Exploring the Dynamics of Responses to Food Production Shocks

Aled Jones,Bradley Hiller

doi:10.3390/su9060960

Abstract

Food production shocks can lead to food crises where access to appropriate quantities and quality of food become inadequate, unaffordable, or unreliable on a major scale. While the physical causes of food production shocks are well researched, the dynamics of responses to them are less well understood. This paper reviews those dynamics and includes evidence gathered via interviews of 44 expert practitioners sourced globally from academia, government, industry, think-tanks, and development/relief organizations. The paper confirms that policy interventions are often prioritised for national interests and poorly coordinated at regional and global scales. The paper acknowledges future compounding trends such as climate change and demographic shifts and suggests that while there are signs of incremental progress in better managing the impacts of shock events, coordinated responses at scale will require a paradigm shift involving major policy, market, and technological advancements, and a wide range of public and private sector stakeholders.

Highlights

The World Economic Forum defines food crises to occur where ‘access to appropriate quantities and quality of food and nutrition becomes inadequate, unaffordable or unreliable on a major scale’ [1]
Evidence suggests that a food crisis cannot be avoided by having access to sufficient supplies of food as the dynamics of supply and demand are increasingly complex in the modern global agrifood system
This paper is derived from research conducted as part of the ‘UK-US Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience’, which examined plausible worst case scenarios of disruption to the global agrifood system caused by extreme weather events

Summary

Introduction

The World Economic Forum defines food crises to occur where ‘access to appropriate quantities and quality of food and nutrition becomes inadequate, unaffordable or unreliable on a major scale’ [1]. Such crises can be regional or global in extent and can result from major shock events. Bangladesh experienced severe famine and hunger in the 1970s, not for lack of global food supply but, instead, local food supply, price increases, and speculative behaviour combined and resulted in the deaths of up to 1.5 million people [2,3,4,5]. The World Bank calculated that it forced over 130 million people into poverty [7] and food import bills of developing countries increased by 56% during 2007/08 [8]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion