Palm oil production is expanding in many tropical areas worldwide. The implications for the landscape, social relations and living conditions in the respective areas are the subject of a controversial debate. This article explores the social, economic, and environmental impacts caused by palm oil production in two places in south-eastern Nicaragua: Kukra Hill and Boca de Sábalos. From a theoretical perspective of political ecology, this article reflects on the opportunities and limitations of non-governmental ...

Citizen science is a rapidly developing research approach, increasing in popularity within the science community and civil society, as well as in the media and among policy-makers (Pettibone et al., 2017).

This study is dedicated to the exploration of the role of Bourdieu’s notion of cultural capital on the formation of habitus within alternative food initiatives (AFIs) among two contrasting case studies in the urban post-industrial landscape of Glasgow. This research will additionally demonstrate the role of cultural capital in the reproduction of inequality on a micro-level. Moreover, this investigation aims to point out, compare and contrast two distinct sets of habitus in those groups engaging in alternative food ...

Recently, urban agriculture (UA) has expanded throughout cities of the developed world as a response to social injustices and environmental gaps of the globalized food system (including food security, economic opportunities and community building). Due to the limiting factors of the urban environment (e.g., land availability), UA often occupies the roofs of buildings as vacant space to further develop local food production through so-called urban rooftop agriculture (URA). This paper presents an interdisciplinary ...

With millions of animals brought into existence and raised for food every year, their negative impact upon the environment and the staggering growth in the number of chronic diseases caused by meat and dairy diets make a global move toward ethical veganism imperative. Typically, utilitarians and deontologists have led this discussion. The purpose of this paper is to propose a virtuous approach to ethical veganism. Virtue ethics can be used to construct a defense of ethical veganism by relying on the virtues of ...

Global food security is one of the most pressing challenges the world is facing today. In an era dominated by fast-paced technological and digital progress in the agricultural landscape, famines still break loose and continue unabated in certain parts of the world. The recent hunger crisis that erupted in the Horn of Africa only further reaffirms this claim. The problem of hunger and malnourishment extends beyond the frontiers of Africa. Despite its economic achievements, India hosts the world’s largest number of ...

This paper assesses household food security and identifies the factors affecting it in two mountainous districts of Nepal using census data from 2011/12. A binary logit model has been used because the dependent variable is dichotomous. In the study districts, farmland expansion was the major contributor to the increased production of major crops over the period 1974/75 to 2013/14. The yield growth of major crops, with the exception of potato and wheat, remained below the population growth in these districts. On ...

Women livestock farmers are very productive and contribute greatly towards ensuring food security of their nations. However, their efforts are sometimes limited by climate-related hazards. This case study of The Gambia used content analysis, interviews, consultative seminars, policy mapping and dialogues to examine climate change adaptation issues confronting women livestock farmers in particular. Consequences of climate hazards, such as drought, flood, and temperature variability, have been experienced in The Gambia. ...

Multifunctional and Peri-Urban Agriculture (MFA and PUA) have spread all around the world as new, alternative means of food production. Due to their non-productive services, they are considered fundamental for food sovereignty and rural development, and also as tools to conserve the rural-urban fringe and limit sprawl. MFA and PUA are very often embedded in Alternative Food Networks (AFNs), which represent a change in food production and consumption practices. Drawing upon the definition of landscape according to ...

Urban gardening initiatives have evolved from their original purpose of food production to assume aesthetic, recreational, educational, social, or therapeutic functions. The general objective of this paper was to determine the new socio-spatial configuration into which these experiences have been implemented, in order to determine the diversity of actors involved in urban agriculture (UA) within the municipality of Perugia. Secondary objectives were to explore the social and environmental capital produced and to ...