Talk:Food security/Archive 1

Outdated Concepts

In places, this article refers to 'food security' as a synonym for famine or the lack of food-in-stomachs, and is treated as a concept restricted only to developing countries.

A modern view of food security is about logistical and political-systems analysis and is the probability for food availability in the immediate future (spanning up to a few years where future events are forecast. For example, events can be climate changes, spread of a plant virus or improvement projects coming online. They can also be

Mixed scopes

Talking about food security for a household or country have different causes and effects, and interweaving these can lead to confusion and inconsistency. Proposal: have four main sections: (1) introduction(short), (2) food security in developing countries, (3) food security in developed countries, (4) household food security.

Mixed threasholds

For some, food security is about issues of starvation and death, and permitting minimal, but healthy subsistance living, whereas in other cases, it is about getting the full variety of foods to which one is accustomed (an inherantly flawed (all or nothing), unmeasurable, inconsistent and fragile definition).

Also, the percentages of affected population seems to be vary in different parts of the article. In the best countries, there will always be someone going hungry and in the worst, there will always be someone that is well fed. A consistent treashhold is useful (if tomorrow 3 million Americans were on the brink of starvation, just 1%, is that a lot or a little?)

Dubious photo caption

If the woman in that picture is a "subsistence farmer" then I'm the Pope (and I'm not). In my judgment she's almost certainly a model and this is a posed shot: she's wearing lipstick and eye makeup and a showy sari that wouldn't last 10 minutes in the field. Source of photo is obscure. I have modified caption but it would be better to have a more real-world photo of such a pump in use.

Obsolete terminology?

I believe that "first world" and "third world" are obsolete terms. They are now referred to as "developed countries" and "developing countries", respectively. 16:21, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Calling them "developed countries" and "developing countries", respectively, however, implies a suggestion that they are (or at least SHOULD be) on the way toward "development," which is also problematic. "Global north" / "global south" is used to get around this, but increasingly, "rich countries" and "poor countries" appears to be a nomenclature being used, which is to the point. Kvcad (talk) 01:13, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Terminology query

What 'North' is this article refering to? Does it mean the difference between third world and first world countries?

I think the author is too 'North' Centric.

Yes. The terms "north" and "south" are also sometimes used to mean the same thing as "developed" and "developing" because most developed countries are in the northern hemisphere whereas most developing ones are in the south. This is still fairly common in the literature.

However, it looks as though this terminology has been removed from the article.NicEMyer (talk) 21:35, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

famine scales

I have recently, created the article famine scales to describe the stages between food secure situations to full scale famine. It probably needs a more intuitive name and it's been suggested that it might be better off merging into this article. Thoughts? -BanyanTree13:38, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Some of the content would be ok in this article, like Livelihoods strategies and Nutrition levels, but the other sections would be better in the famine article. If the length of the famine article is preventing the merger there, that article could potentially be shortened if necessary by moving some content into the respecitve articles on historic famines, if is a bit too focussed on famines that have happened in the past.--nixie 23:35, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Agree with all that, including famine being too focussed on historical famines. Something definitional and current is exactly what that article needs. Rd232 07:31, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

My concern about splitting the content in the way that nixie has described above is that the livelihoods and nutrition descriptions in the "intensity scale" assume that the user has just read the preceding sections. My initial impulse is to paste the entire thing into famine, reduce the size of the descriptions, and modify for content flow. The European famines section is long enough that it can probably be made its own sub-article. I've dropped a message intoTalk:Famine about the discussion going on here. Cheers, BanyanTree 14:09, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

• I would suggest that a better approach might be to take 2-3 paragraphs worth of the best material in famine scales and add it as a section in famine with a {{main}} note at the top. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:14, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

I can see that there isn't going to be a consensus on this, so I'll expend the least amount of effort possible. ;) I'll follow Joe's suggestion and add a couple paragraphs to famine, with a main link back. Making the page a redirect would be embarrassing right now anyway as it's on DYK. (Hooray for me!) Thanks to everyone for their input. Regards, BanyanTree 23:52, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Advocacy

I have only skimmed the article, and I intend to take a closer look later. But it smacks of advocacy all the way through.

It amounts to a thinly disguised argument for socialism against free markets.

It will be hard for me to turn this into a balanced article all by myself, partly because I'm such a staunch opponent of the corruption, waste and cruelty of socialist attempts to "improve" agriculture and food distribution. I can't stop thinking of Stalin starving to death 6 million (or more) Ukrainian farmers. Whenever I think of socialism and farming, I'm reminded of government thugs coming in to steal livestock and crops, leaving the actual food producers to die of starvation.

Collective farming is not the answer, and a command economy cannot solve the problem. Sheer unmitigated capitalist greed also cannot solve the problem. But hatred of free market principles - and refusal to allow voluntary investment and exchange no matter how many people this refusal kills - is inhuman!

Anyway, one specific defect in the article is the pro-socialist dichotomy between "letting the people control" food (i.e., government bureaucrats make all the decisions) vs. "letting farmers make a profit" (i.e., all they care about is money. These are not the two chief alternatives. This is the socialist viewpoint about the alternatives.

The article should be balanced by adding a market-based (or Friedmanite) viewpoint about the alternatives.

The socialist view of the conflicts between capitalism and socialism does not define that conflict fully. I'd like to see some Western pro-free-market views of the conflict as well. --Uncle Ed 18:38, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I think that some sections of might be anti-Capitalist, and some are clearly anti-Socialist. The "Dictatorship and kleptocracy" section is just badly written and seems to have a negative bias against socialism, but doesn't really make sense, and just seems to be anti-everyone and annoying. --Snow93 15:50, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Are your arguments that this article is too political in general or more specific than that? Food security isn't just a supply/production issue. Actually, it almost never is. Mostly it's an access issue, which makes it inherently social and political. I think these sections are trying to address what political systems may be prone to using food access as a tool, albeit they don't do it well... NicEMyer (talk) 21:56, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

The USDA’s undesirable euphemism, Food Insecurity.

I have a big problem with using another term, euphemisms or word to replace “Hunger” as the USDA has attempted to do recently. This is nothing but a ploy by a group of people and especially by George W. Bush and his administration to evade the dire problem of Hunger. By calling Hunger “Food Insecurity” is just an attempt to diminish the impact that the word “Hunger” carries. I think the whole idea is sick. It insults the intelligence of even the most illiterate beings on this planet.

Read this;

“The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported today (Friday, October 28, 2005)that household food insecurity increased by a record amount in 2004, and now equals the worst levels since data collection began.” (1)

Now replace the term “food insecurity” with the word “hunger”. By using the word “Hunger” it changes the whole impact of the sentence.

I am jumping on this bandwagon with others like the author of following commentary.

“…As if the above mumbo-jumbo were not enough to set off a collective wave of nausea, a key government report on malnourishment has just eliminated the word "hunger" to describe a chronic condition afflicting 11 percent of American households. People without enough money to buy food, families in which parents skip meals so children can eat, and seniors who must choose between dinner and life-saving drugs are now grotesquely categorized as having "very low food security." Predictably, the Bush administration defends the change in nomenclature, arguing that it is based on recommendations from the National Academies, which question whether the report truly measures hunger or access to food…Such skewed interpretation suggests that the 35 million people who rely on soup kitchens and other charity for daily sustenance are not necessarily hungry. They just don't know where their next meal is coming from... This, in the self-described wealthiest, strongest and most righteous nation on earth. This, from an administration with an obvious fixation on illusory syntax and no concern for the shameful reality of hunger in America. "Food insecurity" is an obscene term calculated to ease the collective conscience while artfully underplaying what amounts to a national tragedy and a disgrace.” (2)

Also;

“…Nice try by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to remove the word "hunger" from its vocabulary when describing Americans who don't have enough to eat.

The Department of Agriculture recently changed its terminology to refer to nearly 11 million people as having "very low food security." Last year, their label was "food insecurity with hunger."

Hunger relief groups across the country and in Vermont responded immediately to the department's fuzzy language. "It's a way of whitewashing the issue," said state Rep. Robert Dostis of Waterbury, executive director of the Vermont Campaign to End Childhood Hunger.

The USDA reported this month that about 35 million Americans had trouble feeding themselves in 2005. Almost 11 million were in the serious category of "very low food security."

Sen. Patrick Leahy, a senior member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, called it "wordplay" that threatens to minimize the hunger many Americans experience. "I am going to continue to call hunger by its name," Leahy said. "And I expect that many others who have long worked on this problem will, too."…”(3)

(1) Household food insecurity deteriorated in 2004 by a record amount

http://usfoodpolicy.blogspot.com/2005/10/household-food-insecurity-deteriorated.html

(2) With 'Food Insecurity,' Doublespeak Hits New Low Commentary by Willy E. Gutman Friday November 24, 2006

http://www.the-signal.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=34576&format=html

Willy E. Gutman of Tehachapi is a veteran journalist on assignment in Central America since 1991. His column reflects his own views, and not necessarily those of The Signal.

(3) Opinion-Removing the word doesn't solve problem Published: Friday, November 24, 2006 Burlington Free Press

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061124/OPINION/611240319

Food insecurity is more than hunger. People can be food insecure without being hungry. Food security is defined as access to safe, affordable, nutritious foods from local non-emergency sources. So if someone relies on foodbanks and donations, they may not be hungry, but they sure are food insecure. 58.161.42.176 (talk) 02:18, 2 May 2009 (UTC)CM

Calorie requirements

there is currently no article what describes how many calories a person needs a day. Thus how is it said what and when a person is undernourished in energy requirements. A seperate article is needed with this general info per country. This as many countries are colder or hotter, thus requiring people to consume more or less (as living in a cold country requires more energy; people burn much more). Info on this latter statement may be found from the "Alive" book (about the plane crash in Andes) and trough the university of Maastricht (which is researching ways to lose weight by letting cells behave like they have it cold; hereby acting as a slimming agent.

81.245.168.245 (talk) 17:38, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

It would also be very interesting if someone could track down information regarding caloric requirements vs. body height/mass. --Hrimpurstala (talk) 19:18, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Economic Approaches

This section cites no one. While it is well written, and seems to be true, it is clearly from a point of view. For example, I don't think that people who espouse the 'Westernized (sic) View' call it that. I don't think it requires a whole lot of revision, just some citations, and getting the actual titles and some citations. —Precedingunsigned comment added by65.246.25.194 (talk) 17:36, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

While Food Justice and Food Sovereignty are highly pertinent to global issues, there are local implications which are also pertinent. Please add text on how communities may use these principles at smaller scales (e.g. urban farming, siting of food sources, alternatives to chain supermarkets etc.). — Precedingunsigned comment added by99.126.180.31 (talk) 22:50, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Malicious deletions

The following para in this page is being deleted on a daily basis:

It is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain food security in a world beset by a confluence of "peak" phenomena, namely peak oil, peak water, "peak grain" and "peak fish." More than half of the planet's population, numbering approximately 3.3 billion people, live in urban areas as of November 2007. Any disruption to farm supplies may precipitate a uniquely urban food crisis in a relatively short time.[13]. The ongoing global financial meltdown has affected farm credits, despite a boom in commodity prices.

One of the reasons given was that "peak grain" and "peak fish" did not meet wiki's quality standards, though they are gaining mainstream acceptance. Just google them. Furthermore, most terminologies are the products of grassroots studies; not by the hi-hifalutin grandiloquence of Ivory Towers

Furthermore, the "deleter" in this case can't even make up whether this online learning portal is wikepedia or wikipedia. Check it out here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Vincecate

The user that edited my home page was User:Maavak. He is trying to put in an article by Maavak from http://maavak.net. This conflicts with wikipedia's rules WP:V and WP:NOR. He also does not sign his comments but you can see Maavak in the edit history for this talk page. Vincecate (talk) 18:14, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

No, it does not conflict with wiki rules. That initial insert was not mine, and I was finally alerted to the daily deletions that occur on the Food Security page. This is about expounding on a global crisis, not the imposition of one's bias, leading to deletions of data from the public domain. Anyway, I will be writing on this saga soon. I did not edit your page. I "peer corrected" your grammatical snafus. The correction pertains to this glaring second para, which, is yours:

I think Wikipedia should be called "peer corrected" in contrast to "peer reviewed".

May I suggest "peer correcting" your own personal page first before venturing into fields that others had been writing on for years? If maavak.net is not reliable, then why is it republished, over and over?

I fixed the typo on my page. You may in fact be better at spelling, smarter, and more of an expert on this field but that would not be relevant. You need to understand WP:NOR. You can not use your own original research to support your writing on Wikipedia. Even if it is true that the IP address that added it before was not yours, you are the one putting it back, so you are adding it each day. For user Maavak to reference an article by Maavak on maavak.net is just against Wikipedia NOR rule. An article by Maavak on maavak.net violates WP:Vbecause it is self published. So you are breaking two rules. If you really think this is OK, why not sign your comments with your name and why edit the main page using just an IP address? Let everyone know it is Maavak all around. Vincecate (talk) 11:07, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

My reply: My own original research was inserted here by another person initially. Are you trying to rally the wikimob to support your assertion that I may be "more of an expert on this field but that would not be relevant?" Of course it is not relevant. In your world knowledge is not relevant either. You live and breathe by the rules. Even the IRS would be impressed! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maavak(talk • contribs) 05:16, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

You basically admit breaking the rules but attack me for using them. Not much else to say. Vincecate (talk) 05:41, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Reply: The only rules I know relate to fortifying the public domain. I believe in free speech despite wikipedia's increasingly egregious descent into mob censorship. Your first contention was that maavak.net was not a reliable source. Now, you digress into "rules." Next what? If you have nothing much to say, I am sure you have a lot more to delete. —Precedingunsigned comment added by Maavak (talk • contribs) 07:21, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

You have your free speech on maavak.net and it is not in danger. On Wikipedia there are a few important rules and you need to learn them because you are breaking 2 of them. In Wikipedia, a self published article, like one by Mr. Maavak on maavak.net, is called "not a reliable source" as explained in WP:V. This is the same thing as saying you are breaking that rule. Vincecate (talk) 10:34, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I thought you had nothing much else to say? Let me fill in the blanks for you... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maavak (talk • contribs) 12:54, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

You are breaking at least 3 rules. The other rule you are breaking is WP:NPA. If you don't want to play by Wikipedia rules, you should not play on Wikipedia. Vincecate (talk) 15:14, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I have been watching this space with interest, as I get to see that para vanish almost every night. Being in the banking and commodities business, I was greatly helped by Mr Maavak's links, and forwarded the same to my colleagues. I don't know what the rules are, and I hope wikipedia is as democratic as it allegedly claims. I am reinstating the prior para. - Eugene

I must say that the current wikipedia preamble was re-written according to the points raised by Mr Maavak. This is tantamount to plagiarism. If an original contribution can be re-written with the original contributors links taken out, then it is definitely a case of plagiarism.

FYI, I was the one who originally posted Mr. Maavak's links. FYI, "peak water" has gained mainstream acceptance. http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/05/29/is-water-becoming-%e2%80%98the-new-oil%e2%80%99/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kampfenman (talk •contribs) 05:02, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

conflates a lot of issues with a weird focus

The term "food security" means a lot of things, which IMO this article doesn't very clearly separate, and the focus is put kind of oddly on a very US-centric view of the term. In particular, "food security" can mean:

• The ability of a country to feed itself solely on the basis of its domestic agriculture, without food imports. This goal is often a justification for agriculture subsidies, food-export restrictions, and so on.
• The ability of a country to feed itself at all. This is the meaning usually used when famine sweeps an entire country or large part of one.
• The ability of poorer people within a country to feed themselves, regardless of whether the country as a whole has a shortage of food. This is the meaning used in, for example, the first section on "food security in the United States".

The first two are somewhat different from the third: the first two are a function of the global distribution and stability of agricultural production vs. demand, whereas the third is mainly a specific manifestation of poverty and more related to a country's internal economics and inequality than to agriculture. I'd suggest these should probably be treated separately, possibly even in separate articles disambiguating the terms. I also question whether "food security in the United States" ought to be the very first section of the article, if here at all rather than in some other US-specific article. --Delirium (talk) 18:03, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Unsound photo & caption: Toasted bread

At a cost of €1.00 per 250g toasted bread, this is an exorbitant amount for people in developing countries to pay for a staple food. It works out at €4.00 per kilogram. Taken into account that most families living in hunger (or food insecurity) earn less than $1 per day, then it is clear that this suggestion as to providing a high calorie, long life product is not feasible. I applaud the thought behind this idea, but "cheap" in a first world country is very relative.

Toasted bread is a product manufactured by hydrating wheat flour, baking it and then dehydrating it again by drying it out. It is thus very energy intensive, including the additional energy cost of transportation. Making the dry unprocessed wheat flour available directly to the end consumer would be much more economical, but without the long life properties. Palatability is not an cardinal issue.

--Cycle71 (talk) 05:08, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Food Insecurity

The last paragraph under the heading Food Insecurity is not supported by an actual article. The link for footnote number 26 is a dead end and the language is somewhat prejudicial toward single mothers.

"A March 1, 2009 Associated Press article cited many examples of hungry children in the United States. The article talked about all of the children's mothers, but did not mention any of their fathers. The article also said that some of the mothers were feeding their children junk food such as potato chips and hot dogs, instead of nutritious foods such as fruits, vegetables, and milk.[28]"

Additionally the paraphrasing in the first paragraph under the same heading, "Households that are more likely to experience food insecurity are female-headed with children, those with incomes below the poverty line, and those that reside either in principal cities or within rural areas.[26]," is also questionable in its origin therefore potentially prejudicial.

The website it is pulled from, Feeding America, never makes mention of city v. rural v. suburban hunger statistics. The lines this is paraphrasing are form this passage: "In 2008, households that were more likely to experience food insecurity were households with children (21.0 percent), households with children headed by single women (37.2 percent) or single men (27.6 percent), households with incomes below the poverty line (42.2 percent), Black non-Hispanic households (25.7 percent) and Hispanic households (26.9 percent)." Otherwise, looking through the site I saw no reference to the information paraphrased in this paragraph.

The whole section needs to be reworked or the relevant information in the article needs to be moved somewhere else.

Drewmorros (talk) 01:35, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Achieving food security

I added the following paragraphs:

By way of comparison, in one of the largest food producing countries in the world, the United States, approximately one out of six people lacks sufficient food, with almost 17 million children, more than one in five, living in households with insufficient food quantity in 2008, an increase from the year before, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

It was removed without explanation pr objection based on WP rules.--NYCJosh(talk) 16:55, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Not relevant to the subject of the article; "sufficient food"^{(for what?)} is not what the article says; and that article is a political statement, rather than an official USDA Report. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:07, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

(1) Relevance. This section of the article is about achieving food security. It mentions numbers (or percentages) of people in other parts of the world with not enough food to eat, and the trend (change from figures in the past). The material I added provides similar info for the US. In thinking about "achieving food security" it's important for the reader to understand the scope the current problem. In addition, the info provides info about the trend (in this case things are getting worse in the US, as elsewhere) so the reader knows whether the current state of affairs is moving toward or away from achieving food sec. (2) "lacks sufficient food" in my text means "lived in households in which food at times was scarce," which is what the Wash Post article states. I wanted to keep the text succinct and I didn't want to be accused of copyright issues, so I didn't slavishly parrot the Wash Post's formulation. (3) Wash Post is RS and per WP rules it may be taken at face value as citable. Therefore there is no need to go back to check the USDA study, unless there is some other RS that challenges the accuracy of the former. In any case, there is no basis or reason for doubting the Wash Post piece.--NYCJosh (talk) 16:12, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

"Food security" is used in multiple different meanings. We have to ensure that the meaning used here is the one appropriate for that section of the article.

We also need to verify that the WP article is not a "column", "editorial", or "OpEd", which are not reliable sources. I agree there's no need to check the USDA study, although it clearly was political, rather than scientific.

— Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:35, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

If you have some basis per WP rules for the assertion that the term was used differently, feel free to explain. The Wash Post does not appear to be anything other than a garden variety news article. I will ignore your statement about the USDA study as it seems you intended us to do so.--NYCJosh (talk) 19:45, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Climate change and agriculture

Why is this appropriate as a "See also" link. I would think peak food would be adequate to cover the issue. — Arthur Rubin (talk)02:42, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I just added climate change and agriculture link back in for two reasons. One, I think the peak food article is weak. Two, I think peak food and CC and A are different. To me, CC and A is more about the physical impacts that climate change has on agriculture. Peak food should be more about socio-economic-cultural impacts. Thoughts? NicEMyer(talk) 22:08, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Good addition, see wp:tea. 99.181.155.245(talk) 01:59, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Add "2007–2008 world food price crisis" and Wikinews?

Add 2007–2008 world food price crisis and related ... {{sister |project=wikinews |text=[[Wikinews]] has news on this topic * [[n:Poverty rises as food prices increase|Poverty rises as food prices increase]], Sunday, April 17, 2011 }} as seen on Wikipedia talk:Ambassadors/Courses/Spring 2011/Conservation Biology (Bill Platt)? 99.181.155.158 (talk) 06:08, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikinews sister links are intended for categories or types of news articles, not individual news articles, and I don't see a relationship between the topics. Please explain.

Also, for what it's worth, the ...Ambassadors... link points to an unadorned request to add these links to a different article by one student, with no reasons given, or comments or reasons given by anyone else. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:24, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Please show some wp guideline, or rule, or something other than "Arthur Rubin says so" ... you have lost credibility to me/we. 99.109.126.249(talk) 23:54, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Could you please explain the relationship of the article to this topic? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:13, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Have you never been able to afford food? ... n:Poverty rises as food prices increase... that makes will make you insecure (among other feelings). 99.119.131.205 (talk) 01:31, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Lack of mentions on the subject of protein

The article doesn't contain anything on protein or meat as it relates to food security, which while secondary to the issues on grain and water, are still relevant to the discussion of food security.

--71.46.49.50 (talk) 01:29, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Sea food

Is sea food (fish, crabs and so on) counted or is it just land grown stuff like cows/beef and corn/bread? Wipsenade (talk) 13:03, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Expansion of Agricultural Productivity and Population Growth

I am interested in contributing to this article, particularly by adding information about the demographics of food insecurity, and to what extent individuals contribute to local food security issues through methods such as urban and peri-urban agriculture, informal food networks and markets. Would this best fit under the section labelled "Improving agricultural productivity to benefit the rural poor"?

I also think that the section on Population Growth, which contains a link rather than text, could be explored more thoroughly to encompass population shifts, urban migration, and regional demand. Is this a fitting expansion for this topic?

Corinthiandiosa (talk) 17:07, 19 March 2012 (UTC)Corinthiandiosa

Hello. It seems like there is a bit of overlap between the sections World Food Summit and World Summit on Food Security, the latter of which is the actual name of the recurring summit. Would it be alright to condense these into one section, as they seem a bit redundant? New editor, advice appreciated, thank you. Corinthiandiosa (talk) 23:07, 1 April 2012 (UTC)Corinthiandiosa

Problems

Too many dead links. Plus when you provide long quotes from a copyrighted source in the footnotes, you are violating copy right laws. MathewTownsend (talk) 23:09, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Comments on Challenges to Achieving Food Security section

This new section needs to be integrated, in part, with earlier sections in the article. I suggest breaking it up as follows: Move the sections 11-11.3 to the top, retaining their section titles, and integrating some text in the lead paragraph, perhaps breaking up the current lead paragraph (which is too long and detailed) and integrating with the new moved-up text to create new subsections addressing general issues and statistics on food insecurity. Change 11.4 Gender and Food Security to make it the new section 11.

Sentences such as "The U.N. estimates that 60 percent of the world’s chronically hungry people are women and girls,..." need a year for the statistic and when added the tense should be changed to past tense.

Land Rights section has no reference to Bina Agarwal's work or other articles that problematize the connection between women's land rights (ownership) and food security. It would be good to remedy this.

The other issue that is missing in the article is the context of neoliberal/Washington Consensus policies that emphasize export agriculture at the expense of subsistence or small-scale farming, which endangers food security in many developing countries. The emphasis of these policies is to import cheaper food (say from US or EU countries) and have the poor (rural or urban) purchase food on the market rather than growing it themselves. This solution does not address the problem of earning sufficient incomes to purchase food. This is an example of the commodification bias of neoliberal policies that Elson and Cagatay (2000) discuss, that you should also include. Also, the neoliberal policy emphasis on budget cuts reduces access to credit, technical support for small (mostly women) farmers. This discussion needs to be integrated (The CWGL Rutgers report should include a summary of some of these connections.)

You mention conditional cash transfers as a proposed solution to hunger. You could add a critical note on how these policies build upon the existing gender division of labor and exacerbate women's unpaid workloads and cite Molyneux and Thompson (2011). BerikG (talk) 19:51, 29 April 2012 (UTC)BerikG

"Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index" section needs a citation at the end of the first sentence of the section and add when the index was created. The citation in that section needs to be properly referenced: Author, year, title of the report, link, and when accessed in parentheses. Improve other references in the same manner (if citing a journal article, then need to put quotation marks around title of the article, and add journal title, the vol., no. and page numbers).

Add a link to unpaid labor (fmveblen's article) in the "Division of unpaid labor...." section. Another link that is needed is to the feminization of agriculture article (thekappen). Here you should develop the argument as to how and why feminization of agriculture is/might be connected to food insecurity.BerikG (talk) 20:08, 29 April 2012 (UTC)BerikG

Food Security and Policy

It seems surprising that there is no section in this article dealing with international policy in relation to food security, minus the small section pertaining to gender. I would like to add one, citing global treaties, conferences, etc., perhaps international policy's treatment of agriculture and sustainable development. Seem reasonable? New editor, comments appreciated. Thanks. C.peterson32 (talk) 15:06, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Useful reference to add?

"President Barack Obama, in his first address on global food security last May, announced $3 billion in pledges from companies including Cargill andSyngenta, for farm development in Africa over the next decade." fromhttp://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-05/drought-stalks-the-global-food-supply 108.73.113.91 (talk) 08:58, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Misspelling of the word 'extreme' in the map image

The map highlighting areas of extreme food insecurity says " 'Exstreme' food insecurity ". Changing the text in the image is a really easy fix, but uploading it and citing the change properly is beyond my capability. Catchthisdrift (talk) 02:00, 1 March 2013 (UTC)