Article

This article aims to investigate how widespread the mixed-strategy of fishing and farming is across food-insecure regions of the world. Understanding the degree to which farmers also consume fish, and how fishers also grow crops, would help to inform more resilient food security interventions. »

This article showcases apps that aim to limit food wastage, both food losses and waste. Most of the apps aim to decrease food waste, however one app, the Cheetah App developed by the researchers from the University of Twente focuses on reducing food losses. The Cheetah app, which is currently being trialed by around 80 users in Ghana, shows farmers, food transporters and traders the fastest route to market, and even shows how to avoid ad hoc roadblocks set up to take bribes from drivers. »

This info note assessment the available measures to mitigate climate change through shifting food consumption and reveals some opportunities, particularly through linking with public health and other policy areas. Reducing emissions by changing consumption of foods with large greenhouse gas emissions could have a major impact on climate change. Yet, past efforts to change diets through public policy have had mixed results, suggesting that recent estimates of technical mitigation potential likely exceed feasible reductions in emissions. »

This article by Mckinsey shows in what way the advanced analytics of big data opens vast untapped potential for farmers, investors, and emerging economies to reduce the cost of goods sold. By taking advantage of big data and advanced analytics at every link in the value chain from field to fork, food companies can harness digital’s enormous potential for sustainable value creation. »

This book by UNU-WIDER comprehensively evaluates trends in living conditions in 16 major sub-Saharan African countries, corresponding to nearly 75% of the total population. An important message from ten of the countries they looked at is that there are potentially high returns to policies that take agriculture seriously. Countries that place a particular emphasis on upgrading the capabilities of small-scale farmers are more likely to achieve broad-based development objectives. »

In this article, country comparisons reveal that dietary diversity is higher in situations with more commercialized agriculture than in subsistence-oriented settings. This suggests that specialization and low on-farm production diversity are not necessarily associated with lower dietary diversity, when diverse types of foods can be purchased from the market. The results show that production diversity has a positive but marginal effect on dietary diversity. »