War, Conflict, and Food Insecurity

Shemyakina, Olga

doi:10.1146/annurev-resource-111920-021918

Cited by 20 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 92 publications

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“…The methodological rigour of included studies was not examined nor called into question. Developing a comparative measure of the strength of underlying evidence was beyond the scope of a study of this scale, although analysis of a smaller number of studies may have included some discussion of rigour (see Shemyakina, 2022). We also retained a deliberately broad definition of conflict and food systems in our search and included a wide range of studies in our final analysis.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The following scoping does not aim to provide a review of research on conflict's effect on food security specifically, which has been extensively surveyed elsewhere (see Shemyakina, 2022). Instead, our focus is on understanding conflict's impacts on the different components of food systems, which may (or may not) ultimately result in food insecurity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Conflict's impacts on food systems: Mapping available evidence of interactions

Dowd,

Polzin,

Gleason

et al. 2024

J of Intl Development

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This scoping study maps the conflict and food systems nexus to identify broad themes, specific components and remaining gaps in research. Applying systems thinking and network analysis, the analysis points to three trends. First, studies are heavily focused on production, with relatively less attention to aspects including transport, trade and household utilisation. Second, geographically, food systems within Africa and at country‐level are well‐represented in existing research, at the expense of other regions and scales. Third, specific modalities of violence are often omitted, and we observe a tendency to aggregate discrete forms of insecurity. The study has implications for scholars and practitioners seeking to better understand and respond to conflict's impacts on food systems and suggests avenues for further research.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conflict's impacts on food systems: Mapping available evidence of interactions

Dowd,

Polzin,

Gleason

et al. 2024

J of Intl Development

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“…The strong relationship between violent conflict and food insecurity is well established in the literature (Brück et al, 2019a;Kaila & Azad, 2023;Martin-Shields & Stojetz, 2019). Conflict shapes multiple aspects of food production and consumption, and consequently impacts nutrition and health (Shemyakina, 2022;Rudolfsen, 2020). For example, armed conflict has shown to negatively affect farm production where lack of inputs such as seeds, fertilisers, and tools becomes more prevalent (Baliki et al, 2022a;Lin et al, 2022).…”

Section: Contribution To the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Seeds for recovery: The long-term impacts of a complex agricultural intervention on welfare, behaviour and stability in Syria (SEEDS)

Baliki¹,

Weiffen²,

Daccache³

et al. 2023

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There is scarce evidence on whether and how assistance in humanitarian emergencies and conflict settings impacts household well-being and behaviour. Conducting rigorous impact evaluations in such settings poses multiple challenges in design and data collection. In SEEDS, we evaluate the impact of a complex large-scale multi-arm agricultural intervention on productivity, food security, and resilience in the context of an on-going humanitarian crisis in Syria. Specifically, we identify the causal impacts of agricultural asset transfers over various time horizons (the short-, medium-, and long-run), and across different conditions and subgroups (gender and conflict intensity) at the household-level. We evaluate the effectiveness of irrigation rehabilitation separately at the community-level. We use and combine various data sources, including a unique survey panel dataset collected over a period of four years from multiple governorates in Syria, satellite remote-sensing data, and publicly available violent conflict incidence and weather data. Our findings from using cutting-edge machine and deep learning approaches together with innovative balancing and analytical methods can be summarised as follows: For average treatment effects at the household-level, we find that the provision of agricultural asset support leads to significant improvements in food security in the short- and long-term, three years after the intervention. The positive and significant effect on food security is driven mainly by the increased consumption of healthy food items such as vegetables. In the long-run, livestock support reduces the use of harmful coping strategies households employ to deal with food shortages. Interestingly, we find that households who received vegetable kits are not just less likely to sell their productive assets in the long-term but also are less likely to marry off their young daughters or send their children to work. Overall, we find that both agricultural and livestock asset support is key to improving households’ resilience in the long-term. The irrigation rehabilitation interventions at the community-level positively affected agricultural productivity compared to the pre-intervention and pre-conflict periods. However, these effects were only significantly pronounced in the spring season. As for the heterogeneity analysis, we find that female-headed households benefit remarkably more in terms of food security in the medium-term compared to male-headed families. Moreover, households residing in areas that are moderately affected by violent conflict show stronger food security improvements compared to households from peaceful or conflict-intense settings. Overall, we draw three overarching lessons from our findings in SEEDS: First, agricultural support in protracted conflict settings effectively improves the long-term welfare and resilience of vulnerable households. In fact, the presence of an ongoing humanitarian operation acts as a social safety net if circumstances deteriorate suddenly. Second, not all interventions are equally effective, and not all households equally benefit, underscoring the need to design and implement inclusive context-specific interventions with detailed targeting. Third, methodologically, using multiple remote data sources and machine learning methods help overcome challenges in conducting rigorous impact evaluations in hard-to-reach humanitarian emergency settings.

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“…To date, several countries across the globe, unfortunately, are affected by diverse conflicts in multiple regions of their territories: Ukraine, Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Mali, Nigeria, Mozambique, Afghanistan, Palestine, Mexico, and Haiti, among others. Such conflicts are preventing the full potential of food production from being achieved, and this results in severe repercussions, which transcend frontiers (Shemyakina, 2022). For instance, the conflict in Ukraine is affecting many countries that usually import significant amounts of crops produced in Ukraine and Russia (Bentley, 2022; Our World in Data, 2022).…”

Section: How Does Conflict Impact Food Security?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Addressing another threat to food safety: Conflict

Ortega‐Beltran

Bandyopadhyay

2023

Plants People Planet

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Societal Impact Statement The conflict between Ukraine and Russia will negatively affect not only food security but also food safety. Crops produced in Ukraine and Russia are at little risk of contamination by mycotoxins such as aflatoxin. However, due to the conflict, wheat, maize, sunflower, and other crops that would have been produced in and exported from Ukraine will need to be produced somewhere else. If done in warm production areas, strategies will need to be implemented to prevent mycotoxin contamination, which has negative health, social, and economic impacts. Summary Conflicts across the globe affect food security and also have a heavy toll on food safety. Many of the areas affected by conflict are breadbaskets for multiple countries. When the production of staple crops is compromised by diverse conflicts, it becomes necessary to grow them somewhere else to satisfy local, regional, and/or international requirements. However, if that production is done in tropical and subtropical zones, it must be done incorporating strategies to prevent mycotoxin contamination, which has negative health, social, and economic impacts. Otherwise, increased production of susceptible crops in mycotoxin‐prone areas may augment the already occurring negative impacts, which are severe in the global south.

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War, Conflict, and Food Insecurity

Cited by 20 publications

References 92 publications

Conflict's impacts on food systems: Mapping available evidence of interactions

Conflict's impacts on food systems: Mapping available evidence of interactions

Seeds for recovery: The long-term impacts of a complex agricultural intervention on welfare, behaviour and stability in Syria (SEEDS)

Addressing another threat to food safety: Conflict

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