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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Agriculture".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 July 2019) | Viewed by 18760

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Prof. Dr. Hossein Azadi

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Department of Economics and Rural Development, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, University of Liège, 5030 Gembloux, Belgium
Interests: land and food policies; land governance; food security; agrarian change; resilient agriculture; sustainable livelihood; vulnerability
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Achieving food security at the national and household level plays a major role on the daily agenda of policy makers at a global level. Despite continuous efforts to create more sustainable food supply, a great proportion of the population in the developing world is still suffering from chronic malnutrition. According to the FAO (2015), currently, about 800 million people around the world–mostly women and children in developing countries–are suffering from chronic hunger. Many scholars stressed, to achieve food security, both availability and accessibility of sufficient quantities of food should be considered concurrently. On the one hand, as the population increases, food production needs to increase too. On the other hand, food availability does not assure the accessibility of enough food to all people. This is mostly related to the debate on food justice and food sovereignty. These concepts focus on the inequitable distribution of food, land, water, technology, and other production inputs, as well as having efficient institutions such as cooperatives and accessible markets to improve food distribution. This Special Issue aims at creating a multidisciplinary discussion forum on suitable approaches to achieve food security.

We invite authors to contribute original research as well as review articles that will illustrate and stimulate the continuing effort to understand the sustainable food system and food security strategies, and relevant issues.

Potential topics include:

Food security
Food scarcity
Food policy
Food justice
Food sovereignty
Food distribution
Grassroots of unequal food distribution
Consequence of the unequal food distribution
Role of cooperatives in improving food distribution
Role of market in improving food distribution
Food supply and demand
Political economy of food insecurity
Coping strategies of food insecurity

Dr. Hossein Azadi
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 831 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Sustainable Emerging Country Agro-Food Supply Chains: Fresh Vegetable Price Formation Mechanisms in Rural China

by Yuliang Cao and Muhammad Mohiuddin

Sustainability 2019, 11(10), 2814; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11102814 - 17 May 2019

Cited by 22 | Viewed by 3637

Abstract

Price formation mechanisms along the supply chain determine the economic viability of effective agro-food supply chains in emerging countries with small-scale subsistence-based agricultural activities. This study offers an analysis of the price formation mechanism along the Chinese fresh vegetable supply chain. It analyzes the features of market transactions in the upstream and downstream greenhouse cucumber supply chain, and presents an elastic model of pricing in the fresh and raw vegetable market in China. Based on the daily procurement price data of 78 cases in Lingyuan (Liaoning Province, China), and the wholesale price of 78 cases in Xinfadi (Beijing, China), the Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) unit root test, co-integration test, and Granger test were applied to reveal the relationship between the prices. Findings indicate that the price of fresh and raw vegetables is formed at the wholesale market, where after it cascades from wholesalers to direct buyers (primary merchants) and farmers, and is passed on to retailers and consumers, where the final market price is formed. Farmers exhibit bounded rationality decision-making, that is, they can only passively accept price fluctuations. Buyers (primary merchants, wholesalers’ agents, and retailers) at each level extract fixed rewards, while making no additional contribution to the price fluctuations along the chain. The wholesalers enjoy an oligopolistic competition market and can better take advantage of the asymmetric information to accommodate market demand. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue More Food or Better Distribution)

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22 pages, 1772 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Linking Entrepreneurial Skills and Opportunity Recognition with Improved Food Distribution in the Context of the CPEC: A Case of Pakistan

by Ali Sher, Saman Mazhar, Azhar Abbas, Muhammad Amjed Iqbal and Xiangmei Li

Sustainability 2019, 11(7), 1838; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11071838 - 27 Mar 2019

Cited by 24 | Viewed by 5707

Abstract

Far-reaching changes in the domestic and global markets are crafting big avenues for farmers and agribusiness entrepreneurs. This study examines the agriculture entrepreneurship and farmers’ performance in the context of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). A survey was conducted to collect primary data from three agricultural zones adjacent to the under-construction CPEC in Pakistan. According to the results, market orientation, entrepreneurial orientation, innovation orientation, and opportunity recognition positively influence agriculture entrepreneurship thereby facilitating timely distribution of food commodities in ensuring food security. Our findings also indicate that uptake of entrepreneurship complements farmers’ marketing, operational and economic performance. These findings do imply that improving farmers’ entrepreneurial skills is the essential element for their improved performance in terms of locating potential markets and timely delivery of primary commodities, such as food items. It suggests that farmers might seek enormous economic opportunities arising from improved infrastructure, output linkages, connectivity and access to global markets through the CPEC. Based on the findings, the study provides implications for policymakers to channelize the potential endeavors for facilitating the farmers’ access to new markets and getting the foremost advantage of Belt and Road Initiative. The study also extends the existing literature on agriculture entrepreneurship-opportunity recognition and access to new markets in a befitting manner. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue More Food or Better Distribution)

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16 pages, 725 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Fish Value Chain and Its Impact on Rural Households’ Income: Lessons Learned from Northern Ethiopia

by Abebe Ejigu Alemu and Hossein Azadi

Sustainability 2018, 10(10), 3759; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10103759 - 18 Oct 2018

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 4501

Abstract

These days, one of the global challenges is the growing demand for food. To be more specific, seafood bases play a key role in filling the nutritional requirements of human beings. In Africa (Ethiopia) the public expenses to improve productive capacity in aquatic food are increasing. Additionally, the expenses in dams and in fishers’ capacity building have increased households’ engagement in the fishery sector in Ethiopia. Cooperatives’ productive capacity has been strengthened by the government and other non-government organizations with the supply of fishing boats, refrigerators, fish nets and other office supplies. However, the effect of such public expenses in bringing changes in the households’ livelihood and welfare has never been assessed in this study area. This paper aims to investigate what motivates the households to fish and assess the effect of fisheries on the households’ livelihood and welfare. A structured survey consisting of 313 rural households was administered using trained enumerators in two kebeles located close to the Tekeze dam, Northern Ethiopia. The result indicates that socioeconomic characteristics, such as age (young), sex, education, and active family size were driving the households to fishing. Access to market and access to support are driving farmers to fisheries. There is a significant difference in fishing households’ income which is higher than non-fishing households. The results also indicate that there are lesser income inequalities among fishery households operating in cooperatives compared to private fishery households. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue More Food or Better Distribution)

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18 pages, 248 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Eating More but Not Better at School? Impacts of Boarding on Students’ Dietary Structure and Nutritional Status in Rural Northwestern China

by Qihui Chen, Chunchen Pei and Qiran Zhao

Sustainability 2018, 10(8), 2753; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10082753 - 04 Aug 2018

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 4088

Abstract

While the impact of boarding on students’ development has attracted considerable attention from researchers and policy makers, rigorous analysis of students’ food consumption behavior and nutritional status has been rare. This study fills this gap by analyzing data on nearly 7600 rural primary school students from two northwestern Chinese provinces, using students’ home-to-school distance as an instrumental variable for their boarding status. Our estimation results suggest that boarding significantly reduces students’ dietary diversity, as measured by a Diet Diversity Score constructed following guidelines provided by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. While the reduced dietary diversity does not undermine students’ overall nutrition intake, as measured by their body mass index (BMI) for age, it does increase their probability of being anemic. Further investigation reveals that boarders consume significantly less protein-rich food and significantly more carbohydrate-rich food than their non-boarding counterparts. Full article

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