Abstract
Improvement of food security is a common objective for many agricultural systems analyses, but how food security has been conceptualized and evaluated within agricultural systems has not been systematically evaluated. We reviewed the literature on agricultural systems analyses of food security at the household- and regional-levels, finding that the primary focus is on only one dimension of food security—agricultural output as a proxy for food availability. Given that food security comprises availability, access, utilization and stability dimensions, improved practice would involve more effort to incorporate food access and stability indicators into agricultural systems models. The empirical evidence base for including food access indicators and their determinants within agricultural systems models requires further development through appropriate short and long-term investments in data collection and analysis. Assessment of the stability dimension of food security (through time) is also particularly under-represented in previous work and requires the development and application of appropriate dynamic models of agricultural systems that include food security indicators, coupled with more formalized treatment of robustness and adaptability at both the regional and household levels. We find that agricultural systems models often conflate analysis of food security covariates that have the potential to improve food security (like agricultural yields) with an assessment of food security itself. Agricultural systems modelers should exercise greater caution in referring to analyses of agricultural output and food availability as representing food security more generally.
Highlights
Introduction and motivationThe linkages between agriculture, nutrition and food security have long been recognized in various conceptual frameworks
To assess how food security is currently being represented in agri cultural systems models, we reviewed literature that focused on the household and regional food security assessments, and concen trated on the subset of this literature that incorporated consideration of agricultural production
Incorporating access outcomes often will require additional empirical evidence, both the measurement of these outcomes and an exploration of their underlying determinants, i.e., how these outcomes link to other outputs from the agricultural systems model
Summary
The linkages between agriculture, nutrition and food security have long been recognized in various conceptual frameworks. A few studies (e.g., Laborte et al, 2007; Laborte et al, 2009; Ste phens et al, 2012; Kopainsky and Nicholson, 2015; Marín-Gonzalez et al, 2018) have tried to link agricultural systems models with food security outcomes to understand evolving intertemporal dynamics and assess the impacts of agricultural system intensification. Such studies are few and employ limited number of indicators of food security (e.g., proportion of household caloric needs met) with a focus only on household-level outcomes. We conclude with a discussion of the challenges of implementing the recommendations given the state of current agricultural systems models and data availability
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