In the 5th episode of our “Expert Interview Series”, Dr Jasmine Fledderjohann, Principal Investigator on the Food Security for Equitable Futures project, speaks to Mr V R Raman, an expert on various social development systems and policies, especially in relation to the Indian subcontinent. He completed his post-graduate studies in Public Health at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa and his graduate studies in English language and literature at the University of Calicut, Kerala, India. Over the last three decades, Mr. Raman has worked closely with most of the state-led flagship social development missions in India, such as the National Literacy Mission, National Health Mission, Swachh Bharat (Sanitation) Mission, Jal Jeevan (Drinking Water) Mission and Poshan Abhiyan (Nutrition Mission). In addition, he is a co-founder and leader of some of the noted and mass-scale community health and nutrition programs and a few important state-civil society partnership organisations. Through his work, Mr Raman has explored gender, physical and social vulnerabilities and how they can be alleviated to build a human rights and dignity-based equitable society. He is currently the National Convenor of the Public Health Resource Network in India and is associated with several organisations and people’s campaigns.

In this interview, Mr. Raman identifies the various interconnected dimensions of food insecurity in India. Dr. Jasmine Fledderjohann and Mr Raman discuss the following issues that have a direct bearing on food insecurity in India:

• The links between water and sanitation with food insecurity and malnourishment,
• The structural challenges farmers are facing,
• The inadequacy and problems of market-based solutions in addressing the structural challenges of hunger and food insecurity,
• The challenges of inflation and price hikes and their impact on the lives of the masses,
• How much state-led schemes are able to address food insecurity,
• The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on food security,
• The need to move away from a market-centric economic model to a people-centric economy and,
• The need to refine data collection and monitoring practices to generate research geared toward identifying and alleviating food insecurity.

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Dr Alula Pankhurst is a social anthropologist, and the Country Director for Young Lives Ethiopia since 2009. His role involves coordinating Young Lives research in Ethiopia and leading on topics including urban relocation, child work, early marriage and violence against children. In addition, he has been involved in policy dialogue on child marriage, FGM, and early childhood and youth development. Dr Pankhurst is a founding member of the Child Research and Practice Forum, a Board member of the Ethiopia Heritage Trust, a former board member of the Ethiopian Society of Sociologists, Social Workers and Anthropologists, and the former Board Chair of the Forum for Social Studies. He also serves on the Independent Council of Economic Advisors to the Ethiopian government and the Society of Friends of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies of Addis Ababa University.

In this interview with Dr Jasmine Fledderjohann, the Principal Investigator on the Food Security for Equitable Futures Project, Dr Pankhurst offers an empirically grounded account of recent food insecurity trends in Ethiopia. Prof. Pankhurst highlights how the climate crisis has accelerated food insecurity. Dr Pankhurst offers an insightful description of the complexity of food insecurity in Ethiopia and how it is cumulatively worsened by factors such as conflict, drought, changes in land holding, and global developments, most recently including the ongoing war in Ukraine. Dr Pankhurst also discusses some recent findings from his research, such as the link between anxiety and mental distress with food insecurity among households. Dr Pankhurst’s future research entails studying the trends in and consequences of intergenerational malnutrition in Ethiopia and understanding regional variations of food insecurity and their links to larger structural issues such as drought, pests (such as locust infestations), land holding patterns and mental health.

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In the fourth episode of our “Expert Interview Series”, Dr Jasmine Fledderjohann, the Principal Investigator on the Food Security for Equitable Futures Project, speaks to Dr Vuong Ngoc Thuy, an expert on issues of food insecurity in Vietnam. Dr Vuong is a researcher/lecturer at the Institute of Ho Chi Minh City Public Health. Her research focuses on food insecurity and nutrition and food-borne and water-borne diseases. She has experience working with vulnerable sub-populations, especially the ethnic minority groups, the elderly and children. Dr Vuong is making efforts to shape policies to improve food security and nutrition in Vietnam for vulnerable sub-populations by providing accurate and reliable scientific evidence for policymakers.

In this interview, Dr Vuong offers her thoughts on food security in Vietnam in the larger context of the socio-economic structures and challenges the country will face in the short and long term. Dr Vuong highlights the structural similarities that Vietnam shares with other Low- and Middle-income Countries (LMICs) and how they are connected to global food insecurity. She points out that the biggest challenge Vietnam faces on the food security front is that of agricultural production and how factors such as climate variability, lack of fresh water, overdependence on chemical fertilisers and the high price of agricultural inputs affect food production. Dr Vuong also highlights how the CoVID-19 pandemic disrupted the food system, thus affecting food security and diet diversity for the Vietnamese population. Dr Vuong Ngoc also brings the disproportionate impact the pandemic had on the food security of vulnerable groups such as disabled people, the elderly, daily wage labourers, children, and pregnant women to the centre of the conversation.

Dr Vuong also talks about the measures that can be taken to keep the crisis from worsening and improve the country’s food security. Dr Vuong highlights the potential “climate-smart agriculture” as a solution holds for Vietnam in addressing the problem of food insecurity as it can help produce affordable and healthy foods for the people and, at the same time, rehabilitate the environment. Dr Vuong stresses the point that improving the food distribution mechanisms to reduce inequity in the food system and food waste must be a central objective for any policy that aims to address food insecurity.

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In this video, the second in our Expert Interview Series, Dr Jasmine Fledderjohann, lead investigator on the Food Security for Equitable Futures, interviews Dr Eduardo Zegarra Méndez about his views on food insecurity in Peru. Dr Zegarra is an economist from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and has a PhD in Agricultural and Applied Economics from the University of Wisconsin, specializing in rural development and natural resource management. Dr Zegarra has been working as a Senior Researcher at the Group for the Analysis of Development (GRADE) in Lima, Peru, since 2004.

In this interview, Dr Zegarra shares insights about his experience studying the trends in food insecurity in Peru and how gaps in state policy can be plugged to address food insecurity and improve agricultural practices and rural development. Dr Zegarra also shares insights gained from his work with state institutions and how policies can be designed and implemented to address food insecurity in the short term and the long term whilst negotiating recurring crises of the global system.

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In this video, the first in our Expert Interview Series, Dr. Jasmine Fledderjohann, lead investigator on the Food Security for Equitable Futures, interviews Dr. Lam Van Phong about his views on food insecurity in Vietnam. Dr. Lam Van is a medical doctor in the Nutrition and Dietics Department at Nguyen Tri Phuong Hospital in Vietnam.

In this interview, Dr. Lam Van shares his insights about his experience working as a frontline healthcare worker during the Covid-19 pandemic, with focus on the implications of the pandemic for nutrition and food insecurity. He also shares his personal experiences with food insecurity during the pandemic, and reflects on next steps for addressing food insecurity in Vietnam.

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Food Security for Equitable Futures project PI Dr. Jasmine Fledderjohann will be presenting her latest work from the project at this year’s ReproFest in Preston on 29th of April. The event runs all day, but Dr. Fledderjohann will be speaking at 11:30am. She will be talking about the range of ways that food insecurity is a barrier to Reproductive Justice globally.

This is a FREE one day DROP IN ANYTIME event about reproductive justice, health and rights prioritising the experience of people who may be treated unfairly in reproductive decision-making. You can find out more and register through Eventbrite at this link.

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In 2021, project PI Dr. Jasmine Fledderjohann served as a breakout room facilitator for Research at a Distance: Changing Approaches & Equitable Partnerships event. This event was organized by Dr. Adrian Healy (a fellow Future Leaders Fellow), in collaboration with several other fellows. The event focused on adapting research in the Global South under Covid constraints with an eye on equity. The event led to co-development of an National Centre for Research Methods Wayfinder guide to equitable research relations in and after Covid-19 in collaboration with international stakeholders.

This guide was published in 2022 as a collaboration between Adrian Healy, Artwell Kadungure, Constance Smith, Erin McFee, Eve Nakebembe, Isabel Jones, Jasmine Fledderjohann, Katie McQuaid, Kirsty Le Doare, Sana Contractor and Sabrina Rashid as part of a series produced from the Changing Research Methods for Covid-19 Research Project. It is freely available for download.

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Our third issue of the project newsletter is out! In this issue, you can meet our newest team member; learn about the presentations and research results from the project including findings on education and food insecurity in India, publication of a National Centre for Research Methods Wayfinder Guide on equitable research partnerships, and new research examining food insecurity as a Reproductive Justice Issue. You can click on the link below to access the newsletter:

Project Newsletter Issue 3 March 2022

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