CHINA
As China abolished its internal migration restrictions in the early 1990s, the number of farmers migrating to cities increased exponentially from 37.5 million in 1990 to 290.77 million in 2019. The number decreased gradually in the past few years due to the aging of the population and the increasing number of farm workers’ resettlement in cities. Driven by higher income, the majority of these migrant workers seek non-farming jobs in cities while keeping their rural household registration status and connections. Yet, the gap between the urban and rural household registration status has impaired their rights on accessing many services in cities, such as housing, health benefits, and schooling services. Addressing these challenges has been one of the top concerns of urban governance and development policies in China. China is also a significant sender of migrants to other countries, with a total of over 10.7 million Chinese in 94 countries in the South and 49 countries in the North. The outmigration is largely driven by its rapid economic growth in the past three decades, growth of investing overseas and students seeking degrees in foreign higher education institutions.
RESEARCH on CHINA
MiFOOD PAPERS
JOURNAL ARTICLES
The Nanjing Model: Comprehensive Food System Governance, Localization and Urban Food Security in China
Food supply localization has been extensively studied and advocated in North America and Europe, focusing on its oppositional stance to food system globalization, long food supply chains, the disconnect between producers and consumers, and a desire to reconnect urban consumers with small farmers in the hinterland of cities. The Northern model of city-region food localization has recently been taken up by governments, and promoted by international agencies such as the FAO and embedded in the New Urban Agenda (NUA) of ...
Governing for Food Security During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Wuhan and Nanjing, China
The global COVID-19 pandemic has elicited a range of public health governance responses. One common result has been an associated disruption of food supply chains and growing urban food insecurity. Policy responses to this situation have not yet received sufficient research attention. This paper therefore focuses on the urban food security implications of China's zero-COVID public health measures and the response of central, provincial and municipal government to the governance challenge of ensuring a stable and sufficient food supply to ...
Urban Food Insecurity and the Impact of China’s Affordable Food Shop (AFS) Program: A Case Study of Nanjing City
Food subsidies are widely implemented as part of government policies globally to mitigate food insecurity amongst the urban poor. Subsidies to retail outlets are one a type of supply-side subsidy designed to make food more affordable to low-income consumers. China's Affordable Food Shop (AFS) program introduced by the central government in 2011 and implemented by municipal governments is one example. To date, there has been little research examining the effectiveness of the AFS program despite more than a decade of ...
Did Household Income Loss Have an Immediate Impact on Animal-Source Foods Consumption during the Early Stage of the COVID-19 Pandemic?
The outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 caused extensive impact on household income and foods consumption. However, little attention has been paid to the immediate impact of income loss on animal-source foods consumption in the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper aims to narrow this gap, and a total of 1301 valid samples of household food consumption surveys in Wuhan and Nanjing were obtained through specially designed online questionnaires. The surveys show that there were 69.6% (Wuhan) and 42.2% ...
Impacts of Community-Level Grassroots Organizations on Household Food Security During the COVID-19 Epidemic Period in China
Purchasing food via community-level grassroots organizations was a new pattern of food patronage for Wuhan residents during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, but little attention was paid to it. The study examined the relationship between community-level grassroots organizations and household food insecurity based on an online survey of household food insecurity in Wuhan in March 2020. The study found that problems in all three domains of food insecurity including food anxiety, insufficient quality and inadequate quantity existed but were uneven. Community-level grassroots ...
Pathways to Food Insecurity: Migration, Hukou and COVID-19 in Nanjing, China
The COVID-19 pandemic has issued significant challenges to food systems and the food security of migrants in cities. In China, there have been no studies to date focusing on the food security of migrants during the pandemic. To fill this gap, an online questionnaire survey of food security in Nanjing City, China, was conducted in March 2020. This paper situates the research findings in the general literature on the general migrant experience during the pandemic under COVID and the specifics ...
Boon or Bane? Urban Food Security and Online Food Purchasing during the COVID-19 Epidemic in Nanjing, China
This paper examines the relationship between the rapid growth of online food purchasing and household food security during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in China using the city of Nanjing as a case study. The paper presents the results of an online survey of 968 households in Nanjing in March 2020 focused on their food purchasing behavior and levels of food security during the early weeks of the pandemic. While online food purchasing has increased rapidly in many ...
The Household Food Security Implications of Disrupted Access to Basic Services in Five Cities in the Global South
COVID-19 has caused significant disruptions regarding the extent to which households can access basic services and resources in cities around the world. Previous studies have indicated a predictive relationship between the consistency of resource access and food access among urban households. These investigations, however, have predominantly been isolated to Southern Africa and have not accounted for other dimensions of food security. To test whether these results are observable outside Southern Africa, and with a more multidimensional measure of food security, ...
Revisiting China’s Supermarket Revolution: Complementarity and Co-Evolution between Traditional and Modern Food Outlets
Like many emerging economies in the Global South, China is experiencing major transformations of its national and local food system characterized by the rise of supermarkets. There has been an ongoing debate on the relationship between supermarkets and wet markets in developing countries. Drawing on data from a city-wide supermarket mapping and surveys conducted in Nanjing in 2019, this paper revisits China’s “supermarket revolution” process and challenges the prediction of supermarket domination. It reveals that Nanjing’s food retailing system has ...
Comprehensive Food System Planning for Urban Food Security in Nanjing, China
Food system planning is important to achieve the goal of “zero hunger” in the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN, 2016). However, discussion about comprehensive planning for food security is scarce and little is known about the situation in Chinese cities. To narrow this gap, this study collected and analyzed four medium-term plans and two annual plans for the “vegetable basket project” in Nanjing, China. This study examines the strategies for urban food security in Nanjing to shed light ...
Emergency Food Supplies and Food Security in Wuhan and Nanjing, China, During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from a Field Survey
Motivation Detailed empirical work on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security is scant. Local management of food security has received little attention. Purpose This article describes emergency food policies in Wuhan and Nanjing, China during lockdown in 2020 and their implications for household food security in the two cities. Methods and approach Policy documents and background data describe the emergency measures. Online surveys of residents of two Chinese cities were used to gauge household food security. Findings ...
Factors Determining Household-Level Food Insecurity During COVID-19 Epidemic: A Case of Wuhan, China
Background: In coping with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, cities adopted social isolation and lockdown measures; however, little is known about the impacts of these restrictions on household food security. Objective: This study provides a timely assessment of household food insecurity (HFI) in the Chinese city of Wuhan during the COVID-19 epidemic period and also investigates its determinant factors. Design: We collected valid data on food insecurity from 653 households in Wuhan via an online questionnaire in March 2020. The Household Food ...
RESEARCH PROJECTS
QES-AS Program: Governing Urban Food Systems in the Global South
The Hungry Cities Partnership has received a four-year (2017-2021) grant from the Canadian Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Scholarships advanced scholars program to fund the exchange of doctoral, post-doctoral and early career scholars between Canada and partner cities. Learn More (PDF)
IPaSS: Informality, Inclusive Growth and Food Security in Cities of the Global South
This foundation project of the Hungry Cities Partnership is funded by the SSHRC and IDRC under the International Partnerships for Sustainable Societies Program (IPaSS). The project has facilitated the formation of an initial seven-city research and policy network across the Global South linked to researchers at five Canadian universities. The project has embarked on a five-year program of collaborative research on a variety of themes related to inclusive growth and the formal and informal urban food system in the study ...
Assessing and Mitigating the Food Security Consequences of COVID-19 in China, Ecuador and South Africa
The proposed research will identify the immediate and longer-term impact of COVID-19 on household food security in cities, and will assess and improve fast-evolving social and policy countermeasures to enhance food security. Our research objectives are to: 1) Investigate the immediate food security challenges resulting from quarantine measures, unstable food supply, and fear of shopping in affected cities; 2) Assess how COVID-19 has impacted food security by longitudinal comparison with the baseline survey data collected through Hungry Cities Project; and ...
Assessing and Mitigating the Food Security Consequences of COVID-19 in Nanjing and Wuhan, China
This project evaluates the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on household food security in Nanjing, China, assess the effectiveness of temporary food security interventions from a multi-stakeholder perspective and develop social and policy measures to mitigate the impacts. The objectives are to: 1) Investigate the immediate food security challenges resulting from China’s quarantine measures, unstable food supply, and fear of food shopping in two COVID-19 affected cities (Wuhan and Nanjing); 2) Compare food security status in Nanjing following the COVID-19 ...
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