According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), food security exists when “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”. To better understand the factors foundational to food security, the food security situation of a given unit of analysis (e.g. individual, household, nation, etc.) can be explained in terms of three key components:

• Availability of food – the amount, type and quality of food a unit has at its disposal to consume; food can be available through local production; availability can rely on distribution channels to get food where it needs to be; and availability depends on mechanisms to exchange money, labour and other items of value for food. 

• Access to food – the ability to gain access to the type, quality and quantity of food required, and it can be analysed in terms of the affordability of food that is available, how well allocation mechanisms such as markets and government policies work, and whether consumers can meet their social and other food preferences.    

• Utilization of food – the ability to consume and benefit from food; it thus depends upon the nutritional and social values of food, and the safety of available and affordable food.

The problem however, is that food security stands as a critical issue for a significant proportion of the world’s population, with one billion people experiencing hunger on a daily basis; the poor spending vast amounts of their income on food; and other, equally devastating impacts affecting the livelihood and well-being of millions. Furthermore, global environmental change (GEC), including land degradation, water scarcities and other factors, coupled with an increasing world population, exacerbates these and other issues and makes achieving food security difficult in many regions. Therefore, it is understandable that research and interventions have largely focused on increasing agricultural productivity and/or food aid (environmental and technical measures). However, as food security is increasingly viewed through the agricultural-climate change lens, the danger in providing narrow and insufficient remedies remains – as important as these factors are many others must also be considered. IHDP’s recent joint project, Global Environmental Change and Food Systems (GECAFS) approached food security by focusing on food systems (farm to fork – production, processing, packaging/distribution, and retail/consumption) as it is food systems that underpin food security and enable the issues to be tackled in a holistic manner within the diversity of social and environmental contexts. The project’s research focused on ways of enhancing food security without further degrading ecosystem services. This required a broad framework to comprehensively describe all of the activities, processes and outcomes involved with modern food systems and all possible interactions with GEC (Fig. 1a).

To analyse the dynamic interactions among GEC processes, food systems and feedbacks from food system outcomes, the drivers of these activities and their social, environmental and food security outcomes were also included. The drivers comprise the interactions between and within biogeophysical and human environments which determine how food system activities are carried out. These activities lead to a number of outcomes, some contributing to food security and others causing environmental and social concerns (Fig. 1b). The environmental outcomes of food systems include both the stock of available natural capital and ecosystem services – this recognizes the significant impact that food system activities have on ecosystems. The social welfare outcomes arise because many people rely on food systems as sources of livelihoods; thus these outcomes include income and wealth, as well as health status.

Ultimately, the challenges related to GEC and food security will continue to grow and become more closely linked. Particularly in relation to the risks of climate change, biodiversity loss and water scarcity; in terms of linkages to energy systems; and as food systems become more global in their networks of production, consumption and governance. However, a food system approach can help improve our understanding of the interactions between GEC and food security, and thus of the range of policy options available to address them. A systems approach connects the activities of food producers, processors, distributors, retailers and consumers involved in food systems to the food security and environmental outcomes, framing these activities as dynamic and interacting processes embedded in social, political, economic, historical and environmental contexts.     

• Drought

• Land-Use

• Food Systems