Research Posters

Small-holder farmers in the Global South are diverse, vulnerable, and often poor and food-insecure [1, 2].  To cope with the challenges, they sometimes intensify and diversify their use of land by having fruit and vegetable kitchen gardens, tree crops, fish-ponds and cattle, which can lead to improvements in food production and increase access to safe and nutritious food [3, 4]. Fine-grained data does not exist on agricultural practices sufficient to understand at a village or even subnational scale small-holder farmers’ health and food security, in part, because previous studies utilized insufficiently detailed satellite images [5], farmer interviews, and crop-cutting surveys [6] designed mainly to estimate crop yields. Google Street View can offer a high-resolution cross-sectional snapshot of the diversity of foods available in rural villages. Understanding “own production” even from home gardens is important as it can account for a third of caloric intake in agricultural households [6].

•City and regional food systems are essential to creating equitable, livable, and healthy communities. Recognizing the potential of city and regional food systems, local governments around the world are beginning to develop, enact, and implement policies to strengthen food systems.

Over 380 million smallholder farmers produce more than 70% of the food in the global south, and are responsible for more than 50% of the food produced globally. Yet many smallholder farmers struggle under the pressure of globalizing economic and political environments. The report seeks to provide guidance on how local governments and planners can step into food systems planning, particularly in the Global South. Much of the current literature on food systems planning centers on experiences in the Global North, and little fits the contexts, experiences, opportunities, and challenges of communities in the Global South.

Scholarship on international trade and health analyzes the effects of trade and investment policies on population exposure to non-nutritious foods. These policies are linked to the nutrition transition, or the dietary shift towards meat and processed foods associated with rising overweight and obesity rates in low- and middle-income countries.

As the producers of most of the food for consumption across the Global South, smallholder farmers are vital to the food security of millions of people around the world. Yet, the future of their livelihoods is growing increasingly uncertain, as planning and policies often ignore the needs of smallholder farmers (Altieri, Funes-Monzonte, & Peterson, 2012).

Water variability poses challenges to smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Farmers must constantly adapt their decisions and practices in response to water uncertainty and variability. This study probes the question, “How do peri-urban farmers adapt their farming decisions to variability and uncertainties in water availability, and how are these decisions embedded within the broader logics of appropriateness and consequentiality? We address this question by focusing on farmers within the Ashaiman delta, Ghana. In this empirical case, we develop indices to quantify the adaptive nature of decisions made by farmers to manage water variability and uncertainty.