Livelihood Strategies Shape Vulnerability of Households' Food Security to Climate in Senegal

Alessandra Giannini,Elisabeth Kago Ilboudo Nébié,Ousmane Ndiaye,Diaba Ba

doi:10.3389/fclim.2021.731036

Abstract

We integrate long-term observations of rainfall and repeat, large-scale, nationwide household surveys of nutrition and socio-economic status to assess the vulnerability of food security to climate in Senegal. We use a mixed methods approach and a vulnerability framework to explain how it is that food security is on average lower, and more variable year-to-year, in the climatologically wetter south and east of the country than in the drier western center and north. We find that it is sensitivity to climate that explains the spatial variation in food security, while exposure explains its temporal variation, but only where sensitivity is high. While households in the western center and north, geographically closer to the political and economic center of action, are less dependent on livelihoods based on climate-sensitive activities, notably agriculture, these activities still dominate in the more remote, landlocked and at times conflict-ridden south and east, where sensitivity to the vagaries of rainfall persists. As they work to strengthen the resilience of climate-sensitive activities, food security and climate-risk management projects and policies should move beyond simplistic, deterministic assumptions about how climate affects food security outcomes, and invest in livelihood diversification to increase rural income and reduce vulnerability of food security to climate.

Highlights

Climate change is a threat multiplier, especially in marginal environments such as the Sahel
Food Security Vulnerability to Climate in Senegal receive less rainfall being more exposed to drought and reduced crop yields); sensitivity is the degree to which a system is affected by that same stress; and adaptive capacity is the ability of a system to adjust, to rebound from stress: climate change (McCarthy et al, 2001; Adger, 2006), and other environmental and social stresses (Smit and Wandel, 2006)
Using the case of Senegal, we aim to show how the different economic activities of households contribute in shaping their sensitivity and explain the spatial pattern of food security in the country, beyond exposure to climate variability

Summary

Introduction

Climate change is a threat multiplier, especially in marginal environments such as the Sahel. Sensitivity and adaptive capacity, which determine the degree of vulnerability of food security to environmental change, are shaped by biophysical, socioeconomic, political, cultural and nutritional endowments characterizing individuals, households and regions at different spatial and temporal scales (Downing, 1991; Adger, 2006; Smit and Wandel, 2006). Examples of these endowments or their lack thereof include inadequate individual food consumption, poor household access to nutritious food, regional food shortage, lack of institutional support for agricultural development, difficult access to markets and unequal income distribution. The exposure and sensitivity of certain groups to one or more of the underlying causes of vulnerability, and their adaptive responses, can increase or weaken the impacts of climate change on their food security (Downing, 1991)

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