Agricultural commodity supply chain during the covid-19 pandemic

This study aims to analyze the agricultural commodity supply chain during the Covid-19 pandemic. The data used in this paper is secondary data and analyzed descriptively. The effects of Covid-19 pandemic on agricultural supply chains are discussed, including transportation barriers during the pandemic and government programs to find a way out. Finally, this study showed the policy formula from government to maintain the national food security chain especially agricultural commodity such as guarantee transportation and distribution of food from surplus provinces to deficit provinces to achieve adequate food availability in each province, innovation strategies in the distribution of agricultural products, and create an intelligent and accurate information system.

Back to Nature-Based Agriculture: Green Livelihoods Are Taking Root in the Mekong River Delta

Background and objective: Vietnam is prioritizing agricultural production for food export capacity in all national policies. As a result, for three decades, its agriculture has been making quite many remarkable achievements.Methods: The most successful one is that the nation has become one of the world’s leading rice exporters and ensures its national food security. Through these endeavors, the Mekong River Delta (MRD), in particular, has emerged as a key region in ensuring national food security and rice export.Results: The new era can now see Vietnamese agriculture turning to place special emphasis on commodity quality and the improvement of the living environment. This is evidenced, for example, by the phenomenon that the MRD, as a rice basket of the whole country, is making moves back to nature-based agriculture with attempts to restore the natural ecology, including preserving and restoring local traditional rice seeds, adopting natural farming practices and minimizing the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.Conclusion: The case studies of nature-based farming practices in the MRD indicate that, while the national agriculture is generally developing large-scale production, the small-scale farming in the region, integrated with tourist and educational activities on-site, is meeting the demands of a highly potential domestic niche market. Moreover, this model appears to be a sustainable farming approach that defines itself as a working green livelihood for the region.

Pemberdayaan Petani Padi di Desa Mas, Ubud, Bali Melalui Pelatihan Pembuatan Lulur Tradisional Berbahan Dasar Beras

Rice farmers roles are very significant in establishing national food security. However, due to weather that is often uncontrolled, affecting the quantity and quality of the harvest, the welfare of rice farmers is still difficult to improve. As an effort to improve the welfare of rice farmers, this community outreach activity seeks to assist farmers, especially in Mas Village - Ubud, increase the added value of their harvests by providing training on making beauty scrubs made from rice and turmeric. The training covers not only the production process, but also packaging and labeling methods. Exploration of potentials and problems was done through the process of observation and interviews. Then the planning process of training activities, training implementation, and evaluation process was carried out, to achieve the goals of community outreach activities. This community outreach activity provides new knowledge and skills for rice farmers and their families in processing rice into traditional scrubs. These new skills are expected to be able to help improve the welfare of rice farmers in Mas Village, especially during this pandemic. This community outreach activity paper contributes to the literature, by offering insight into how the welfare of rice farmers could be improved by providing trainings to increase the added value of agricultural production. In addition, the findings of this community outreach activity can also be applied to different contexts, so that this paper also offers significant practical contribution.

Zarys konstytucyjnych wytycznych dla polityki bezpieczeństwa żywnościowego państwa

Ensuring food security, i.e. achieving the state of relative physical and economic availability of safe food, is becoming one of the most critical challenges of the present day, both on the scale of individual countries and the entire world. In this context, a closer look at the limitations and guidelines resulting from the Constitution of the Republic of Poland for the directions of creating the national food security policy become a topical issue. So far, no consideration has been given to the constitutional legal framework for such a policy in Polish literature. Based on the analysis carried out, it has been indicated what guidelines for such a policy result from the crucial food security principle of protecting family farms and other provisions of the Polish constitution.

Lessson-Learned: Participatory Action Research Project with Upland Smallholder Farmers Practicing Cropland Agroforestry System in Wonogiri Regency to Support National Food Security

Indonesia government pays little attention to address impending threat of the existences of upland smallholder farmers due to insufficient farm income. This condition poses an imminent threat to national food security. One of the initiatives to address the condition is participatory action research project conducted by Faculty of Forestry UGM with 12 upland smallholder farmers in Wonogiri regency from 2016 to 2018. The result of the participatory action research project showed that although the 12 smallholder farmers practice cropland agroforestry system in marginal land, their increased rice production could improve farm income, be similar in rice field and support national food security. Therefore, this study aimed at investigating lesson-learned of the participatory action research project. This study was conducted on January-March 2020, used participant observation and semi-structure interview methods to collect data from the 12 smallholder farmers. After the collected data were analyzed by descriptive method, this study founded four points of lesson-learned including (1) finding a responsive smallholder farmer group; (2) minimizing negative role of local elite; (3) maximizing positive role of local elite; (4) implementing modified technology package.

Opportunities and Strategies for the Blue Economy Through the Empowerment of Sumatera Coastal Communities in Supporting the Realization of the National Food Security

A strategic step on food security was directed by president to the Ministry of Defence. Coastal communities are key actors in the realization of the blue economy and are the determinants of the successful implementation of Indonesia’s policy to becoming the Global Maritime Fulcrum. There are ten provinces on Sumatera which have marine coastal areas with abundant fishery potential. However, that potential has not been fully utilized. This article aims to review opportunities and strategies in realizing the blue economy by empowering coastal communities in the Sumatra. The method was a qualitative exploratory method with SWOT and combined with SSM analysis. The data sources were obtained through secondary data from literature studies, comparisons through multi institutions data. The study found that community empowerment can be done by considering the potential of fishery resources and the community’s interest in managing the fisheries sub-sector. The development of national food barns should be focused on the Blue Economy sector and can be started through the Sumatra region. Stakeholder synergy can be integrated in fostering, supervising and mobilizing coastal communities in supporting their welfare.

​Impact of Cluster Front Line Demonstrations on the Yield and Economics of Chickpea under National Food Security Mission in Bharatpur District of Rajasthan, India

Background: Chickpea is an important legume crop that plays an important role in the food and nutritional security of people in the developing countries and contributing to protein intake. It is a soil building crop and being a leguminous crop, it fixes atmospheric nitrogen through symbiotic fixation, there by helps in N cycling within the ecosystem. Methods: Cluster front line demonstrations of chickpea were conducted by Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Kumher, Bharatpur (Rajasthan) during Rabi season from 2016-17 to 2019-20. A total 350 front line demonstrations were conducted on chickpea in 140 ha area by the active participation of the farmers with the objective of improved technologies of chickpea production potentials. Result: The results of the demonstrations observed that on an average yield of chickpea under improved technology ranged from 11.83 to 17.52 q/ha with a mean of 14.47 q/ha; which was 20.95 per cent more yield as compared to farmer’s practices (11.97 q/ha). Moreover, average yield was also recorded higher under demonstration (14.47 q/ha) over district (8.17 q/ha) and State (10.74 q/ha) average. The study exhibited mean extension gap of 250.75 Kg/ha, mean technology gap of 627.75 kg/ha with mean technology index of 29.71 per cent. Higher mean net return of Rs. 46618/ha with mean B: C ratio of 3.10 was obtained with improved technologies in comparison to farmers’ practices (Rs. 36737/ha). The present study resulted to convincing the farming community for higher productivity and returns.

Trends towards Coordination between Grain Production and Economic Development in China

Accurately understanding the relationship between grain production and economic development is of great practical significance for ensuring national food security and coordinating inter-regional economic development. Using 2012 counties as research units, we analyzed the spatial coordination between grain production and economic development in China using the coupling of grain and economy (CGE) index, as well as the curve of gravity center and thematic map series methods based on statistical data from counties between 2000–2017. The results showed that: (1) Grain production was weakly coordinated with the economic development in China; but this coordination was enhanced. (2) China’s conversion between various types of grain production and economic development mainly occurred in the central and western regions, which are characterized by a much higher grain agglomeration level than the economic agglomeration level. (3) The northeastern region was prone to the grain agglomeration, the central and western regions were characterized by a grain-economy balance and the eastern region was dominated by economic agglomeration. (4) The increase of China’s CGE gradually increased from the southwest to northeast. Therefore, we proposed that the government should pay more attention to grain circulation in the eastern region and main grain-producing areas in central region should develop an accurate benefit compensation system, support leading grain processing enterprises and implement cultivated land protection policies in order to ensure national food security.

Methodology for assessment of food security of countries

A comprehensive assessment of national food security should include an analysis of the physical and economic accessibility of food, the level and quality of nutrition of the population, the sustainability and competitiveness of agriculture, factors and trends of self-sufficiency in the main types of agricultural products, raw materials and food and the effectiveness of foreign trade in food. To assess the food security situation at the state level, it is necessary to conduct monitoring, which consists in determining the deviations of the main indicators from the criteria and thresholds established at the national level. The monitoring should determine the format of the national report on the country's food security. The number of indicators that make up its basis, should be optimal and sufficient to reflect the level of food security of the country and compare them with the situation in other countries. At the same time, it is necessary to analyze trends in ensuring food security at the global level in terms of the progress of countries and regions of the world in achieving the goals of sustainable development in agriculture, the elimination of hunger and poverty for the period up to 2030. Conducting a study of the components of the global food security index, formed at the world level to measure the policy and efficiency of government agencies in the field of food security, is relevant and in demand for positioning the country within the framework of international comparison of countries.