Disaster response plans play a major role in mitigating the impact of climate-related disasters on community food access. This study examined existing disaster response plans in 5 US locations that experienced the costliest hurricanes since 2017 (states: Florida, Texas, Louisiana; territories: Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands) to assess how existing disaster response plans and response efforts address food-related issues across 4 key domains: availability, accessibility, agency, and acceptability.

A content analysis of disaster response plans was conducted. Disaster response plans were complemented by a review of gray literature and media sources examining the post-hurricane aftermaths. Disaster plans were coded using a deductive analysis approach guided by the Disaster Food Security Framework.

The analysis revealed significant disparities in planning and resources between territories and states. Findings highlight political and structural drivers of disparities in food access, particularly in US territories. State-mandated procedures resulted in a consistent level of effectiveness in their food distribution strategies.

These disparities underscore the need for targeted policy reforms and enhanced federal support to ensure equitable food security during disasters.

Advocates of the concept of polycrisis show that our world faces many interconnected risks that can compound and reinforce each other. Marxist critics, on the contrary, argue that polycrisis advocates have not yet given sufficient attention to the role of capitalism as a root cause of these intersecting crises. This paper agrees with these critics. But I also argue that it is possible to develop an alternative approach to polycrisis analysis rooted in the traditions of Marxism and neo-Gramscian theory. The paper applies this approach to analyze the European Union's ongoing polycrisis and sketch out its possible futures.

Advocates of the term polycrisis often claim that contemporary crises cannot be reduced to a single driver or dominant contradiction, forming instead a complex multiplicity of inter-systemic shocks. Marxist critics, on the contrary, claim that this approach, by framing contemporary crises as disparate and merely contingently connected, obscures the capitalist roots of contemporary crises. I agree with these critics to a point, though I argue that polycrisis thinking is needed to deepen Marxist analyses of the inter-systemic dynamics of contemporary crises and their possible futures. Polycrisis thinking needs Marxism to deepen its analysis of the political economy of polycrisis, whereas Marxism needs polycrisis thinking to enrich its understanding of the political opportunities and constraints that these intersecting crises may create for counter-hegemonic movements. To synthesize the insights of Marxism and polycrisis analysis, I develop an approach rooted in complexity theory and neo-Gramscian political economy. Using the European Union's (EU) ongoing polycrisis as an illustrative example, I show how neo-Gramscian polycrisis analysis can highlight the constraints that neoliberal hegemony places on the EU's efforts to manage its intersecting crises, while also informing counter-hegemonic struggles aiming to navigate toward more desirable futures in Europe's political possibility space.

This paper combines polycrisis thinking and Marxism to analyze the current polycrisis and possible futures of the European Union.

Poor diets and food insecurity during adolescence can have long-lasting effects, and Métis youth may be at higher risk. This study, as part of the Food and Nutrition Security for Manitoba Youth study, examines dietary intakes, food behaviours and health indicators of Métis compared with non-Métis youth.

This observational cross-sectional study involved a cohort of adolescents who completed a self-administered web-based survey on demographics, dietary intake (24-h recall), food behaviours, food security and select health indicators.

Manitoba, Canada

Participants included 1587 Manitoba grade nine students, with 135 (8·5 %) self-identifying as Métis, a distinct Indigenous nation living in Canada.

Median intake of sugar was significantly higher in Métis (89·2 g) compared with non-Métis (76·3 g) participants. Percent energy intake of saturated fat was also significantly higher in Métis (12·4 %) than non-Métis (11·6 %) participants. Median intakes of grain products and meat and alternatives servings were significantly lower among Métis than non-Métis (6·0 v. 7·0 and 1·8 v. 2·0, respectively) participants. Intake of other foods was significantly higher in Métis (4·0) than non-Métis (3·0). Significantly more Métis participants were food insecure (33·1 %) compared with non-Métis participants (19·1 %). Significantly more Métis participants ate family dinners and breakfast less often than non-Métis participants and had lower self-reported health. Significantly more Métis participants had a BMI classified as obese compared with non-Métis participants (12·6 % v. 7·1 %).

The dietary intakes observed in this study, both among Métis and non-Métis youth, are concerning. Many have dietary patterns that put them at risk for developing health issues in the future.

To investigate the relationship between US containment measures during the COVID-19 pandemic and household food insecurity.

To investigate these relationships, we developed a framework linking COVID-19-related containment policies with different domains of food security and then used multilevel random effects models to examine associations between state-level containment policies and household food security. Our framework depicts theorised linkages between stringency policies and five domains of food security (availability, physical access, economic access, acceptability in meeting preferences and agency, which includes both self-efficacy and infrastructure). We used US national data from a representative survey data from the National Food Access and COVID research Team that was fielded in July–August 2020 and April 2021. Containment policy measures came from the Oxford Stringency Index and included policies such as stay-at-home orders, closing of public transit and workplace closures.

The USA.

3071 adult individuals from the National Food Access and COVID research Team survey.

We found no significant associations between state-level containment policies and overall food insecurity at the state level or any of the individual domains of food insecurity.

This research suggests that while food insecurity across all domains was a significant problem during the studied phases of the pandemic, it was not associated with these containment measures. Therefore, impacts may have been successfully mitigated, likely through a suite of policies aimed at maintaining food security, including the declaration of food workers as essential and the expansion of federal nutrition programmes.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Online Purchasing Pilot (OPP) authorised the use of SNAP benefits online in Maryland in May 2020. We assessed shopping behaviour and intentions associated with uptake and intended future use of online grocery shopping during and after COVID-19 among SNAP-eligible households.

In this mixed-methods study, participants completed a survey on online grocery shopping, and a purposefully sampled subset participated in focus groups or in-depth interviews between November 2020 and March 2021.

Predominantly urban households in Maryland

Primary shoppers of SNAP-eligible households with young children (n 310)

Most participants reported first shopping for groceries online after the OPP was implemented (57 %). Families who purchased groceries in-store less frequently were less likely to report ever buying groceries online (rate ratio (RR): 0·66, 95 % CI 0·46, 0·93) compared with weekly grocery shoppers. Shoppers who intended to purchase more groceries online in the next 6 months were more likely to have online shopping experience, although this differed by timing of online grocery service adoption. Participants reported more negative attitudes towards in-store grocery shopping during the pandemic than prior to its onset and cited COVID-19 as a motivator for ordering groceries online in focus groups. Most participants who had shopped online planned to continue after the pandemic (79 %).

Most participants who shopped online started during the COVID-19 pandemic and considered the pandemic a key motivator. Findings suggest that low-income households will continue to shop online, affirming the need for policies that promote equitable access to healthy food online.

Humanitarian aid, including food aid, has increasingly shifted towards the provision of cash assistance over in-kind benefits. This paper examines whether food security mediates the relationship between receipt of humanitarian cash transfers and subjective wellbeing among Syrian refugee youth in Jordan.

Secondary analysis of the 2020–21 Survey of Young People in Jordan, which is nationally representative of Syrian youth aged 16–30. We employ stepwise model building and structural equation models.

Jordan.

Syrian refugee youth aged 16–30 (n 1572).

While 92 % of Syrian households with youth received cash transfers from a UN agency, 78 % of households were food insecure using the Food Insecurity Experience Scale. Fifty-one percent of youth suffered from poor wellbeing using the WHO-5 subjective wellbeing scale. Household food insecurity was associated with poorer youth wellbeing. Receiving larger cash transfer amounts was associated with better wellbeing among Syrian youth in unadjusted models. The relationship between receipt of cash transfers and youth wellbeing was not mediated by food security.

We do not find support for the hypothesis that food security is a mediator of the association between cash transfers and subjective wellbeing for this population.

This commentary highlights the release of findings now available in the report International Food Policy Study Youth Surveys: Summary of Findings 2019–2021.

The survey data described in this commentary consist of repeated cross-sectional surveys conducted annually beginning in 2019.

Online surveys were conducted in 2019 to 2021 among respondents living in Australia, Canada, Chile, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the USA.

Survey respondents were youth aged 10–17 years in 2019 (n 12 031), 2020 (n 11 108) and 2021 (n 10 459).

The report described in this commentary summarises findings on food and nutrition behaviours, attitudes and knowledge among youth, including their diet sources and patterns, school nutrition environments, food security, diet intentions, weight perceptions and weight loss behaviours, sugary drink perceptions, awareness of public education and mass media campaigns, perceptions of food labels and exposure to food and beverage marketing.

Results from the IFPS Youth surveys provide important insights into key policies of global interest, including front-of-package nutrition labelling, levies on sugary beverages and restrictions on marketing unhealthy food and beverages to children. As policymakers continue to seek effective strategies to improve adolescent health outcomes, ongoing cross-country monitoring of food and nutrition-related indicators, such as the data from the International Food Policy Study, will be critical in assessing dietary trends and evaluating upcoming policies.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to greater food insecurity across the world, and government and charitable organisations did not always respond quickly enough or adequately to meet food needs. Mutual aid (MA) – neighbours helping neighbours to meet survival needs – mobilised residents to share food, often through outdoor food cabinets and refrigerators. This study aims to understand how MA food sharing was implemented, including food availability, acceptability, accessibility and impact on food access.

This case study describes one MA food sharing system by triangulating data from flyers, notes from nineteen volunteer meetings, six cabinet host interviews, data extracted from 1387 social media posts and 356 photographs, and 111 resident surveys.

Tompkins County, NY, USA (total population about 100 000).

We estimated high availability of food: approximately 250 000 food servings were shared monthly, mostly carbohydrates. Most residents obtaining food found it acceptable, including satisfaction with food safety and cleanliness, food quantity, and ease of travel to the cabinets but were less satisfied with food variety. MA food sharing was accessible to food-insecure, unemployed and disabled residents, but not other priority populations. About two-thirds of residents reported improved food access. Volunteers exhibited tenacity and ingenuity in meeting operational challenges which included trash and vandalism, winter weather and unusable food contributions while foregrounding residents’ safety and privacy as shared values and navigating conflicting views about fairness.

In times of crisis, MA can improve food access through free food sharing cabinets, but barriers include unacceptable food contributions and outdoor conditions.

Growth in resource consumption and associated environmental degradation threatens food systems, with millions of people living in hunger globally, demonstrating the need for greater socio-ecological efficiency in food provisioning. This paper considers how sustainable consumption can ensure that human needs with regards to food provisioning (food security) are met within globally sustainable limits. It follows a sectoral approach to sustainable consumption corridors (SCCs), to develop an indicator framework for a food provisioning systems SCC.

Bridging social and ecological evaluations of sustainability in food systems has proved to be a challenge, illustrating the need for indicator sets which link environmental impacts and social achievement within a single framework. This work aims to fill that research gap by considering how the sustainable consumption corridor (SCC) framework can be used to examine the socio-ecological efficiency of food provisioning systems and developing a comprehensive SCC framework for food provisioning. The framework uses domains to define the minimum level of consumption needed to meet human needs (social foundation [SF]) and the maximum level of environmental impact the earth system can tolerate (ecological ceiling [EC]) while sustainably meeting those needs. It does so through the production of an indicator set for food provisioning systems that gives indicators and thresholds for the EC and SF domains within a single framework. This output is followed by a discussion of how this global SCC framework could be altered for use in different contexts, and suggestions for how such a framework could inform consumption linked sustainability policy.

This work puts forth a sustainable consumption corridor framework to evaluate if food provisioning systems are meeting human needs within sustainable limits.

Given increasing global political, security and economic challenges, politicians in the European Union (EU) are seeking to reduce the EU's dependence on imports, including feed for farmed livestock. While insect farming has been suggested as an advantageous source of livestock feed is the insect farming industry, the sector has not met optimistic expectations. In particular, labor and electricity costs are driving insect companies offshore, including to Asia and the United States. This paper explores ways that the EU could solve this problem, the most promising of which is to expand the EU's production of maize and soy.

In the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and increasing global destabilization, policy makers within the European Union have expressed the need to reduce the bloc's dependence on imported agricultural products such as livestock feed. One industry that has been promoted as an advantageous source of livestock feed is insect agriculture. However, the insect industry's growth has not kept pace with optimistic expectations, and high labor and electricity costs in Europe appear to be driving major insect companies to expand production offshore. One solution may involve supporting the automation of insect farming, though automation may have harmful social consequences by reducing employment and exacerbating inequality. A more promising solution could involve bringing additional land under cultivation to expand domestic production of maize and soy, and the most up-to-date estimates suggest that doing so may even offer environmental benefits over insect production.

Insect farming has been offered as a solution to EU food security, but labor and power costs complicate the picture.