Measuring Food Deserts via GIS-Based Multicriteria Decision Making: The Case of Tehran

The purpose of this article is to identify food deserts using a geographic information system (GIS)-based multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) approach in the city of Tehran. We have found that, compared to technocratic methods, GIS-based MCDM and taking into account people or their agents' opinions in the food deserts analysis leads to different results. Whereas measuring food deserts based on the distance to large retail food stores indicated that a large part of the northern neighborhoods of Tehran do not have access to large food stores, identifying the food desert through the GIS-based MCDM approach revealed that northern neighborhoods of Tehran have relatively good access to healthy, affordable food. In addition, results indicated that individual factors have a more effective role than environmental factors in food accessibility. Food accessibility analysis revealed that more than 26.6 percent of Tehran's people (2,049,796) are living in very low and low food accessibility areas. Accordingly, to achieve a relatively healthy and inclusive food environment, establishment of a food council, development of mobile food markets and farmers' markets, extension of public transport, enhancement of food literacy, and community-based development of small full-service grocery stores, especially in southern and western sections of Tehran, should be pursued. In addition, addressing Tehran's food desert issues would be incomplete without due attention to the wider political and economic environment.     

Domestic Residential Garden Food Production in Melbourne,Australia: a fine-grained analysis and pilot study

Even though cities cover approximately only 3 per cent of the earth's land area, they are often located on what previously was prime agricultural land. In line with what was common historically, many cities around the world are now deliberately seeking to promote and expand agricultural production within their borders. Pressure for change is coming from a number of sources, including both governments and private citizens. Potentially, community gardens and domestic backyard food production have an important role to play in this process, but while there now exists a sizeable body of research on the former, there is a serious lack of data on current productive practices in private domestic gardens. While other researchers have asked householders to estimate garden production, we believe this to be the first project to carefully document measured output by multiple households. The paper presents the results of a fine-grained study of 15 selected householders in metropolitan Melbourne. Participants collected detailed daily information about their food production over a three-month period. In addition, two of the respondents had been keeping daily production records continuously for one or more years. The results demonstrate enormous diversity in the food harvested, as well as some extremely high levels of productivity from relatively small domestic spaces. Participants were also questioned about their motivations for engaging in backyard food production and dealing with surpluses.     

CREATIVE PRESERVATION IN CALIFORNIA'S DAIRY INDUSTRY*

ABSTRACT. Farmers in Marin and Sonoma Counties, located north of San Francisco, are experimenting with numerous alternatives to California's widely known industrial dairy style. Many analysts suggest that consumer politics, food scares, and globalization explain such shifts to organic and other types of “quality” food production. While acknowledging the importance of these factors, we argue that the alternatives in this region are best understood as an outcome of broad‐based land‐conservation efforts developed through historical and ongoing struggles over urban growth, rising concerns about environmental values, and deep regional interests in dairy preservation. Over time, preservation of this agricultural landscape has contributed to the emergence of a quality food industry historically rooted in the region's politics of place.     

Farmers’ Dual Roles in Food Safety:Perceptions and Countermeasures

Farmers are both the producers and consumers of food, and as such have a dual role in food safety: they both generate risks and are exposed to them. Based upon a survey of the food production and consumption habits of 140 farm households and long-term research in two villages in Yunnan province, this study found that rural families are highly dependent on the market for food production and consumption. In their role as consumers, farmers are aware of food safety risks and concerned about them, but their ability to protect themselves is limited. They do so primarily by avoiding certain products and growing as much of their own food as possible. At the same time, in their role as producers, farmers engage in practices, primarily the overuse and inappropriate use of fertilizer and pesticides, that are damaging to food safety and the environment. There is therefore a disconnect in their roles as consumers and producers that needs to be addressed if policy goals for improving food safety and reducing the use of agricultural chemicals are to be achieved. Farmers need more information about food safety risks related to the products they consume themselves, and technical guidance on the safe use of farm chemicals when growing food for market. However, such measures will not be effective unless the external pressures on farmers are also addressed, through consideration of market incentives to use farm chemicals and the impact of consumer demand.     

Unexpected Results from China's Agricultural Subsidies Policy

Given the huge demand for food created by China's large population and the high cost of transporting food across such a large nation, a food security strategy based on local self-sufficiency seems vital. To encourage agricultural production, agricultural subsidies have therefore been implemented since 1997. Although subsidies to support food production in China arose from the desire to combat poverty and hunger, they may have instead led to adverse health impacts, food insecurity, and environmental degradation because the complexity of socioeconomic systems prevented governments from fully understanding the relationships among the many factors in such systems. China therefore faces enormous challenges before it can attain sustainable food production at levels high enough to end hunger, without undesirable consequences.     

可持续饮食系统的尺度逻辑——基于中国、巴西、南非的案例

农业工业化和“去地化”的生产模式、不透明的流通过程以及膨胀的消费欲望致使饮食系统危机不断,其可持续性成为全球尺度的挑战。当前饮食系统的可持续性研究面临尺度问题,涉及从全球地方的目标转化,以及从地方到全球的经验反馈两个方面。首先,全球尺度的可持续目标宏大包容,但是对地方尺度的差异性缺乏关照。其次,部分西方国家的可持续实践垄断了经验表达,过于重视社区等微观尺度而忽略了其他尺度的潜在作用,引发“尺度陷阱”。本文深入剖析中国、巴西、南非的饮食系统内部各类参与者的可持续性建构,提出全球和地方可持续饮食系统互动的尺度逻辑：① 从全球到地方的目标转化需要兼顾地方差异。中国、巴西、南非各自生成优先的可持续目标,分别针对食品安全、食物原真性和食物浪费、结构性的食物匮乏等问题。这些目标之间充满张力和博弈,不能等同替代。② 从地方到全球的经验反馈需要打破西方经验赋予的微观尺度的优越性,转向跨尺度的实践。发展中国家的可持续实践路径的要义在于发挥饮食系统各类参与者的能动性,调动资源形成有效的跨尺度行动网络。③ 发展中国家的经验表明尺度本身是方法,而不是目的,每个具体的可持续目标与适切的尺度方法匹配。有必要研究建议挖掘多元、差异的可持续模式,更加有针对性地促进当地乃至全球饮食系统的可持续发展。     

Review of the “Law of the People’s Republic of China on Quality and Safety of Agricultural Products”

One of the characteristics of food safety regulation in China is the separation of agricultural food products (agro-food) from other kinds of food. To this end, a Law on Quality and Safety of Agricultural Products (LQSAP) was enacted to provide for official control at the stage of primary agro-food production. With the enactment and revision of the Food Safety Law, one change in the legislative arrangement is the extension of the scope of this new law to cover the marketing of agro-food and the use of agricultural inputs. However, safety regulation at the stage of primary production of agro-food is still subject to the Law on Quality and Safety of Agricultural Products. It is also important to note that thee LQSAP refers both to agro-food and to agricultural products for non-human consumption; and that it provides rules both for safety assurance and for quality promotion. In the context of intensified official control to ensure food safety and diverse consumer needs for food of higher quality, a revision of the Law on Quality and Safety of Agricultural Products has been initiated. This article describes the goals of this legislation, its institutional arrangements and the directions the revisions are taking in order to provide a better understanding of food safety regulation in China in general and agro-food regulation in particular.     

中国收费公路基础设施与财务状况的空间格局

收费公路是公路网系统的重要组成部分,为中国高等级公路（尤其是高速公路）的快速发展起到了重要的作用。自20 世纪80 年代初以来,我国收费公路发展经历了三个阶段：起步探索阶段（1981-1997 年）、快速发展阶段（1998-2003 年）以及规范治理阶段（2004 年以来）。国际比较研究显示,人口、经济总量和国土面积会影响收费公路的规模,而中国收费公路的发展明显偏离了当前的经济发展水平,存在路网规模过大、空间布局不合理的问题。总体上,中国收费公路在空间格局上具有显著的反U型结构--东、西部地区收费公路规模均高于中部地区,且西部地区高于东部地区,与中国东中西地区依次递减的梯度经济格局不协调。收费公路财务指标的投资、收入和支出具有U型空间结构,与经济发展的区域格局不一致;但单位公里的收益水平呈现梯型结构,与中国经济发展的区域格局大体吻合;投资回收期表明中国收费公路总体具有可行的盈利水平,但省级区域差异较大。     

国内外旅游食物消费研究综述

旅游食物消费是旅游消费的首要内容。随着旅游学科研究的不断深入,旅游食物消费近年来逐渐成为学界关注的热点。目前,国内对旅游食物消费的研究仅限于对饮食文化资源的开发和旅游食物卫生等方面,处于描述性研究的初级阶段。国际上旅游食物消费研究起步较早,内容也较为全面,除对旅游食物安全风险、食物旅游产品开发和市场营销进行广泛探讨外,更在游客食物消费行为、旅游食物消费综合效应等领域取得了系统成果。本文利用文献分析方法,在综合分析和梳理国内外食物消费研究文献基础上,归纳总结了旅游食物消费发展阶段和特征,并重点从游客食物消费行为模式、旅游食物资源开发、旅游地美食节庆与营销、旅游食物安全与风险、旅游食物消费与旅游地发展、旅游食物消费环境影响与可持续发展等6个方面对旅游食物消费的研究内容和进展进行了分析,最后提出了中国现阶段旅游食物消费研究应关注的重点领域和方向。     

TENDING CULTURAL LANDSCAPES AND FOOD CITIZENSHIP IN TORONTO'S COMMUNITY GARDENS*

ABSTRACT. Scattered throughout the city of Toronto are more than no community gardens, sites of place‐based politics connected to the community food‐security movement. The gardens, spaces where passions for plants and food are shared, reflect the city's shifting cultural landscape and represent an everyday activity that is imbued with multiple meanings. Toronto's community food‐security movement uses gardens as one strategy to regenerate the local food system and provide access to healthy, affordable food. Three garden case studies expand on the complexities of “food citizenship,” illustrating the importance of that concept to notions of food security. The gardens reveal the role gardeners play in transforming urban spaces, the complex network of organizations working cooperatively and in partnership to implement these projects, and the way in which social and cultural pluralism are shaping the urban landscape.     

Geography's Human Resources over the Past Half‐Century*

This article examines trends over the past five decades in three human resource issues in geography: the production of new geographers; the size and diversity of the membership of the Association of American Geographers (AAG); and the topical specializations of geographers. The number of geography degrees awarded increased rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s, followed by a modest decline as baby boomers exited their college years. The number surged again in the 1990s, however, and it seems to have stabilized in recent years. AAG membership trends followed a similar trajectory and membership is currently poised to set a new record. The participation of women in the discipline has increased steadily over the past half‐century, but geography still lags the social and physical sciences in the share of women receiving bachelor's degrees. The participation of geographers from ethnic minority groups continues to be very low. The number of AAG specialty groups has doubled since their inception in 1978, and geographic information science (GIS) now occupies a prominent position within the discipline. Challenges in the coming years include increasing the diversity in geography, reducing the turnover in AAG membership, preparing for the imminent retirement of a large cohort of baby‐boom geographers, and reconnecting with nonacademic geographers.     

Gleaning from Gluttony: an Australian youth subculture confronts the ethics of waste

As part of the global ‘rights to the city’ movement and mounting concern over food waste, results are presented here of an ethnographic study of young people in Australia who choose to glean food from supermarket ‘dumpster bins’ and open markets primarily for political reasons. These youth form part of an international ‘freegan’ subculture: the belief in ‘minimising impact on the environment by consuming food that has literally been thrown away’ (Macmillan English Dictionary Online 2002). The study explores the emergence of two related subcultures: ‘Dumpster Diving’ (the act of procuring food from a supermarket dumpster bin for individual consumption) and ‘Food Not Bombs’ (a global-spanning group who collect left-over food from markets to cook and serve to people on the street). The analysis focuses on the ethics embedded within their alternative consumption diets. These findings are analysed in terms of the creation of their alternative identities performed on temporal–spatial terrains, exemplifying the role of the contemporary activist's use of space, place and culture in relation to social issues.     

Analysis of Food Consumption and Its Characteristics in Uzbekistan based on the Emergy Method

Food resources play a great role in human livelihood, so it is meaningful to investigate their utilization and structural evolution, especially in developing countries. This study takes data from FAOSTAT and the World Bank, and applies the emergy method to analyze Uzbek food consumption changes and characteristics from 1992 to 2019. Two main results were obtained: (1) National food consumption showed a persistent increase and had a remarkable change in stages, with the first stage of low-level repetition, the second stage of speeding up and the third stage of high development. The increase of animal-based food consumption was more notable than that of plant-based food consumption. (2) Per capita annual food consumption had a tendency of change that was similar to that of national food consumption. The proportion of animal-based food in the total per capita annual food consumption usually remained about 2-fold higher than that of plant-based food consumption. The main food consumption pattern was the combination of crops such as wheat and rice with meat such as beef. The fruit and vegetable consumption also increased. With the growing population, various changes in food demand will inevitably happen, so it is necessary to take sustainable measures in time to satisfy the new demand and to protect resources and the environment.     

土地资源约束下的北京食物供给潜力与优化(英文)

全球气候变化所带来的极端天气的频繁发生,水资源短缺情况下的农业用水的不断减少和伴随着人口增长与社会经济发展所引起的耕地面积下降,正在严重影响着世界范围内的食物安全。近年来由于食品价格的迅猛增长而导致的食品危机正在引起人们对增加地方食物供应的普遍关注。城市作为对食品安全更为敏感的地区,更是首当其冲受到食品危机的影响,城市一方面由于城市化快速发展,带来城市人口膨胀和消费多样性要求,从而形成需求的大幅增加,另一方面有由于城市周边耕地面积的不断减少,农业生产空间受到压缩,农业生产能力减弱,降低了城市的自我食品供给,引起自给率明显下降。如何保持供需之间的平衡,保障城市食品安全,成为亟需研究的问题。本文提出以食物足迹的概念,来衡量城市所间接消耗的土地资源,并以此为工具,以自给率为条件,来求得满足一定自给率条件下食物供给的空间对应格局。通过分析30年来北京食物足迹以及食物自给率的年际变化,得出结论:北京食物足迹从1981年的1.18万km2增加到2010年的2.94万km2,而自给率整体下降较多,蔬菜、水果、谷物及油脂类的自给率从1981年的59.3%、35.8%、37.3% 和 13.1% 下降到2010年的39.0%、27.0%、6.7% 和2.2%,可以看出蔬菜仍能保持相当的自给率,因此提高蔬菜自给率是增强城市自给能力的最佳选择。最后,以60%的蔬菜自给率为目标,提出了两种情景,包括完全以耕地为来源的空间应对格局,以及屋顶农业参与下的空间应对格局。     

Smell this: Singapore's curry day and visceral citizenship

In August 2011, many Singaporean citizens grabbed their cooking pots and used the city‐state's national obsession with food to express growing dissatisfaction with immigration and integration trends. The ‘cook and share a pot of curry’ event—a local response to Chinese newcomers complaining about the smell of their Indian Singaporean neighbours’ food—is significant for its use of smell to catalyse a collective citizen reaction and for its reliance on contemporary social media. By analysing this event, we intend to (1) conceptualize the role of smell and viscera in framing citizenship; (2) understand how smells shed light on the city‐state's contemporary ethnic politics and sense of national identity; and (3) reframe the significance of curry day as an expression of visceral citizenship that complements how the state frames Singaporean citizenry. We maintain that curry day sheds light on a specific dimension of Singaporean citizenship, as it uses smell, viscera and embodied activism to mobilize against rationalistic state‐defined distinctions between local and international concerns, economic objectives and social cohesion, inter‐racial harmony and national identity.     

Geographical Environment for the Safe Production of Food

Food is essential for human survival, but harmful, toxic substances in food damage and threaten human health. Food production is inseparable from the place where the food is produced; that is, from the geographical environment that consists of natural and human environments, two parts of a unified whole. China’s territory is vast and its geographical environment is complex and diverse. Food production patterns in different parts of the country vary significantly, as do local socio-economic and cultural conditions. Such differences have an enormous impact on food safety. Based on the geographical area where food is produced in China, this paper reveals the main environmental problems arising from industrial and agricultural production activities, and related risks for food safety and health. In concluding, we make some recommendations for countermeasures. The main food safety related environmental problems include the excessive application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides; high background levels of heavy metals; discharge of wastewater and heavy metals; and excessive use of additives and antibiotics in livestock and poultry breeding and aquatic products. All these issues can lead to huge risks for food safety and thus health. These are not simply scientific issues, but also political, economic and legal issues, as well as social problems that differ from region to region. Therefore, comprehensive studies are needed to identify risks to food safety and health hazards in different areas. Systematic and comprehensive risk assessments of health problems caused by changing ecosystems, environmental pollution, nutrition problems and lifestyle, and especially comprehensive risk assessments of regional environmental changes and health risks are needed. Measures based on an understanding of local conditions must be put forward to protect food safety and health, to strengthen multi-sectoral management, and to improve environmental quality     

Big Data Resource Planning for Food Safety: a Preliminary Exploration of the “Environment,Food and Health” Information Chain

Environmental pollution, food safety and health are closely linked. A key challenge in addressing the problem of food safety and protecting public health is building an integrated knowledge base to inform policy and strengthen governance. This requires breaking down the trans-departmental information barrier across the environment, food and health domains to ensure the effective flow of data and the efficient utilization of resources, and facilitate the collaborative governance of food safety. Achieving this will be crucial for the development of health and medical care in China in the era of big data. Currently, the information resources commanded by various departments are incomplete and fragmented. Data resources are also organized in vertical silos and there is a lack of data sharing within and across policy streams. To provide the basis for more effective integrated collection and analysis of data in future, this study summarizes the information resources of various departments whose work relates to interactions between environment, food and health, and presents measures to strengthen top-down design, and establish unified data standards and a big data sharing platform. It also points to the need for increased training of data analysts with interdisciplinary expertise.     

中国保健食品的结构特征及其发展趋向

保健食品是具有与生物防御、生物节律调整、防止疾病、恢复健康等有关的功能因素,经设计加工,对生物体有明显调整功能的食品。我国保健食品始于1980年,20年来,随着国民经济的发展和科学技术水平的提高,保健食品的生产和消费也迅速发展。截止2002年底,全国保健食品生产企业848家,当年具有批准文号的产品共1 474种。本文对保健食品的功能、区域、产品原料、所有制、产品剂型、质量管理等方面进行了分析。分析表明:从产品功能看,主要集中于免疫调节功能、调节血脂、抗疲劳的产品,这3类产品共占全部保健食品市场的61.7%;从区域特征看,半数以上的企业仍集中在沿海地区;从保健食品原料分类看,以中草药原料为主,占44.5%;从所有制结构看,民营企业为主,已占全部保健食品企业的17.9%;从产品剂型结构看,胶囊剂(软/硬)是主打剂型,占56.4%;科技投入占当年产品销售收人的2.3%;全国仅有13.1%企业通过GMP和ISO体系认证。最后分别从中老年、中青年和青少年3个消费群提出了今后保健食品的发展方向。     

Six decades of agricultural land use change in Bangladesh: Effects on crop diversity,productivity, food availability and the environment, 1948–2006

This paper provides a detailed analysis of agricultural land use change in Bangladesh over a 59‐year period (1948–2006) and examines how these have impacted crop diversity, productivity, food availability and the environment. The key findings of the analysis are: first, land use intensity has increased significantly over this period, mainly from the widespread adoption of a rice‐based Green Revolution technology package beginning in the early 1960s; second, contrary to expectation, crop diversity too has increased; third, although land productivity has increased significantly, declines in the productivity of fertilizers and pesticides raise doubts over sustaining agricultural growth; fourth, food availability has improved, with a reversal in the dietary energy imbalance in recent years despite a high population growth rate; and finally, the production environment has suffered with widespread soil nutrient depletion experienced in many agroecological regions. The policy implication points towards crop diversification as a desired strategy for agricultural growth to improve resource economy, productivity and efficiency in farming in Bangladesh.