Understandings of Food Insecurity in Aotearoa New Zealand: Considering Practitioners’ Perspectives in a Neoliberal Context Using Q Methodology

Food insecurity in advanced capitalist nations has persisted over decades despite excess food production, welfare systems, and charitable responses. This research examines the perspectives of practitioners who engage with food insecurity in Aotearoa New Zealand using a Q methodology study to synthesise and characterise three typical subjective positions. Consensus across the three positions includes the state’s responsibility for the food security of citizens, while points of contention include the role of poverty as a cause of food insecurity and the significance of a human right to food. The research contributes to research into food insecurity in advanced capitalist nations by identifying areas of consensus and contention among food insecurity practitioners, identifying the significance of children and moral failure in perceptions of food insecurity, and comparing practitioners’ perspectives to existing approaches to researching food insecurity in advanced capitalist nations.

Man Made Famines: an International Crime. A Critique to the Current Gaps in the International Legal Framework

There is a gap in the current legal framework that might result in the infringement of the human right to food and it is given by the lack of criminalisation of intentionally caused famines. Man-made famines should be recognised as crimes against humanity because after analysing the APs and the Rome Statute, we observe that they only mention starvation episodes, and several other behaviours and situations that would end with a famine are not considered at all. We are referring here to cases when a state has the capacity to predict a famine-related disaster and the resources to minimize its impact but it fails to mitigate the effects and to mobilize a response.Compared with starvation, famines are events that have much more severe repercussions for larger areas, larger social groups or even whole countries. Furthermore, they usually cover a much longer period of time such as seasons or even years. Moreover, the perpetrators have to be major players such as governments, organisations or groups with sufficient economic or military power.Finally, famines may be achieved through military actions, policies and other political actions influencing and altering the normal social processes connected to the production of food.

COVID19 and Human Right To Food: Lived Experiences of the Urban Poor in Kenya with the Impacts of Government’s Response Measures, A Participatory Qualitative Study

Background Globally, governments put in place measures to curb the spread of COVID-19. Information on the effects of these measures on the urban poor is limited. This study aimed to explore the lived experiences of the urban poor in Kenya in the context of government’s COVID-19 response measures and its effects on the human right to food. Methods A participatory qualitative study was conducted in two informal settlements in Nairobi between January and March 2021. Analysis draws on eight focus group discussions, eight in-depth interviews, twelve key informant interviews, two photovoice sessions and three digital storytelling sessions. Phenomenology was applied to understand an individual’s lived experiences with the human right to food during COVID -19. Thematic analysis was performed using NVIVO software. Results The human right to food was affected in various ways. Many people lost their livelihoods affecting affordability of food due to response measures such as social distancing, curfew, and lockdown. The food supply chain was disrupted causing limited availability and access to affordable, safe, adequate, and nutritious food. Consequently, hunger and an increased consumption of low-quality food was reported. The government and other stakeholders instituted social protection measures. However, these were inadequate and marred with irregularities. Some households resorted to scavenging food from dumpsites, skipping meals, sex-work, urban-rural migration and depending on food donations to survive. On the positive side, some households resorted to progressive measures such as urban farming and food sharing in the community. Generally, there was a view that the response measures could have been more sensitive to the human rights of the urban poor. Conclusions The government’s COVID-19 restrictive measures exacerbated the already existing vulnerability of the urban poor to food insecurity and violated their human right to food. Future response measures should be executed in ways that respect the human right to food and protect marginalized people from resultant vulnerabilities.

Derecho humano a la alimentación e igualdad en el tratamiento a los productores de alimentos, en los decretos expedidos en el marco del Estado de Emergencia Social, Económica y Ecológica del gobierno de Iván Duque

En el marco de las facultades otorgadas por la primera declaratoria de Estado de Emer- gencia Social, Económica y Ecológica en todo el territorio nacional (Decreto 417 de 2020), el gobierno de Iván Duque expidió, entre otros, el Decreto 486 de 2020, con la finalidad de proteger la logística relacionada con el abastecimiento alimentario durante la coyuntura de salud pública asociada a la pandemia de COVID-19. El Decreto 486 de 2020 es un instrumento normativo que operacionaliza la noción institucional de seguridad alimentaria y crea un incentivo económico para la producción de alimentos, en el contexto de la emergencia humanitaria y sanitaria. En el presente artículo se problematizan estas medidas para determinar si atienden al desarrollo del derecho humano a la alimentación y a la nutrición adecuadas, o si, por el contrario, se limitan a una versión restringida de la garantía de este, afectando con ello la posibilidad de justicia e igual- dad material en tiempos de pandemia. Human Right to Food and Equality in the Approach to Food Producers, in the Decrees Issued during Ivan Duque’s government under the State of Economic, Social and Ecological Emergency Abstract: Within the framework of the powers granted by the first declaration of Social, Economic and Ecological Emergency made by the government of Iván Duque, Decree 486 of 2020 was is- sued with the purpose of protecting the logistics related to food supply during the public health situation associated with COVID-19. This decree is a regulatory instrument that operationalizes the institutional notion of food security, as well as the necessary incentives for food production in contexts of humanitarian and/or health emergency. This article problematizes these measures, indicating whether they are a development of the Human Right to Adequate Food and Nutrition or whether, on the contrary, they are limited to a restricted version of the guarantee of this right, thus affecting the possibility of justice and material equality in times of pandemic. Keywords: Human Right to Adequate Food and Nutrition; Food Security; Peasant, Family and Com- munity Economies; COVID-19.

The sustainability of the human right to food

With this article the Author focuses the attention on today's multiple facets of the food crises, which prevents from characterizing countries as low-income and undernourished or high-income and only concerned with people overweight or obese. This will allow to underscore the multi-sectorial aspects of the right to food, including the environmental foodprint. It, on the other hand, explains the function of the judiciary, which will lead to the broader notion of both the adequate food and the food system while sharpening their sustainability. For these same reasons, today's food system may offer a valuable space for learning to eliminate, or at least reduce, the unreasonable discriminations and unsustainable social injustice.

The Politics of Chronic Hunger

This chapter focuses on one case of an economic and social right, the right to food. It mentions the development of an alternative model of advocacy, called the buckshot model, which explains the trajectories of campaigns in terms of the right to food. It also discusses international anti-hunger activism, which cites the fore advocacy surrounding the human right to food. The chapter emphasizes how the fulfillment of other human rights is either impossible or substantively meaningless without the realization of the right to food. It points out that more people die from hunger and related causes globally than in all wars, civil and international, combined.

Cow Vigilantism and India’s Evolving Human Rights Framework

The paper seeks to understand India’s evolving rights framework in the backdrop of cow vigilantism. To that end it discusses the human right to food and nutrition, international discussion on minority rights issues in India and the relevant legal and constitutional discussion in India. It finds that India’s rights framework has evolved since proclamation of India as a Republic in 1950 based on the supremacy of its written constitution containing fundamental rights and directive principles of state policy interpreted finally by its Supreme Court. The government took a wise step by not challenging a judicial rebalancing of the rights framework in response to certain executive measures and the Supreme Court interpreted the right to life to include not only the right to the choice of food but also the right to privacy and thereby underscored the obligation of the State to compensate the victims of cow vigilante violence. However, a constitutional polity and secular state would do all well if it did any further necessary to better guard against any recurrence of the breach of civil peace, much less violence, on purely secular issues, including by strengthening and increasing dialogue with all representative communities in all its decision-making on such matters.

Contemporary Legal Issues of Ensuring Food Security in the Post-Soviet Space (in Terms of Russia)

The article deals with theory and practice of ensuring food security in the Russian Federation in the context of the UN recommendations and achievements of legal thought of foreign countries. Food security is considered as a guarantee of sustainable development of agriculture located at the junction of three types of national security: economic, social and environmental. The authors prove the need to distinguish between the categories “food security” and “food independence”, arguing in favor of giving preference, at the national level, to the human right to food through both production of domestic agricultural goods and their import from other countries. Stating the consequences of the food sanctions imposed by Russia against other countries which are negative for itself, the authors propose their lifting with the suggested complex of measures to develop Russian agriculture.

Human Values as Predictors of Agroecological Beliefs

Agroecology is indicated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - FAO as a solution to the realization of the human right to food. This study investigated the relationship between human values and beliefs about Agroecology. A survey was answered by students and researchers in the agricultural sciences (n=388). Two models were tested with path analysis. The results revealed that values of Self-Transcendence (0.24) and Openness to Change (0.21) were positive predictors of proagroecology beliefs. These findings point to the importance of activating these values in the training of professionals prepared for the challenge of working towards sustainable agro-food systems.