Food Politics & Sociology eJournal最新文献

{"title":"All (Food) Politics is Local: Increasing Food Access Through Local Government Action","authors":"Emily Broad Leib","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2339261","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2339261","url":null,"abstract":"Our national and international food system has implications for a wide range of issues that are important across the political spectrum and include improving health outcomes, reducing environmental impacts, increasing social justice, fostering economic development, and even improving homeland security. This article focuses on healthy-food access, one of the most urgent food policy issues because of its social and economic effects, as well as its public health impacts. In 2010, thirty-six percent of Americans were obese and another thirty-three percent were overweight, while eight percent of Americans were diabetic and thirty-five percent suffered from pre-diabetes. Though food access is not perfectly correlated with public health outcomes, those with limited access to healthy foods often suffer most acutely, as people living in areas with access to a supermarket exhibit a twenty-four percent lower prevalence of obesity than those living in areas without supermarkets. Increased food access has been linked to results as diverse as improved educational outcomes and crime reduction. Local governments have been particularly attentive to food policy concerns. Thirteen cities in North America now have a paid local food policy director or coordinator, and more than 130 cities and counties in the United States and Canada have local food policy councils, comprised of diverse stakeholders interested in improving the way food is produced and consumed. Municipalities have enacted a range of food policy reforms, such as increasing governmental procurement of local or healthy foods, improving access to food in schools,15 and incentivizing consumers to purchase healthy foods. Many recent local actions focus explicitly on increasing healthy-food access, including amending zoning codes to increase urban agriculture, creating new mobile vending outlets, and enhancing transportation routes to healthy-food retailers. In January 2012, the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) convened its first ever Food Policy Taskforce, which immediately identified increasing access to healthy foods as one of its primary areas of concern. Local governments are also beginning to acknowledge that each locality faces its own food-system challenges with differing policy solutions, meaning that local responses to local issues can be more successful than federal or state approaches. This article aims to encourage those localities not yet active in food policy to join the field. The discussion focuses on methods of fostering access to healthy foods, such as fruits, vegetables, and other unprocessed, fresh products. Local governments are particularly well suited to increase food access because they have the unique ability to identify areas of need and then work with local constituents to craft targeted responses. Part II explains the concept of \"food deserts,\" or areas that lack healthy-food access, and provides historical context about their development. As described in Part II.A, the federal g","PeriodicalId":314250,"journal":{"name":"Food Politics & Sociology eJournal","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114738880","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Impact of Food Price Shocks in Uganda: First-Order Versus Long-Run Effects","authors":"Bjorn Van Campenhout, K. Pauw, N. Minot","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2343152","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2343152","url":null,"abstract":"We look at the immediate effects of these shocks faced by households in Uganda on their poverty and well-being. In addition, we look at the economywide impact in the long run when all markets have settled at a new equilibrium. We find that in the short run, poverty has increased substantially. However, in the longer run, we find welfare levels of rural farm households in particular to rise sharply, primarily as a result of increased returns to farm labor and agricultural land coupled with improved market prices for output sold.","PeriodicalId":314250,"journal":{"name":"Food Politics & Sociology eJournal","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115484351","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A General Equilibrium Model for Analyzing African Rural Subsistence Economies and an African Green Revolution","authors":"J. McArthur, J. Sachs","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2450842","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2450842","url":null,"abstract":"How can foreign aid support economic growth in Africa? This paper presents a geographically indexed general equilibrium model that enables green revolution-focused macroeconomic analysis in low-income African settings. The model is flexible to parameterization and highlights the role of farmers’ constraints to self-financing of inputs alongside minimum subsistence consumption requirements. It includes particular attention to the challenge of soil productivity and to the effects of official development assistance (ODA) for agricultural inputs and road building. Uganda is used as an illustrative case. The economy’s labor force is predominantly still located in rural areas and remains overwhelmingly focused on staple food production. Under plausible economy-wide parameters, a foreign-financed green revolution package shows a clear anti-Dutch disease result, in which the temporary boost in targeted ODA yields permanent productivity and welfare effects at relatively low cost.","PeriodicalId":314250,"journal":{"name":"Food Politics & Sociology eJournal","volume":"96 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129076118","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Abandoning Coffee under the Threat of Violence and the Presence of Illicit Crops: Evidence from Colombia","authors":"A. Ibáñez, J. Muñoz-Mora, Philip Verwimp","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2286748","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2286748","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores the importance of the risk of violence on the decision making of rural households, using a unique panel data set for Colombian coffee-growers. We identify two channels. First, we examine the direct impact of conflict on agricultural production through the change in the percentage of the farm allocated to coffee. Second, we explore how conflict generates incentives to substitute from legal agricultural production to illegal crops. Following Dercon and Christiaensen (2011), we develop a dynamic consumption model where economic risk and the risk of violence are explicitly included. Theoretical results are tested using a parametric and semi-parametric approach. We find a significant negative effect of the risk of violence and the presence of illegal crops on the decision to continue coffee production and on the percentage of the farm allocated to coffee. Results are robust after controlling for endogeneity bias and after relaxing the normality assumption.","PeriodicalId":314250,"journal":{"name":"Food Politics & Sociology eJournal","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114662073","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Innovation and IPRs for Agricultural Crop Varieties as Intermediate Goods","authors":"Derek J. F. Eaton","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2270990","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2270990","url":null,"abstract":"The tradeoffs involved in the extent of appropriability conferred by intellectual property right (IPR) protection to innovators remains an area with many unanswered questions. This paper considers the case of IPRs for product innovations where the product is an intermediate good used to produce a final consumer good. Producers of the final good purchase an innovation from a monopolist, represented in a vertical product differentiation framework. The innovation is subject to an IPR for which the extent of appropriability is determined by a policy maker. The analysis reveals some novel aspects of the traditional innovation versus diffusion tradeoff. More productive producers of the final good benefit from stricter appropriability and the resulting higher level of innovation. Less productive producers, and also consumers, are better off with a moderate level of appropriability. The paper is motivated by the agricultural sector in which an innovator uses genetic resources to produce new crop varieties to be marketed to a farm sector that displays heterogeneity in its ability to profit from the innovation. The scope of the exclusive rights granted over plant varieties has increased in various countries over the past four decades, partly as a result of the TRIPS Agreement, and has been the subject of much policy debate at international, as well as national, levels, partly given potential implications for food security. For these reasons, the model is extended to a two country setting consisting of North and South, which highlights both the interest of the South in maintaining lower levels of appropriability, but also the pressure from farmers in the North for the South to raise its standards. This would not necessarily benefit global consumers.","PeriodicalId":314250,"journal":{"name":"Food Politics & Sociology eJournal","volume":"67 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122172212","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Blue Water and the Consequences of Alternative Food Security Policies in the Middle East and North Africa for Water Security","authors":"D. Larson","doi":"10.1596/1813-9450-6464","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-6464","url":null,"abstract":"In the Middle East and North Africa, food security and water security are tightly entwined. In particular, choices about the extent to which food security policies rely on trade rather than domestically produced staples have stark consequences for the region's limited water resources. This paper builds on previous modeling results comparing the cost and benefits of policies to protect consumers against surging international wheat prices, and expands the analysis to consider the consequences of the policies for water resources. A self-sufficiency policy is analyzed as well. Results suggest that trade-based food security policies have no significant effect on the sustainability of water resources, while the costs of policies based on self-sufficiency for water resources are high. The analysis also shows that while information about the water footprint of alternative production systems is helpful, a corresponding economic footprint that fully measures the resource cost of water is needed to concisely rank alternative policies in economic terms that are consistent with sustainable outcomes.","PeriodicalId":314250,"journal":{"name":"Food Politics & Sociology eJournal","volume":"265 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121726195","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Measuring Food Policy Research Capacity: Indicators and Typologies","authors":"S. Babu, P. Dorosh","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2251266","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2251266","url":null,"abstract":"We surveyed 30 countries to measure the capacity of their individuals, organizations, and policy process system to undertake food and agricultural policy research. Our Food Policy Research Capacity Index, constructed using measures of human capacity (PhD full-time equivalent researchers per million rural residents), human capacity productivity (publications per PhD full-time equivalent researcher), and strength of institutions (the government effectiveness pillar of the Worldwide Governance Indicators), showed substantial variation across countries, with the Republic of South Africa, Colombia, and Ghana scored far higher than countries with similarly sized rural populations such as Liberia, Laos, Burundi, and Afghanistan.","PeriodicalId":314250,"journal":{"name":"Food Politics & Sociology eJournal","volume":"114 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124065771","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and Its Implications over Food Security and Farmer Sovereignty","authors":"A. Anbarassan, V. Karthick, B. Swaminathan, T. Arivelarasan","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2239451","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2239451","url":null,"abstract":"Better is the technology; better is the livelihood of farmers’ community. The correlation between technology and rural development is highly positive. An agrarian technology apart from ensuring better production should also lead to better remuneration. SRI is one such technology that not only augments rice production but also reduces cost of cultivation. In this context, the present study has been undertaken to understand the impact of SRI over resource use efficiency and technical efficiency of rice cultivation. Upper velar basin in Salem district of Tamil Nadu was chosen for study as in this area SRI method of rice cultivation is practiced in great extent. The factors influencing the adoption of SRI are also determined. The cost involved in the adoption of SRI is also studied through partial budgeting analysis to show how far SRI is better than conventional rice cultivation practices. It was found that 98 % of SRI farmers are technically efficient against 54 % of the traditional farmers. The study revealed that per hectare cost of cultivation is around five per cent lower in SRI than the conventional method. Moreover adoption of SRI has led to 84 per cent increase in net income than conventional method. Net gain from adopting SRI technology was Rs.17045. It was also found out that SRI ensures farmers’ sovereignty by low quantum of water usage, improvement in soil health, decreased in cost of production and low seed requirement.","PeriodicalId":314250,"journal":{"name":"Food Politics & Sociology eJournal","volume":"47 4","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114105494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Biofuels, Binding Constraints and Agricultural Commodity Price Volatility","authors":"P. Abbott","doi":"10.3386/W18873","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/W18873","url":null,"abstract":"The share of U.S. corn production used to produce ethanol increased from 12.4% in the 2004/05 crop year to over 38.5% in the 2010/11 crop year, and remained at that high level in 2011/12. Even after accounting for return of by-products to the feed market, this is a large and persistent new demand for corn that surely has changed price dynamics. Nevertheless, the role of biofuels in determining recent high corn and other agricultural commodity prices, as well as their volatility, remains controversial. Policy measures to encourage biofuels production, including the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) mandates, subsidies to ethanol blenders, regulations on gasoline chemistry and import tariffs, helped to create this new, persistent demand for corn and contributed to incentives to create the capacity to produce ethanol and to use corn for fuel rather than food. Various aspects of implementing that policy and the economics of ethanol plant operation suggest very inelastic industrial demand for corn, contributing to both higher prices and greater price volatility. But turbulence in recent economic events have caused the mechanisms through which biofuels demands influence corn and other agricultural commodity prices to vary over time in ways that are observable in data. Price volatility and \"subsidy incidence\" also depend on which regime is in place. Simple theory along with data on supply, use and pricing are used to identify when each regime matters as policy influenced constraints bound to varying degrees. Capacity constraints appear to have dominated in the short run, allowing rents to absorb differences in variations of corn prices versus energy prices. Apparent price volatility seems due to mechanism switching and to changing trends more so than to random short run shocks under inelastic demand.","PeriodicalId":314250,"journal":{"name":"Food Politics & Sociology eJournal","volume":"50 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124629201","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Bias in Food Stamps Participation Estimates in the Presence of Misreporting Error","authors":"Cathleen Li","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2240896","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2240896","url":null,"abstract":"This paper focuses on how survey misreporting of food stamp receipt can bias demographic estimation of program participation. Food stamps is a federally funded program which subsidizes the nutrition of low-income households. In order to improve the reach of this program, studies on how program participation varies by demographic groups have been conducted using census data. Census data are subject to a lot of misreporting error, both underreporting and over-reporting, which can bias the estimates. The impact of misreporting error on estimate bias is examined by calculating food stamp participation rates, misreporting rates, and bias for select household characteristics (covariates).","PeriodicalId":314250,"journal":{"name":"Food Politics & Sociology eJournal","volume":"2015 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114775941","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}