Biology Department Faculty Books/Book Chapters

Follow

• 

  Paradigm Shift in Food Security at American Universities and Colleges: Post-COVID-19 (Chapter from SDGs in the Americas and Caribbean Region)

  Marie Asma Ben-Othmen, Erin Bachmeier, Stephanie Lingenfelter, and Jerry H. Kavouras

  Food insecurity among students has gained increased attention from policymakers in the United States. The high prevalence of food insecurity rates among students, with some studies reporting that more than 50% of students are food insecure, along with the threats this poses to student health, degree completion, and success, demands a thorough understanding of this issue.

  The previous decades and the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that more needs to be done in the United States to understand food insecurity issues and develop practical, effective solutions to attain the sustainable development goal of achieving zero hunger (SDG 2). The growing population of low-income students, high college costs, and insufficient financial aid may explain the high rates of food insecurity to a certain extent, but declining resources provided by higher education and nutritional assistance programs must also be considered.

  This chapter reviews the causes of food insecurity, its consequences, and how campuses responded to it during the pandemic. It also examines data from peer-reviewed and gray literature to understand the role of government policy and local community actions in limiting food insecurity during the pandemic. Finally, it suggests some tools (at the state and local levels) that could facilitate a more robust response to food insecurity among university students in the United States.

• 

  Sustainability in Agriculture and Local Food Systems: A Solution to a Global Crisis (Chapter from Zero Hunger)

  Jerry H. Kavouras, Christina Gibbons, Brianna Morgan, and Marie Asma Ben-Othmen

  The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines a food system as the entire range of stakeholders and their interlinked value-adding activities involved in the production, distribution and aggregation, processing, marketing, consumption and waste management of food products that originate from agriculture, forestry, and parts of the broader economic, societal and natural environments in which they are embedded (Take and Systems 2015). To be considered sustainable, a food system must deliver food security and nutrition for all in such a way that the economic, social, and environmental bases to generate food security and nutrition for future generations are not compromised (Bassarab et al. 2019; FAO 2017; FAO et al. 2018). A sustainable food system lies at the heart of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).