The project will involve supporting student participation at a colloquium at the National Nutrition Congress, scheduled for September in 2018.
Current evidence about the impact of cash transfers, and particularly the Child Support Grant (CSG), on child nutrition and food security is mixed. Some studies have linked the CSG to reduced hunger and improved child height-for-age. However, more up to date evidence, which speaks to the precise impact of the CSG on child growth, dietary quality and adequacy, and household food security among children under 5, is required. This project will assess the impact of the CSG on child nutrition and food security among young children.
Student food insecurity remains a concern within the context of the deterioration in the South African economic situation with poverty and unemployment being on the increase. Assessment of the situation on campuses where there are Dietetics and Nutrition departments have taken place prior to and during 2017. Hoever, not much is however known about the 15 HIEs without Dietetics and Nutrition departments. This project will contact all of these HIEs in order to implement a similar online assessment as is currently being conducted at UWC, at all of these institutions.
While research exists that has described and analysed the nutrient content of the diets of South Africans living in poor socio-economic situations, there is a paucity of information about how consumers interact with a changing food environment. This project seeks to contribute to our understanding of strategies employed by particularly vulnerable groups to ensure food on the table – and specifically health promoting foods, within a complex food system.
This project involves identifying field test sites to determine their soil health status through an assessment of selected biological, chemical and physical soil health indicators, to establish initial baseline values. Specific cropping systems / soil management systems will be implemented and the soil health indicators monitored over time to determine the impact of each intervention on the soil health status. Finally, a conceptual soil health model will be developed for the selected cropping systems relevant to small medium and large farming systems.
Research shows that a specific class of molecules produced by a selection of plant species enhances heavy metal uptake from the soil while preventing damage of tissues by the heavy metals in these plants. This make the plants capable of growing very well in heavy metal contaminated soils while removing the heavy metals from the soil. This project seeks to identify plant species that produce these molecules and study the mode of action of such molecules in the identified plants.
This project will conduct comparative studies to provide understanding of genetic and physiological determinants of sensitivity or tolerance of diverse maize, sorghum, soybean and cowpea lines to drought.
The main food security and nutrition problems addressed in this project are (i) the triple burden of malnutrition (a. protein energy malnutrition, b. micronutrient or hidden malnutrition and, c. overweight and obesity (ii) reducing food losses.The project is two-fold: (i) SMART foods to reduce diet related non-communicable diseases and (ii) appropriate food processing technologies for manufacturing the SMART foods by SMMEs.
A 2017 workshop on Competition, Concentration and Employment in the Food Sectorhosted by the CoE and the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED) at UJ highlighted the critical importance of understanding the broader regional trade dynamics of the food system in South Africa. This project is seen as building the conceptual and empirical foundation for a more ambitious, three-year programme of work focusing on regional food trade within the CoE in Food Security in 2019-2021.
This study will consider in detail both the causes of and the impacts of supermarketisation of the South African food system, and the implications for the nature of consumer food environments of poor and vulnerable people.