first component will consist of a cooking activity focused around forgotten foods. The second part of the project compares the preparation process of two dishes– one made in Sikkim and the other from the United States. The first poster compares a traditional Himalayan dish with a typical American dish. The second compares the sourcing of …

Combating Food Waste: Dumpster Diving As A Form Of Consumer Resistance, Brock J. Vaughan

Bridges: An Undergraduate Journal of Contemporary Connections

This paper explores North America’s food waste issue associated with our current industrial globalized food system. Through a sociocultural lens, this essay examines the new social movement of dumpster diving among food waste activists and ‘freegans’ in urban areas. Millions of people are currently unaware as to where their next meal will come from, yet Western households and supermarkets waste massive amounts of edible food. Dumpster divers do not just encourage us to be mindful of the choices we make with respect to food waste; they seek to challenge pre-existing capitalist structures and conventional ways of thinking. Analyzing the counterculture …

Barriers To Local Food Producers In Arkansas, Courtney Cooper, Zola Moon

Horticulture Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this study is to identify and describe the barriers that prevent local food producers from selling their food in a mainstream market. This study utilized both qualitative and quantitative analysis through a mixed-methods survey. Information collected through the study had a two-fold focus: barriers that producers face (or that they are providing assistance for) and what are consumers looking for in products that these producers are supplying. The major barriers found for local food producers in Arkansas were lack of capital and obtaining infrastructure for packaging, processing, and storing products. Qualitative analysis of textual interviews was done …

Determining The Physical And Social Barriers That Prevent Food-Insecure Students At The University Of Arkansas From Using The Jane B. Gearhart Full Circle Campus Food Pantry, Sarah Elizabeth Yanniello

Human Nutrition and Hospitality Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this descriptive study was to determine the reasons why 38% of the students at the University of Arkansas experience food insecurity, yet only 1% of students have used the Jane B. Gearhart Full Circle Campus Food Pantry, in hopes to provide a guide to the Center for Community Engagement in their endeavors to reduce food insecurity on campus (Lisnic, 2016). An online survey was created using Qualtrics software, was submitted to and approved by the University of Arkansas Institutional Review Board, and was distributed to undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Arkansas. The sample size …

Merging Subsistence Perspective And Buen Vivir: An Alternative To Damming The Mekong, Aaron B. Eisenberg

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper will examine the planned development on the Mekong by looking at the historical, political, and economic reasons why largescale hydroelectric dams are now being pushed upon the river. It will then critique the international state sovereignty system focusing directly on the Mekong River Commission and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) for their inabilities to mitigate environmental impact while pursuing development. I analyze how the “global city” discourse cannot rationally be applied to Southeast Asia and how the urban-rural divide in Southeast Asia creates only greater problems as dam production on the Mekong accelerates. I propose an alternative …