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To effectively meet their social objectives, humanitarian organizations need to be more innovative and find novel ways to stay competitive. Yet there has been limited focus on innovation by humanitarian organizations. Part of the issue is the lack of new practices and novel approaches that can be used as benchmarks. This study focuses on food banks, a critical hub for the delivery of food in humanitarian supply chains and where the use of innovation seems to be more reported on.

Focusing on resource scarcity, a commonly referenced constraint by humanitarian organizations, the authors study how food and fund scarcity (versus abundance) influence the innovation efforts of twelve food banks in the United States. This study observes variations in behavior before and during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

The authors find that food banks operating in high resource scarcity (food-scarce and fund-scarce) settings focus on process innovations. Food banks operating in low resource scarcity (food-abundant and fund-abundant) settings focus on product innovations. Food banks operating in food-abundant and fund-scarce settings focus on marketing innovations. Food banks operating in food-scarce and fund-abundant settings show the most extensive focus on innovation by relying on imitative innovations. The innovation focus for most food banks switches to process innovation during the COVID pandemic.

The study breaks down resource scarcity specific to food banks by differentiating food and funds, a novel approach to studying scarcity. Findings are novel as they suggest that operating context has a highly differentiating effect on what food banks focus on in terms of innovation. Operating context can lead to focus on process, product, imitative of market-related innovations. Finally, the study is novel because it explores how change in the environmental context due to disruptions can drastically modify the innovation focus of food banks.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of scarcity and the Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) consumption tendency on the purchase intention of organic foods. The study used the protection motivation theory and the stimulus-organism-response theory to understand the impact of comparatively new variables like “perceived scarcity” and “perceived consumer effectiveness” (PCE) on the consumer's organic food purchase intentions.

The study is using structural equation modeling with 402 organic food consumers. The participants are regular consumers who bought organic food from specialized shops and supermarkets in the previous few months. The data has been collected at organic food specialized shops and supermarkets that sell organic foods.

The results showed that LOHAS consumption tendency (LCT), scarcity and PCE positively affect attitude. Similarly, LCT and PCE direct affect trust. Scarcity and PCE directly positive impact on purchase intention of organic food products. Interestingly, LCT had no direct impact on the purchase intention of the product. Trust and attitude were found to be significant mediators impacting purchase intention.

The study contributes to the past theoretical literature on LOHAS consumption by analyzing new constructs like scarcity and PCE in the context of organic food consumption. These findings will be crucial for marketers planning to launch organic products in new markets.

The nexus between sustainable agri-food production and food security outcomes of farm households in sub-Saharan Africa is attracting policy attention. This study analyzes the effects of crop diversity on the incidence of food scarcity, dietary diversity, and the sale and consumption of own crops.

The study uses panel data collected in 2015 and 2018 on a randomly selected sample of 2553 households from 49 villages in northern Ghana. The study employed a fixed effects modeling approach in the empirical analysis.

The study finds that crop diversity is positively associated with better dietary diversity, reduced hunger, lower food expenditure, and higher consumption of own produce. The results show positive effects of crop diversity on the total harvested output and sale of agricultural production. Whilst sales improved sustainable food and nutrition security by providing purchasing power to buy nutritional inputs in the market, consumption of own produce rather improved food availability by reducing food scarcity and malnutrition.

Crop diversity is one of the pathways for promoting sustainable agri-food production systems to ensure the food and nutritional security of vulnerable populations and promote biodiversity to achieve environmental goals in sub-Saharan Africa. Crop diversity reduces food expenditure and raises rural incomes through improved outputs and sales, which empowers farm households to diversify their dietary options to be able to overcome incidences of hunger and malnutrition in periods of food scarcity.

The present study improves the understanding of sustainable agri-food production through crop diversity and its implications on food and nutrition security outcomes. The panel data and fixed effects modelling approach address the endogeneity problem between crop diversity and household tastes and preferences.

This paper aims to address the important issue of world food pricing from a new perspective of demand, supply production and preferences.

This paper reviews the models of demand and supply and introduces the author's own modeling idea in this field of global food pricing and production.

There is no such thing as permanent food scarcity, and that food scarcity is as much an ethical problem as is artificially generated scarcity of the good things of life, the basic needs of life, on which life has a fair share. The paper goes on to explain a relational model of learning to understand complementarities between the basic needs, amongst which essentially is food as a globally provisioned social good. Also endemic in this transformation are the preferences that conscious consumers ought to have, the production that appropriate technology should bring about, and the supply as an elastic function of price in a basic‐needs regime of food production and pricing.

Further statistical data needed for estimation.

The paper explains such a relational model of ethically‐induced perspectives on food demand, supply, production and pricing. The paper then investigates how the same issues can be examined in the conventional large‐scale econometric models against the data that are available. The paper suggests revisions in such econometric models in the light of the ethically‐induced relational model for understanding the issues underlying food demand, production, supply and pricing.

Several philosophical questions in regard to the appropriateness of the conventional models that fall short of addressing such essential issues, and thus also fail to predict behavior and forecast future, are examined. Some policy, program and strategic implications of the study are pointed out in the analytical conclusion.

The paper goes on to explain a relational model of learning to understand complementarities between the basic needs, amongst which essentially is food as a globally provisioned social good. Also endemic in this transformation are the preferences that conscious consumers ought to have, the production that appropriate technology should bring about, and the supply as an elastic function of price in a basic‐needs regime of food production and pricing. The paper explains such a relational model of ethically‐induced perspectives on food demand, supply, production and pricing. The paper then investigates how the same issues can be examined in the conventional large‐scale econometric models against the data that are available.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential of agri-biotech to play a role in meeting the world’s food, feed, fiber and fuel needs. Using case studies, policy developments in the key Asian countries of China, India and Japan are also scrutinized to determine the extent to which they enable or obstruct biotech’s potential.

The authors first examine some key challenges facing the agriculture and agri-food sector and the potential role biotech can play in addressing them. These challenges include feeding the world’s growing population, improving nutrition worldwide, dealing with allergen risks, reducing nutrient and chemical loading in watersheds, addressing water scarcity issues, and reducing waste in the food system. The authors then turn their attention to the agri-biotech systems in three Asian giants, including China’s centralized governance approach, India’s central-local policy and regulations, and Japan’s pragmatic and evidence-based regulatory framework.

Each nation has evolved its own system of governance based on the different challenges facing the society, the recognized potential of different biotech interventions, and citizens’ collective perceptions regarding both the potential and the risks that biotech innovations embody. Systems that are less evidence-based appear to be more discretionary and therefore are less predictable in their outcomes. This increases risks to prospective exporting firms and importing firms, driving up system costs and effectively serving as barriers to entry and to trade. It also dampens and distorts entrepreneurial and innovation incentives.

From the review and observations the authors then discuss ways and means of establishing priorities through a risk assessment framework in which key risks are enumerated and assessed in terms of their likelihoods and their conceivable consequences. Such an approach would allow challenges to be met with a degree of foresight and adaptability.

The sometimes disjointed, sometimes strategic use of biotech regulations have fragmented markets and created fiefdoms which undermine the potential of novel technologies to address the challenges facing society.

For illustrative purposes, the authors touch on land and water governance, regulatory and institutional bottlenecks and reforms and the potential for agri-biotech to play an elevated role if vested interests and obstructions can be overcome.

This study draws on research and literature from several disciplines. It also includes discussions relating to bureaucratic and administrative behavior which erodes the extent to which markets can be contested. This results in balkanized markets and non-cooperative behavior that undermines and distorts incentives for entrepreneurial effort and innovation. That such behavior takes place in markets and disciplines that are fundamental to assuring food security, nutrition and health, as well as good governance of scarce water and land resources is of considerable concern.

The central dry zone of Myanmar is a climatic risk area in which the inhabitants are experiencing food insecurity, demonstrating the link between water scarcity and climate risk in agricultural production. Households in the region face the challenge of developing adaptation strategies to cope with the impact of climate change on food security. This study aims to seek an effective climate change solution and analyse its impact on Myanmar's food security and household adaptation.

The authors draw on insights from mixed-method research using a qualitative method followed by quantitative methods. In the qualitative phase, the authors used purposive sampling with two focus group discussions and three stakeholder interviews. In the quantitative phase, data were collected from 102 face-to-face interviews with members of households selected from Pauk Township, Pakokku District, Magway Region, Myanmar. The household food insecurity access scale (HFIAS) was used in the analysis.

The HFIAS indicated that 13% of households have adapted to climate change. The study illustrates that climate change adaptation strategies in production activities are related to food insecurity. The results further demonstrated the effect of climate change on crops, which impacts debt, access to food, selling assets and urban migration. The findings also suggest that climate change adaptation to improve food security has played an important role in providing outside support, which leads to household food insecurity.

To the authors' best knowledge, the study is one of the first to use mixed-method research to investigate climate change, food security and household adaptation in the central dry zone of Myanmar.

This literature scoping review aims to investigate if, how and why eating behaviours change after a crisis event such as a natural disaster, financial crisis or pandemic in high-income countries.

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting “lockdowns” and social distancing measures have changed access to food, the types of food consumed and usual eating behaviours. Early research on the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic is compared with existing literature on other high-impact crises in high-income countries around the world, such as Hurricane Katrina and the Global Financial Crisis. A search of four electronic databases in August 2020 of literature from 2000 to 2020 yielded 50 relevant publications that were included in the qualitative thematic analysis.

The analysis found that crisis events made accessing food more difficult and led to increased food insecurity. Home cooking, sharing food and eating together (within households during the pandemic) all increased during and after a crisis. Resources often reduced and needed to be pooled. Crises had a multi-directional impact on dietary patterns, and the motivators for dietary pattern change differ between populations and crises.

In conclusion, eating behaviours impacted by crises because of the disruption of food systems, increased food insecurity and changes in daily routines. Community networks were a strong protective factor against adverse outcomes from food insecurity.

Natural disasters have an enormous impact on the lives and well-being of people in many parts of the world. When a disaster occurs, it causes massive damage to people's livelihoods. Although a household is automatically disrupted after experiencing a natural disaster (floods, earthquakes, mudslides, etc.), the accessibility of food commodities is often the most negatively impacted. Since pre-disaster periods are already challenging in the context of providing sufficient food within poverty-stricken areas, natural disasters leave a trail of vulnerable and disadvantaged people who cannot acquire an adequate amount of nutritious food necessary for survival. The inability to maintain consumption levels exposes households to food insecurities – insecurities experienced particularly by women, who head households. Women are more susceptible to food scarcity and lose the ability to sustain their families’ livelihood due to the loss of seeds, livestock, and food, in general. Natural cataclysms, however, not only hamper access to nutritious food, but also considerably affect women's and children's health conditions. In countries like Tajikistan, there is a small body of research that assesses the impact of hazardous events on women's and children's health and nutrition in the aftermath of disasters. This study seeks to provide insights into the access of balanced diets to families in post-disaster situations and analyzes how disasters impact the health of affected people.

The global food waste and food scarcity paradox is steadfastly increasing. This study aims to examine the effects of digital nudging as forms of positive and negative reinforcement to change food waste behavior and found that nudging positive reinforcement modifies this habit.

A field experiment was conducted on 628 diners randomly split into experiment (n = 412) and control group (n = 216) in two separate dining locations over four weeks. Out of these, 412 diners were randomly subjected to tent cards with positive (n = 228) and negative (n = 184) reinforcement nudging and completed a questionnaire to ascertain if nudging affects their consumption behavior. Consumption waste per unit revenue was calculated from all 628 diners individually to analyze the financial impact between control and experiment groups.

SEM analysis reveals that positive reinforcement mediates between external motivators (social media and restaurant service) and reduction of food waste behavior. Further analysis also reveals that nudging has a higher three times effect on reducing food waste as compared with no nudging (control).

Positive messaging encourages behavior change more effectively as compared to negative ones. Gentle reminders of how everyone can personally be a “warrior” or “hero” in the fight against global food waste increases the likelihood of altruistic motivation in tackling these issues.

This study demonstrates how positive reinforcement in the form of nudges acts as key mediator to support reduction of consumer food waste on site, ultimately helping to reduce financial costs compared to those without nudges.