Food Security in Emerging Economies: Trends From Scoping Review Under the Sustainability Lens

Abstract

The effects of food security issues are most evident in developing countries. The research topics influencing the debate on food security are not always easy to assess. Without a deeper understanding of the topics driving the food security research agenda may lead to bias. This study used a scoping review of the research themes associated with food security in two contexts: a world context and a developing country context. Using two sets containing 15,875 articles (for the world context) and 465 articles (for the Brazilian context), we obtained four thematic drivers in the world context (Covid-19 and civilisational socio-economic goals; climate change and food chains for sustainable development; nutrition and security health specifics; emerging economies and public policy) and four thematic drivers on the developing country context (climate change, bioenergy and biofuels; food security, nutrition and health; family farming and public policy; specific biomes and deforestation. Sustainable Development goals supported the assessment of the literature gap and two research directions were proposed as food security trade-offs and public food policy implications.