Food with a visible face: Traceability and the public promotion of private governance in the Japanese food system

The years since 2000 have seen a constant stream of high-profile scandals relating to food safety and food labeling in Japan. One response of Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) has been to promote food traceability as a mechanism to improve food safety and to provide reliable information to consumers about their food. MAFF’s main approach to traceability promotion, however, has not involved making traceability mandatory (as has been done in the EU) but encouraging private companies to adopt it. These actions constitute, I argue, an example of the public promotion of private governance. When viewed against the literature on the private governance of food safety and quality, MAFF’s traceability activities are surprising for three reasons: their forms and extent, the relative lack of interest the Ministry has shown in third-party certification, and the way MAFF has responded to concerns about the safety of imported food by focusing almost entirely on domestic traceability. I also argue, however, that looking at the literature from a Japanese perspective suggests that public encouragement is more central to the rise of private governance in the global agri-food system than is usually appreciated.     

New power relations served here: The growth of food banking in Chicago

While some non-profits have suffered under the political and economic pressures of neoliberal urban governance reform, others have emerged as important institutional players in local governance regimes. This article highlights how non-profits food banks in Chicago have commercialized in order to respond to increased demand, enhance their institutional independence from government, and reassert their local dominance in emergency food service delivery. From a food bank member agency perspective, the consolidation of food bank institutional power has produced new bureaucratic limitations, user fees, and increased competition. These shifts reveal the rise of metropolitan food banks as important players in neoliberal urban governance regimes, as they control the conceptualization of hunger, management of poverty, and organization of food distribution systems.     

不同石漠化等级的孢粉组合特征及其生态指示意义——以花江实验区为例

以贵州省关岭县南部北盘江试验示范为例,分析了不同等级石漠化土地上的表土孢粉组合特征,揭示了孢粉组合特征与石漠化等级的相互关系。结果显示:石漠化地区的孢粉组合具有鲜明的特征,乔木与灌木合占16.1%,草本与蕨类植物合占58.9%,这反映了石漠化地区以草蕨类植物为主的植被状况;孢粉组合与石漠化等级呈良好的相关性,草蕨类植物随石漠化等级的升高比重由41%增加到77.6%,种类由14种增加到27种,乔木花粉所占比重由6.9%降到2.6%,植物种类不变;孢粉组合反映出三出凤尾蕨等蕨类植物对岩溶石漠化生态环境的适应性和代表性。     

Selenium concentration in food and blood of residents of Abeokuta Metropolis,Southwestern Nigeria

Selenium like any other element can both be essential and toxic depending upon the concentration at which it occurs in human diet. This paper assessed the level of this trace element in twenty different (20) types of locally produced food items around Abeokuta town and the blood obtained from the antecubital fossa vein of eighty-eight (88) healthy adults resident in Abeokuta.     

腾格里沙漠地区盐湖资源调查遥感应用研究

通过对腾格里沙漠地区遥感影像信息分析与野外实地调查,圈定出大小盐湖122个,查明了盐湖的空间分布规律,划分了图兰泰湖-头道湖、白碱湖-西硝池、苏武山湖-汤家海、鸡龙同古-和屯、通古楼诺尔-巴彦达来五个盐湖分布区,对各分布区盐湖的成因类型、沉积特征、成矿规律及资源状况进行了研究,为进一步勘查、开发和利用本区资源提供了依据。     

乌兰陶勒盖水源地地下水开采的植被生态风险研究

乌兰陶勒盖水源地位于毛乌素沙漠腹地,地表水体不发育,植被生态相对脆弱。水源地大规模开采引发的地下水位下降将会对区内的植被生态造成一定的破坏。采用样方调查方法,对区内植被生态现状进行了调查,将区内植被分为荒漠、低湿和沙地三种植被类型;对植被覆盖度与地下水位的关系进行了探讨,得出植被生存的最佳水位是1.1～3.0m;运用GIS软件对区内植物现状与地下水位埋深进行了敏感性分区研究。试探性的建立开采条件下的植被生态风险指数,并根据指数值的大小进行风险性分区,结果表明,在选定的开采方案下,高风险区和中风险区的分布面积较小,而低风险区的面积最大,从而说明在乌兰陶勒盖水源地新增地下水开采量11.82万m3/d的情况下,不会对生态植被造成大的影响。     

Formation and evolution of sand deserts in Xinjiang,Northwest China：Ⅰ. Provenances of desert sands

Sandy desert landscape is a geological product of arid climate and abundant sand materials supply in natural conditions, therefore the formation of sandy desert is an ideal studying object for understanding the interaction between various stratigraphic/epigenetic spheres of the earth system. However, until now, the knowledge about the provenance and formation of these deserts in Xinjiang, Central Asia is diverse and inconsistent, a systematic review is necessary. Ancient aeolian sand sediments in the internal areas of these deserts and their twin dust deposits in the Cenozoic strata surrounding the Xinjiang deserts are direct and indirect clues reflecting the provenance of sand materials and the formation and evolution of deserts. Based on the geochemical, mineralogical and isotopic evidences of desert sands and relevant deposits in the peripheral regions, this paper reviews the research progress on the development of the sandy deserts in Xinjiang, Northwest China. Many proofs proposed that desert sands in Xinjiang were mainly sourced from the ancient pluvial, alluvial and fluvial sediments and were eventually achieved because of the local sand supply. It pointed out that the settings of tectonic structure in Xinjiang had made sediments both in the Tarim Basin and the Junggar Basin being influenced greatly by regional hydrological system and aeolian processes originated from the planetary wind system of westerly, the East Asian winter monsoon and the topographical mountain-valley winds. However, the directions of transportation paths are different between the hydrological dynamics and the aeolian dynamics, which are decided by the slantwise structures of the basins tectonics and the regional atmospheric circulation routes, respectively, and have determined anisotropies of the transport pathway of these sediments delivered by different agents. This results in a geological cycle of detrital sediment transportation in the two large basins and thus largely increases the degree of sediment mixing, alternation and recycle between younger and older sediment sources, as well as the complexity and diversity of sand provenances.     

Estimating agricultural production in marginal and food insecure areas in Kenya using very high resolution remotely sensed imagery

Regularly monitoring the amount of food produced in food insecure, isolated, subsistence farming areas can be used to help identify households or communities who may be in need of additional food resources. Measuring seasonal food production in developing countries, particularly at a sub-national level, is complicated by lack of data. In this study we use high resolution remotely sensed data to calculate cultivated area in two different growing areas, during two different seasons in Kenya. The results of the research support the usefulness of this approach for agricultural monitoring in the developing world and suggest that monitoring cultivated area requires attention to the specific growing characteristics of an area.     

荒漠河岸胡杨(Populus euphratica)树干液流的时滞效应

以2012年4—9月树干液流速率与环境因子的实测数据,分析了荒漠河岸胡杨(Populus euphratica)树干液流的时滞效应。结果表明:不同月份胡杨树干液流速率对不同环境因子的时滞不同;4—9月,胡杨树干液流速率峰值时间比太阳辐射峰值时间晚约1h,比空气温度峰值时间早约1h,比水汽压差峰值时间早约2h,比空气相对湿度谷值时间早约2h;对影响胡杨树干液流速率的环境因子进行了主成分分析,发现胡杨树干液流速率与1h以前的第1主成分、第2主成分相关性最高,相关系数分别为0.864、0.875;对错位前后胡杨树干液流速率与环境因子进行多元线性回归分析发现,在胡杨树干液流的数值模拟中,考虑液流相对于环境因子的时滞效应可以提高模型的拟合精度。     

Putting the seafood in sustainable food systems

Increasing attention by consumers to the social and environmental dimensions of the food they eat has generated many different responses, including certification programs, watch lists and local/slow food movements. This article examines the more recent entry of seafood into these consumer social movements. Although a concern with the family farm—as well as tendency to equate national security with food security—has long connected terrestrial food production with other cultural concerns, fisheries have tended to be regarded more as natural resources. Considering seafood as part of the “food system” would enhance the management of fisheries, while the long engagement in fisheries with co- and adaptive management and the politics of knowledge would enrich the debate in the agri-foods literature. The article also offers suggestions on how fisheries management could better govern for sustainable food systems, and provides further ideas about food, sustainability and governance.