New Books

2018 Global Food Policy Report

Author: International Food Policy Research Institute
Publisher: International Food Policy Research Institute
Publication Date: March 20, 2018

IFPRI's flagship report reviews the major food policy issues, developments, and decisions of 2017, and highlights challenges and opportunities for 2018 at the global and regional levels. This year's report looks at the impacts of greater global integration—including the movement of goods, investment, people, and knowledge—and the threat of current antiglobalization pressures. Drawing on recent research, IFPRI researchers and other distinguished food policy experts consider a range of timely topics: How can the global food system deliver food security for all in the face of the radical changes taking place today? What is the role of trade in improving food security, nutrition, and sustainability? How can international investment best contribute to local food security and better food systems in developing countries? Do voluntary and involuntary migration increase or decrease food security in source countries and host countries? What opportunities does greater data availability open up for improving agriculture and food security? How does reform of developed-country farm support policies affect global food security? How can global governance structures better address problems of food security and nutrition? What major trends and events affected food security and nutrition across the globe in 2017? The 2018 Global Food Policy Report also presents data tables and visualizations for several key food policy indicators, including country-level data on hunger, agricultural spending and research investment, and projections for future agricultural production and consumption. In addition to illustrative figures, tables, and a timeline of food policy events in 2017, the report includes the results of a global opinion poll on globalization and the current state of food policy.

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Food Sovereignty: Convergence and Contradictions, Condition and Challenges (ThirdWorlds)

Author: Eric Holt-Gimenez,‎Alberto Alonso-Fradejas, Todd Holmes, Martha Jane Robbins
Publisher: Routledge
Publication Date: January 2, 2018

A fundamentally contested concept, food sovereignty (FS) has – as a political project and campaign, an alternative, a social movement and an analytical framework – barged into global discourses, both political and academic, over the past two decades. This collection identifies a number of key questions regarding FS. What does (re)localisation mean? How does the notion of FS connect with similar and/or overlapping ideas historically? How does it address questions of both market and non-market forces in a dominantly capitalist world? How does FS deal with such differentiating social contradictions? How does the movement deal with larger issues of nation-state, where a largely urbanised world of non-food producing consumers harbours interests distinct from those of farmers? How does FS address the current trends of crop booms, as well as other alternatives that do not sit comfortably within the basic tenets of FS, such as corporate-captured fair trade? How does FS grapple with the land question and move beyond the narrow ‘rural/agricultural’ framework? Such questions call for a new era of research into FS, a movement and theme that in recent years has inspired and mobilised tens of thousands of activists and academics around the world: young and old, men and women, rural and urban. This book was originally published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

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Climate Change, Assets and Food Security in Southern African Cities

Author: Bruce Frayne,‎Caroline Moser, Gina Ziervogel
Publisher: Routledge
Publication Date: December 23, 2017

There is overwhelming evidence that the climate is changing. It is the poorest countries and people who are the most vulnerable to this threat and who will suffer the most. This book shows how increasing urbanization and growing poverty levels mean that it is imperative to ask how climate change might impact on asset accumulation and food security for the urban poor. It demonstrates how these three, often separate foci, can be brought together to frame a holistic urban adaptation approach. Furthermore, although much has been written about climate change, limited evidence exists in southern Africa of how climate change has been integrated in urban planning.

The authors explore the urban climate change nexus linking asset adaptation, climate change science and food security through several case study cities. These include Cape Town, George and Khara Hais (South Africa), Lusaka (Zambia), Maputo (Mozambique), Mombasa (Kenya) and Harare (Zimbabwe). The results shed light on how this nexus might be explored from different perspectives, both theoretical and practical, in order to plan for a more resilient future.

Climate Change, Assets and Food Security in Southern African Cities comprises ten chapters which focus on southern African cities, with each chapter written by highly experienced academics, research-focused practitioners and professional planners. Although the book concentrates on southern African cities, the insights which are presented can be used to understand other urban centres in low and middle-income countries outside of this region and around the world.

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