糧食安全援助與非營利組織之研究 / The International Organizations the same as the non-profit organizations are aware of how much this issue matter around the world and the government from the different more vulnerable countries represent in many cases, the principal problem that difficulties the work of the non-profit sector. There is a clear need to build a new system strategy for each bloc according to their characteristics in order to apply the correct plan for ensuring the food access for all the people as equals, but there is no doubt that the income inequality is a social issue that affects every country in the world and that also bring consequences for the food security of the people in countries such as Haiti. This topic was selected for its importance worldwide, in order to analyze the type of work of the non-profit organizations in the food security sector as aid channels in Latin American and the Caribbean regions, and how their partnership with government agencies and international organizations is indispensable for the complementation of the work. And the research finding of the two cases study is about the capacity of sustainability that the farmers of the countries can reach through the aid for food security provided by the non-profit organizations, and on the other hand, the dependency that the aid provided can cause in the donors (in the case of Haiti). The potential that both regions have to improve the food security and develop the agricultural sector, but also explaining the case of the most poor countries in each region (Nicaragua and Haiti), both cases study serve to compare the different activities of the NPO and how their work affect the sustainability and development of the beneficiaries in the field of food security.

This thesis contributes to research on agrifood systems in Africa. The research agenda is especially relevant in the context of revived developmental interest in agrifood sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa. Existing scholarship has tended to focus on economic restructuring and the way supermarkets and agribusiness firms increasingly transform African food economies. This thesis is an empirically grounded research endeavour that presents insights about key dynamics in the domestic food system in urban Sub-Saharan Africa, as seen through the case of Lusaka, Zambia. It also challenges existing scholarship by looking at transformations in domestic political economy contexts in Africa that promote the development of agrifood systems. The thesis is concerned with (1) what shapes Lusaka’s urban food system or what the key influencing factors are; (2) the institutions that are critical to the functioning of the urban food system; and (3) whether agribusiness firms and retailers govern economic interaction in Zambia or whether these firms and their economic interaction are governed by other institutions, and/or determined by the domestic political economy context. The thesis considers the changes in Zambia’s food system which point to growth paths that are intentionally pursued to strengthen the domestic economy so that it meets domestic priorities. Unexpectedly, this is not the concern of the state alone, but also of agribusiness firms. Other fascinating contradictions also became apparent in the course of the fieldwork, which looked at large agribusiness in the poultry sector, the Zambian National Farmers’ Union (ZNFU), the South African supermarket, Shoprite, urban markets, market traders and small-scale farmers, between January and November 2007. For instance, contractual arrangements between small-scale farmers and agribusiness firms are common, but the supply chain almost always incorporates intermediary traders; urban markets are formalising at management levels; and the supermarket faces growing pressure by the state to source locally. The methods consisted of in-depth interviews with the ZNFU, firms, farmers, traders, managers of urban markets and supermarkets, and the Ministry of Trade and Commerce. In sum, the thesis argues that urban food systems in Africa can be seen as situated or located in a domestic political economy, influenced by domestic and regional processes, and that they are the result of intersecting forms of governance by different firms and non-firm institutions. In offering a detailed case study of localised food systems in Africa, these findings lend to a robust research agenda on food studies and economic growth in Africa, and are well-placed to contribute to work on food security.

DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2413-3221/2016/v44n1a371 / Rural poverty is a major challenge in most developing countries especially in Africa where the majority of people are still living below the poverty datum line. In Zimbabwe, poverty is made more severe by occasional droughts associated with climate change, climate variability and failed socio-economic-political governance. One of the ways to mitigate the impact of drought and prevent deepening poverty is the introduction of small irrigation schemes. However, there is a raging debate on the social and economic viability of these schemes on household livelihood security and income. This paper aims at investigating the socio-economic impacts of Lower Gweru Irrigation project in Zimbabwe. A case study approach was used in this study. Primary data was gathered using self-administered questionnaire and complemented by secondary data. Results demonstrated that rural irrigation has a critical role in ensuring sustainable household and community income. Irrigators fared well regarding wealth accumulation, household food security and quality of life as measured through the use of standardised HDI. In light of the above, there is a need to fund and develop more rural irrigation schemes so as to ensure livelihood security and rural development in Zimbabwe. Keywords: Rural livelihood, Poverty, Climate change, Irrigation, Lower

Canadian urban food security discourses have been explored by academics, local community organizations, practitioners (e.g., health and education) with the intention of understanding the histories and impacts of food insecurity and co-creating long-lasting solutions. In various urban centres, community initiatives and educational institutions have been collaborating on school gardening programs as a way to address food insecurity. Central to these conversations and projects have been how to make more inclusive spaces for people to share their own complex and diverse perspectives of food security—based on their local foodscapes (matrix of relationships between people, place, and food) and cultural worldviews. Pervasive power structures and narratives, however, have privileged certain voices over others and there are limited inquiries into cultural perceptions of food security. Children’s and youth’s own experiences and contributions to the discussion on foodscapes and food security have been marginalized, resulting in a knowledge gap of how young people situate and represent themselves. This research project works to amplify young people’s narratives surrounding their multifaceted relationships to foodscapes within three school gardens located in Treaty Six Territory (Saskatoon, SK). The aim is to make space for the fulsome perspectives and solutions that children and youth offer, as social change agents, towards food security discourses. Adopting a community-based approach, I collaborated with Agriculture in the Classroom Saskatchewan (AITC-SK), the Saskatoon Public School Division (SPSD), children, youth, and their guardians. Co-participants involved in the project included eleven children (between the ages of five and twelve) and seven adults who were connected to the three school gardens. Drawing upon theoretical frameworks rooted in narrative analysis, thematic analysis, and visual participatory action research (VPAR) methodologies, this project practiced meaning-making, which was both collaborative and interdisciplinary. The participating young people used digital cameras to take photographs during four garden workshops facilitated from July to September, 2013. In addition to the workshops, I conducted unstructured interviews with each adult co-participant that contributed to understandings on how children and youth interact with diverse foodways. Children and youth co-participants’ voices, shared in this study, add to current conversations on Saskatoon food security issues—namely the focus on cultural acceptability and accessibility to food. Their oral and visual narratives shed insight into how to re-imagine and expand dominant food security concepts—cultural acceptability and access—to foster inclusive foodscapes. Culturally acceptable foods for young co-participants, for example, was not limited to food products but to cultural relationships infusing foodscapes. Children and youth also blurred boundaries existing in Saskatoon community garden dichotomies of private and public, which had the potential to challenge hegemonic neoliberal views around access. School gardening and food ideologies— steeped in educators’ and program coordinators’ worldviews—were broadened by young people as they reflected upon their garden-based foodways. The inclusion of more children’s and youth’s perspectives on how food security is conceptualized, experienced, and addressed can be used to build greater resiliency in urban school gardening initiatives. By supporting genuine participation of young people in decision-making, alternative actions towards social change can be implemented. / Graduate / skukh075@uvic.ca

One of the most pressing challenges facing the world today is how to sustainably feed a growing population while conserving the ecosystem services we depend on. Coffee landscapes are an important site for research on agrifood systems because they reflect global-scale dynamics surrounding conservation and livelihood development. Within them, we find both what is broken in our global agrifood system, as well as the grassroots struggles that strive to change the system by building socio-ecologically resilient, sustainable livelihoods. Research shows that smallholder shade coffee farmers steward high biodiversity and provide essential ecosystem services. At the same time, studies in the last decade demonstrate that many smallholder coffee farmers in Mesoamerica suffer annual periods of seasonal hunger, as well as pervasive poverty. This dissertation explores household livelihood strategies, with a particular emphasis on agroecology, and how they can contribute to build sustainable systems that secure food and maintain biodiversity in coffee communities of Chiapas, Mexico. Research was conducted using a mixed methods approach, which included the collection of quantitative and qualitative socio-ecological data through focus groups, surveys, semi-structured interviews, participant observation and plant inventories. Surveys were conducted with 79 households in 11 communities, all located within the buffer zone of a biosphere reserve. A stratified random sample of 31 households from these 79 were surveyed again to collect more in-depth data, including the collection of biophysical data in their subsistence and coffee land use systems. The following research questions were explored: 1) What are the major ecological, social, economic, and political drivers of seasonal hunger? 2) What is the relationship between agrobiodiversity (plant and livestock diversity) and food security (months of adequate household food provisioning and dietary diversity)? 3) What household livelihood assets and strategies contribute to or limit food security and food sovereignty? Across the sample population, total agrobiodiversity and maize and bean production were strongly correlated with improved food security. Coffee income was not strongly correlated with improved food security, which suggests that income is used for priorities within the household other than food, despite seasonal food shortages. Results demonstrate the importance of balancing subsistence and commodity (i.e. coffee) production in these communities, where subsistence food serves as a risk management strategy to buffer against volatility in coffee prices, in addition to offsetting income that might be used for food towards non-food expenses. Subsistence production, which typically applies agroecological practices in this site, also holds important cultural and environmental value. The results of this research indicate that government policy and development practice should enable farmers to maintain the social, ecological and cultural processes that support the management of agrobiodiversity for subsistence and coffee.

Vermont prides itself on being a national role model in developing innovative models for community-supported, ecologically responsible agricultural practices. However, Vermont's largest sector of agriculture, the dairy industry, has increasingly relied on Latinx* migrant farm laborers who face significant challenges. Due to a lack of a year-round agricultural visa program, most farmworkers on Vermont's dairy farms are unable to receive proper documentation. This circumstance has a significant impact on migrant workers, particularly those living and working closer to the border, as those areas fall within federal jurisdiction of US immigration enforcement. In these borderlands, surveillance is intensified and so the pressure to be invisible is heightened. The current availability of agricultural visas is limited to seasonal migrant farmworkers, and because dairy is year-round work, farmworkers in the dairy industry are barred from accessing proper documentation. Increased patrolling along the northern border results in extreme isolation, fear, and the inability to access basic human rights. For migrant workers on Vermont's dairy farms, just taking a trip to the grocery store is to risk deportation. This thesis examines systemic barriers, complex relationships, and resilient responses of Vermont's farmworkers, drawing upon applied, mixed methods. The first article uses ethnography to examine food access and food sovereignty through Huertas, an applied garden project in northern VT. The second article analyzes the methodologies connected to El Viaje Más Caro/The Most Costly Journey, an applied cartooning project that shares farmworker stories with other migrant farmworkers as a tool to break cycles of isolation and relieve psychological distress. Both projects illustrate resilient responses to the barriers associated with being undocumented along the Northern border. While the thesis is based on research conducted in Vermont, the significance is broader in scope, and representative of national and international trends. The food system is built upon those who are continually stripped of and denied rights. While this is about Vermont, it is not only about Vermont: these stories are symptomatic of a larger structural violence. This thesis situates itself in a multi-scalar context-Vermont, the US, international- in which the stories conveyed are indicative of political and economic systemic obstacles, and the potential for human creativity to subvert and respond to systems of oppression. *I use the term "Latinx" throughout my thesis because it is a gender-neutral alternative to Latino, Latina and even Latin@. It is pronounced "La-teen-ex". This is a term that has been introduced by the trans/queer community, but is increasingly being adopted by scholars, activists, journalists, and social media. (Ramirez & Blay, 2016)

This study explored food insecurity by examining the ways in which residents of low-income, urban communities access food. The primary elements of this thesis are an analysis of the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the populations surrounding food retailers, and a survey of the availability, cost, and quality of fresh fruits and vegetables in food stores commonly found in the urban environment. Overall, this study found that low-income, minority communities are largely served by independent supermarkets, small grocers and convenience stores that charge higher prices for staple foods. Conversely, it was found that wealthy areas enjoy easy access to corporate supermarkets that offer higher-quality foods at lower prices.

Nous soutenons la thèse que la sécurité alimentaire des pays d'Afrique sub-saharienne peut être renforcée par une meilleure maitrise de l'instabilité des prix des matières premières agricoles constituant leur panier alimentaire de base. A cet effet, nous évoquons dans un premier temps les mécanismes de fonctionnement des marchés agricoles, le rôle qu'y joue la notion de prix ainsi que le lien existant entre l'évolution instable des prix et l'insécurité alimentaire. Nous nous intéressons ensuite au lien existant entre l'insécurité alimentaire et la régulation du secteur agricole, en particulier dans le cadre des échanges internationaux et régionaux. Nous procédons enfin au traitement formalisé de l'insécurité alimentaire. En ayant recours aux outils économétriques, nous mettons en évidence le caractère instable des prix au niveau individuel des pays ainsi que les interdépendances entre les prix des différentes denrées alimentaires et des différents pays. Des mesures de sécurisation alimentaire sont suggérées tout au long de la thèse pour les pays d'Afrique sub-saharienne étudiés. Nous estimons que ces mesures peuvent servir de pistes de réflexion pour l'établissement de politiques économiques agricoles nationales et régionales. Ces politiques auraient pour but final de garantir la sécurité alimentaire des populations des pays de l'Afrique sub-saharienne par une meilleure maitrise de l'instabilité des prix alimentaires. / In our thesis, we assume that African Sub-saharan countries' food security status can be enhanced through a better management of agricultural commodities prices instability, which constitutes the basic food basket of local populations. To this aim, we initially review the dynamics of agricultural markets and the role played by “prices” in this mechanism as well as the existing linkages between unstable price trends and the notion of food insecurity. Focus is then directed to the relationship between “food insecurity” and the regulation of the agricultural sector, in particular within international trade theory frameworks.Finally, we proceed to the assessment of “food insecurity” through the empirical analysis of the instabilities affecting food prices of the region, and also that of price transmission and linkages within and between countries. We then highlight prices instabilities at individual (country) level, as well as the linkage of these prices (therefore of their unstable components) between the various constituents of the basic food basket of a given country, or that of neighboring countries.All along our thesis, food insecurity resilience measures for these countries are suggested. These measures are believed to potentially serve as initial steps in the establishment of national and regional agricultural policies aiming at attaining/safeguarding food security in African sub-Saharan countries.

La sécurité alimentaire définie comme l’accès à tous à une nourriture saine et suffisante, comporte quatre dimensions : les disponibilités, l’accessibilité, l’utilisation et la stabilité. Soumis à l’ajustement structurel depuis la fin des années 1980, les pays en développement (PED) ont procédé à une libéralisation agricole et à une ouverture commerciale, tandis que les pays développés maintiennent leur protectionnisme agricole. Le premier objectif de la thèse est d’analyser les méfaits d’une libéralisation agricole mal menée et inadaptée à travers les bilans des réformes agricoles au Sénégal et de la crise alimentaire de 2008. Les causes profondes de cette crise sont la financiarisation des marchés agricoles, leur dérégulation, et l’inefficacité des politiques agricoles et alimentaires dans les PED. La sécurité alimentaire est un but affiché par tous les pays mais faudrait-il être en mesure de la quantifier? Notre seconde ambition est de construire un indice synthétique de sécurité alimentaire grâce à une analyse en composante principale sur un échantillon de 125 pays en 2005 et 2009. Le résultat principal est que le score des pays développés s’est amélioré durant cette période, alors que celui des pays à faible revenu et à déficit vivrier s’est dégradé. Ainsi, les inégalités alimentaires entre les pays développés et ceux pauvres se sont accrues. Une classification hiérarchique ascendante par la méthode de Ward a permis de distinguer quatre situations alimentaires : la satiété, la sécurité, l’équilibre, et l’insécurité alimentaire. Elle a montré que la dépendance aux importations et les prix alimentaires avaient plus d’impact sur l’insécurité alimentaire que les revenus. / Defined as access to all a healthy and sufficient food, food security has four components: availability, access, utilization and stability. Subjected to structural adjustment since the late 1980s, developing countries (DCs) have conducted an agricultural liberalization and trade opening, while developed countries maintain their agricultural protectionism (domestic support and export subsidies). The first objective is to analyze the misdeeds of agricultural liberalization poorly conducted and inadequate through the agricultural reforms in Senegal and the 2008 food crisis. The root causes of this crisis reside more in the financialization of agricultural markets, the deregulation and inefficient agricultural and food policies in developing countries. Food security is a stated goal for all countries, but would it be able to quantify it? Indeed, it was conceptualized but its multidimensional nature made it difficult to quantify. Our second goal is to build a composite indicator of food security through a principal component analysis (PCA) on a sample of 125 countries in 2005 and 2009. The main result is that the score of the developed countries has improved during this period, while that of low-income food deficit deteriorated. We can deduce that due to food crisis, food inequalities between developed and poor countries have increased. In addition, a hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) with Ward's method was also performed and showed four different food situations in our sample: food satiety, food security, food balance, food insecurity. It also highlighted the fact that the dependence on food imports and food prices had more impact on food insecurity as income.

Magister Commercii - MCom / Women play an important role in food security. Growing, processing, purchasing, preparing and serving food to their families is a common and distinctive relationship they have to food in most societies in the world. They also play a critical role in food security. Yet, studies show that women are the most vulnerable to household food insecurity. At the heart of women’s differential vulnerability to household food insecurity is their lack of ownership of the means of food production, mainly land. Food is grown on land and access to land for productive purposes is vital for food security, especially for women who have little other means of securing food aside from performing subsistence farming for household food security. Thus, analyzing women experiences of accessing land and productive resources, and the manner in which such access shapes their empowerment and ability to achieve household food security is important. In this dissertation, women’s empowerment refers to a process where women gain the ability to make strategic life choices; I take the position that for women to be empowered, their access to resources, individual capacities and agency must be improved. Thus, this dissertation aims to examine the lived experiences of female farmers in Stellenbosch in terms of access to land and productive resources, and the implications this kind of access has for women’s empowerment and household food security.