In both capitalist and socialist economies, agricultural planning has been understood as the allocation of areas for planting of certain products; the production potential and ability to act rationally of farmers, the main productive actors, have bee...
Public school canteens are increasingly recognized as welfare institutions democratizing food access and promoting healthier and more sustainable dietary patterns, as well as arenas where children’s tastes are shaped through family socializatio...
As part of cities’ increasing commitment to sustainable development, local food systems are becoming a policy priority. In this article we focus on the case of a local food system in Ghent, Belgium. We adopt the notion of Hajer et al. (2015) that top...
Mycotoxin contamination remains a persistent threat to food safety in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and neighboring countries, driven by conducive tropical agroecological conditions, inadequate post-harvest practices, and limited regulat...
Official organic regulation in Europe is based on the third-party certification system to guarantee organic products. Many critics and dissatisfactions have motivated the emergence of other guarantee systems, based on an intense implication of produc...
Public interest in where food comes from and how it is produced, processed, and distributed has increased over the last few decades, with even greater focus emerging during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mounting evidence and experience point to disturbing w...
The paper addresses political issues related to policy interventions for food system sustainability. It presents the results of a literature review, which explores how the concept of power has been used so far by scholars of food system dynamics. Art...
In the context of capitalist crisis, a re-emergence of reciprocal economic relationships has been praised by postcapitalist researchers. Self-organised solidarity food economies have indeed brought promise of democratic change. However, this article...
The paper is based on the crucial value of food as “a condensed social fact”. The analysis focuses on food narratives, responsible consumption, battles for the food emancipation of subaltern and low-income subjects, and attention to the q...
Drawing on transition theory, we conceptualize local food networks as innovations that initially function and develop in local niches within a given food regime. As niche-innovations local food networks induce socio-ecological changes on the local le...
Food sharing and food commons have both been raised as possible solutions to unsustainable and unjust urban food systems. This paper draws upon ethnographic research conducted in Berlin and New York to examine self-organizing in community food initia...
Behavioural nudges modify choice architecture to steer food choices without removing alternatives or substantially changing economic incentives. This critical narrative review synthesises 62 sources from behavioural public policy, public health nutri...
This paper discusses agri-food economies and how they evolve over time. It also analyses how these economies, which often have contradictory dynamics, are theorized. A central thesis of the paper is that different theoretical representations not only...
International esteem for Galápagos’ natural wonders and the democratization of travel have contributed to a 300% increase in annual tourist entries to the archipelago from 2000 (68,989) to 2018 (275,817). The attendant spike in tourism-r...
Urban food strategies are increasingly being used as means to address a multitude of challenges presented by food system failings. The use of participatory approaches has become common practice in the field of urban food systems planning. These appro...
Gonimbrasia belina (mopane worm) and Cirina forda caterpillars (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae) are mostly found in shrubs and trees, from where they are collected as larvae and are widely consumed across southern Africa by rural and increasingly urban pop...
The countries Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, Ethiopia and Djibouti are facing the worst food crisis of the 21st century as a result of devastating droughts. The crisis is causing starvation and leading to a lack of access to clean water and sanitation for o...
This article compares the roles of allotments and community gardens in democratising London’s urban food system. Drawing from ethnographic and participatory action research (PAR), it reveals a recent policy shift favouring community gardens com...
This essay employs Dr Martin Luther King, Jr’s sermon, “The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life”, as an acute lens through which to assess and impart new meanings to African–American activists’ strivings to reach an idea...
This review explores the current evidence on the role and success factors of grassroots initiatives in sustainability transitions, with special attention given to social innovations and the transformation of urban food systems, a field that is still...
Intrinsic and extrinsic sensory elements influence our food experiences. However, most research on extrinsic multisensory aspects of food has centered on WEIRD (White, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) urban participants. This study bre...
Background: In Lao PDR, acute malnutrition remains a public health problem, with around 9% of children under 5 being affected. Outpatient treatment of severe acute malnutrition requires ready-to-use therapeutic foods (RUTFs), but concerns have been r...
Maternal nutrition is impacted by personal and environmental factors including dietary intake, knowledge, food availability, and affordability. This cross-sectional analysis aimed to evaluate nutrition-related knowledge, attitudes, practices, and ass...
Background/Objectives: Food system assessments in Sub-Saharan Africa have predominantly focused on caloric availability, often overlooking the structural and nutritional quality of the food supply. This study examines what drives and constrains food...
The U.S. and Japan are both democratic industrialized societies, but the numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths per million people in the U.S. (including Japanese Americans) are 12.1-times and 17.4-times higher, respectively, than those in Japan. The a...
The European Union’s Farm-to-Fork (F2F) Strategy sets an ambitious agenda for a socio-ecological transition, positioning agriculture as a critical sector for achieving sustainable food systems. However, its implementation faces significant syst...
The climate catastrophe is being caused by human effects on earth system processes that are surpassing several planetary boundaries. This crisis is driven significantly by the global food system. It has been increasing over recent years, yet food sys...
Multi-stakeholder participation (MSP) has become a central feature in several institutions and processes of global governance. Those who promote them trust that these arrangements can advance the deliberative quality of international institutions, an...
Maize and other cereals are the commodities most contaminated with fumonisins. The maize acreage is increasing in Africa, and the maize harvest provides important foods for humans and feeds for domestic animals throughout the continent. In North Afri...
Climate-related disturbances are increasingly identified as major determinants of food insecurity in fragile environments, yet empirical evidence remains scarce in conflict-affected areas such as the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Using...
The signing of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) has stimulated a lot of trade potential in Africa that could see the continent significantly improving its intra-trade levels, thereby boosting the economic welfare of Africans. In...
13 October 2020
Background. Public markets were exempted from the restrictive regulations instituted to limit the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In the early stage of the pandemic, we assessed people’s know...
The popularity of agroecology has grown over the last few years as an alternative paradigm for food systems. This public attention has meant agroecology is increasingly becoming institutionalised and integrated into food policy frameworks. While ther...
Humanity faces not isolated problems but a PolyCrisis, which is a set of 26 tightly interwoven existential crises spanning ecological collapse, planetary overheating, chronic disease epidemics, institutional fragility and social breakdown. Each crisi...
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPR Korea) suffered considerable upland deforestation during the 1990s, yet its consequences remain relatively unknown. This paper examines this deforestation and resulting land-use change patterns by analys...
Odontogenic bone tumor (OT) is a rare pathology in the world, but it is very common in developing countries; its etiology is still unknown, and it causes serious deformities of the mandible and maxilla if it is not operated upon soon. Lassa virus (LA...
Considering the novel concept of Industry 5.0 model, where sustainability is aimed together with integration in the value chain and centrality of people in the production environment, this article focuses on a case where energy efficiency is achieved...
Fairtrade, present in Peru since 1990, has been widely studied for its impact on agri-food production. This research, based on convenience surveys conducted with leaders and members of cooperatives and agri-exporting companies during the 2024 Peruvia...
While there are many studies that have reported methods for tracing the geographical origin of seafoods, most of them have focused on identifying parameters that can be used effectively and not the direct application of these methods. In this study,...
The uncontrolled logging of Pterocarpus tinctorius Welw. in the Kasenga territory in the southeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is of significant socioeconomic benefit, but above all, it is a threat to the stability of forest ecosystems. B...
Micronutrient deficiencies, particularly of iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn), in the diet contribute to health issues and hidden hunger. Enhancing the Fe and Zn content in globally staple food crops like rice is necessary to address food malnutrition. A Genom...
Quantitative land cover records for geopolitically restricted regions remain extremely scarce, particularly for the pre-Landsat era. This study reconstructs long-term urban land cover dynamics in Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea...
Background: Food and Nutrition Security (FNS) policies in Brazil aim to ensure a broad spectrum of rights and were formulated based on the complex relationship among the State, Society, and Market in the capitalist order. The human right to adequate...
Food insecurity persists globally despite growing public investment—a pattern that points to the potential role of governance and accountability mechanisms in shaping how resources are managed and allocated. While supreme audit institutions (SA...
4 March 2026
Introduction: Female sex workers (FSWs) face heightened health risks, particularly from HIV, which accounts for 8% of FSW deaths in low- and middle-income countries. Adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) remains suboptimal and few studies have ex...
The article attempts to provide a theoretical discussion on territorial governance by presenting both the neo-institutionalist position and the De Sousa Santos’ alternative models, with a view of highlighting the dimensions that can be relevant to un...
Background: Women living with HIV (WLHIV) in low-income urban settings face multiple intersecting nutritional risks from food insecurity, poor dietary quality, and mental health problems. We evaluated the prevalence of household food insecurity and i...
Cocoa agroforestry has evolved into an accepted natural resource conservation strategy in the tropics. It is regularly proposed as one of the main uses for REDD+ projects (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation and the role of c...
This study assessed the technical capacity and specific support needs of 28 small, medium, and community cassava processing centers across the Ruzizi Plain, Kinshasa, and Kongo Central Provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo. A rapid appraisal...
This study analyzes the functioning and sustainability of the giant freshwater prawn (Macrobrachium spp.) value chain in the Mangroves Marine Park, Democratic Republic of Congo, using the VCA4D methodology, which integrates economic, social, and envi...
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