Adaptation of Agricultural and Food Systems to a Changing Climate and Increasing Urbanization

Inclusive diets within planetary boundaries

SummaryThe food and agriculture system is among the largest anthropogenic activities in terms of appropriation of land and biological primary production, as well as alteration of the grand biogeochemical cycles of carbon, water, and nitrogen. Despite its importance in these respects, physically coherent descriptions and analyses of the food and agriculture system regarding the total turnover of fundamental flows (such as biomass) and resource use and efficiency of critical processes (such as animal food production) are relatively scarce.This article presents a survey of the current flows of biomass in the food and agriculture system. The survey gives a mass‐ and energy‐balanced description of biomass from its production on cropland and grassland through its transformations into animal and vegetable food products to its final conversion into respiratory heat, feces, and other residues. This assessment was carried out by means of a physical model that, for eight world regions, calculates the necessary production of crops and other phytomass (plant biomass) from a prescribed end use of food, efficiency in food production and processing, and use of system‐internal by‐products and residues as feed, feedstock, and food.The global appropriation of terrestrial phytomass production by the food system was estimated to be some 13 Pg (1.43 × 1010 short tons) dry matter, or 230 EJ (2.18 × 1017 Btu) gross energy (higher heating value), per year in 1992‐1994. Of this phytomass, about 8% ended up in food commodities eaten. Animal food systems accounted for roughly two‐thirds of the total appropriation of phytomass, whereas their contribution to the human diet was about 13% (both on a gross energy basis). The ruminant meat systems were found to have a far greater influence than any other subsystem on the food system's biomass metabolism, primarily because of the lower feed‐conversion efficiency (calculated as carcass produced by total feed intake, including pasture and other human‐inedible feedstuffs) of those systems.

Myanmar local food systems in a changing climate: Insights from multiple stakeholders

As part of its Climate Change and Health Strategy, in 2017, Toronto Public Health engaged stakeholders from across the food system to complete a high-level vulnerability assessment of the impact of climate change on the food system in Toronto. Using the Ontario Climate Change and Health Vulnerability and Adaptation Assessment Guidelines, the City of Toronto’s High-Level Risk Assessment Tool, and a strategic framework developed by the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, Toronto Public Health identified the most significant extreme weather event risks to food processing, distribution and access in Toronto. Risks associated with three extreme weather events that are the most likely to occur in Toronto due to climate change were analyzed: significant rain and flooding, an extended heat wave, and a major winter ice storm. The analysis finds that while extreme weather events could potentially disrupt Toronto’s food supply, the current risk of an extended, widespread food supply disruption is relatively low. However, the findings highlight that a concerted effort across the food system, including electrical and fuel providers, is needed to address other key vulnerabilities that could impact food access, especially for vulnerable populations. Interruptions to electricity will have food access and food safety impacts, while interruptions to the transportation network and fuel will have food distribution and access impacts. Actions to mitigate these risks could include addressing food access vulnerabilities through ongoing city-wide strategies and integrating food access into the City’s emergency response planning. The next steps will include engaging with multiple partners across the city to understand and strengthen the “last mile” of food distribution and develop community food resilience action plans for vulnerable neighbourhoods.

A decadal outlook for global aquaculture

Future Trends and the Pace of Change: Are We Ready?: The COVID-19 pandemic has presented an undeniable case for change. Life, work and organizations will never be “back to normal.” This opens up massive opportunities to raise our awareness of future trends and to elevate our profession, build resilience, increase our influence and visibility, and infuse futuristic competencies into our

Editorial and News

Close the carbon loophole

This article questions whether the WTO regime is the most appropriate institution for governing the global agriculture and trade in the wake of the problems that our world faces today. Specifically, climate change, potentially unsustainable agricultural practices, food insecurity in less developed countries (LDC), and expected imbalance in the global food demand and supply by 2050 are emerging as major challenges to humanity and the WTO while it is still struggling to resolve issues (related to agricultural protectionism that arises from the special facets of agriculture) of the 20th century while completely acking the capacity to tackle such new global issues of the 21th century. Given this outmoded institution, the primary objective of this article is to propose that a new structure of governance is needed so s to exclusively and effectively deal with problems arising from the interactions of the problems related to climate change, agricultural sustainability, food security, and trade. Four broad rationales are offered in this article that support the creation of a new system of governance for the global agriculture: (i) inability of the WTO in resolving agricultural protectionism of the 20th century; (ii) potential adverse effects of liberalized agricultural trade on the environment (climate change and sustainability of food production) and hunger/poverty in LDCs; (iii) global public good properties associated with the problems of climate change, sustainability, and food security and consequent need for collective action (transnational cooperation) at the global level, and (iv) the need to address the interactions among climate change, sustainability, and food security holistically in a concerted manner. We suggest the World Agriculture Organization (WAO) as a possible form of global institution that will play a central role in the new system of governance for the global agriculture.

Widespread negative impacts of climate change include limited plant growth, decreased soil fertility, and ultimately limited food production. Roots, tubers and bananas (RTB) are key commodities for food security, nutrition and livelihoods especially among small-holder farmers. Furthermore, roots and tubers, being resilient crops, can help farmers adapt to climate change and variability. Nevertheless, food security and livelihood agenda mostly emphasize on grain crops (such as rice, maize, and wheat), and very few studies have looked into the future potential of RTB crops and their likely increasing importance in the face of climate change. This study attempts to identify areas in the Asia-Pacific region where considerable climate impacts that threaten agricultural viability of major crops are expected. The study used climate projections and species distribution modeling approach for eight key crops in the region. In areas where impacts are very high, it is assumed that the currently cultivated crops may need to be substituted with more resilient crops. Key findings of this study include: • Countries, such as India, China, and Myanmar will experience high impacts of climate change on land suitability for maize. • Although there is a general decrease of climatic suitability for rice, the viability threshold was not crossed across time periods. However, climate change will put increasing pressure on this crop, particularly in India that will likely experience considerable losses of land suitability for rice. • Among RTB crops, cassava and sweetpotato can play an important role in terms of food resilience in areas where climate change is likely to trigger transformational changes for non-RTB (rice and maize) and some RTB crops. • Some RTB crops, although considered resilient crops, will also undergo considerable transformational change, specifically potato in India. • In terms of food system resilience, considerations and emphasis on the role of cassava and sweetpotato (and RTB in general) should be integrated in any adaptation initiative, especially in countries where food systems and value chains are particularly threatened by climate change.

Background Climate change poses a future risk to the UK's food supply and food security, both in terms of domestic production and imports. Direct climate impacts on crop yields affect food production, nutrient composition and bioavailability whereas indirect supply chain impacts affect access and affordability of food. Indicators and methods for measuring the UK food system vulnerability are essential for understanding climate change impacts. Aim To identify potential indicators for monitoring climate change impacts on food systems (relevant to UK) and compare with current UK processes for impact monitoring. Methods A scoping review was conducted to identify climate-related food system indicators across 4 domains: food supply, food environment, food consumption and food waste. Nine electronic databases were searched for published articles in peer-reviewed journals. Grey literature searches included Google Scholar, Government websites and organisations. Thematic analysis of indicators was carried out by food system domain, methods, spatial level and outcome. Results After screening 5,260 articles, 54 papers were analysed and presented 752 climate-related food system indicators. Most indicators were in the food supply (n = 505) or food consumption (n = 139) domain. Thematic analysis of indicators revealed key themes as crop yields, water availability, biodiversity and soil health, production and supply, imports/exports, supply chain disruption, food price impacts, affordability, nutrition, food security, food waste. A vast range of indicators are available to monitor UK food system vulnerability to climate change, however, currently only climate impacts on food supply processes are extensively monitored compared with impacts to food environment or consumption. Conclusions To support policy makers in implementing food system interventions to mitigate the impacts of climate change, data, indicators and monitoring mechanisms are critical for UK decision-making. Key messages • To support policy makers in implementing food system interventions to mitigate the impacts of climate change, data, indicators and monitoring mechanisms are critical for UK decision-making. • Monitoring the climate impacts on food systems and food security requires systematic, rigorous data collection across all domains of the food system to protect health.

The functional properties of animal food protein, especially from both nutritional and health contexts, remain very crucial to (food) product formulation/processing. Moreover, the increases in consumer awareness continues to push the food industry to seek alternatives of chemical food preservatives, particularly those natural approaches able to extend the shelf life of animal (food) products. As such, plant-derived bioactive substances occupy an important space as promising additives for animal food products. Besides, the underlying mechanisms that advance the interactive progress of antioxidant/bioactive compounds within the plant food matrices remain a continued debate. Indeed, to understand how myofibrillar proteins (MP) interact with the specific bioactive ingredients, i.e. biologically active compounds of plant origin, is of great importance, especially their antioxidants/microbial potentials operating as food additives given the eventual impact to modify the functionality/sensory features of the emergent animal food products. To supplement existing information, therefore, this terse review synthesizes some connections between polyphenol and myofibrillar proteins derived from plant-based sources, with emphasis on their anti-microbial potentials. Overall, natural food additives may offer potential health benefits, but their usage comes with challenges, the latter of which animal food producers must carefully consider, particularly the effectiveness of bioactive substances on (animal food) products’ safety, and consumer appeal.

The global economy is in danger because of how climate change is altering the world's food systems and posing serious risks to food security. The food supply chain is vulnerable to unfavorable climatic circumstances like droughts, floods, and other extreme weather events, which can result in crop losses, decreased yields, and fluctuating food prices. Other elements, such as population increase, shifting food trends, and poor infrastructure in underdeveloped nations, add to these effects. Food production and distribution are both impacted by the multifaceted climate change’s effect on food systems. Nutritional quality and crop yields are declining because of climate change's changes to the growing environment. Sea-level rise and extreme weather also have an impact on fish and other aquatic resource output. Hunger, malnutrition, and food insecurity may result from climate change’s effect on food systems. The world's food systems are seriously threatened by climate change. The food system’s vulnerability to climate change must be reduced through mitigation and adaptation measures. These techniques can include creating crops that are resistant to climate change, better water management, and making the food systems more resilient to extreme weather. Achieving food security globally and lowering poverty requires addressing the climate change’s effect on food systems.

Adaptation of cropping systems to weather uncertainty and climate change is essential for resilient food production and long-term food security. Changes in climate result in substantial temporal modifications of cropping conditions, and rainfall and temperature patterns vary greatly with location. These challenges come at a time when global human population and demand for food are both increasing, and it appears to be difficult to find ways to satisfy growing needs with conventional systems of production. Agriculture in the future will need to feature greater biodiversity of crop species and appropriate design and management of cropping and integrated crop/animal systems. More diverse and longer-cycle crop rotations will need to combine sequences of annual row crops such as maize and soybean with close-drilled cereals, shallow-rooted with deep-rooted crops, summer crops with winter crops, and annuals with perennials in the same fields. Resilience to unpredictable weather will also depend on intercropping, with the creative arrangement of multiple interacting crop species to diversify the field and the landscape. Other multiple-cropping systems and strategies to integrate animals and crops will make more efficient use of natural resources and applied inputs; these include systems such as permaculture, agroforestry, and alley cropping. Future systems will be spatially diverse and adapted to specific fields, soil conditions, and unique agroecozones. Production resilience will be achieved by planting diverse combinations of species together in the same field, and economic resilience through producing a range of products that can be marketed through different channels. The creation of local food webs will be more appropriate in the future, as contrasted with the dominance of global food chains today. Materials considered “waste” from the food system, including human urine and feces, will become valuable resources to be cycled back into the natural environment and into food production. Due to the increasing scarcity of fertile land, the negative contributions of chemicals to environmental pollution, the costs of fossil fuels, and the potential for the economic and political disruption of supply chains, future systems will increasingly need to be local in character while still achieving adaptation to the most favorable conditions for each system and location. It is essential that biologically and economically resilient systems become productive and profitable, as well as environmentally sound and socially equitable, in order to contribute to stability of food production, security of the food supply, and food sovereignty, to the extent that this is possible. The food system cannot continue along the lines of “business as usual,” and its path will need to radically diverge from the recognized trends toward specialization and globalization of the early 21st century. The goal needs to shift from exploitation and short-term profits to conservation of resources, greater equity in distribution of benefits, and resilience in food supply, even with global climate change.

Dynamic interactions between and within the biogeophysical and human environments lead to the production, processing, distribution, preparation and consumption of food, resulting in food systems that underpin food security. Food systems encompass food availability (production, distribution and exchange), food access (affordability, allocation and preference) and food utilization (nutritional and societal values and safety), so that food security is, therefore, diminished when food systems are stressed. Such stresses may be induced by a range of factors in addition to climate change and/or other agents of environmental change (e.g. conflict, HIV/AIDS) and may be particularly severe when these factors act in combination. Urbanization and globalization are causing rapid changes to food systems. Climate change may affect food systems in several ways ranging from direct effects on crop production (e.g. changes in rainfall leading to drought or flooding, or warmer or cooler temperatures leading to changes in the length of growing season), to changes in markets, food prices and supply chain infrastructure. The relative importance of climate change for food security differs between regions. For example, in southern Africa, climate is among the most frequently cited drivers of food insecurity because it acts both as an underlying, ongoing issue and as a short-lived shock. The low ability to cope with shocks and to mitigate long-term stresses means that coping strategies that might be available in other regions are unavailable or inappropriate. In other regions, though, such as parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain of India, other drivers, such as labour issues and the availability and quality of ground water for irrigation, rank higher than the direct effects of climate change as factors influencing food security. Because of the multiple socio-economic and bio-physical factors affecting food systems and hence food security, the capacity to adapt food systems to reduce their vulnerability to climate change is not uniform. Improved systems of food production, food distribution and economic access may all contribute to food systems adapted to cope with climate change, but in adopting such changes it will be important to ensure that they contribute to sustainability. Agriculture is a major contributor of the greenhouse gases methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), so that regionally derived policies promoting adapted food systems need to mitigate further climate change.