Search results for "food security"
showing 10 items of 80 documents
Impact of COVID-19 on aquaculture sector in Malaysia: Findings from the first national survey
2021
Abstract Malaysian aquaculture sector consists of 391,000 t of cultivated organisms produced per year with an economic value for over USD 700 million as estimated in 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a large global human pandemic and it is currently ongoing, affecting profoundly Malaysian aquaculture, which is vital for seafood provision and security assurance. Thus, to increase our understanding about how the pandemic affects aquaculture sectors is crucial to design possible management measures both at local and national level. To do it, we designed a survey, starting in May 2020, consisting of 25 online questions to collect information about the impact of COVID-19 on the aquaculture sect…
Could cattle ranching and soybean cultivation be sustainable? A systematic review and a meta-analysis for the Amazon
2021
Abstract: Tropical forests are being destroyed to make space for agricultural activities with the assumption that they are required to feed the growing global population. Consequently, more sustainable practices are needed to guarantee food security and environmental protection of highly threatened natural biodiversity hotspots like the Amazon rainforest. Cattle ranching and soybean cultivation are by far the greater drivers of land use change and deforestation in the Amazon region. We performed a systematic review of papers related to these two main drivers and a meta-analysis on the effects of sustainable practices on different ecosystem services. The results of the review highlight a lar…
Environmental, Agricultural, and Socioeconomic Impacts of Salinization to Family-Based Irrigated Agriculture in the Brazilian Semiarid Region
2020
Soil salinity is one of the major abiotic factors causing a serious threat to global food security, mainly in arid and semiarid regions. Salinity brings socioeconomic impacts associated with low crop productivity and devaluation of agricultural lands. In this chapter, we approach agricultural, environmental, and socioeconomic impacts of soil salinization. We also report two case studies from irrigated areas of the Brazilian semiarid, where previously cultivated lands were abandoned due to increased soil salinity. A survey of the published literature showed that soil salinity became a global problem that is accelerated by human activities such as deforestation and lack of irrigation manageme…
Vulnerability matrix of the food system : operationalizing vulnerability and addressing food security
2016
Food security is the major desired outcome of any food system, but its realization may be prevented by vulnerabilities in a food system. By shifting the focus of their vulnerability analysis from the discrete components of the food system to the food system as a whole, the authors of this article were able to develop a qualitative food system vulnerability matrix. The objective of the research was to make the concept of food system vulnerability operational by identifying vulnerability drivers, vulnerable systems and vulnerable subclasses in light of food security. The vulnerability matrix was set up with five classes of vulnerable systems (‘Vulnerability of what?’) on the horizontal axis a…
Soil Mapping and Processes Models for Sustainable Land Management Applied to Modern Challenges
2017
Abstract In the context of growing population and global change, increasing demands for food production are an enormous challenge that we face in the modern world. At the same time the need to prevent land degradation, restore lands that are already degraded, and maintain soil quality and health is critical to a sustainable use of land resources. Accurate maps and adequate models are indispensable tools to assist managers, scientists, and decision makers in addressing these challenges. In this chapter, we outline the main impacts of climate change on soils, key adaptation, and mitigation strategies and provide an overview of key issues in sustainable agricultural production as well as land …
Influence of Two Different Coating Application Methods on the Maintenance of the Nutritional Quality of Fresh-Cut Melon during Storage
2021
This study aimed at evaluating the effects of two coating application methods, spraying and dipping, on the quality of fresh-cut melons. An alginate-based coating containing both ascorbic and citric acid was applied at two concentrations (5% and 10%) with both methods on fresh-cut melon. The nutritional quality of the products was investigated during 11 days of storage at 10 °C. The suitability and adaptability of the applied coatings on the fruit were evaluated based on rheological and microstructural properties. Moisture, carotenoids, total polyphenols and ascorbic acid content were analyzed on melon samples during storage. Results showed that the coating solution applied by the dipping m…
Human security: an analytical tool for disaster perception research
2015
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the possible benefits arising from the application of the human security concept to analysing the disaster impacts. Design/methodology/approach – A three-piece human security analytical tool is synthesized by combining the discoveries in human security studies over the last two decades with the perspective of disaster studies focusing on the resilience and securitabilities of the affected societies. To illustrate the merit of the proposed analytical framework a specifically tailored social survey is used to measure the resilience of Ogre’s (Latvia) society after it faces major floods in 2013. It foresees that community’s resilience is inver…
The significance of soils and soil science towards realization of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
2016
Abstract. In this forum paper we discuss how soil scientists can help to reach the recently adopted UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the most effective manner. Soil science, as a land-related discipline, has important links to several of the SDGs, which are demonstrated through the functions of soils and the ecosystem services that are linked to those functions (see graphical abstract in the Supplement). We explore and discuss how soil scientists can rise to the challenge both internally, in terms of our procedures and practices, and externally, in terms of our relations with colleague scientists in other disciplines, diverse groups of stakeholders and the policy arena. To meet th…
Security Standards Applied to Drinking Water
2021
This chapter presents security standards as applied to drinking water, based on the assumption that freshwater sources face huge threats for humankind both qualitatively and quantitatively due to uncertain global changes, namely population growth, rapid urbanization, and climate change. The study investigates whether the International Featured Standards (IFS—Food), which are complementary to HACCP (Hazard analysis and critical control point), can be used as a system of indicators to measure water security. The case study focuses on bottled water, by identifying structural and contingent risk factors for water as essential food and investigates the suitability of the IFS instrument as an ind…
Indicators of agricultural intensity and intensification: a review of the literature
2015
Since the 1960s, research has dealt with agricultural intensification (AI) as a solution to ensure global food security. Recently, sustainable intensification (SI) has increasingly been used to describe those agricultural and farming systems that ensure adequate ecosystem service provision. Studies differ in terms of the application scales and methodologies, thus we aim to summarize the main findings from the literature on how AI and SI are assessed, from the farm to global levels. Our literature review is based on 7865 papers selected from the Web of Science database and analysed using CorText software. A further selection of 105 relevant papers was used for an in-depth full-text analysis …