Global environmental change (GEC) represents an immediate and unprecedented threat to the food security of hundreds of millions of people, especially those who depend on small-scale agriculture for their livelihoods. As this book shows, at the same time, agriculture and related activities also contribute to GEC by, for example, intensifying greenhouse gas emissions and altering the land surface. Responses aimed at adapting to GEC may have negative consequences for food security, just as measures taken to increase food security may exacerbate GEC. The authors show that this complex and dynamic relationship between GEC and food security is also influenced by additional factors; food systems are heavily influenced by socioeconomic conditions, which in turn are affected by multiple processes such as macro-level economic policies, political conflicts and other important drivers.
The book provides a major, accessible synthesis of the current state of knowledge and thinking on the relationships between GEC and food security. Most other books addressing the subject concentrate on the links between climate change and agricultural production, and do not extend to an analysis of the wider food system which underpins food security; this book addresses the broader issues, based on a novel food system concept and stressing the need for actions at a regional, rather than just an international or local, level. It reviews new thinking which has emerged over the last decade, analyses research methods for stakeholder engagement and for undertaking studies at the regional level, and looks forward by reviewing a number of emerging ‘hot topics’ in the food security-GEC debate which help set new agendas for the research community at large.
Preface
Acknowledgements
Part I: Food Security and Global Environmental Change
1. Food Security and the Global Environment: an Overview
2. The Value of the Food Systems Approach
3. Lessons Learned from International Assessments
4. Part I Main Messages
Part II: Vulnerability, Resilience and Adaptation in Food Systems
5. Vulnerability and Resilience of Food Systems
6. What is Vulnerable?
7. Vulnerability to What?
8. Adapting Food Systems
9. Part II Main Messages
Part III: Engaging Stakeholders
10. The Science-Policy Interface
11. Engaging Stakeholders at the Regional Level
12. Part III Main Messages
Part IV: A Regional Approach
13. Why Regions?
14. Stakeholders' Approaches to Regional Food Security Research
15. Undertaking Research at the Regional Level
16. Part IV Main Messages
Part V: Food Systems in a Changing World
17. Food, Violence and Human Rights
18. Governance Beyond the State: Non-state Actors and Food Systems
19. Green Food Systems for 9 billion
20. Surprises and Possibilities
21. Part V Main Messages
22. Reflection on the Book
Editorial Committee
1. Diana Liverman (Chair) University of Arizona, USA & University of Oxford, UK
2. Mike Brklacich Carleton University, Canada
3. Polly Ericksen University of Oxford, UK
4. Anita Ghosh University of Oxford, UK
5. Peter Gregory Scottish Crop Research Institute, UK
6. John Ingram (Lead Editor) University of Oxford, UK
7. Anne-Marie Izac Future Harvest Alliance Office, Italy
8. Jim Jones University of Florida, US
9. Veronique Plocq-Fichelet SCOPE, France
10. Keith Wiebe UN FAO, Italy
John Ingram is Executive Officer at the Global Environmental Change and Food Systems (GECAFS) International Project Office, Environmental Change Institute (ECI), Oxford University Centre for the Environment, UK.
Polly Ericksen was Science Officer at the Global Environmental Change and Food Systems (GECAFS) International Project Office, Environmental Change Institute (ECI), Oxford University Centre for the Environment, UK. She is now at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Nairobi, Kenya.
Diana Liverman is Chair of the GECAFS Scientific Advisory Committee, co-director of the Institute of the Environment at the University of Arizona and a Visiting Professor in Environmental Policy and Development in the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford.