Food-security governance in India and Ethiopia: a comparative analysis

Despite recently legislating the right of all citizens to food security, India continues to suffer high food-insecurity rates. With respect to several measures, food insecurity in India appears to be actually higher than in Ethiopia, a country with only one-fourth of India’s average per-capita income. This article examines comparatively the two countries’ food-security challenges and governance mechanisms and identifies several relevant policy areas for mutual learning – dietary diversity, maternal and infant nutrition, and sanitation as well as food production and programmes’ external oversight. Beyond India and Ethiopia, these findings are pertinent also to other developing countries facing similar food-security challenges, such as Pakistan, Nigeria or Sudan.     

海淀区食堂及餐馆食品安全状况分析

分析海淀区食堂及餐馆的食品安全状况,可以为指导食品安全监督工作提供参考依据。本研究根据《餐饮服务食品安全监督动态等级评定表》得分及扣分情况,找出其扣分率较高的检查内容并比较了食堂和餐馆的食品安全状况。针对调查中发现的问题,提出了相关建议。     

The cognitive interview: Much more than simply “try again”

Abstract

In the legal context, the elicitation of complete and accurate statements from witnesses and victims is essential. The Cognitive Interview (CI) was devised to improve eyewitnesses' memory by using mnemonic strategies which ask witnesses to think about what happened and encourage them to make as many retrieval attempts as possible. However, no known study has experimentally examined whether (or not) the CI superiority effect is something more than merely asking a witness to retrieve information four times. The aim of this study was to compare the recall obtained by means of the CI - in which mnemonics are used - to that obtained as a result of asking subjects to make a multiple free recall task - without using mnemonics - in a single interview session. It was expected that significant differences would still exist. Results confirmed this hypothesis.     

Does free recall moderate the effect of mental context reinstatement instructions on children's cued recall?

Cognitive Interview instructions increase children's recall of events; one important instruction is the mental reinstatement of context. We examined one factor that may affect mental context reinstatement: whether children had the opportunity to freely recall the event before answering cued recall questions. One hundred and fifty-two children aged 6, 9, or 11 years were interviewed twice about a staged event. The event consisted of an argument between two adults about whose turn it was to show the children a film. One week after the event, some of the children received mental context reinstatement instructions before having their cued recall tested. Some children also received a free recall test immediately before the cued recall test. In the second interview, 2 weeks after the first interview, all children freely recalled the event. The results showed no effects of mental context reinstatement instructions and no moderating effect of free recall on children's cued recall. The implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.     

Children's and adults’ realism in their event-recall confidence in responses to free recall and focused questions

Abstract

Two experiments examined the realism in the confidence of 8–9-year-olds, 12–13-year-olds and adults in their free recall and answers to focused questions after viewing a short video clip. A different video clip was shown in each experiment and the focused questions differed in difficulty. In both experiments the youngest age group, in contrast to the two other age groups, showed no overconfidence in their confidence judgements for the free recall. The free recall results also showed that the youngest group had lower completeness but similar correctness as the adults. There was a tendency, over both experiments, for the participants to show poorer realism for the focused questions than for the free recall, especially when questions with content already mentioned in the free recall were excluded from the analyses of the focused questions in Experiment 1. The study shows the importance of question format when evaluating the credibility of the confidence shown by 8–9-year-old children in their own testimony.     

Off-farm work and food security status of farming households in Ghana

This study assessed the effect of participation in off-farm work on the food security status of farming households in the Northern Region of Ghana. Primary data were solicited from 324 farming households in the Tamale metropolis and Tolon district using semi-structured questionnaires. The treatment effects of both income and food security status were estimated using propensity score matching and double-robust methods. The empirical results suggest that participation in off-farm activities increased household daily calorie consumption. These results have implications for the development of off-farm ventures for the benefit of the farming households.     

Who are those people we call farmers? Rural Kenyan aspirations and realities

Rural Kenyan households have different aspirations and income portfolio strategies, including agricultural intensification and income diversification. This article reports on a study that interviewed 624 households to explore rural aspirations and derive lessons for agricultural technology development and transfer. Though few households specialised in farming, many households self-identified as farmers and aspired to increase their agricultural income. Despite the prevalence of agricultural aspirations, few aspired for their children to have a future in farming. Combining aspirations with potential to invest, the article provides suggestions for targeting agricultural interventions. We need to start listening better to those people we call “farmers” to develop and offer innovations that meet their realities.     

Farmers’ perceptions of milk-collecting centres in Thailand's dairy industry

This study assessed farmers’ perceptions of milk-collecting centres (MCCs) in the central and north-eastern regions of Thailand. MCCs can be divided into two groups, dairy cooperatives and private organisations. There were similar perceptions about the role of MCCs among the farmers regarding the basic needs of dairy farmers, but with a stronger focus of economic issues for private organisation members, while dairy cooperative members views were more from the perspective of ownership. The farmers were somewhat satisfied with their MCCs’ performance, except that private organisation farmers were less satisfied with credit services. Policy recommendations are presented.     

Building pathways out of poverty through climate smart agriculture and effective targeting

One focus of agricultural development is climate smart agricultural technologies and practices (CSA). Development practitioners invest in scaling these to have wider impact. Ineffective targeting stymies CSA’s contribution to poverty reduction by excluding many of the poor and/or including those for whom agriculture is not a pathway out of poverty. This viewpoint proposes the need to recognise differentiated livelihood pathways within smallholder agriculture, linked to farmers’ differential capacity to engage in climate risk management. A farmer and livelihoods typology provides a framework to improved targeting of CSA and to identifying where alternative interventions, such as social protection, are more appropriate.