The parable of arable land: Characterizing large scale land acquisitions through network analysis

The activities of multi-national companies have affected the livelihood of smallholder farmer in the Pru East, though a lot of research work has been done on large scale land acquisition but this study focus on how it affects livelihood asset of smallholder farmers in the Pru East District. Over the past ten years, the Government of Ghana have leased out large tracts of land for investors, mainly foreign investors. Survey research approach was used for the study. A multi-stage sampling technique was employed and a sample size of 332 households was used for the study. The study used five indicators of the Livelihood Effect Index (LEI) espoused by Downing et al., (2001) to determine the effects of large-scale land acquisition on the livelihood of smallholder farming households. Large scale land acquisition has a significant positive moderate effect on the employment, healthcare and food security but, has a significant negative high effect on income levels of smallholder farming households. However, large scale land acquisition has no significant effect on the nutritional status of farming households in the Pru East district of the Bono East region. Kobre and Kadue communities with an LEI of 0.53 suggests that livelihoods of farming households in these two communities are the most effected with large scale land acquisition. The study also recommends that MMDAs must formulate by-laws to ensure that large scale land investors employ people from the host communities of the projects. Keywords: livelihood asset, large scale land acquisition, smallholder farmer, human capital asset, natural capital asset, financial capital asset, social capital asset. DOI: 10.7176/JEES/10-2-08 Publication date: February 29 th 2020

International food price shocks in 2007/8, 2011 and 2012 caused large-scale foreign investment in land for the purpose of fostering food security. Large-scale land acquisitions have occasionally left small landholders and their communities in crisis of survival, because they meant the loss of the lands that were their major method of livelihood. In Japan, there are few research papers on such acts of ‘land grabbing’. However, the current administration of Japan promotes foreign agricultural investment, and introduced the so-called ProSAVANA project in Northern Mozambique which created severe negative impact on local societies. This paper examines the general trends in global land acquisition, followed by the political background of ProSAVANA, which is closely related with the G8 New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition and African Agricultural Growth Corridor initiated at the World Economic Forum, and what is happening under ProSAVANA.The main purpose of the ProSAVANA project is to promote soybean production. If this purpose is fully realized, Mozambique can achieve the status of a major soybean exporting country. This change will reorganize agro-food regime in soybean, which means the movement of the new agro-food regime which integrates the whole process of the soybean supply chain by vertical division of labor in multinational agribusinesses and linkages with new agribusinesses in emerging countries like Brazil. Finally, I suggest some points to be discussed about large-scale land acquisition and raise the ethical question of the mission of the researcher who is engaged in studying such forms of land grabbing.

The railway plays an essential role in urban and intercity transport of goods and people. Intercity and urban rail transit infrastructures contribute to the economic and environmental sustainability of global economies. Those infrastructures can be modeled as complex networks, so that we can evaluate system properties of the network structure. This stream of research has focused on the topological analysis of global network structure, but little research exists that examines how local network structures affect system properties. The local structure of complex networks can be examined with network motif analysis, as those network motifs are the building blocks of networked systems. Nevertheless, there has been scarce attention given to local network properties in rail transit networks. We contribute to covering this gap in the literature with a literature review of motif analysis research and its application to weighted and unweighted rail transit networks, also covering the current state-of-the-art of network motif decomposition and analysis. We demonstrate that network motif analysis is not only applicable, but also beneficial for the design and planning of rail transit networks, enhancing their sustainability by improving efficiency, reducing environmental impact, and optimizing resource allocation. Based on our findings, we propose future research directions that involve applying motif analysis to enhance the sustainability features of both unweighted and weighted rail transit networks.

Part 1 Conceptual overview 1.Introduction Ian Christoplos and Adam Pain. 2. Food security and food crises: evolving realities, evolving debates Niek Koning. Part 2 New Trends and Challenges 3. Scenarios for global agriculture and food security towards 2050: a review of recent studies Dirk Willenbockel. 4. Strengthening food security through human rights: a moral and legal imperative and practical opportunity Wenche Barth Eide. 5. Large scale land acquisitions -- challenges, conflicts and partial solutions in a project lifecycle perspective Michael Bruntrup. 6. Water competition, water governance and food security Helle Munk Ravnborg. 7. Food insecurity in fragile states and protracted crises Adam Pain. Part 2 Case Studies 8. Sudan's permanent food emergency: a historical analysis of food aid, governance and political economy Susanne Jaspars 9. Food insecurity and agricultural rehabilitation in post-conflict northern Uganda Winnie Wangari Wairimu 10. Poverty, food security and local water conflicts in southern Zambia Mikkel Funder, Carol Mweemba and Imasiku Nyambe with Helle Munk Ravnborg and Barbara van Koppen. 11. State capacity and malnutrition: a critical analysis of capacity support to Sierra Leone's nutrition sector Lisa Denney and Richard Mallett. 12. Social inequality and food insecurity in Nepal: risks and responses Adam Pain, Hemant R. Ojha and Jagannath Adhikari. 13. Changing approaches to food security in Viet Nam Ian Christoplos, Le Thi Hoa Sen and Le Duc Ngoan. 14. Food security and insecurity in Afghanistan Adam Pain. 15. Food security and insecurity in India, Amit Mitra. 16. South Korea: food security, development and the developmental state Anders Riel Muller. 17. Food security, Nicaragua: food purchase or food production, which is best for the rural poor? Francisco J. Perez, Arthur H. Grigsby and Sandrine Freguin Gresh. Part 4 Conclusions 18. Towards new approaches Adam Pain and Ian Christoplos

This study is undertaken to find out the factors influencing the effects of large-scale land acquisition on the livelihood of smallholder farmers in the Pru district. An important driver for large-scale land acquisition in Ghana, and the rest of Africa, is the growing global demand for biofuels and other plantations. Methodologically, mixed method approach was adopted by applying both quantitative and qualitative research designs. Quantitative data was obtained through a cross-sectional survey from smallholder farming households in the study communities of the Pru District with the help of a multi-stage sampling technique and cluster sampling technique. Qualitative data was obtained through Focus Group Discussions (FGD) from farmerbased associations in the Pru district. The Pru district in the Bono East region was purposively selected based on the reason that it isthe most affected district with activities of land grabbing in Ghana. Based on the sample frame of 2,554 households in the communities, a sample size of 346 was used for the study out of which 332 were households and 14 were investors and traditional authorities. The study revealed that household heads’ level of education, sex of household heads, household engagement in off-farm activities, total farm land owned by a household, size of land lost by households to large-scale land investors, households’ participation in decision making, and training of households for other alternative jobs significantly influence large-scale land acquisition on the livelihood of smallholder farming households. The study found out that the higher the level of education of a household head, the lesser the household suffers the adverse effects of losing their farm land to largescale land investors hence their livelihoods. It was revealed that some major factors that influenced large-scale land acquisition in the Pru district were the availability of land for the cultivation of plantations by investors, the soil fertility of the land in the district and the freedom and peace enjoyed by investors to go about their businesses and enjoying good tax exemptions in such an environment thus Pru district.

Women farmers make up a majority of small-scale food producers in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite their important role in the food and livelihood security of their households and communities, women continue to face substantial challenges in their rights of and access to land resources in the region. In a number of countries such as Sierra Leone where large-scale land acquisition is ongoing, we posit that women’s predicament may further deteriorate. Using data drawn from a survey of household and livelihood activities, focus groups and interviews we examine the outcomes of large-scale land acquisitions on women at the local level in two districts in Sierra Leone. We found that first, women depend more on land-based natural resources that directly affect the day-to-day welfare of households (such as firewood and medicinal plants) than men. Second, land acquisitions have led to a significant fall in the incomes of women and men. The effects of the fall of women’s income have more direct and profound consequences on household wellbeing compared with men. Third, men tend to rank the effects of land acquisitions on women lower than women do. We conclude that current social and cultural norms and women’s role in rural societies is complex and predisposes women to negative livelihood processes and outcomes associated with large-scale land acquisitions. Policy interventions designed to address local and national challenges to socio-economic and cultural development should recognize the crucial role played by women and be responsive to their special needs.

Objective: Use a school-based food garden as an instrument to improve healthy dietary consumption, habits, and practices among children from the third to fifth grade in public schools in Chile. Design: Quasi-experimental, six-month intervention with an evaluation of dietary consumption, habits, and practices and use of the school-based food garden among the 3rd to 5th grade students. Setting: Two municipal schools in a low-middle income district in Santiago de Chile; one with a school garden intervention and a control school without a garden. Subjects: 155 third to fifth grade children, 63 in the intervention school and 92 in the control school (average age 10 years old, 58% boys). Results: In the intervened school, there was a significant improvement in the children’s dietary habits, such as peeling and slicing fruit (p Conclusions: The school-based food garden was effective in achieving change in dietary habits and practices among the third to fifth grade children. The project should be carried out for a longer period of time, so that the changes will be reflected in the students’ food consumption and nutritional status.

COVID-19 outbreak and quarantine measures clearly had an impact on the population's eating habits-related behavior. This study aimed to explore the long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and physical quarantine on eating habits after quarantine among Riyadh city residents, Saudi Arabia. A cross-sectional study was conducted through an online survey between December 2022 and April 2023 on a convenient sample of Saudi adults in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A valid questionnaire was used to measure study outcomes. A comparison between dietary habits before and after COVID-19 was performed to identify the changes in dietary habits. 1,451 Saudi adults residing in Riyadh completed the online survey. The majority (88.6%) of the respondents reported changes in dietary habits after COVID-19. About 50% had 1-3 dietary habits changes and slightly more than one-third had 4-7 dietary habits change. About 33.8% of the participants reported stable weight during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, 40.9% reported weight gain, and 20.7% reported weight loss. The participants reported several unhealthy dietary changes most commonly eating fast food (33%), eating junk food/fast food due to boredom/distress/disappointment (29.8%), and high sugar such as sweet porridge, pastry, sweets, and chocolate (28.5%). On the other side, the participants showed healthy dietary habits such as having a balanced healthy ingredients diet (34.4%), an increase in the consumption of fruits and vegetables, and a decrease in the intake of junk foods (28.9%). Males were more likely to exhibit unhealthy dietary habits than females (Odd Ratio:1.43, p = 0.038, CI: 1.02-2.02). Increasing age was associated with a reduction in the likelihood of exhibiting unhealthy dietary habits (OR: 0.98, p = 0.011, CI: 0.96-0.99). Moreover, participants who reported stable weight or weight loss during COVID-19 were 0.29 (p = 0.043, 0.09-0.96) and 0.34 (p = 0.020, 0.07-0.79), respectively, less likely to have unhealthy dietary habits. Although healthy dietary habits have been reported in this study, such as consumption of fruits and vegetables, COVID-19 confinement has also led to negative dietary behaviors reflected by high consumption of fast/junk food and sugar intake resulting in weight gain, a potential adverse impact on the population wellbeing.

This study is based on data collected from a total of 1196 patients (725 males and 471 females) with histologically confirmed cancer seen in King Khalid University Hospital over a 5-year period between September 1985 to August 1990. Four hundred forty-five patients were non-Saudi (37.20%). The relative frequency and rank of order are determined for various cancers in Saudi patients and total group and compared with the results of the other published studies on cancer epidemiology in Saudi Arabia. The most common cancers among Saudi males were liver, non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, stomach, lung, central nervous system, prostate, lymphoid, leukemias, myeloid leukemias, urinary bladder and Hodgkin's lymphomas, central nervous cancers among Saudi females were breast, thyroid, non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, central nervous system, stomach, myeloid leukemias, esophagus, lymphoid leukemias, liver and ovary. Rank order and relative frequency for liver cancer in both sexes is the highest among any study previously published on the epidemiology of cancer in Saudi Arabia.

Background: Constipation has a prevalence in the Mexican population of up to 14.4% (Remes-Troche 2018). Posterior tibial electrostimulation from L4 to S3 modulates sacral roots through multiple afferent pathways in the spinal cord via a spinal and supraspinal somatovisceral reflex that activates sympathetic nerve flow, increasing rectal distensibility, improving rectal sensory thresholds and favoring anterograde and retrograde colonic propagation sequences through stimulation of S2 and S3 thus improving the defecation mechanism. Objective: To describe the usefulness of bilateral posterior tibial nerve electrostimulation in the treatment of idiopathic constipation in the Mexican population. Materials and Methods: Prospective, longitudinal analytical study including 49 patients with idiopathic constipation from the coloproctology and gastroenterology outpatient department of Hospital General Regional no. 1, Orizaba, Veracruz. Two non-randomized groups were formed: group 1 received bilateral posterior tibial stimulation via transcutaneous electrodes 3 times a week for 6 weeks; group 2 was treated with fecal bolus modifiers and dietary habit changes. Constipation status was evaluated at the beginning and end of treatment using a custom survey where higher scores indicated greater symptoms and scores closer to zero indicated fewer symptoms. Descriptive statistics, frequencies, percentages, and central tendency measures were applied. The study took place from September 2023 to February 2024. Results: A total of 49 patients were selected; group 1 consisted of 15 patients (31%) who underwent bilateral posterior tibial nerve electrostimulation and were compared with 34 participants (69%) in group 2 who were treated with fecal bolus modifiers and changes in dietary habits. The mean age of the bilateral posterior tibial nerve electrostimulation group was 45 ± 18 and 55 ± 14 for the fecal bolus modifiers. The female sex predominated in both groups; group 1 with 12 participants (80%) and the second group with 28 (82%) female participants. Of all the patients in group 1, the mean improvement of symptoms was 16% at 6 weeks with bilateral posterior tibial electrostimulation as a treatment for idiopathic constipation, compared to the mean of 33% reported with the use of fecal bolus modifiers and changes in dietary habits; the use of laxatives was also evidenced, in group 1 only 2 participants (13%) continued with their use and in group 2, 22 participants (65%) continued with their use at the end of 6 weeks. Conclusion: Bilateral posterior tibial electrostimulation treatment for idiopathic constipation reduced symptom perception and laxative use compared to fecal bolus modifiers and dietary habit changes.

On December 2019, the COVID-19 deadly virus emerged and affected a large population in the world which led to the increase in the death rate of infected patients. Changes in dietary habits and way of living leading from the implementation of lockdown during this pandemic had been detrimental on the nutritional health of individuals. A statistical study was conducted to determine the effect of COVID-19 lockdown on dietary habits, food consumption, and weight in different countries. The primary aim of this study bas been to conduct a statistical research to measure the impact of the pandemic on dietary habits of the humans. Retrospective study was made by the data collected from a data repository Kaggle with attributes of food status, nutrients and calories. By statistically analyzing the data using RStudio, it was possible to infer on the changes in dietary habits between countries of similarities. Based on the statistical analysis, it was found that the consumption of fat varies depending on the availability of meat or vegetables during the COVID-19 pandemic leading to vulnerability of human population with weaker consumption-based immunity against the disease.

Changes in dietary habits and eating practices in adolescents living in urban South Africa: The birth to twenty cohort

We previously reported that the national lockdown led to worsening glucose control and increased systolic blood pressure in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D). This study aimed to investigate the impact of the national lockdown on changes in diet and physical activity among these patients. A questionnaire-based survey (N=100) was conducted to assess changes in dietary habits, physical activity, and medication adherence during the lockdown in a subset of patients from the Siriraj Diabetes Registry who attended a follow-up visit after the lockdown. The mean age of the participants was 60.3 ± 11.9 years, with 60%being female. Of 100 patients, changes in dietary patterns and physical activity were reported in 38 (38%) and 25 (25%) of patients, respectively. Self-reported weight gain occurred in 25 (25%) of participants. Medication adherence for anti-diabetic drugs, anti-hypertensive drugs, and lipid-lowering agents remained high, with 80 (80%) of patients reporting good compliance (defined as taking >80% of prescribed medications). No significant differences in medication adherence were observed during or after the lockdown compared to pre-lockdown levels. The COVID-19 national lockdown in Thailand led to notable changes in dietary habits and physical activity among patients with T2D. However, medication adherence remained stable throughout the lockdown period.

Tuberculosis in Morocco: Disease duration, weight loss and malnutrition.

The challenges of mitigating nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions are substantially different from those for carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), because nitrogen (N) is essential for food production, and over 80% of anthropogenic N2O emissions are from the agricultural sector. Here I use a model of emission factors of N2O to demonstrate the magnitude of improvements in agriculture and industrial sectors and changes in dietary habits that would be necessary to match the four representative concentration pathways (RCPs) now being considered in the fifth assessment report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Stabilizing atmospheric N2O by 2050, consistent with the most aggressive of the RCP mitigation scenarios, would require about 50% reductions in emission factors in all sectors and about a 50% reduction in mean per capita meat consumption in the developed world. Technologies exist to achieve such improved efficiencies, but overcoming social, economic, and political impediments for their adoption and for changes in dietary habits will present large challenges.