Assessing the evolving fragility of the global food system

Abstract

The world food crisis in 2008 highlighted the susceptibility of the global food system to price shocks. Here we use annual staple food production and trade data from 1992-2009 to analyse the changing properties of the global food system. Over the 18 year study period, we show that the global food system is relatively homogeneous (85% of countries have low or marginal food self-sufficiency) and increases in complexity, with the number of global wheat and rice trade connections doubling and trade flows increasing by 42 and 90%, respectively. The increased connectivity and flows within these global trade networks suggest that the global food system is vulnerable to systemic disruptions, especially considering the tendency for exporting countries to switch to non-exporting states during times of food scarcity in the global markets. To test this hypothesis, we superimpose continental-scale disruptions on the wheat and rice trade networks. We find greater absolute reductions in global wheat and rice exports along with larger losses in network connectivity as the networks evolve due to disruptions in European wheat and Asian rice production. Importantly, our findings indicate that least developed countries suffer greater import losses in more connected networks through their increased dependence on imports for staple foods (due to these large-scale disturbances): mean (median) wheat losses as percentages of staple food supply are 8.9% (3.8%) for 1992-1996, increasing to 11% (5.7%) for 2005-2009. Over the same intervals, rice losses increase from 8.2% (2.2%) to 14% (5.2%). Our work indicates that policy efforts should focus on balancing the efficiency of international trade (and its associated specialization) with increased resilience of domestic production and global demand diversity.

Writing a Recipe for Teaching Sustainable Food Systems: Lessons from Three University Courses

“…Food systems scholars have developed a broad array of system dynamic simulation, scenario, and modeling approaches that incorporate physical sciences and socio-economic factors for an integrated approach to understanding issues ranging from food waste, land use, climate change, market integration, and others [2,[24][25][26][27]. Given that our food systems classes are interdisciplinary and cover a broad range of material, we can introduce our students to this literature to demonstrate approaches and findings.…”

“…These include environmental uncertainty and depletion arising in part from impacted agricultural systems, social disruptions from resource conflicts, and structural economic shocks and stresses such as chronic income inequality. Crafting a sustainable and resilient food system requires us to face wicked problems that go beyond disciplinary boundaries, broaden critical and creative thinking skills, and engage in food system capacity building [1][2][3][4][5][6].…”

Agroecology: A Global Paradigm to Challenge Mainstream Industrial Agriculture

“…Concerns have also been raised about the increased homogeneity of the food supply at a regional and global scale, resulting in a general decline in global food security with 85% of countries showing marginal or low food self-sufficiency indices [29][30][31]. Calls have also been made to revisit issues of agricultural sustainability concerning the impending environmental impacts of climate change and its effect on agriculture [3,[32][33][34].…”

Historic Food Production Shocks: Quantifying the Extremes

“…A globalised market can make the system itself more resilient to localised shocks when food can be sourced from alternative places not experiencing the particular shock. However, if there are systemic linked events in different regions or across a wide region, or an event is of sufficient size, then this system can be perversely more fragile [9,10]. In particular the tele-connected nature of extreme weather events is becoming an increasing focus of research [9] and while the short to medium term dynamics are not well understood at present it is important to develop methods that can use the outputs of these models to assess potential social impacts.…”

“…That is, in a setting where countries are increasingly interconnected and more food is traded globally over the (last two decades), a significant majority of countries are either dependent on imports for their staple food supply or would look to imports to meet any supply shortfalls. [10] A crop production shock results in a global food supply shock through trade and export restrictions [16,17]. The responses of markets and governments to production shocks have been the subject of numerous studies since the 2007/08 price shocks [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] and range from short term speculation to more fundamental changes in policies.…”