Resilient food systems underpin food security. In other words, they ensure that “all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (World Food Summit, 1996), despite climate shocks and stresses. Climate variability and change can disrupt key elements of food systems, affecting the availability of food as well as peoples’ ability to access and use it. Whether it is a household suffering from the loss of their subsistence crops due to drought, or a district being cut off from food markets because floods have damaged access to roads, these disruptions can increase the risk of hunger, malnutrition, and poverty.

To better understand the complex relationship among food systems, food security and climate change, IISD, in partnership with ISET, ACF-E, CURLA, UCA and Nitlapán, funded by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN), has released a conceptual framework for assessing, planning and monitoring climate resilience and food security at the community, regional and national levels. This framework is presented in the report Climate Resilience and Food Security: A Framework for Planning and Monitoring by Tyler et al.

Most research to date has focused on the direct impacts of extreme events such as storms, droughts and high temperatures on food production. However, other aspects of food systems, such as the services supporting food availability or access, are also likely to be affected by climate extremes (back to the broken supply routes and market access mentioned above). The impacts from highly uncertain future climate events on complex food systems cannot be predicted with any confidence. Instead, the authors recommend that communities and policy-makers should assess the resilience of these systems to a broad range of anticipated and potential impacts.

Read the report here.

Further reading:

Project homepage: Climate Resilience and Food Security in Central America
Project overview: Climate Resilience and Food Security in Central America
Tool: CRISTAL Food Security Tool and User’s Manual
Tool: Food Security Indicator & Policy Analysis Tool and User’s Manual

Blogs:

• Making Food Systems More Resilient to Climate Change
• Institutional synergies and food security: the case of the “Giant Mountains” community in Guatemala (Spanish)
• Resilience and Adaptation of Food Systems in Puerto Morazán, Nicaragua (Spanish)
• Three Metre Storm Surges Threaten the Food Security of a Community in Cedeño, Honduras (Spanish)
• Climate Resilience and Food Security: Salado Barra’s experience in Honduras

Image courtesy: Emmanuel Dyan