世界粮食危机与中国粮食安全

世界粮食危机预示着高粮价时代的到来,各国开始重新审视自己的粮食安全。全球人口膨胀和消费需求不断增加打破了供需之间的平衡,而美国推行的生物燃料政策和美元霸权进一步加剧了这种不平衡。因此,美国要为世界粮食危机的加剧负主要责任,但美国同时也是世界粮食危机的最大受益者,国际粮价的高涨体现了美国粮食武器的威力。面对形势严重的世界粮食危机,中国应该保证自给自足,高度重视粮食安全,力保粮食主权,实现经济和社会的可持续发展。     

Achieving zero hunger: implementing a human rights approach to food security in Ethiopia

A human rights approach to food security seeks to empower vulnerable groups to claim their rights. It also reinforces a government’s obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the right to food. Furthermore, it encourages the integration of the right to food into the design and implementation of food security policies. This article examines the human rights approach to food security, with specific reference to Ethiopia. It assesses the historical causes of Ethiopia’s food insecurity, and examines the legislative and policy measures that the country has adopted over the last three decades in order to achieve food security. Food insecurity in the country is largely explained by the absence of government accountability. In 1973 and 1984, the hunger caused by drought was transitioned to famine not because of overall unavailability of food in the country, but because the government failed to provide food aid to the starved people and concealed the occurrence of famines from the international donors. Despite designing some food security policies over the last three decades, the country has not yet adopted sufficient legislative and judicial measures to enforce the right to food. This article argues that Ethiopia should introduce a framework law on the right to food to end hunger in the context of achieving national food security.     

食品安全治理的国外研究述评

作为困扰各国的世界性难题,食品安全问题引起了各国学界的重视,纷纷对这一问题开展深入研究。将从食品安全的概念及必要性、食品安全影响因素、食品安全各利益相关方、食品安全治理对策这四个维度对国外研究进行综合评述。     

Hungry for Information: Public Attitudes Toward Food Nanotechnology and Labeling

What people think about food nanotechnology (nanofood) is under‐explored in the United States, especially outside of quantitative surveys. As such, we set out to examine public attitudes toward food nanotechnology in conversational, focus group settings in order to identify policy options for nanofood governance, and in particular, options for labeling. Through analysis of focus groups in six U.S. locations, we found that the vast majority of the participants wanted nanotechnology labels for all types of food products, and most were willing to pay a premium for labeling. Participants cited abilities to choose and avoid potential risk as the main purposes of nanofood labels. However, they recognized that labels alone do not provide much meaning and that information concerning food nanotechnology products needs to be sought and supplied beyond the label to enable informed choices. Additionally, willingness‐to‐use and risk–benefit perceptions varied according to the position and intended functions of the nanomaterials in food products.     

Effective Communication and Frame Persuasiveness for Food Safety Controversies： The Young Male Consumer＇s Perspective

This study explored effective risk communication for food safety targeting young male consumers who frequently dine outside by examining the controversy of US beef importation in Taiwan in 2012. Guided by risk perception theory and framing theory in issues management, the researcher developed a risk profile of young male consumers based on interview data. Persuasiveness of message frames used by the government was analyzed according to three distinct communicative objectives： to reduce risk perception, to motivate beef consumption, and to gain support for beef importation. The study suggested that the young male consumer＇s knowledge of US beef was formed by news reports and information from family members with experts as the most trusted source. They perceived US beef as risky but safe to eat if they wished. They seldom actively sought information about the beef. The new media were the most used by them for seeking and receiving such information. Frame persuasiveness varied across communicative objectives and was associated with the schemata employed in the configuration of risk-benefit trade-offs for each targeted behavior.     

我国食品安全监管体制的历史演变、现实评价和未来选择

食品安全关乎到一个国家、一个民族的前途命运和生死存亡。目前我国虽然已经初步建立了食品安全法律的规制体系,并在实践中发挥了重要作用,但我国食品安全监管体制的历史演变决定了我国食品安全监管糟糕的现实状况。因此,应当确定法律规制的重点领域以及优先考虑的方向,进而提高我国食品安全监管的水平和效率。     

The Perils of Bula Matari: Constraint and Power in the Colonial State

This review article argues that analyses of the food security implications of emerging powers in Africa could be strengthened through foregrounding the issue of perspective. Researchers working in this area should engage with food security opinion contests, and avoid obscuring these debates moving forward.     

“We All Have to Eat”: Experiential Learning in Courses on Food and Hunger

Community-based learning offers students the opportunity to understand important concepts through their own experiences. Two courses on food and hunger in society, one a first-year seminar of 12 students and one an upper-level psychology course of 20 students, made site visits to local farms, markets, and a soup kitchen while reading about the issues and discussing them in class. At the end of the semester, each student wrote a short self-evaluation in which they were invited to discuss the aspects of the course that affected them most. Student responses suggest that the experiential component of the course was disproportionately powerful, impelling many of them to make changes in their lives as a result.     

Market coordination and the making of conventions: qualities,consumption and sustainability in the agro-food industry

Abstract

The coordination of activity across sites and spaces of production and consumption is a key concern for economic analysis. Joining a revival in the application of convention theory to agro-food scholarship, this paper considers complementary insights – related principally to ‘the economy of qualities’ – that animate different aspects of e/valuation, competition and alignment. These understandings are extended by more thoroughly acknowledging contemporary developments in consumption scholarship. The arguments are advanced through a case study of the orange juice market, linking its current high-carbon trajectory to the commercial and cultural significance of freshness. The analysis offers new insights into distributed processes of qualification as well as the mechanisms through which conventions are assembled and sustained. Finally, a more integrated approach to food production and consumption is outlined.     

Chemical Contamination of Soft Drinks in Sealed Plastic Bottles by Environmental Stress Cracking

Abstract:  A contamination of soft drinks in sealed bottles by organic solvents is reported: closed bottles full of soft drinks were accidentally placed on a cardboard soaked with thinner and the organic fluid subsequently fissured the bottom of the bottles and penetrated into the soft drinks without any apparent leakage of the soft drinks. Experiments were carried out to simulate the process: the penetration of different organic solvents into soft drinks through the bottom of closed bottles was tested. The penetration occurred only when the closed bottles contained carbonated soft drinks (CSD), indicating that inner pressure is a necessary condition for the fissuring of the bottles. This paper discusses environmental stress cracking of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles by organic solvents and migration of chemicals to CSD. Experiments were conducted to determine the conditions in which PET can be permeable to poisoning organic products.