Adapting a social-ecological resilience framework for food systems

Abstract

The purpose of applying social-ecological resilience thinking to food systems is twofold: First, to define those factors that help achieve a state in which food security for all and at all scales is possible. Second, to provide insights into how to maintain the system in this desirable regime. However, the resilience of food systems is distinct from the broader conceptualizations of resilience in social-ecological systems because of the fundamentally normative nature of food systems: humans need food to survive, and thus system stability is typically a primary policy objective for food system management. However, society also needs food systems that can intensify sustainably i.e., feed everybody equitably, provide livelihoods and avoid environmental degradation while responding flexibly to shocks and uncertainty. Today's failure in meeting food security objectives can be interpreted as the lack of current governance arrangements to consider the full and differential dimensions of food system functions -economic, ecological and social -at appropriate scales: in other words, the multifunctionality of food. We focus on functional and response diversity as two key attributes of resilient, multifunctional food systems; respectively, the number of different functional groups and the diversity of types of responses to disturbances within a functional group. Achieving food security will require functional redundancy and enhanced response diversity, creating multiple avenues to fulfill all food system objectives. We use the 2013-15 drought in California to unpack the potential differences between managing for a single function -economic profit -and multiple functions. Our analysis emphasizes how the evolution of the Californian food system has reduced functional and response diversity and created vulnerabilities. Managing for the resilience of food systems will require a shift in priorities from profit maximization to the management for all functions that create full food security at multiple scales.

Codesigning a resilient food system

“…The role of diversity for resilience Diversity, in certain forms, was considered to be important for resilience by our Delphi panel, in accordance with previous research (e.g., Carpenter et al 2012, Hodbod andEakin 2015). Modularity, namely diverse connectedness, has been suggested earlier as being an effective buffer from economic crises (May et al 2008).…”

“…Open-ended questions were also used for gathering the panelists' perspectives on the role of diversity for the adaptive capacity of food systems. Diversity has been suggested as one major influence of adaptive capacity and resilience for farming (Lin 2011), food systems (Hodbod and Eakin 2015), adaptive networks in social-ecological systems (Norberg et al 2008), and general resilience (Carpenter et al 2012). Therefore, we asked panelists about (1) the positive and negative aspects of diversity at different levels and operations within the food system, (2) the level at which diversity has the largest and smallest roles (if any role at all), (3) what type of diversity is the most meaningful when thinking of adaptive capacity, and (4) the impacts of concentration and effective coordination versus diversification and the specific actions that these are important for in food systems.…”

“…Diversity can take the form of functional diversity (diversity within actors contributing to the same function), which enables food system operations in a complimentary manner (Hodbod and Eakin 2015). For example, the panel found that the consolidation of trade, leading to erosion in functional diversity, carried potential risks.…”

“…Contrastingly, in developed countries, the dominant challenge concerns the methods for supplying food in a stable and sustainable manner, while facilitating the promotion of global and local social and economic well-being. Resilience studies conducted to date in developed countries have mostly concentrated on managing uncertainty, unexpected changes, and disruptions, such as issues caused by food crises and climate change (Ericksen 2008a, Benton et al 2012, Hodbod and Eakin 2015. Proactive preparation of resilient food systems that draw on the cooperative effort of actors acknowledging that understanding the functioning of each component is not adequate for explaining the functioning of the food system as a whole is a step toward concrete resilience building (Babu andBlom 2014, Tendall et al 2015).…”

“…Contrasting future scenarios, which mirrored the high uncertainty presented by potential changes, were used to allow actors to envision the determinants of adaptive capacity that improve resilience in all these situations. In addition, we investigated the opinions of actors regarding the often-mentioned determinant of adaptive capacity, i.e., diversity, for resilience (Norberg et al 2008, Lin 2011, Kahiluoto et al 2014, Hodbod and Eakin 2015, and the limits to adaptation that determine the need for transformation of the system (Dow et al 2013). A resilient food system was defined as a system that is able to persist, adapt, and transform under conditions of uncertainty (Folke et al 2010).…”