Household food insecurity, defined as "the inability to acquire or consume an adequate diet quality or sufficient quantity of food in socially acceptable ways, or the uncertainty that one will be able to do so”, affected almost one in ten Canadian households in 2004. Responses have been dominated by community-based food initiatives with little attention paid to potential policy directions to alleviate this problem. The lack of impetus for policy responses may stem from the paucity of evidence documenting the nutrition implications of household food insecurity. Further, the development of policy interventions is hindered by a lack of understanding of the factors that influence vulnerability to food insecurity. This thesis comprises three studies aimed at providing stimulus and directions for policy responses to household food insecurity in Canada. The first study, an analysis of data from the 2004 Canadian Community Health Survey, documents poorer dietary intakes and heightened risk of nutrient inadequacies among adults and adolescents in food-insecure households, providing evidence of the public health implications and public policy relevance of household food insecurity. The second and third studies are examinations of household-level factors associated with vulnerability to household food insecurity. Analysis of data from the 2001 Survey of Household Spending demonstrates the relevance of housing costs to household food access. Among lower-income households, as the proportion of income allocated to housing costs increased, the adequacy of household food spending declined significantly. Receipt of a housing subsidy was associated with an improvement in food spending but mean food spending adequacy fell below the cost of a basic nutritious diet even among subsidized households. The final study comprises a cross-sectional survey of 464 low-income Toronto families, two-thirds of whom were food insecure over the preceding 12 months. Analysis of predictors of severe food insecurity highlights the centrality of income and housing costs and raises serious questions about current definitions of housing affordability and the adequacy of current housing subsidy levels. This work provides a public health imperative for action and points to the urgent need for social policy reform to ameliorate problems of household food insecurity in Canada.

This study explores the meaning and value of Basotho traditional farming practices and Indigenous knowing using Indigenous methodology. The study sought to 1) understand the core tenets of Basotho traditional farming practices that involve Indigenous knowledge and sustainable land care; 2) investigate the implications of these practices, and how they may inform school curriculum in ways that promote food security and reduce child hunger; and 3) examine the role of gender in food practices in Lesotho. I collaborated with women Elders who knew oral traditions or traditional farming practices by working with children on a school farm. I used Basotho ways of knowing and communication to gather data including storytelling and observation. I complemented my observation data by utilizing photographs and field notes. The Elders shared their farming experiences, oral traditions, and knowledge including the cultural and survival significance of selecting, preserving, and sharing seeds, how to grow diverse, healthy, and nutritious food and how to be food self-sufficient. They spoke of and demonstrated ways to gather people together as a community to plant, harvest, and share food while caring for the land through culturally respectful practices. The Elders further shared ways to think about and relate to the land as a gift, as 'a being' from Creator, to be respected and cared for in the same way humans care for themselves. The Elders underscored the need to promote food security and land care through a food curriculum that embraces traditional farming practices steeped in Indigenous knowledge. Farming practices such as letsema (community collaborating in fieldwork), hlakantsutsu culture (diversified mixed cropping), koti (minimizing tillage), use of animal dung and ash fertilizers, selecting and preserving native seeds and molala (allowing land to rest after harvest) can constitute a desired curriculum. The Elders taught me what I understood as, and call, the principles of Re seng (we are all related): all humans and non-humans alike, rootedness, letsema (community collaboration), interdependence, connectedness, reciprocity, respect and care for the land. Reflection on these principles continuously shaped the study's theoretical framework with consequent implications on the participatory action methodology, which I characterize as the Basotho Indigenous Participatory Action Methodology.

Despite enough food production to feed everyone on the planet, there are 850 million people around the world who are food insecure. This includes people in developing and industrialized countries. Food insecurity may not be just “not having enough amounts of food” but “not having food that is appropriate according to culture and religion”. The global agri-food system has restricted access to food and resulted in environmental damage by displacing family farming, and leading to the establishment of industrial monocultures. Canada, being a multicultural society, has immigrants from around the world with different ethno-cultural backgrounds and religions. This study takes a different perspective on food insecurity by linking food to culture and religion and the food system. The study has devised criteria based on sustainable food security criteria developed by Lima (2008). The criteria include physical and economic access to food, religious and cultural adequacy of food and the food system’s environmental and social effects. The criteria were applied to the case study of Waterloo Region by examining existing policies and initiatives to address food insecurity in the Region. The case study analysis explores barriers and opportunities to foster sustainable food security for immigrants in Waterloo Region. The case study includes an embedded case study of South Asian Muslim community of immigrants in Cambridge, Waterloo Region. The analysis of the case study findings reveals that in most cases the current food system of Waterloo Region is largely industrial and contains major gaps in fulfilling the criteria of access, sustainability, social justice, and cultural and spiritual attitudes. This food system only partially meets or even fails to meet the criteria. As evidenced in the case study, current governance arrangements to address the issue of food insecurity result in exclusion of immigrant populations. The issue goes beyond food and emerges in other planning decisions like the allocation of public spaces. Finally, this study recommends broader multicultural policy at the regional government level to include the issues of immigrants.

In agrarian societies, HIV/AIDS extends far beyond the realm of healthcare into agricultural production and food security as well. Namibia is a developing country with a large portion of its population involved in agriculture; the average HIV/AIDS infection rate of 21.3% in the country leaves a large portion of agricultural workers living with or affected by HIV/AIDS. The purpose of this study was to further evaluate the impact of HIV/AIDS on national and community level food security in northern Namibia by ascertaining the perceptions and experiences of local farmers living with HIV/AIDS. In addition, this research aims to define the specific training needs for this population, and to identify possible barriers to access. Four focus groups and four key informant interviews were conducted in northern Namibia, and participants were asked a variety of questions relating to People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in agriculture. Qualitative analysis drew out prevailing themes and ideas from the data. This study found that there is a greater need for HIV/AIDS specific education and programs targeted to HIV/AIDS infected agrarian workers. Additionally this study found there were barriers to education present in the current system, and identified needs for joint programming initiatives between the ministries of health and agriculture.

The U.S. is the world's largest economy, accounting for about 20% of world Gross Domestic Product (GDP). With a high income and a mature welfare system, households in the U.S. should have enough food and healthy diets, especially for children. However, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that 9.8% of households with children were considered food insecure in 2010. The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is the second largest federally assisted food program and aims to provide nutritious, well-balanced lunches for school-age children. This thesis examined the association between NSLP participation and children's food security, using the third School Nutrition Dietary Assessment study (SNDA-III). An 18-item household module was used to measure the food security status of children. An ordered probit model was estimated using a two-stage instrumental variable approach in order to address the endogeneity of program participation. We found that students with enough time to eat lunch were 12% more likely to participate in NSLP. Student participation in NSLP was also influenced by the receipt of free/reduced priced meals, being elementary or middle school age, residing in rural area, parents' having a lower education level and living in a single parent household with one employed parent or in two-parent household with both parents employed. The second stage of the model indicates that receipt of free/reduce price meals, household structure and employment, school level, race, and education have significant effects on food security status. Moreover, we found that children from marginally food-secure households have characteristics similar to those from food insecure households rather than highly food-secure households. After controlling for the endogeneity of program participation, we could not find evidence to support program participation having a significant effect on children's food security. To confirm our findings we used adult and child food security modules as alternative food security measures. A bivariate probit model was estimated as an alternative model, but there was still no significant association between NSLP and food security status. A possible reason that NSLP has no effect on food security was that participating children did not intake significantly more calories from school lunch.

This research aimed to explore the nutritional vulnerability of homeless adult men. Using a mixed methods approach, risk factors for chronic illness, food security status, dietary intake adequacy, and how the study participants navigate the food supply system to obtain food were investigated. This study assessed differences in nutrition vulnerability between participants that use solvents and those that do not. The findings reveal that all participants were nutritionally vulnerable. A majority was overweight or obese; nearly all experienced food insecurity; and most did not meet the daily food intake guidelines established by Canada’s Food Guide. Daily efforts by participants to obtain food from charitable meal programs helped to meet physiological needs, as well as social, economic, safety and security needs. Participants using solvents had different nutritional and food experiences than non-solvent users. This was identified by a higher prevalence of severe food insecurity and social exclusion compared to non-solvent using homeless participants. This study provides important information to program planners and policy-makers necessary in order to help meet the food and nutritional needs of adult homeless populations. Findings may be translated into policies and programs aimed at improving accessibility to healthy foods.

The decline in cultivation and consumption of small millets crops seen across India in recent decades is a concern for many. These highly nutritious coarse grains hold significant cultural value as traditional foods for tribal farming populations and remain important contributors to regional agro-biodiversity. Born of out this concern, small millets have garnered recent attention as underutilized crops with potential to contribute to regional food and nutritional security through market development. By localizing small millets within the broader context of agricultural change, this work investigates links between cultivation, distribution and consumption – or the market chain – of small millet varieties in northern coastal Andhra Pradesh, India. Employing an interdisciplinary methodology drawing from anthropological and agribusiness approaches, this study conducts an in-depth, qualitative market chain analysis for finger millet and little millet varieties to produce a multi-sited ethnographic work on informal agricultural marketing in the case study area. In incorporating the political economic, historical and cultural dimensions of millets and other crops, this research teases out the complex relationships between food security, livelihoods, agricultural marketing and development interventions. This research aims to demonstrate how a holistic study of an agricultural commodity, which includes on-farm cultivation and consumption, can get at how smallholder farmers participate in local markets, in everyday practice, and how they engage with change. In connecting a traditional market chain analysis with detailed ethnographic study on the ground, we can see how farmers engage with markets embedded in particular historical and sociocultural contexts. Further, this work provides insights into the challenges of small millets-based livelihoods, going beyond the market to explore the many social institutions in which market participation is embedded. In doing so, I argue that nuanced approach to millets-based livelihoods, commercial crops and broader agrarian transition is necessary.

Food security in urban environments is becoming an increasingly important issue worldwide; urban expansion and urban infilling means that city populations are rising while the amount of available land for growing food is reducing. Accessibility of food, in regards to potential food growing space and food retail locations at the household level, is a key indicator for determining how resilient households are to food insecurity. This thesis investigates accessibility of food in urban environments, and a methodology has been developed that employs a non location-specific data structure that assigns resilience categories to individual households. User-defined input variables for the amount of food-growing space required per person, and the maximum travel distance allowed, mean that different scenarios can be created. Two case studies of Christchurch and Stockholm are used to demonstrate how different datasets can be incorporated to give insight into the levels of resilience to food insecurity. Examples of potential sources of error caused by the variations in input dataset quality have been uncovered in the case studies, and possible strategies for dealing with these sources of error are discussed. Results of this study showed that greater maximum travel distances play a key role in accessibility of food in the urban environment, and that both cities are reliant on food retailers to supply food to the urban population, even when potential food growing space is taken into account. City planners or decision-makers can use the methodology developed in this thesis to make decisions about where potential growing space needs to be protected or allocated. They can also use it to model the potential effects of different scenarios, such as the addition of new subdivisions or changes in land use for public land.

This study explores the meaning and value of Basotho traditional farming practices and Indigenous knowing using Indigenous methodology. The study sought to 1) understand the core tenets of Basotho traditional farming practices that involve Indigenous knowledge and sustainable land care; 2) investigate the implications of these practices, and how they may inform school curriculum in ways that promote food security and reduce child hunger; and 3) examine the role of gender in food practices in Lesotho. I collaborated with women Elders who knew oral traditions or traditional farming practices by working with children on a school farm. I used Basotho ways of knowing and communication to gather data including storytelling and observation. I complemented my observation data by utilizing photographs and field notes. The Elders shared their farming experiences, oral traditions, and knowledge including the cultural and survival significance of selecting, preserving, and sharing seeds, how to grow diverse, healthy, and nutritious food and how to be food self-sufficient. They spoke of and demonstrated ways to gather people together as a community to plant, harvest, and share food while caring for the land through culturally respectful practices. The Elders further shared ways to think about and relate to the land as a gift, as 'a being' from Creator, to be respected and cared for in the same way humans care for themselves. The Elders underscored the need to promote food security and land care through a food curriculum that embraces traditional farming practices steeped in Indigenous knowledge. Farming practices such as letsema (community collaborating in fieldwork), hlakantsutsu culture (diversified mixed cropping), koti (minimizing tillage), use of animal dung and ash fertilizers, selecting and preserving native seeds and molala (allowing land to rest after harvest) can constitute a desired curriculum. The Elders taught me what I understood as, and call, the principles of Re seng (we are all related): all humans and non-humans alike, rootedness, letsema (community collaboration), interdependence, connectedness, reciprocity, respect and care for the land. Reflection on these principles continuously shaped the study's theoretical framework with consequent implications on the participatory action methodology, which I characterize as the Basotho Indigenous Participatory Action Methodology.

In light of reports of protests and riots in response to rising food prices and food insecurity, this study asks whether the provision of food aid has an effect on the incidence of political unrest in recipient countries. It uses annual data on the quantities of American wheat aid delivered to 143 countries between 1972 and 2006. To overcome the potential for bias due to endogeneity, variations in U.S. agricultural production and recipient countries’ probability of receiving aid are used to predict the annual quantity of food aid provided to each country. Results from the instrumented regressions suggest that the provision of food aid does not have any impact on the incidence of political unrest.