Journal of Food Processing & Technology

Authentication of Agro Ecology, Food Security, and Feminist Economics

Mamadou Peipei^* Department of Food Security, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
^*Correspondence: Mamadou Peipei, Department of Food Security, Tongji University, Shanghai, China, Email:

Received: 02-Feb-2023, Manuscript No. JFPT-23-20092; Editor assigned: 06-Feb-2023, Pre QC No. JFPT-23-20092 (PQ); Reviewed: 20-Feb-2023, QC No. JFPT-23-20092; Revised: 27-Feb-2023, Manuscript No. JFPT-23-20092 (R); Published: 06-Mar-2023, DOI: 10.35248/2157-7110.23.14.981

Description

International organisations and governments advocated industrial input-based intensification strategies using the "green revolution" to combat hunger. The production and consumption of more calories is encouraged by industrial agriculture, which more closely integrates farming activities into established commercial markets. This approach, which continues to dominate Sub-Saharan African development and agricultural policy, calls for farmers to participate totally in the cash economy. However industrial input-based intensification appears to be only partially successful in improving the nutritional status of rural smallholder families. The persistent malnutrition among farming households may also originate from the distinct economic and social environment in these sub-Saharan agricultural regions. The livelihoods of almost 80% of Africa's poor people come on production-based entitlements rather than market-based rights. A significant portion of sub-Saharan smallholders are female and have limited access to finance and credit as well as little land available for farming. In addition, a variety of economic activities that may help with food and nutrition security continue to exist throughout Africa beyond the realm of markets. Moreover, women are mostly in charge of the household's diet. In light of this, research into alternative food systems used by rural agricultural people is essential for ensuring food security in Africa.

Agro ecology approaches have emerged in Africa as an alternative to industrial farming (and to the common low-input farming) techniques, after a significant development in the rest of the globe. Agro ecological techniques are agricultural methods used to regenerate soil and boost output by imitating the ecological processes found naturally in agro ecosystems and soils. A systems-based alternative food system that can provide food and nutrition is sometimes referred to as agro ecology. By concentrating not just on production processes but also on the economic and social framework in which these methods are introduced and implemented, the phrase encourages more socially and ecologically responsible agriculture. But still, does agro ecology help farmers achieve food and nutrition security.

We describe food and nutrition security as being reliant on access, stability, availability, and agency in accordance with the High-Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) on Food Security and Nutrition. Agro ecology could have an impact on all of these. According to, there is no agreement about the relationship between agro ecology and food security, and it is yet unknown how agro ecology might increase farmers' access to food and nutrition. In this work, we investigate the studies on this nexus in sub-Saharan Africa. In order to critically analyse the hypothesised mechanisms by which agro ecology in Africa affects nutrition, we employ a feminist economics approach. Feminist economics attacks neo-classical economics by illustrating how its models and approaches are centred on exclusive attention to masculine-associated subjects in formal economics, emphasising on productive activities, and capitalist and cash-based transactions. Hence, feminist economics presents ideas that enable a more thorough examination of economic life, covering subjects like family economics, caregiving, and unpaid labour. As a result, it draws attention to those commercial transactions that are crucial for maintaining our society and sustaining economic activity. While it is true that women carry out the majority of reproductionrelated tasks in patriarchal cultures, feminist economics goes beyond taking a gender-blind approach by examining the structural aspects of the socio-ecological system that cause reproduction to be neglected rather than fostered, as opposed to focusing on the reasons why women hold so little sway in agriculture. So, regardless of who performs these tasks men or women-we take into account both production and reproduction activities that have an impact on food security in our critical analysis. We specifically, employ the notion of reproduction under its three forms ecological, home, and social to assess the routes the identified research have selected to explore the agro ecology-food and nutrition security nexus. We view Food Nutrition Security (FNS) as a productive household objective that is connected to a number of other reproductive factors.

Food security and reproduction

The process of reproduction that creates and maintains these socio-political aspects affects the ability of households to make decisions about their own nutrition and food security. The many literary representations of reproduction and agency are examined in this part along with how they relate to the various pillaes of food and nutrition security. Hence, unlike the High-Level Panel of Experts (HLPE), we do not view agency for FNS as a distinct pillar of food security but rather as a by-product of social reproduction that affects or enhances food availability, access, usage, and stability. Reproductive activities include unpaid labour like subsistence labour that doesn't pay well or pays less in the market. It is connected to several actions that assist and precede the conversion of farm-produced crops and earnings into generalizing in the house within the context of the food system.