Sudden losses to food production-shocks-and their consequences across land and sea pose cumulative threats to global sustainability. We conduct an integrated assessment of global production data from crop, livestock, aquaculture, and fisheries sectors over 53 years to understand how shocks occurring in one food sector can create diverse and linked challenges among others. We show that some regions are shock hotspots, exposed frequently to shocks across multiple sectors. Critically, shock frequency has increased through time on land and sea at a global scale. Geopolitical and extreme-weather events were the main shock drivers identified, although with considerable differences across sectors. We illustrate how socialecological drivers, influenced by dynamics of the food system, can spillover multiple food sectors and create synchronous challenges or trade-offs among terrestrial and aquatic systems. In a more shock-prone and interconnected world, bold food policy and social protection mechanisms that help people anticipate, cope and recover from losses will be central to sustainability. Main Food production shocks pose significant challenges for the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1 because of their potential to disrupt food supply and security, livelihoods, and human well-being 2-7. A wide range of social-ecological pressures on food systems can drive shocks through direct or indirect mechanisms. For example, droughts or floods can rapidly increase mortality of crops, livestock, or farmed fish; whereas sudden outbreaks of violent conflict may prevent farmers or fishers accessing their production systems 7,8. Prolonged overfishing can also produce unexpected, sudden losses in catch as exploited fish populations are pushed toward ecological tipping points, after which stock collapse occurs 9. People's vulnerability to shock events rests on their capacity to adapt, the scale and frequency of RSC, JLB, KLN, and BSH designed the study, and RSC conducted the analysis and wrote the paper. TAR assisted with figures and AJ assisted with qualitative analysis of shock drivers.
Continued population growth and land intensification put increasing pressure on agricultural production and point to a need for a 'step change' in agriculture to meet the demand. Advances in digital technology-often encapsulated in the term 'big data'-are increasingly assumed to be the way this challenge will be met. For this to be achieved, it is necessary to understand the ways that farmers and other industry stakeholders perceive big data and how big data might change the industry. It is also necessary to address emerging moral and ethical questions about access, cost, scale and support, which will determine whether farms will be able to be 'big data enabled'. We conducted a discourse analysis of 26 interviews with stakeholders in the grains industry in Australia. Two main discourses were identified: (1) big data as a technology that will significantly benefit a few larger farms or businesses-Big Data is for Big Farming-and conversely (2) big data as a way for every farmer to benefit-Big Data is for Everyone. We relate these findings and the literature on adoption of technology and social studies in agriculture to the potential of farmers to embrace big data, from basic concerns about network infrastructure through to more complex issues of data collection and storage. The study highlights that there are key questions and issues that need to be addressed in further development of digital technology and big data in agriculture, specifically around trust, equity, distribution of benefits and access. This is the first study of big data in agriculture that takes a discourse analysis approach and thus interrogates the status quo and the prevailing norms and values driving decisions with impacts on both farmers and wider society.
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