Do Dietary Changes Increase the Propensity of Food Riots? An Exploratory Study of Changing Consumption Patterns and the Inclination to Engage in Food-Related Protests

Abstract

Abstract:Following widespread food riots in 2008, many people argued that high food prices cause political instability and civil unrest in the form of food riots. However, subsequent research has demonstrated that political, cultural, and economic factors confound the impact of price in determining whether a food riot occurs. This paper contributes to this growing body of literature by exploring: (1) the relationship between household demographic characteristics and reported intent to riot due to future food price rises; and (2) the relationships between people's diets and their reported intent to riot due to future food price rises. We hypothesize that local context, including demographic factors and dietary patterns, combine to predispose some groups of people to riot when food prices rise. This hypothesis is tested using household surveys (N = 300) and three focus groups discussions (N = 65) carried out in three cities in the Central African nation of Cameroon that experienced widespread food riots in 2008. Results show that some 70% of the respondents would riot if food prices went up. Also, in the event of food price rises: (1) households in Cameroon's major cities are more likely to riot than the citizens of smaller cities; (2) Households with relatively higher educational level, high incomes, are less likely to riot. Finally, the OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2015, 7 14113 relationship between dietary patterns and propensity to riot is not straightforward as changes in consumption of different food groups influence propensity to riot in different ways. Overall, this paper demonstrates that preemptive strategies designed to avoid future food riots in Cameroon must take into consideration these spatial, demographic, and dietary factors.

Armed Conflicts and Food Insecurity: Evidence from Boko Haram's Attacks

“…Many studies examining the interlink between food security and conflict concentrate on the role of food insecurity in galvanizing conflict. In these studies, the identified food‐insecurity related variables leading to conflict include food price shocks (Fjelde 2015), climate change (Buhaug et al 2015), poor health and nutritional status (Pinstrup‐Andersen and Shimokawa 2008), and dietary changes (Legwegoh et al 2015). Global food prices are also found to be correlated with food‐related riots (Bellemare 2015) and urban unrest, measured by protests, demonstrations, and violence (Hendrix and Haggard 2015).…”

Should I stay or should I go? Fishers’ ability and willingness to adapt to environmental change in Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake

“…scriptive summary statistics (for details seeKC, 2005;Legwegoh, Fraser, KC, & Antwi-Agyei, 2015). Then, a Probit modelling approach was used to assess the association between fishers' willingness to continue or not to fish with a set of sociodemographic factors including gender, migration status of household, whether any family have engaged or not in off-farm job and access to farm land amongst other factors.This approach explored the extent to which fishers would continue to fish under changing future conditions.…”

Food Price, Food Security and Dietary Diversity: A Comparative Study of Urban Cameroon and Ghana

“…Specifically, we calculated a weighted education index (WEI) by adding the weighted educational attainment scores of all household members. In order to do this, each household member was scored according to the following: no education = 0.00, 1–5 years of schooling = 0.25, 6–8 years of schooling = 0.50, 9–12 years of schooling = 0.75 and postsecondary = 1.00 (see details in KC, ; KC et al, and Legwegoh et al, ).…”

“…Partly, this is because of the fact that the region is rapidly urbanising (Crush, Frayne, & Pendleton, ; Crush & Frayne, ). In addition, situations such as the 2007/2008 food price crisis, which led to riots in many African cities, show that urban food insecurity can lead to political volatility (Legwegoh, Fraser, KC, & Antwi‐Agyei, ; Sneyd, Legwegoh, & Fraser, ). Working on this topic, researchers have hypothesised that urban food insecurity may be caused by the fact that poor urban consumers are net food buyers who depend on markets for supplies, and this makes them particularly vulnerable to food price increases and fluctuations (Legwegoh et al, ; Ruel, Garrett, Hawkes, & Cohen, ).…”

“…In addition, situations such as the 2007/2008 food price crisis, which led to riots in many African cities, show that urban food insecurity can lead to political volatility (Legwegoh, Fraser, KC, & Antwi‐Agyei, ; Sneyd, Legwegoh, & Fraser, ). Working on this topic, researchers have hypothesised that urban food insecurity may be caused by the fact that poor urban consumers are net food buyers who depend on markets for supplies, and this makes them particularly vulnerable to food price increases and fluctuations (Legwegoh et al, ; Ruel, Garrett, Hawkes, & Cohen, ). This is because food purchases account for 1/2–2/3 of total monthly expenditures for many families in such regions (Mason, Jayne, Chapoto, & Donovan, ).…”