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In The Changing Body (Cambridge University Press and NBER, 2011), we presented a series of estimates showing the number of calories available for human consumption in England and Wales at various points in time between 1700 and 1909/1913. We now seek to correct an error in our original figures and to compare the corrected figures with those published by a range of other authors. We also include new estimates showing the calorific value of meat and grains imported from Ireland. Disagreements with other authors reflect differences over a number of issues, including the amount of land under cultivation, the extraction and wastage rates for cereals and pulses and the number of animals supplying meat and dairy products. We consider recent attempts to achieve a compromise between these estimates and challenge claims that there was a dramatic reduction in either food availability or the average height of birth cohorts in the late-eighteenth century.

Trading soft commodities has become increasingly challenging with less liquidity in the market, making it very risky and even more costly. Ongoing geopolitical instability, climate change, complex supply chain and fluctuation in demand and supply resulted in a continued price volatility and market uncertainty. Soft commodity trading businesses are under an increasing pressure to adapt to political, economic and social changes. Therefore, this study explores the relationship between brokers and their buyers in the Algerian soft commodities market, with a particular focus on cereals (wheat) products. This study is based on the analysis of secondary data collected from various sources and anecdotal evidences from brokers of soft commodities in Algeria. The overall strategy of Algeria is to limit its reliance on imports. However, political dysfunction coupled with economic instability appears to discourage domestic and foreign investment and inhibit the development of this soft commodities sector. The brokerage firms of soft commodities (wheat, oils, milk powder, rice, coffee, etc.) are operating in a niche market within an environment of intense competition and highly demanding buyers. The striking success of the brokerage function depends on a close relationship formed between the actors (broker, seller and buyer).

This chapter considers food security in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from a global perspective within a water-energy-food nexus framework.

A general water-energy-food nexus framework is used to analyze the interplay of water scarcity, relative energy abundance, and food production and consumption in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We identify crucial considerations from the perspective of high food import dependency based on sourcing food to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through food imports and foreign investments.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has introduced major reforms to reduce the use of highly subsidized but very scarce water for domestic feed and food production. However, the country is now more vulnerable to increasing food demand in relation to high, volatile world market prices, particularly for cereals. Despite major reforms in agricultural production, the KSA government faces serious challenges.

Developing strategies to meet the KSA food security objectives is essential. The KSA government should push reform even further and revise its policy regarding forage crops to save scarce water resources. Furthermore, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would benefit from a more extensive food security strategy in which food stocks and subsidies are complemented by in-kind and cash transfers.

Heterogeneity in choice models is typically assumed to have a normal distribution in both Bayesian and classical setups. In this paper, we propose a semiparametric Bayesian framework for the analysis of random coefficients discrete choice models that can be applied to both individual as well as aggregate data. Heterogeneity is modeled using a Dirichlet process, which varies with consumers’ characteristics through covariates. We develop a Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm for fitting such model, and illustrate the methodology using two different datasets: a household-level panel dataset of peanut butter purchases, and supermarket chain-level data for 31 ready-to-eat breakfast cereal brands.

Food waste (FW) is widely recognized as a serious threat to global food security, the economy, and the environment. FW is a major contributor to the three global crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste because it complicates waste management systems and worsens the magnitudes of food insecurity. If it were a nation, food loss and waste would be the third-largest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as revealed by the Food Waste Index Report of 2021 by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). The growing countries in the South Asian region are not an exception to this major problem. Under this backdrop, the present study is aimed at investigating the long-term relationships as well as short-term causal interplays between FW and GHG emissions for the South Asian countries from 1990 to 2018. Employing time-series cointegration and Granger causality techniques, the results show that there is long-run relationship between these two variables in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, and the results of the Granger causality test demonstrate that GHG is significantly influenced by FWs in Bangladesh, India, and the Maldives. So the governments in these countries should plan for minimizing the magnitudes of FWs so far as the goal of reaching sustainable development is concerned.

This study reveals that despite the negative effects of migration, the Tanzanian government has not done enough to address migration-related health issues. This is owing to inadequate data or information about effects of migration in the country. Dodoma region, the focus of this study, is selected for its migration-inducing factors as they relate to the declining health status of its inhabitants. Harsh climatic conditions causing irregular and inadequate rainfall and prolonged drought have led to a severe decline of the health of the poor. The region is entirely dependent on subsistence agriculture and livestock production. The small-scale production is locally practiced at household level. Extreme poverty motivates rural people to migrate to cities with the main migrant groups being middle school (about 13 to 15 years old) and high school dropouts (15 to 18 years old), and youth including young parents (18 to 35 years old). The rural-urban migration conjoined with harsh climatic conditions significantly downsizes local population, available agricultural labor force, and further endangers food security. More importantly, however, due to exposure to HIV in the cities, most migrants who are unable to find city jobs return home terminally ill with HIV/AIDS, which further adds to impoverishment of rural families and to downsizing of rural population.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.