Academic article

This article elaborates on how including behavioral economics can influence consumer choices. While the article is focused on the developed world, the authors argue that the lessons learned might be directly applicable to developing countries. Traditional approaches have treated food consumers as if they were making deliberate and calculated food decisions, leading to policies that provide more detailed health information, pricing incentives and direct prohibitions. However, this is often not the case. »

This article explores how economic growth, income distribution, and trade have influenced patterns of food demand and food security since 1990. It focuses on two of the most rapidly expanding segments of the world food economy: tropical oil crops and aquaculture. Aquaculture, palm oil and soy production have risen by 5–7% annually since 1990. The global economy has also experienced remarkable growth during the past twenty-five years. The related rising incomes have fueled demand for animal protein and processed foods. »

This article explores the myths and realities surrounding the relationship between environmental sustainability, food security, and nutrition. According to the authors, policymakers and researchers alike often make inaccurate assumptions about technological innovations, gender, biofuels, and smallholder farming. Such sustainable food security and nutrition “myths” pose a significant challenge to the effective design and promotion of more environmentally-friendly agricultural and food systems. »

This article, published in the Global Food Security journal, examines the impacts of the United Nations World Food Programme’s (WFP’s) Purchase for Progress (P4P) program on smallholder farmers in Tanzania. P4P is a multi-year, multi-country pilot that sought to improve smallholder farmer wellbeing through a combination of food purchases from farmer organizations and supply-side interventions. »

This article, published in the Global Food Security journal, argues that if small-scale farms continue to dominate in the face of the increasing wage rate in Asia, many countries in this region will lose their comparative advantage in agriculture. If machinery and land are complementary and machines are indivisible to some extent, large-scale mechanized farms become more efficient, which tends to weaken the inverse farm size-productivity relationship. »

This article in the Agronomy for Sustainable Development Journal reviews farming tactics to reduce the carbon footprint of crop cultivation in semiarid areas. The authors present seven key farming tactics that are proven to be effective in increasing grain production while lowering carbon footprint »