This paper examines the impact of a government food subsidy program in different communities on Baffin Island, Nunavut, in order to understand their inefficiencies. It also reviews the concerns that are being expressed by community members via Facebook, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN), and the blog website FeedingNunavut.com. The content and thematic analyses applied to this project derive information from established data sources, examined through the theoretical lens of political economy. These issues are framed by historical colonial influences of early European trading dynamics, and demonstrate the ongoing paternal influences of the Federal Government. The thesis argues that, in part because Inuit opinions were disregarded in the implementation of Federal subsidy programs, household food insecurity rates in Northern Canada remain at nearly 70%. With governmental restrictions put on hunting and fishing, Inuit are limited in the maintenance of traditional practices and are turning to store-bought food for sustenance. However, food prices are high and food quality is sometimes low. This study of Inuit food security within Baffin thus contributes to an understanding of power and inequalities in the North.

The world’s 7 billion inhabitants depend on chemical fertilizers to meet the growing demand for food. The phosphorus used in fertilizer is sourced from ancient sedimentary deposits of Phosphate Rock (PR), largely in the form of carbonate calcium phosphate, called carbonate apatite, which resembles bone. PR is non-renewable and Canada’s reserves are extremely limited; currently, all 1,400,000 tonnes of phosphorus products used annually are imported. This project investigates a novel method to recycle phosphorus from municipal wastewater in a form that will enable its reuse as a fertilizer, through a reaction with CaCO3 from limestone and waste CO2 (g). This will contribute to the nascent circular nutrient economy within Canada. A review of the current state of phosphorus and nutrient recycling is presented, including a plan for establishing the Canadian Nutrient Platform. A series of inorganic phosphate (PO4-, or Pi) solutions was prepared to simulate the concentrations found in Ottawa’s municipal wastewater, between 2.5-30 mM Pi. These solutions were mixed with CaCO3 solutions that were highly supersaturated through a carbon capture technique. Batch tests successfully reduced the [Pi] and [Ca2+], as measured by colorimetry, and precipitate formed. These results were subsequently repeated in a continuous stirred lab-scale reactor. These precipitation products were characterized using Scanning Electron Microscopy, Raman Spectroscopy, X-Ray Diffraction, and carbon coulometry to measure carbonate content. This analysis confirmed the presence of both Pi and CO3 in a bone-like, carbonate apatite. Although other technologies are being explored to recycle phosphorus from wastewater streams, this is the first indication that it may be possible to precipitate a carbonate apatite by mixing two waste streams, municipal waste water and CO2 (g), with cost-effective CaCO3.

The objective of this dissertation is to document the lived experience of mothering in poverty and the unique challenges the role of mother presents to maintaining food security. Millions of households in the United States are struggling to put food on the table, a problem made worse by the current economic recession and high food prices. Among them, households with children and specifically, single mothers, report the highest prevalence of food insecurity. While Federal food assistance programs are available to help alleviate this issue, the continued problem of hunger is a very real and pervasive concern for millions of American families. While there is a robust and comprehensive scholarly body of work focused on food security and nutrition, this study fills an important gap in the literature. By describing the unique social and cultural circumstances that accompany the transition to motherhood in a low-income setting, I connect the lived experienced of mothering with vulnerability to food insecurity. This is framed within the underlying assumption that the related experiences of expectant mothering and caring for an infant impart different risk factors for food insecurity. This study used a mixed methods approach to examine its objectives. These include semi-structured ethnographic interviews, participant observation, surveys and questionnaires and foodscape analysis. The mixed method design allowed for a holistic examination of the lived experience of mothers through narrative analysis, the visual representation of their foodscape through community mapping, and the triangulation of findings through administered surveys and questionnaires. The primary findings of this dissertation include identification of social, cultural and geographic patterns of maternal isolation among low-income women and their impact on food security. Results of this study indicate that the unique demands of mothering in a low-income setting present challenges to maintaining food security. Gaps in services provided to low-income mothers to address food insecurity were identified to include improving the social connectedness of expectant and new mothers. This study is intended to reach a wide target audience including students, practitioners, anthropological colleagues and policymakers. In an effort to translate the findings of this study into practical recommendations for action, the author calls for more research into the issue of maternal isolation and for policy initiatives to recognize the unique role mothering plays in contributing to household food security status.

abstract: Objective: Migration to the United States (U.S.) has been associated with food insecurity and detrimental changes in diet quality. How these changes affect women in context of their neighborhood food environment has not been thoroughly explored. This study aimed to assess if food security is associated with diet quality and to explore if perceived food availability moderates this purported association in a sample of Mexican immigrant women. Methods: Mexican-born women (n=57, 41±7 years) residing in the U.S. for more than 1 year self-reported food security status, monthly fast-food frequency, and their perception of fruit, vegetables, and low-fat product availability within their neighborhood via survey. Diet was assessed using the Southwest Food Frequency Questionnaire to estimate intake of fruit, vegetables, salty snacks, sugar, and healthy eating index (HEI)-2015 score. Bivariate correlations assessed the relationships between study variables. Independent samples t-tests compared dietary outcomes between women classified as food secure (n=41; high or marginal food security) and food insecure (n=16; low or very low food security). A moderation analysis assessed the effect of the perception of the neighborhood food environment on the relationship between food security and HEI-2015 score. Results: Fifty four percent of participants worked full time and 42% had a monthly household income <$2,000. Time residing in the U.S. was 20±9 years. Relative to women classified as food secure, participants experiencing food insecurity had lower HEI-2015 (61±8 vs. 66±6; p=0.03). Albeit not significantly different, women experiencing food insecurity reported lower intake of fruit (236±178 vs. 294±239 g), vegetables (303±188 vs. 331±199 g), and salty snacks (6±5 vs. 8±10 g), as well as higher intake of sugar (99±55 vs. 96±56 g) and fast food (2.5±2.5 vs. 1.8±1.7 times per month); p>0.05 for all. Among women experiencing food insecurity, there was a trend for a lower perception of neighborhood fruit, vegetable and low-fat product availability being associated with lower HEI-2015 scores (54±6) relative to those who perceived moderate (63±6) or high (65±8) neighborhood availability of those foods (p=0.07). Conclusions: HEI-2015 scores were associated with participants’ food security status. Findings suggest a need for better understanding of how neighborhood food availability may affect diet quality among Mexican immigrant women experiencing food insecurity. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Nutrition 2020

Food insecurity is a prevalent and persistent issue that affects communities across Canada. Food banks are currently one of the most common responses to food insecurity in the country. Since they emerged in the 1980s, food banks have proliferated across Canada and the number of people accessing them has risen steeply. While food banks have faced criticisms in their capacity to address food insecurity, there have been shifts in how they operate over recent years. There are a growing number of examples of food banks that changed the types of food that they distribute and the programs and services that they offer on location. However, there is little evidence to explore the impact of shifting food bank operations. In a series of three studies, this dissertation explored operational characteristics and strategies of food banks, experiences with accessing food banks, and associations between food bank access and food insecurity, as well as related dietary and health outcomes. The first study employed a qualitative methodology to examine staff and volunteer perspectives on the strategies that food banks have adopted and adapted to address the needs of the people that they serve and the factors that enable or impede change. The findings illustrate current food banking practices and revealed examples of how food bank operations have changed over recent years to endeavor to better address the needs of the people who access their services. Moreover, the results illuminate food bank efforts to raise awareness and advocate for policy change to better address issues of poverty and food insecurity. The second study used qualitative data collected at two time points, six months apart, to explore experiences of food insecurity and food bank access among people who access them. While there was variation in the social and emotional experiences of accessing food banks, a common theme of long-term and regular access due to constrained financial resources arose in the data. The third study was a quantitative investigation of the associations between the operational characteristics of food banks and changes in food insecurity, diet, and health over a six month period. Results indicated that accessing a food bank that employed a choice model of food distribution was significantly associated with increased fruit and vegetable consumption over the study period. Accessing a food bank integrated within a community resource centre was significantly associated with reporting less severe food insecurity at six months compared to baseline. The findings presented in this dissertation offer novel evidence to elucidate the shifting operations of food banks and the associations between food banking operational characteristics and food insecurity over time. Moreover, these findings may inform decisions to change or adapt food banking operations to better address the needs of the people and communities served. Food banks, though they do not address the root causes of food insecurity, are established community resources, and thus, serve as strategic access points for not only short-term food assistance but also for connecting people with services and advocating for food security and poverty reduction.

Despite having an overall high standard of living, from 2015-2016 only 60.8% of households with children in New Zealand reported being fully food secure (NZ Ministry of Health 2019). Even more frustrating is that supermarkets and restaurants in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand are constantly stocked with 150-200% of surplus food over what it would take to nutritionally feed their populations, with much of it going to waste. To explore this, I conducted a nine-week ethnographic case study of Kaibosh Food Rescue which is a non-profit food aid initiative operating in Wellington, New Zealand, that collects ‘food waste’ from supermarkets and redistributes it to charities that are offering social services. By following the food through its social life and interviewing an array of stakeholders from organizational staff to individual recipients, I found that rescued ‘food waste’ continues to embody multiple values even in its supposed afterlife once it is declared as ‘waste’ by supermarkets. In this thesis I argue that not only does this food waste still hold much nutritional value to help individual recipients feed themselves and their families, it also created social spaces and enriched social lives of the urban food insecure, helped empower parents through learning cooking skills, and facilitated action for recipients to join social services and programming, all of which enhanced well-being and were facilitated by the presence of food. Thus, Kaibosh is experimenting with food waste for food security by combining nutritional and social benefits of food- what Stock et al. (2015) consider a “food utopia”- and ultimately changing the way we think about food and ‘food waste’, demonstrating what a food utopia can actually do.

Climate variability threatens agricultural productivity and household food security, amongst small-scale farmers of South Africa. Managing climate variability is challenging due to the variation of climate parameters and the difficulty in making decisions under such conditions. Integrated seasonal forecast information and crop models have been used as a tool that enhances decision making in some countries. Utilization of such an approach in South Africa can enhance decision making in climate variability management. The study therefore sought to formulate a decision-making approach to enhance climate variability management in small-scale farming systems of South Africa through integrating seasonal forecast information and crop models. Current practices, challenges and opportunities for climate variability management by different small-scale farmer types were identified using focus group discussions and local agricultural extension officers. The Climate Forecast System version 2 (CFSv2) model-based forecasts were integrated with the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT) v4.7, a mechanistic crop model based on the Global Climate Model (GCM) approach. The GCM approach was the most appropriate technique for integrating seasonal forecast information and the crop model due to the compatibility in the forecast and crop model format. The decision-making process was formulated through assessing the simulation yield patterns under a range of farm management practices and seasonal forecasts for different cropping seasons, crops and farmer types for Limpopo and Eastern Cape, South Africa for 2017/18 season. The study assessed 48 different potential combinations of farm management practices: organic amendments, varieties, fertilizers and irrigation. Benefits of the decision formulation process and specific seasonal forecast-based recommendations were then assessed in the context of the performance of the practices under historical measured data for the conditions; 2011-2017, using percentile ranking. Assessing the yield response patterns under different farm management practices and seasonal forecasts (2017/2018), the study realized a range of decision scenarios. These are (1) low decision capacity and low climate sensitivity where there is low value for decision due to the homogeneous performance of the different management practices given climate forecasts. (2) high decision capacity and low climate sensitivity, where there is higher potential value for decision making as the different practices have uniform performance across climate forecasts. (3) High decision capacity and high climate sensitivity, where the good response to change in practices under changing climate forecasts. Confidence in the decision formulation process v was re-enforced as some of the decision scenarios were also realized under different conditions in the period; 2011-17. The scenario (2): High decision capacity and low climate sensitivity was predominant in locations with low forecast skill. In contrast the scenario (3): High decision capacity and high climate sensitivity was predominant in locations with high forecast skill. The decision formulation process allows for assessment of farm management practices in the seasonal forecast decision space. Although the case study realized some scenarios ahead of others, the process is robust and repeatable under any conditions. Although the process does not always offer recommendation with improved value for decision making, the value of recommendations is greater under decision scenarios with greater decision capacity. Such benefits are crop and location dependent. Improved seasonal forecasting skill increases reliability of the decision-making process, decision scenarios and associated recommendations. Such assertions need to be tested on the field scale to assess their practical feasibility.

Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS) / Food security is a challenge for most developing countries (Yahaya, 2018). In South Africa, poverty continues to be a stumbling block to food security for most of the population. Due to the socio-economic challenges plaguing the country, a large proportion of the population struggles to access sufficient food which meets dietary needs. Poverty and unemployment are the key contributory factors of food insecurity in South Africa. Against this backdrop, this study sought to investigate the perceived impact of urban agriculture on food insecurity in Khayelitsha. As a survival strategy, urban agriculture has been advocated to improve food security in most developing countries. Moya Wekhaya Peace Gardens is the study organization of this thesis. The aim of the research is (1) To investigate the extent of food insecurity in Khayelitsha; (2) To investigate the coping strategies adopted by households to be more food secure (3) To investigate the perceived impact of urban food gardens on household food security and (4) To identify challenges faced by urban farmers in Khayelitsha.

Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS) / According to the research conducted for this thesis, climate change has a potential to be a hazard to food security in not only South Africa, but also to most of Sub-Saharan Africa. The threat is presented in terms of food distribution and consumption, including agricultural productivity. Food security is impacted by global warming, global warming in turn is a direct result of climate change since it affects the supply of food, its accessibility, how it is utilized, and whether or not people can afford it. The only way to mitigate the dangers is through an integrated policy approach that protects fertile land from global warming. The key point presented here is that Sub-Saharan Africa has all of the resources necessary to adapt to climate change and secure food supplies; nevertheless, it is critical that they first recognize the hazards that various agricultural products face because of global warming. However, a lot of emerging countries face significant challenges as a result of a lack of robust institutions, making policy changes difficult. The influence on food security will be significant, and it may be broken down into three categories: availability, access, and use. Systematic peer-reviewed literature reviews of climate change and food security research were undertaken utilizing the realist review approach as the methodology for this study. In order to alleviate the region's acute food insecurity, adaptation approaches were thoroughly investigated. This is related to development challenges, where adaptation is necessary to mitigate negative effects and improve the population's ability to participate in development processes. Finances are also a concern for poor countries, such as South Africa, because there is a disparity between the cost of adaptation and government subsidies. The remedy could come in the form of technology interventions that help to make food systems less vulnerable to dangers.

Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS) / Multiple studies have explored aspects of food choice; however, few have used a gendered approach. Understanding issues relating to food from a gendered perspective has become crucial in terms of combating and preventing diseases and epidemics such as obesity and malnutrition within the 21st century. The notion that men and women have different perspectives in terms of food has become apparent in recent literature.