103 research outputs found
Agriculture and the Generation Problem: Rural Youth, Employment and the Future of Farming
Youth unemployment and underemployment are serious problems in most countries, and often more severe in rural than in urban areas. Small?scale agriculture is the developing world's single biggest source of employment, and with the necessary support it can offer a sustainable and productive alternative to the expansion of large?scale, capital?intensive, labour?displacing corporate farming. This, however, assumes a generation of young rural men and women who want to be small farmers, while mounting evidence suggests that young people are uninterested in farming or in rural futures. The emerging field of youth studies can help us understand young people's turn away from farming, pointing to: the deskilling of rural youth, and the downgrading of farming and rural life; the chronic neglect of small?scale agriculture and rural infrastructure; and the problems that young rural people increasingly have, even if they want to become farmers, in getting access to land while still young
Examining sources of land tenure (in)security. A focus on authority relations, state politics, social dynamics and belonging
This article reviews the current state of literature on the notion of security of tenure of land. This examination is topical as tenure security has become a key objective for land policies and development interventions. While tenure security is widely defined by peopleâs perceptions, land policies tend to address it through the registration and administration of land rights. The article argues that these practices ignore the complexity of the sources of tenure (in)security. Building on critical development literature of political ecology, social anthropology and political science, these sources are identified as stemming from the politics of land and linked to authority relations, state politics, social dynamics and belonging. The article concludes that their consideration enables us to contextualise perceptions of tenure security and to conceive practices for securing tenure
EFSA Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA); Scientific Opinion on Dietary Reference Values for energy
Following a request from the European Commission, the Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA) derived dietary reference values for energy, which are provided as average requirements (ARs) of specified age and sex groups. For children and adults, total energy expenditure (TEE) was determined factorially from estimates of resting energy expenditure (REE) plus the energy needed for various levels of physical activity (PAL) associated with sustainable lifestyles in healthy individuals. To account for uncertainties inherent in the prediction of energy expenditure, ranges of the AR for energy were calculated with several equations for predicting REE in children (1-17Â years) and adults. For practical reasons, only the REE estimated by the equations of Henry (2005) was used in the setting of the AR and multiplied with PAL values of 1.4, 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0, which approximately reflect low active (sedentary), moderately active, active and very active lifestyles. For estimating REE in adults, body heights measured in representative national surveys in 13 EU Member States and body masses calculated from heights assuming a body mass index of 22Â kg/m2 were used. For children, median body masses and heights from the WHO Growth Standards or from harmonised growth curves of children in the EU were used. Energy expenditure for growth was accounted for by a 1Â % increase of PAL values for each age group. For infants (7-11Â months), the AR was derived from TEE estimated by regression equation based on doubly labelled water (DLW) data, plus the energy needs for growth. For pregnant and lactating women, the additional energy for the deposition of newly formed tissue, and for milk output, was derived from data obtained by the DLW method and from factorial estimates, respectively. The proposed ARs for energy may need to be adapted depending on specific objectives and target populations
The anatomy of fragile states in SubâSaharan Africa: Understanding the interrelationship between fragility and indicators of wellbeing
According to most classifications, Sub-Saharan Africa is the region of the world with the highest presence of fragile states. In this paper we examine the relationship between fragility and poverty, suggesting that countries may become trapped in a vicious circle of fragility and low levels of wellbeing. We consider fragility as a continuum and begin by reviewing available measures. These show the high presence of fragility in Sub-Saharan Africa and allow the more fragile countries to be identified. There is seen to be a strong association between fragility, poor growth performance, and lower wellbeing in Sub-Saharan Africa. Building on the strong evidence for the two-way relationship between economic growth and poverty, we present an analysis of how the vicious circle linking poorer welfare outcomes and fragility may be able to be broken. We argue that building successful institutions is key here, and this can be enabled by specific policy interventions that are both poverty reducing and productive
- âŠ