Climate risks in Tunisia: Challenges to adaptation in the agri-food system

Nurturing natural capital

Over the last decade, Australia has experienced several severe natural disasters which have caused significant disruptions to its agri-food supply chains. Global climate change is driving an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events that can lead to natural disasters. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that climate change - and extreme weather events, in particular - pose significant threats to food security. While much food security research focusses on developing nations, contemporary, supermarket-based food systems have a number of characteristics that make them highly vulnerable to disruptions from extreme weather events. The experience of recent disasters and projections of on-going climate change suggest that Australia’s food systems are facing escalating climate risks to which they must adapt. This thesis considers how the agri-food supply chains that underpin Australia’s food system are enabled or constrained to cope with emerging climate risks and, in particular, to a more rapid recurrence of damaging weather events. In this thesis, supply chains are conceptualized as social institutions and identified as a key location in the food system for decision-making regarding the management of climate risks. The empirical focus of the research is national-scale fresh produce supply chains based on vegetables produced in south-east Queensland’s Lockyer and Fassifern Valleys. These supply chains have been affected by a series of severe weather events and natural disasters since 2011. The study applies qualitative methods to draw insights from supply chain actors regarding: the impacts of recent severe weather events; perceptions of these events and future climate risks; the ways in which climate risks are governed in the supply chain; and what responses have occurred following recent events. The analysis is informed by theoretical perspectives from the social sciences, in particular the social construction of risk, risk governance and resilience. The thesis aims to advance recent conceptualisations of food system resilience and proposes a set of attributes that would enable a capacity for resilience to climate risks and natural disasters within agri-food supply chains. The results of the study demonstrate that the impacts of recent natural disasters were unevenly distributed within the supply chain. Upstream segments of the chain (that is, business involved in vegetable production, packing and transport) experienced more significant impacts and longer recovery periods than downstream segments (such as wholesalers and retailers). The study finds that this is strongly linked to an uneven distribution of vulnerability to risks in the chain which, combined with the rapid recurrence of disaster events, has weakened the fresh produce supply system. The study provides important insights into perceptions, and social constructions, of recent weather events and climate risks amongst actors within fresh produce supply chains – addressing a significant gap in the literature. The results suggest that a shared narrative about Australia’s highly variable climate strongly influences a collective construction amongst supply chain actors which normalises and attenuates climate risk. The study finds, however, that recent extreme weather events have unsettled this dominant construct. Perceptions of future climate risks amongst supply chain actors were varied. Those strongly influenced by the climate variability narrative did not expect future risks to be much different from those experienced in the past. A smaller number of research participants, however, were concerned that climate risks may be escalating and that this may require changes to how those risks were managed. The study found two strongly contrasting approaches to the governance of climate risk in fresh produce supply chains. The findings demonstrate that, typically, climate risks are governed in highly individualised ways but that the emergence of new supply chain intermediaries is facilitating a more collective approach to climate risk governance in some chains. The research also shows that recent recurrent floods have catalysed a number of supply chain actors to pursue changes that improve their capacity to more effectively manage climate risks. Those most motivated to make adaptations were found to be involved in supply chains characterised by individualised governance of climate risks. The thesis concludes by considering what the findings suggest about the prospects for cultivating resilience to escalating climate risks in supply chains and the implications for food security in Australia. The study finds that while a collaborative approach to risk governance is emerging in some cases, there are significant constraints to cultivating climate change resilience in fresh produce supply chains in Australia – and that this adds to known threats to our national food security. The research suggests, however, that adopting a risk governance perspective could help to engage a wider set of social actors, particularly governments and consumers, in the process of improving supply chain and food system resilience in the face of climate change.

Decision-making for circular economy implementation in agri-food systems: A transdisciplinary case study of cacao in Colombia

Our study aims to assess the impact of climate change risk on human security of households in selected districts of Punjab, Pakistan namely, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Bahawalpur and Sialkot. We further, aim to ascertain if female labor force participation in the household leads to increase in household’s ability to withstand climate change risk to its human security. By incorporating people’s perception of climate change, the study is based on the data collected from 1000 households of the four districts of Punjab with an equal representation of rural and urban areas. The regression analysis shows climate change as a major security risk and consistently yields deteriorating effect on human security. While incorporating female labor force participation in the model, results shows a positive impact of female labor force participation on human security. Further, the interaction term between climate change risk index and female labor force participation depicts varying but insightful outcomes for human security and its constituents i.e. health, food and economic security. Our data depicts that only 328 out of 1007 households had female earners while the average proportion of female earners was about 16% in the households, which may account for the possibility of a few statistically insignificant coefficient. Though consistently positive sign of the coefficient makes a strong case for female labor force participation in enhancing human security of households via tackling climate change risk effectively. These results highlight the need for removal of barriers to female labor force participation at the household level to enable them to play their profound role in combating climate change risk and its repercussions for human security.

The objective of this contribution is to report the initial impacts of measures taken to contain the COVID-19 pandemic on Myanmar's agri-food system. Myanmar is one of several late-transforming low-income countries in Southeast Asia where agriculture still plays a large role in rural livelihoods, and where food prices are a key factor affecting nutrition security for poor urban and rural households. Whereas the economic impacts of COVID-19 disruptions on tourism and manufacturing were obvious to policymakers, the impacts on the agri-food system were less evident and often more indirect. This resulted in the rural sector being allocated only a very small share of the government's initial fiscal response to mitigate the economic impacts of COVID-19.To correct this information gap, a suite of phone surveys covering a wide spectrum of actors in the agri-food system were deployed, including farm input suppliers, mechanization service providers, farmers, commodity traders, millers, food retailers and consumers. The surveys were repeated at regular intervals prior to and during the main crop production season which began shortly after nationwide COVID-19 prevention measures were implemented in April. While the results indicate considerable resilience in the agri-food system in response to the initial disruptions, persistent financial stress for a high proportion of households and agri-food system businesses indicate that the road to a full recovery will take time. The experience provides important lessons for strengthening the resilience of the agri-food system, and the livelihoods of households that depend on it.

Climate change poses a greater threat for more exposed and vulnerable countries, communities and social groups. People whose livelihood depends on the agriculture and food sector, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), face significant risk. In contexts with gendered roles in agri-food systems or where structural constraints to gender equality underlie unequal access to resources and services and constrain women’s agency, local climate hazards and stressors, such as droughts, floods, or shortened crop-growing seasons, tend to negatively affect women more than men and women’s adaptive capacities tend to be more restrained than men’s. Transformation toward just and sustainable agri-food systems in the face of climate change will not only depend on reducing but also on averting aggravated gender inequality in agri-food systems. In this paper, we developed and applied an accessible and versatile methodology to identify and map localities where climate change poses high risk especially for women in agri-food systems because of gendered exposure and vulnerability. We label these localities climate-agriculture-gender inequality hotspots. Applying our methodology to LMICs reveals that the countries at highest risk are majorly situated in Africa and Asia. Applying our methodology for agricultural activity-specific hotspot subnational areas to four focus countries, Mali, Zambia, Pakistan and Bangladesh, for instance, identifies a cluster of districts in Dhaka and Mymensingh divisions in Bangladesh as a hotspot for rice. The relevance and urgency of identifying localities where climate change hits agri-food systems hardest and is likely to negatively affect population groups or sectors that are particularly vulnerable is increasingly acknowledged in the literature and, in the spirit of leaving no one behind, in climate and development policy arenas. Hotspot maps can guide the allocation of scarce resources to most-at-risk populations. The climate-agriculture-gender inequality hotspot maps show where women involved in agri-food systems are at high climate risk while signaling that reducing this risk requires addressing the structural barriers to gender equality.

Adaptive capacity of farming systems to climate change in Iran: Application of composite index approach

Sustainability transitions in the agri-food system: Evaluating mitigation potentials, economy-wide effects, co-benefits and trade-offs for the case of Austria

Enhancing the reliability of literature reviews and evidence synthesis is crucial for advancing the transformation of agriculture and food (agri-food) systems as well as for informed decisions and policy making. In this perspective, we argue that evidence syntheses in the field of agri-food systems research often suffer from a suite of methodological limitations that substantially increase the risk of bias, i.e., publication and selection bias, resulting in unreliable and potentially flawed conclusions and, consequently, poor decisions (e.g., policy direction, investment, research foci). We assessed 926 articles from the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence Database of Evidence Reviews (CEEDER) and recent examples from agri-food systems research to support our reasoning. The analysis of articles from CEEDER (n = 926) specifically indicates poor quality (Red) in measures to minimize subjectivity during critical appraisal (98% of all reviews), application of the eligibility criteria (97%), cross-checking of extracted data by more than one reviewer (97%), critical appraisal of studies (88%), establishment of an a priori method/protocol (86%), and transparent reporting of eligibility decisions (65%). Additionally, deficiencies (Amber) were found in most articles (>50%) regarding the investigation and discussion of variability in study findings (89%), comprehensiveness of the search (78%), definition of eligibility criteria (72%), search approach (64%), reporting of extracted data for each study (59%), consideration and discussion of the limitations of the synthesis (56%), documentation of data extraction (54%) and regarding the statistical approach (52%). To enhance the quality of evidence synthesis in agri-food science, review authors should use tried-and-tested methodologies and publish peer-reviewed a priori protocols. Training in evidence synthesis methods should be scaled, with universities playing a crucial role. It is the shared duty of research authors, training providers, supervisors, reviewers, and editors to ensure that rigorous and robust evidence syntheses are made available to decision-makers. We argue that all these actors should be cognizant of these common mistakes to avoid publishing unreliable syntheses. Only by thinking as a community can we ensure that reliable evidence is provided to support appropriate decision-making in agri-food systems science.

Bioeconomy Opportunities for a Green Recovery and Enhanced System Resilience

Integrated framework for identifying transformative adaptation in agri-food systems

Global agri-food system will face great pressure to meet the continuing demands for food due to the increasing number of world population. The high demand requires an increase in food production and agricultural output, which, therefore, means more raw materials, water, energy, and other resources needed. Increasing the amount of these resources for agri-food system will harm the environment since carbon dioxide generated by the burning of fuel will then result in global warming and climate change. This paper discusses global issues related to sustainable agri-food system, such as climate change, sustainability, green products, food loss and food mileage relationships with emissions. It describes Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) philosophy and how LCT is operated into practical applications, using Spanish Agri-food system as an example, and challenges for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) applications in supporting sustainable agri-food systems. Environmental impacts associated with agri-food system need to be reduced. The use of an LCA framework to determine the areas with the greatest impact and reduction strategies for agri-food operation is a viable strategy to reduce the environmental impacts in facing the increasing global demand. Nevertheless, the application of LCA in agri-food systems varies due to global, regional, and local differences in its practice. Thus, it makes it difficult for general LCAs to be conducted on agri-food system. Despite the increasing number of LCA studies in agri-food system, the literature on methodological aspects, and case studies, some challenges still need to be addressed to ensure that LCA provides significant results.

A Credit System to Solve Agricultural Nitrogen Pollution

Planet Earth's temperature has risen by about 1.1 degrees Celsius on average since the 1880s, confirmed by satellite measurements and by the analysis of hundreds of thousands of independent weather station observations from across the globe. This rate of warming is in an order of magnitude faster than any found in the past 65 million years of paleoclimate records — the rapid decline in the planet's surface ice cover provides further evidence of this.1 The banking industry is the custodian of global finance. It therefore has a central role to play in mitigating against this trend. After all, these are the institutions that occupy a key position as important catalysts in reorienting financial flows towards sustainable activities, supporting industries and governments in meeting climate risk and their environmental, social and governance (ESG) targets. However, should the onus be on the banking sector to drive this agenda? Yes, it has an important role to play, but should it be writing the overall global narrative? We will look at what banks are doing now to measure, and act upon, their own climate risk and ESG profile, and look at how much we should expect them to fund the overall ‘green deal’ or ‘clean’ strategy throughout 2022 and beyond. However, let us not forget, the banking sector has been focussing on money rather than ESG matters for centuries. For those new to the subject, we will also use this paper to provide some step-by-step advice and suggestions for what banks should be doing now to prepare for ESG issues. The paper opens with the theory, then moves into the practical, with a series of first-hand case studies. These cover the measures that Razor Risk's banking clients have been introducing to mitigate against climate risk, providing a critical reference point for the sector as a whole.

Bandung District is found to be an area that is vulnerable to the El-Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. Whenever ENSO occurs, this district is always suffering from drought and flood leading to significant crop production lost. The vulnerable areas to flood and drought are Bojongsoang and Ciparay. The objectives of the study are : a) to identify problems related climate risks in rice-based farming system and the adaptation of mechanism to cope with climate extreme; b) to elucidate relationship of ENSO development with rainfall variability and effect of rainfall to flood and drought occurrences; and c) to evaluate economics loss due to climate extreme. Assessment of farming system at the study sites was conducted using Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) method. Farmer’s annual income were analyzed using frequency analysis of gross margin. The results showed that Sea Surface Temperature (SST) in Tropical Pacific has significantly affected on rainfall in Ciparay sub-District. The raise in SST anomaly is clearly a subject to delay the rainy season, to prolong the dry season period, and to decrease rainfall amount up to below normal, while the decreasing of SST anomaly resulting high intensity of rainfall in the rainy season and lower in the dry season. Whenever ENSO occurs, most farmers is always suffering from drought and flood leading to significant crop failure. Most farmers realized that climate has been changed and recently there is a trend uncertainly of rainfall pattern (proved by 84% of respondents). Nevertheless, they are still using traditional way to determine the beginning of planting season. Results showed that Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) have smaller value in floods and droughts than normal conditions. Annual net income analysis suggests that many farmers will have negative annual income either at first or second crops fail. Based on the interviews with local authorities and farmers, it is needed to increase awareness of decision maker, extension workers and farmers to climate extremes and to improve their capacity to manage climate risks.