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This paper explores how the safety of milk and dairy products is understood and managed within the informal dairy sector of Guwahati, the largest city in Assam, north-east India. The article contributes to a growing body of literature that questions negative assumptions about food safety in informal markets, and seeks to understand how access to safe and healthy food for all is, or can be, achieved in these markets. The study combines a literature review of the informal dairy sector in Assam and India with a field survey and key informant interviews. A survey of 113 producers, intermediaries, retailers, traditional processors and consumers, provides insights into how people think about the safety of milk, and the everyday practices they employ to mitigate food safety risks when trading and consuming dairy products. Our findings suggest that, in the absence of formal guarantees of quality and safety, consumers' cultural practices and producers' and traders' knowledge likely reduce the risks of consuming raw milk. Despite the informal dairy sector receiving little direct government support in India, we found that at the state level, there has been some cooperation between government officials, small-scale producers and informal traders. We conclude that the absence of adverse relations between these groups, together with proactive attempts at collaboration, could inform other Indian states' approaches to food safety governance, and are a positive foundation for future improvements to food safety in Assam's dairy sector.

Poverty, inequality and sustainability continue to be the world's major development challenges. One major trend in our increasingly multipolar world with more complex public-private-civic governance configurations is the rise of a significant number of middle-class citizens in low- and lower-middle income countries (Kharas and Gertz, 2010). These so-called new middle classes in the Global South tend to be far less wealthy as compared with, for example, European middle-class consumers, but they have considerable purchasing power, and have become actors whose relevance for development cannot be ignored: these rising middle classes are both part of the problem and of the possible solutions for the world's major developmental challenges.

The land takes is a major environmental challenge, specifically for biodiversity and the degradation and fragmentation of ecosystems. The most used tools to control it are the design of public policies and spatial planning. Although land take has serious effects in Latin America, little is known about the control mechanisms of land take in this region. This paper evaluates the land take control mechanisms implemented by the spatial planning plans of Buenos Aires (Argentina), Bogota (Colombia) and Lima (Peru). The evaluation was carried out through a content analysis based on three variables, the frequency of the terms related to land take control, the consistency of their inclusion in the plans, and the consistency found between the strategic documents and the regulatory documents. The findings reveal that the land take does not emerge as important concerns compared to the objectives of the plans. The main strategies to control land take in the three cities were the programs for a more compact city, land zoning and the imposition of economic charges on new urban projects. It was found that Bogotá is the city that has the most complementary programs for the control of land take, while Buenos Aires is the city that shows the least complementary strategies. It was established that the main trade offs of land take are the demographic increase and the economic dynamics of each city, but none of the cities analyzed have programs to prevent these causes.

This is a study of beef retailing in Bogota (Colombia), & especially about the persistence of informal networks of sale & consumption. In my view, informality is responsible for two concomitant & seemingly opposite phenomena: high meat prices (the result of a long, unproductive, & inefficient supply chain), & the distribution of poor quality meat, slaughtered under questionable hygienic conditions, which in fact allows the poorest people to gain access to it. I begin this article by examining the importance of beef in Colombia. I then explore why it is so expensive, & describe the structure of its retailing & consumption chain. I end by discussing the implications of informal retailing & the impact of new, \"modernizing\" regulations that are being imposed. Tables, Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.

This study is an attempt to explain why small, family-run neighborhood stores continue to dominate the food market in Bogotá. Driven by the expansion of transnational chains, a 'supermarket revolution' has swept throughout the Third World, transforming food production and retailing. Colombia has been no exception. Supermarkets have grown considerably over the last fifteen years, and now control half of the food market share. Yet the expected demise of traditional retailers never materialized: in Bogotá, more than one hundred thousand tiendas de barrio are the keystone of food provisioning for the vast majority of the poor. My central argument is that these stores persist because they are part of—rather than obstacles to—market modernization. Through the development of elaborate delivery systems, the food industry has put mom-n-pop stores at the center of its distribution strategy. The role of neighborhood stores varies across different commodities. I examined comparatively the supply chains of fruits and vegetables, beef, rice, and processed foods to identify patterns of production, distribution and retailing. Perishables are traded largely in spot-markets dominated by traditional wholesalers. Neighborhood store owners buy cheap, low-quality produce and meat at these wholesale markets thus transferring low prices to consumers. Processed goods (dairy, soft drinks, cooking oil and rice) are part of much more vertically integrated chains in which the industrial link plays the leading role. My key finding is that food industries, seeking to offset their weak bargaining position against supermarkets, strengthened their links to traditional retailers. The financial resources needed to attend to such an atomized universe are considerable, but they have allowed food processors to position their brands and attend their customers' demand for small quantities and low prices. These findings question assumptions that food systems evolve in any predictable fashion. In Bogotá the paradigm of market modernization based on supermarkets has been shattered by the emergence of an industry-led system of provisioning established around neighborhood shops. Chastised by governments and multilateral agencies for their supposed inefficiency and backwardness, these informal retailers are critical parts of a sophisticated system that ensures the survival of millions of poor consumers.

Éste es un estudio sobre el comercio de carne en Bogotá (Colombia), y en especial sobre la persistencia de las redes informales de su venta y consumo. La informalidad es, a mi juicio, causante de dos fenómenos aparentemente contradictorios: el alto precio de la carne (que se forma a lo largo de una cadena extensa, poco productiva y poco eficiente) y la incorporación de carne de mala calidad sacrificada en condiciones sanitarias cuestionables, que permite su consumo por parte de los más pobres. En el artículo analizo la importancia de la carne en Colombia, exploro las razones de su alto precio y describo la estructura de la cadena de comercialización y consumo. Finalmente, discuto las implicaciones de la persistencia del comercio informal y el impacto de la imposición de una nueva reglamentación “modernizante”.

This is a study of beef retailing in Bogotá (Colombia), and especially about the persistence of informal networks of sale and consumption. In my view, informality is responsible for two concomitant and seemingly opposite phenomena: high meat prices (the result of a long, unproductive, and inefficient supply chain), and the distribution of poor quality meat, slaughtered under questionable hygienic conditions, which in fact allows the poorest people to gain access to it. I begin this article by examining the importance of beef in Colombia. I then explore why it is so expensive, and describe the structure of its retailing and consumption chain. I end by discussing the implications of informal retailing and the impact of new, \"modernizing\" regulations that are being imposed.

Transforming food systems is essential to bring about a healthier, equitable, sustainable, and resilient future, including achieving global development and sustainability goals. To date, no comprehensive framework exists to track food systems transformation and their contributions to global goals. In 2021, the Food Systems Countdown to 2030 Initiative (FSCI) articulated an architecture to monitor food systems across five themes: 1 diets, nutrition, and health; 2 environment, natural resources, and production; 3 livelihoods, poverty, and equity; 4 governance; and 5 resilience and sustainability. Each theme comprises three-to-five indicator domains. This paper builds on that architecture, presenting the inclusive, consultative process used to select indicators and an application of the indicator framework using the latest available data, constructing the first global food systems baseline to track transformation. While data are available to cover most themes and domains, critical indicator gaps exist such as off-farm livelihoods, food loss and waste, and governance. Baseline results demonstrate every region or country can claim positive outcomes in some parts of food systems, but none are optimal across all domains, and some indicators are independent of national income. These results underscore the need for dedicated monitoring and transformation agendas specific to food systems. Tracking these indicators to 2030 and beyond will allow for data-driven food systems governance at all scales and increase accountability for urgently needed progress toward achieving global goals.