It is not about spinach : a food justice perspective on urban agriculture in Cape Town and Maputo

The worlds rapid urbanisation has presented multiple challenges to societies and the environment and strained the sustainability and equity of urban food systems. In discussions on the future of the worlds cities and their food security, urban agriculture has gained attention for its potential to contribute to food supply and dietary diversity, generate income for urban producers, and provide various multifunctional benefits such as environmental services, education, and community building. The dissertation followed a conceptual approach that applies a food systems perspective on urban agriculture and uses urban agriculture as a means to identify food justice patterns. In addition, this thesis contributes to participatory action research methodology by shifting focus to the concept of democratisation processes in research. Co-research is a more radical and inclusive form of participatory action research that involves actors and groups from marginalised communities in all research steps. Communities are involved in the study design, problem posing, decision-making around methodology, data collection, analysis and triangulation, and scaling of activities. This process fosters ownership of the gathered results through mutual and transformative learning, and hence, could become more valuable than the results themselves. The food system in Cape Town is highly segregated, as is the city itself: the legacy of apartheid-era planning left an affluent and prosperous city centre surrounded by lower-income areas populated largely by People of Colour who face daily challenges in accessing food. Urban agriculture is practised in the townships of Cape Town by hundreds of farmersmost of them People of Colour, unemployed, elderly, female home growersand thousands of backyard growers who cultivate a variety of vegetables mostly on small plots. The food gardens are either on public or private land: land is leased for short periods from public institutions such as schools or clinics or leased from municipalities, which is a lengthy andfor many farmersopaque process. NGOs, with support from the Municipality, introduced urban agriculture as a poverty alleviation strategy to combat high rates of food security in the marginalised parts of the city. Decades of support have hampered the establishment of community-driven food solutions and led to dependencies on NGOs for inputs, marketing, and acquisition of new knowledge. These farming activities play an insignificant role when it comes to household contribution. Food is produced in highly confined and troubled spaces in informal settlements, almost exclusively for a niche market of middle/upper class consumers in the wealthier city centre. Maputos food system is strongly influenced by food imports from neighbouring South Africa, by its rapid growth, and by migration from the rural areas of the country where selfsustaining family farming is a primary livelihood strategy. In the urban and peri-urban area of Mozambiques capital, the zonas verdes (green zones) were established to combat the citys severe food insecurity crisis after the colonial era. These horticultural production sites have remained vibrant production areas. Urban agriculture is largely commercialised and plays a key role supplying the city with specific horticultural products, mainly cabbage and lettuce. Informal traders buy crops directly from the fields and sell them in Maputos local markets and street stands. Four of five farming families indicate that the income they generate in this activity is their main source of revenue. Another estimated 40,000 people earn their livings by supporting urban agriculture through activities such as trading, selling, pesticide application, and transportation. Like Cape Town, it is mainly women who are involved in urban agriculture in Maputos fields. Understanding urban agriculture through a food systems lens was crucial in examining the potentials and challenges of urban agriculture. Applying a co-research approach in Cape Town allowed investigations that fostered participating farmers agency over the findings and led to the creation of a strong network that carried the research beyond the scope of this project. The mutual contextualisation of the results gathered in an inclusive research process into food justice theory revealed farmers in-depth understanding of structural inequalities within food systems in cities. Food justice theory is mainly applied in case studies in the North and looks at historical context and trauma, systemic challenges, and marginalisation in ethnicity, class, place, time, and gender. These research findings from two case studies in the South add to our understanding of marginalisation in urban agriculture in Cape Town and Maputo and shed light on the importance of intersectionality as a contextual component of food justice.Die zunehmende Urbanisierung weltweit stellt die Gesellschaften und die Umwelt generell vor vielfältige Herausforderungen. Sie belastet insbesondere die Nachhaltigkeit und Gerechtigkeit der städtischen Ernährungssysteme. In den Diskussionen um die Zukunft der Städte und ihrer Ernährungssicherheit rückt die urbane Landwirtschaft immer wieder in den Fokus. Von ihr erhofft man sich eine Verbesserung der Nahrungsmittelversorgung und Ernährungsvielfalt, Einkommensgenerierung und zudem Vorteile im Umweltschutz, der Bildung und Nachbarschaftsarbeit zu bieten. Die Dissertation baut auf einen konzeptionellen Ansatz auf, der eine Ernährungssystemsperspektive auf die urbane Landwirtschaft anwendet und diese dann nutzt, um Ernährungsgerechtigkeitsmuster abzuleiten. Darüber hinaus trägt diese Dissertation zur Methodik der partizipativen Aktionsforschung bei, indem sie einen Schwerpunkt auf Demokratisierungsprozesse in der Forschung legt. Dieser so genannte Co-research-Ansatz ist eine radikalere und inklusivere Form der partizipativen Aktionsforschung, da sie marginalisierte Gruppen in alle Forschungsschritte einbezieht. Die Gruppen werden in das Studiendesign, die Problemstellung, die Auswahl der Methodik, die Datenerhebung, die Analyse und Triangulation sowie die Skalierung der Aktivitäten einbezogen. Dieser Prozess fördert, dass die Forschungsergebnisse angenommen werden und könnte so durch gemeinsames und transformatives Lernen langfristig wertvoller werden als die Ergebnisse selbst. Die Untersuchung zeigt auf, dass sich die Situationen in Kapstadt und Maputo stark unterscheiden. Kleinbauern in Kapstadt sind beim Verkauf in die reicheren Viertel der Stadt stark von Zwischenhändlern abhängig und zudem einem instabilen Markt ausgesetzt. In Maputo sind Organisationsstrukturen und Markt stabiler, doch die Ackerflächen sind durch die Konkurrenz um Landnutzung in Folge der zunehmenden Urbanisierung bedroht. Das Ernährungssystem in Kapstadt ist wie die Stadt selbst stark segregiert: Die Apartheid-Ära hinterließ ein wohlhabendes Stadtzentrum, das überwiegend von der weißen Bevölkerungsgruppe bewohnt wird und einkommensschwache Gegenden in den Randbezirken, in denen größtenteils nicht weiße Menschen leben, die täglich mit Herausforderungen um Zugang zu Nahrungsmitteln konfrontiert sind. Urbane Landwirtschaft wird in den Townships von Kapstadt von Hunderten von Bauern betrieben - meist arbeitslose, ältere Frauen aus der schwarzen Bevölkerungsgruppe. Zudem bauen Tausende in Hinterhöfen Gemüse an, auf überwiegend kleinen Parzellen. Die Forschung zeigt, dass die urbane Landwirtschaft eine widersprüchliche Strategie zur ökonomischen Unterstützung einer marginalisierten Gesellschaft ist, da ihr Beitrag zur Linderung der Armut unbedeutend ist. Das Einkommen der urbanen Bäuerinnen und Bauern ist gering und unbeständig, und oft geben die Bauern mehr Geld für Betriebsmittel aus, als sie mit dem Anbau verdienen. Multifunktionale Vorteile der urbanen Landwirtschaft wie Gemeinschaftsbildung und die Schaffung von Grünflächen für Umweltbildung tragen jedoch entscheidend zum sozialen Zusammenhalt innerhalb dieser Gesellschaften bei. Das Nahrungsmittelsystem Maputos ist geprägt von Nahrungsmittelimporten aus dem benachbarten Südafrika, von dem raschen Wachstum der Stadt und von der Migration aus den ländlichen Gebieten des Landes, in denen die selbstversorgende Familienlandwirtschaft eine primäre Strategie zur Sicherung des Lebensunterhalts darstellt. Im städtischen und stadtnahen Bereich der mosambikanischen Hauptstadt wurden die zonas verdes (Grünzonen) eingerichtet, um nach der Kolonialzeit die schwere Ernährungskrise der Stadt zu bekämpfen. Bei dieser Forschung zu den Potenzialen und Herausforderungen der städtischen Landwirtschaft war es von entscheidender Bedeutung, die städtische Landwirtschaft unter dem Blickwinkel des Ernährungssystems zu verstehen. Die Anwendung eines Co-research Ansatzes in Kapstadt ermöglichte Untersuchungen, die die teilnehmenden Gruppen förderte und zur Schaffung eines starken Netzwerks führte, das die Forschung über den Rahmen dieses Projekts hinaustrug. Die gemeinsame Kontextualisierung der Ergebnisse, die in einem inklusiven Forschungsprozess über Ernährungsgerechtigkeit gesammelt wurden, offenbarte den Bauern ein tiefes Verständnis der strukturellen Ungleichheiten bei Lebensmitteln in Städten. Die Theorie der Ernährungsgerechtigkeit wird hauptsächlich in Fallstudien im Norden angewandt und befasst sich mit historischem Kontext und Trauma, systemischen Herausforderungen und Marginalisierung in Bezug auf ethnische Zugehörigkeit, Klasse, Ort, Zeit und Geschlecht. Diese Forschungsergebnisse aus zwei Fallstudien tragen Verständnis der Marginalisierung in der städtischen Landwirtschaft in Kapstadt und Maputo bei und beleuchten die Bedeutung der Intersektionalität als kritische Komponente der Ernährungsgerechtigkeit

“There is food we deserve, and there is food we do not deserve” - Food injustice, place and power in urban agriculture in Cape Town and Maputo

Urban agriculture (UA) is perceived to foster the self-determination of localised food systems and feed growing urban populations. We apply a food justice lens with a focus on place and power to explore UA's contributions to livelihoods and food availability in Cape Town, South Africa and Maputo, Mozambique and to understand the power dynamics between actors. We conducted household surveys, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, participant observations, and farmer-led co-research from 2017 to 2019. In Cape Town, UA is an NGO-led, subsidised initiative regulating production decisions and market access, instead of enhancing self-determination. Food is produced in highly confined spaces in informal settlements, almost exclusively for a niche market of wealthy consumers in the city centre. Farmers are disconnected from consumers and from their own produce, with only 15% of farmers eating the vegetables they grow. In Maputo, UA emerged from farming traditions in the peri-urban green belt, producing leafy green vegetables for both the urban population and 99% of the farmers themselves, thereby contributing to local food availability. However, farmers depend on prices determined by intermediaries with farm association members of higher status and privilege holding leading positions and determining access to agricultural inputs and services. In both contexts, we revealed stark structural inequalities and highly uneven power dynamics. As one outcome of co-research in Cape Town, farmers established their own market channels and advocated for food councils that would enable them to have a voice in shaping urban agriculture and local food systems

Growing and Eating Food during the COVID-19 Pandemic:Farmers’ Perspectives on Local Food System Resilience to Shocks in Southern Africa and Indonesia

The COVID-19 outbreak forced governments to make decisions that had adverse effects on local food systems and supply chains. As a result, many small-scale food producers faced difficulties growing, harvesting, and selling their goods. This participatory research examines local small-scale farmers’ challenges as farmers but also as consumers and their coping strategies during the month of April and one week in June 2020. The study was initiated and conceptualized in collaboration with small-scale farmer members of an existing research network in selected urban and rural areas in South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Indonesia. Participants co-designed the research, collected and uploaded data through digital survey tools, and contributed to data analysis and interpretation. A common observation across regions is that the measures imposed in response to COVID-19 highlighted and partly exacerbated existing socio-economic inequalities among food system actors. Strict lockdowns in Cape Town, South Africa, and Masvingo, Zimbabwe, significantly restricted the production capacity of small-scale farmers in the informal economy and created more foodinsecurityforthem. InMaputo,Mozambique,andTorajaandJava,Indonesia,localfoodsystems continued to operate and were even strengthened by higher social capital and adaptive capacities

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Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis

Search for heavy resonances decaying to two Higgs bosons in final states containing four b quarks

A search is presented for narrow heavy resonances X decaying into pairs of Higgs bosons (H) in proton-proton collisions collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC at root s = 8 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb(-1). The search considers HH resonances with masses between 1 and 3 TeV, having final states of two b quark pairs. Each Higgs boson is produced with large momentum, and the hadronization products of the pair of b quarks can usually be reconstructed as single large jets. The background from multijet and t (t) over bar events is significantly reduced by applying requirements related to the flavor of the jet, its mass, and its substructure. The signal would be identified as a peak on top of the dijet invariant mass spectrum of the remaining background events. No evidence is observed for such a signal. Upper limits obtained at 95 confidence level for the product of the production cross section and branching fraction sigma(gg -> X) B(X -> HH -> b (b) over barb (b) over bar) range from 10 to 1.5 fb for the mass of X from 1.15 to 2.0 TeV, significantly extending previous searches. For a warped extra dimension theory with amass scale Lambda(R) = 1 TeV, the data exclude radion scalar masses between 1.15 and 1.55 TeV

Search for supersymmetry in events with one lepton and multiple jets in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

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Measurement of the top quark mass using charged particles in pp collisions at root s=8 TeV

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Measurement of the Splitting Function in &ITpp &ITand Pb-Pb Collisions at root&ITsNN&IT=5.02 TeV

Data from heavy ion collisions suggest that the evolution of a parton shower is modified by interactions with the color charges in the dense partonic medium created in these collisions, but it is not known where in the shower evolution the modifications occur. The momentum ratio of the two leading partons, resolved as subjets, provides information about the parton shower evolution. This substructure observable, known as the splitting function, reflects the process of a parton splitting into two other partons and has been measured for jets with transverse momentum between 140 and 500 GeV, in pp and PbPb collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV per nucleon pair. In central PbPb collisions, the splitting function indicates a more unbalanced momentum ratio, compared to peripheral PbPb and pp collisions.. The measurements are compared to various predictions from event generators and analytical calculations.Peer reviewe

Measurement of nuclear modification factors of gamma(1S)), gamma(2S), and gamma(3S) mesons in PbPb collisions at root s(NN)=5.02 TeV

The cross sections for ϒ(1S), ϒ(2S), and ϒ(3S) production in lead-lead (PbPb) and proton-proton (pp) collisions at √sNN = 5.02 TeV have been measured using the CMS detector at the LHC. The nuclear modification factors, RAA, derived from the PbPb-to-pp ratio of yields for each state, are studied as functions of meson rapidity and transverse momentum, as well as PbPb collision centrality. The yields of all three states are found to be significantly suppressed, and compatible with a sequential ordering of the suppression, RAA(ϒ(1S)) > RAA(ϒ(2S)) > RAA(ϒ(3S)). The suppression of ϒ(1S) is larger than that seen at √sNN = 2.76 TeV, although the two are compatible within uncertainties. The upper limit on the RAA of ϒ(3S) integrated over pT, rapidity and centrality is 0.096 at 95% confidence level, which is the strongest suppression observed for a quarkonium state in heavy ion collisions to date. © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Funded by SCOAP3.Peer reviewe