Term | Definition | Module |
Agri-food chain |
Agri-food chain refers to the combination of actors and activities that produce raw material of agricultural origin, transfer produce in time and space, if needed transform the produce through processing, and offer the final food product to the end-user. |
3 |
Economic access |
Economic access to food means acquiring food through purchasing power. |
1 |
Food access |
Physical, social and economic means to acquire food:
- Physical access: Physical access to food means acquiring food by own production or trade.
- Economic access: Economic access to food means acquiring food through purchasing power.
- Social access: Social access to food means acquiring food through social relations.
|
1 |
Food availability |
Food availability can be defined as sufficient quantities of food (of appropriate quality), supplied by domestic production or imports (including food aid). |
1 |
Food policy |
How policy-making shapes who eats what, when and how; and of whether people (and animals) eat and with what consequences.” (Lang, Barling & Caraher, 2009: 21). Many governments do not have an explicit food policy as such. Instead, food policy often consists of a wide range of (more or less integrated) relevant policies and domains. |
4 |
Food Security |
Food Security is defined as: when all people at all times have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. |
1 |
Food sovereignty |
There are many different definitions but all insist to the right of peoples and countries to make their own decisions on their food policies and whether they want to rely on trade or not. The most cited definition comes from the Declaration of the right of peoples to define their own agriculture and food policies, to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade in order to achieve sustainable development objectives, to determine the extent to which they want to be self- reliant, and to restrict the dumping of products in their markets. |
5 |
Household |
A household consists of one or more people living under one roof or occupying a separate housing unit who share meals and living areas, and have a separate cooking facility. The household is typically the place where peoples’ daily activities take place, where decisions are made and resources are produced and allocated to different members, amongst others pertaining to kinds and amounts of food. |
2 |
Inter-household food access |
Inter-household food access refers to the differences in food access between households. Disparities in food access between households may exist on the basis of differences in livelihood strategies and the outcomes of these strategies, which are both ultimately determined by their access to livelihood assets, and the opportunities that their environment offers. |
2 |
Intra-household food allocation |
Intra-household food allocation refers to the distribution of food (in terms of its quantity and/or quality) within households, thus across different household members. Disparities in food access across individuals, or groups of individuals, in the household may exist on the basis of their personal characteristics, such as for instance earning power, age, gender, and birth order. |
2 |
Malnutrition |
Malnutrition is the condition that develops when the body does not get the right amount of the nutrients it needs to maintain healthy tissues and organ function. Examples of malnutrition are undernourishment or obesity. |
1 |
Marketplace |
A marketplace represents the actual place where a particular product or service is bought or sold and describes the world of trade or the set conditions that shape the ways in which food is bought and sold. |
3 |
Mode of governing |
Governments attempt to influence societal actors to change their behaviour so that policy goals will be achieved. This process of influencing societal actors can be pursued by three general mechanisms, which are referred to as modes of governing
- Hierarchy
- Markets
- Networks
Choosing a mode of governing revolves around the fundamental question: by which mechanism should policy goals be pursued, and who is ultimately responsible for achieving those goals: government, market actors, or society itself? |
4 |
Physical access |
Physical access to food means acquiring food by own production or trade. |
1 |
Policy goal |
The explicit adoption of a specific concern (e.g. access to food) within government’s policies and strategies, with the aim of addressing the concern in a particular way (cf. Candel & Biesbroek, 2016). |
4 |
Policy instruments |
The actual means or devices governments have at their disposal for implementing policies, and among which they must select in formulating policy” (Howlett & Ramesh, 2003: 87). In section 4.4.1, these instruments have been categorized along four governing resources: nodality, authority, treasure, and organization (Hood, 1986). |
4 |
Public policy |
The course of action a government takes with regard to a particular issue (e.g. access to food). Many different definitions exist. A good definition that is used in this module is provided by Jenkins (1978): “a set of interrelated decisions taken by a political actor or group of actors concerning the selection of goals and the means of achieving them within a specified situation where those decisions should, in principle, be within the power of those actors to achieve.” To this definition one could add that these decisions are normally targeted at a specific problem or matter of concern (Anderson, 1984). |
4 |
Right to food |
Defined by the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, as ‘the right to adequate food is realized when every man. Woman and child, alone or in community with others has the physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement’. |
5 |
Social access |
Social access to food means acquiring food through social relations. |
1 |
Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) |
A tool, under negotiation within the WTO, that will allow developing countries to raise tariffs temporarily to deal with import surges or price falls. |
5 |
Tariffs |
A tax on import or export of goods aimed at reducing international trade, increasing government revenue and protecting domestic producers. Tariffs increase the price of imported goods. |
5 |
Value chain |
A value chain is a set of activities and actors involved in adding value to a product or service to be delivered to the market. |
1 |
Value chain governance |
Value chain governance refers to the relationships among the buyers, sellers, service providers and regulatory institutions that operate within or influence the range of activities required to bring a product or service from inception to its end use. Governance is about power and the ability to exert control along the chain and sets parameters for what to produce, how to produce and how much to produce. (Kaplinsky and Morris, 2001). |
3 |
WTO |
The World Trade Organization, established in 1995 regulates and promotes international trade, including agri-food products. In 2016, the WTO had 164 members (163 countries and the European Union). The headquarters is in Geneva, Switzerland. |
5 |