From Food Production to Food Security - Global Environmental ...

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concerns and are now issues that must be considered and addressed over large regions.Collectively these changes are termed “Global Environmental Change” (GEC). GEC willbring additional complications to the already difficult task of providing sufficient food of theright quantity and quality to many sections of society. Improving food provision in the face ofGEC, while at the same time minimizing further environmental change, is a crucial issue forboth development and society at large.Food Provision and Food SystemsRecent years have seen a greatly increased understanding of how GEC will affect foodproductivity at field level, and research results pave the way for broader analyses of GECimpacts on food production on a regional basis. However, there is a need to think beyondproductivity and production – of ultimate interest is food provision, a concept of greaterrelevance to society well-being and hence policy making.A wide range of sciences are needed to address the components of the “Food ProvisionEquation” (Box 1): estimates of food production are founded in agroecology, agriculture andfisheries sciences, while issues related to distribution are largely researched by social andpolicy-related sciences. The broader notion of access requires consideration of a further set ofdisciplines including economics, sociology and nutritional sciences.Box 1 Food provisionFood provision is governed not only by production, but also by the availability of, and access to,food. Access to food is a function of economic potential, physiological potential (e.g. nutritionalquality) and food availability (which depends on production and distribution). Food production is afunction of yield per unit area and the area from which harvest is taken.Production = f (yield, area)Availability = f (production, distribution)Access = f (availability, economic & physiological potential)Food Provision = f (Production, Availability, Access)Akin to the need for adopting the broader concept of food provision (rather than just foodproduction), research planning and policy formulation needs to be set within the context offood systems, rather than just food supply. Developing research in the context of food systemshelps to identify and integrate the links between a number of factors “from plough to plate”(Atkins and Bowler, 2001), including consideration of production, harvesting, storage,processing, distribution and consumption. The approach thereby allows a more thoroughunderstanding to be developed of the “impacts” and “feedbacks” links between foodprovision and environment. It will also help to identify where technical and policy16
interventions might be most effective to (i) cope with short-term impacts of GEC; and (ii)help adapt for environmental conditions in the longer term. Coping and adaptation strategiesfor food provision will however need to differ depending on the degree to which people andcommunities are vulnerable to the impacts of GEC. Not all individuals and sections of societyare equally vulnerable to GEC; their capacity to cope with existing variability in biophysicaland socioeconomic systems, and their ability to perceive GEC and adapt food systemsaccordingly vary considerably. This is because these factors are controlled by the flexibilitywith which the supply, availability and access to food (and related, essential resources) ismediated by socioeconomic institutions such as land tenure, access to credit, exploitationrights of renewable resources, etc.Adaptation strategies will need to encompass both biophysical and policy options.Management decisions must however be underpinned by a sound understanding of both thesocioeconomic and environmental consequences that different possible strategies will bring.GECAFS: A New Research ApproachThe interactions between global environmental change and food provision involve manycomplex issues spanning natural, social and climate sciences. The International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the International Human Dimensions Programme on GlobalEnvironmental Change (IHDP) and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP)already encompass broad research agendas in these three major areas. However, in order toadvance our understanding of the links between GEC and food provision (and thereby help todevelop and promote effective interventions) IGBP, IHDP and WCRP have launched theGlobal Environmental Change and Food Systems (GECAFS) Joint Project as a new,interdisciplinary approach. Furthermore, the research agenda is broader than impact studiesalone (important though these continue to be) as it explicitly includes research on how foodprovision systems could be adapted to the additional impacts of GEC, and the consequencesof different adaptation strategies for socioeconomic conditions and environment. Byincluding both “impacts” and “feedbacks” in the context of food provision a niche for newresearch is clearly defined.GECAFS has been conceived to address issues of interest to development, to society at large,as well as to science. An innovative, three-way dialogue between policy-makers, donors andscientists is being established to develop specific research agendas which are useful to aidpolicy formulation, scientifically exciting and fundable. Many research groups are active inthe general area of food “security” but their activities generally focus on current impedimentsto food production. Building on on-going studies but emphasising GEC issues, and linkingclosely to the needs of policy formulation, the structured approach will deliver an efficientresearch mechanism to address the rapidly emerging “GEC-Food” agenda. Of ultimateinterest is the link between GEC and societal well-being (rather than with food systems perse). This however has to be addressed through the researchable issues needed to understand17
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Page 30 and 31: Theme 2 aims to understand how comm
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Page 56 and 57: Figure 3 Outcomes for 10 variables
Page 58 and 59: Figure 4 Nine ‘planetary boundari
Page 60 and 61: Figure 5 Environmental change, food
Page 62 and 63: Table 1: Indicative analysis of the
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into actions (strategies, policies,
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Box 2 Engaging with stakeholders in
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Box 3 Setting the research agenda f
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Third, and of considerable practica
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Figure 2: Organizing and understand
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organizations made up of numerous n
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Elements of good practice in stakeh
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Finally, it is worth noting that fo
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development (Lee, 1999; Gunderson a
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Box 7 The GECAFS stakeholder survey
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‘break down’ what might be a hi
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Paper 6: Undertaking Research at th
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agriculture in many parts of the wo
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gaps. The presence of a strong tech
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an average of two years to coalesce
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Institute for Meteorology and Hydro
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Identifying case study sitesResearc
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can both benefit from and contribut
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Box 5 Mapping stakeholder interests
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Holding planning meetings in locati
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This reorientation of the debate fr
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Importance of this type of research
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Integrating the food system concept
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awareness of the GEC issues within
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pollutants were then introduced as
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communities operating in food syste
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Improving input-use efficiency acro
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governance focuses on the range of
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Developing research agendas in supp
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The renewed approach to interdiscip
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BIELAK, A., HOLMES, J., SAVGÅRD, J
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EAKIN, H. 2010. What is Vulnerable?
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GODFRAY, H. C. J., BEDDINGTON, J. R
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INGRAM, J. S. I. & FERNANDES, E. C.
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LYUTSE, S. 2010. The One Billion To
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RAYNER, S. & MALONE, E. L. 1998. Hu
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UNDP 2006. The 2006 Human Developme
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activities “from plough to plate
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contribution to the science agenda:
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urgently needed, and - given the gr
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GECAFS plannenmakerij stelde vast d
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ieder hun eigen groep van betrokken
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het gebied van beheer hebben betrek
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Curriculum VitaeFollowing a BSc in
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