There is an ongoing debate about how best to feed the growing world population in the long run and associated implications for research and development. Some call for a new Green Revolution to secure ...the supply of staple foods, whereas others emphasize the importance of diversifying and improving people's diets. We aim to contribute to this debate by reviewing the case of wheat and maize value chains and their contribution to food security in Africa and Asia. We first identify drivers transforming food systems. We then apply these to the cereal value chains and disentangle their effects on food security. We thereby add to the three strands in the literature around production, consumption, and food system transformation and point to different research needs and recommendations for the future. The review highlights: (1) Wheat and maize production will be increasingly impaired by ecological drivers such as land degradation, water scarcity and climate change. (2) There are promising innovations to increase and maintain productivity, but constraints in adopting these innovations have to be overcome (i.e., access to seeds, finance, and education/training). (3) The drivers affect all four dimensions of food security, but first and foremost they determine the availability and stability of maize and wheat. This indirectly also influences the economic and physical access of people to maize and wheat. (4) Research tends to focus on improving the productivity and sustainability of wheat and maize farming which is largely interlinked with the availability dimension of food security. (5) The stability and utilization dimension of food security merits continued yet increased support. First, to address climate change and implications for biotic and abiotic stresses. Second, to promote healthier diets and enable the equitable transformation of food systems.
Ensuring global food security for a growing population remains a major challenge. This is especially true against the background of increasing food prices paired with growing income levels and ...changing demand patterns in the developing world. At the same time, climate change and the occurrence of more frequent and extreme natural disasters increase the vulnerability of rural farm households, negatively affecting agricultural production. Given the many dimensions of food security, no simple solution can be found. Promoting productivity of farming and increasing the efficiency of the food marketing system are effective measures contributing to rural development in developing countries. Policy reforms in agriculture and beyond help to reduce distortions and change consumers’ awareness with respect to food waste and resource use inefficiencies related to human diets. What is new in this context is the increasing link of agriculture with other sectors such as the energy and the financial markets. This calls for further research as additional pressure is being put on the global food system.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OBVAL, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
This paper investigates the interaction of migration, vulnerability to poverty, and welfare of rural households in three provinces in Central Vietnam. It addresses three questions. (1) To what extent ...do shocks motivate rural household members to move to urban areas?, (2) Are migrants in the new urban settings better off in terms of working conditions and quality of life?, and (3) What is the effect of migration on rural household’s welfare and vulnerability to poverty? The analysis uses panel data of 2200 households from rural Vietnam covering the period 2007–2010, and a tracking survey of 299 migrants from 2010. The empirical evidence from a probit model shows that migration, especially migration for employment, is a livelihood support strategy for households exposed to agricultural and economic shocks. Migration for education is more likely observed among households with higher human capital and being financially better off. Nevertheless, the probability of migration decreases with the employment opportunity in the village. Migrants perceive themselves to be better off at the place of destination, but income losses from shocks of their rural households may reduce their employment quality. The results from difference-in-difference specifications with propensity score matching techniques suggest that migration has positive income growth effects, and that these effects are more pronounced in provinces with fewer job opportunities. These effects help not only migrant households moving out of poverty, but it also improves the poverty situation in rural areas.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Necessity entrepreneurship (NE) describes the process of venturing a business out of need when alternative options are seemingly absent. Whereas prior research typically understands NE to be a ...homogenous construct, recent theorizing suggests the possibility of NE heterogeneity. In this paper we employ Sen’s capability approach to elicit NE variety. Using data gathered from 820 households in rural Tanzania, our cluster analysis generates four distinct types of NE that vary significantly regarding their entrepreneurial activities, determinants and outcomes. Our findings demonstrate the relevance of life satisfaction and reveal the role of choice in NE. Our study thereby advances a nuanced perspective of NE.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
•Factors affecting farmers’ land use decision-making are examined.•Econometric models are applied to panel data collected in 2007 and 2013.•Crop diversification is a weather shock-coping strategy of ...households.•Land reconsolidation and privatization reduce farmers’ vulnerability.
Understanding farmers’ land use decision-making is of interest to policy makers and scientific communities. Furthermore, comparing farmers’ land use decision-making between countries offers a functioning instrument to enhance this understanding, since one country can benefit from the experiences of another. This study extends the sustainable livelihoods framework to examine and compare the factors affecting farmers’ land use decision-making regarding land use choices and crop diversification. A panel dataset of 514 farm households in Ha Tinh (Vietnam) and 422 farm households in Ubon Ratchathani (Thailand) collected in 2007 and 2013 is used for the analyses. The results reveal that (i) farmers’ land use decision-making is determined by various factors representing the livelihood platforms, weather shock experience and expectation, and physical-economic conditions of the living localities, and (ii) crop diversification is a weather shock-coping strategy of rural households. We suggest that (i) promoting farm land reconsolidation and privatization, (ii) enhancing access to credit sources and national electricity networks, and (iii) improving rural road conditions and attracting investments in rural non-agricultural sectors contribute to reducing farmers’ vulnerability to climate variability.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
Zusammenfassung
Am 27.01.2020 wurde in Deutschland der erste Fall mit einer SARS-CoV-2-Infektion diagnostiziert. Für die Beschreibung des Pandemieverlaufs im Jahr 2020 wurden 4 epidemiologisch ...verschiedene Phasen betrachtet und Daten aus dem Meldesystem gemäß Infektionsschutzgesetz (IfSG) sowie hospitalisierte COVID-19-Fälle mit schwerer akuter respiratorischer Infektion aus der Krankenhaus-Surveillance eingeschlossen.
Phase 0
umfasst den Zeitraum von Kalenderwoche (KW) 5/2020 bis 9/2020, in dem vor allem sporadische Fälle <60 Jahre und regional begrenzte Ausbrüche beobachtet wurden. Insgesamt wurden 167 Fälle übermittelt, die vorwiegend mild verliefen. Dem schloss sich in
Phase 1
(KW 10/2020 bis 20/2020) die erste COVID-19-Welle mit 175.013 Fällen im gesamten Bundesgebiet an. Hier wurden vermehrt Ausbrüche in Krankenhäusern, Alten- und Pflegeheimen sowie ein zunehmender Anteil an älteren und schwer erkrankten Personen verzeichnet. In
Phase 2
, dem „Sommerplateau“ mit eher milden Verläufen (KW 21/2020 bis 39/2020), wurden viele reiseassoziierte COVID-19-Fälle im Alter von 15–59 Jahren und einzelne größere, überregionale Ausbrüche in Betrieben beobachtet. Unter den 111.790 Fällen wurden schwere Verläufe seltener beobachtet als in
Phase 1
.
Phase 3
(KW 40/2020 bis 8/2021) war gekennzeichnet durch die zweite COVID-19-Welle in Deutschland, die sich zum Jahresende 2020 auf dem Höhepunkt befand. Mit 2.158.013 übermittelten COVID-19-Fällen und insgesamt deutlich mehr schweren Fällen in allen Altersgruppen verlief die zweite Welle schwerer als die erste Welle. Unabhängig von den 4 Phasen waren v. a. Ältere und auch Männer stärker von einem schweren Krankheitsverlauf betroffen.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Aquaculture is widely recognised as a way to reduce malnutrition and poverty. So far, research has mainly focused on Asia, and the few studies available from sub-Saharan Africa are predominantly ...ex-post partial analyses. By constructing a village computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, we aim to investigate whether aquaculture improves local livelihoods and simultaneously has the potential to counteract local overfishing. We apply this to a rural case study region in Namibia where malnutrition, poverty and fish resource overexploitation are current problems. Our village CGE model shows that aquaculture would be a viable livelihood activity improving household incomes and utility through labour reallocations. Furthermore, aquaculture can counteract malnutrition through increased fish consumption. Higher opportunity costs lead to households leaving the fisheries and switching to aquaculture. These substitution effects offer the possibility of reducing the pressure on local freshwater fish stocks. Policy makers can use the results to introduce aquaculture interventions in rural areas. Our findings indicate that such interventions should take particular account of the poorest households, which are most dependent on fisheries. The derived opportunity costs provide information about payments that are necessary to make policy interventions acceptable for different household groups.
Credit is commonly considered an important instrument to relieve financial capital constraints of poor households and subsequently to improve their welfare. However, the empirical impact of credit on ...consumption inequality remains ambiguous. We use a 2-year panel dataset collected in Daklak, a province in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, to investigate the differences in access to credit and its impact on household consumption and consumption inequality between ethnic groups. Our results show that the differences in access to credit and in its impacts on household consumption between the ethnic majority and the migrant ethnic minority groups are insignificant. However, households from the indigenous ethnic minority group face more disadvantages in accessing formal credit and rely more on informal credit than those from the ethnic majority. They also face a higher collateral ratio and the amount of formal loans they could access is lower. The impact of formal credit on consumption of the majority is also higher than that of the indigenous minority, consequently causing a significant increase in consumption inequality between the ethnic groups. Our findings call for assistance programs to support indigenous households to improve their access to formal credit as well as to enhance the effectiveness of these loans.
We examine the factors affecting livestock production by using a two-part fixed effects model and assess the contribution of livestock production in reducing income inequality by using the Gini ...decomposition method. We use panel household data from four rural surveys in three provinces of Vietnam. Our results show that (1) livestock production can bring either positive or negative income; (2) positive livestock income contributes about 11% to annual household income, but this figure is only 7% if negative livestock income is included; (3) positive livestock income reduces rural income inequality by about 3.3%, but this figure becomes 1.2% if negative livestock income is included. We suggest that enhancing access to credits, promoting rural education and road conditions, and empowering rural households to better cope with demographic shocks reduce negative livestock income and consequently improve income equality. In addition, priorities should be given to the development of large livestock.
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