Teleconnected food supply shocks

Abstract

The 2008-2010 food crisis might have been a harbinger of fundamental climate-induced food crises with geopolitical implications. Heat-wave-induced yield losses in Russia and resulting export restrictions led to increases in market prices for wheat across the Middle East, likely contributing to the Arab Spring. With ongoing climate change, temperatures and temperature variability will rise, leading to higher uncertainty in yields for major nutritional crops. Here we investigate which countries are most vulnerable to teleconnected supply-shocks, i.e. where diets strongly rely on the import of wheat, maize, or rice, and where a large share of the population is living in poverty. We find that the Middle East is most sensitive to teleconnected supply shocks in wheat, Central America to supply shocks in maize, and Western Africa to supply shocks in rice. Weighing with poverty levels, Sub-Saharan Africa is most affected. Altogether, a simultaneous 10% reduction in exports of wheat, rice, and maize would reduce caloric intake of 55 million people living in poverty by about 5%. Export bans in major producing regions would put up to 200 million people below the poverty line at risk, 90% of which live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our results suggest that a region-specific combination of national increases in agricultural productivity and diversification of trade partners and diets can effectively decrease future food security risks.

Social and economic impacts of climate

“…However, these adjustments may be limited-historical evidence of intertemporal substitution is minimal for aggregate incomes (32, 100) and cyclone damages (116), and in the future, sequential periods of similar extreme conditions may make such reallocations over time more difficult. Reallocation across space may also be constrained in the future-current simulations disagree as to whether adjustment of trade patterns under climate change will dampen or amplify its overall social costs (45,119,120 …”

The Global Food‐Energy‐Water Nexus

“…Such an approach has been attempted by some partial equilibrium trade models (e.g., the International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade by the IFPRI) developed to support policymakers in reducing poverty and hunger (e.g., Godfray et al, 2016). Other models have been developed to investigate the short-term response to shocks (e.g., Puma et al, 2015;Tamea et al, 2016;D'Amour et al, 2016;Gephart, Rovenskaya, et al, 2016;Marchand et al, 2016). These models do not invoke equilibrium conditions, which could be hard to attain in the short-term response to an abrupt production shock.…”

A relational view of climate adaptation in the private sector: How do value chain interactions shape business perceptions of climate risk and adaptive behaviours?

“…Resource diversification strategies have been acknowledged as an important adaptive strategy for firms that rely on yields and operations that are highly affected by climate (Bren D'Amour, Wenz, Kalkuhl, Christoph Stechel, & Creutzig, ; Crick et al, ; Linnenluecke, Stathakis, & Griffiths, ). Diversification, however, requires new network relationships to be fostered and developed, either within existing or new business environments.…”