Model-based Assessment of Potential Risks of Food Insecurity

at a Global Scale

Wenbin WU(吴文斌)

International Conference on Climate Change and Food Security

Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China

What is food security?

Food security—all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (FAO,1996).

“让所有人在任何时候都能在物质上和经济上获得充足的、安全的和有营养的食物，来满足其积极和健康生活的膳食需要及食物喜好”

The food security status of any group can be normally considered as the principle outcome of food systems.

Four components of food security

Food availability: the availability of sufficient food, i.e., to the overall ability of the agricultural system to meet food demand.

Food accessibility: the ability of a unit of individuals to obtain access to acquire appropriate foods for a nutritious diet.

Food utilization: individual or household capacity to consume and benefit from food.

More recently, as climate change issues have caught great attention from the world, food stability is also considered one important component of food security. individuals who are at high risk of temporarily or permanently

losing their access to the resources needed to consume adequate food.

Understanding food security is of great implications

FAO, 2009 IFPRI, 2009

Many countries (in particular developing countries) are fighting against the food crisis in different ways. These are usually based on a better understanding of the

dynamics, risks and forces that shape the factors affecting food security . Assessment of food security status is thus high on the

policy agenda of most countries.

What about the future situation?

There has been considerable progress in assessing food security at different space and time scales.

We have little knowledge about the future food security situation: How it will evolve over time and what are the major

impacts of these future changes?

It is not possible to predict future food security status due to uncertainties in future social, political and economic development.

What about the future situation?

It is possible to explore what might happen given certain assumptions about societal and environmental changes through scenario construction: Improved foresight of food security can help better inform policy

decisions.

Scenario-based studies provide an appropriate tool to

develop plausible visions of future pathways of food security

This research attempts to assess the potential risks of food insecurity under given future scenarios.

Methodology in this study

Those studies, which focus only on crop production,

provide only a partial assessment of food security.

A holistic approach for assessment of food security is used in this study to cover the major components of food security as many as possible.

A multi-factor, multi-model and spatially explicit assessment method is proposed in this study.

A spatially explicit assessment method

3

Traditional method: assessment of food security are normally conducted at a national or regional level.

These analyses of food security have some limitations： Not reflect the considerable variations in the food security

situation within a particular country or region. Coarse results and lower spatial location description.

Time1 Time2

Secure or Security grades?

A a spatially explicit assessment method

3

This study: specific attention is paid to develop a spatially explicit assessment method for food security.

Spatial information technologies (Remote sensing, GIS and Spatial models) are used for method development.

Time1 Time2

Secure or Security grades in

each pixel

A multi-factor and multi-model method

Indicators Factors

Models

Per capita food availability

Food availability and stability

Per capita GDP

Food accessibility and affordability

Social factors

Population status

Economic factors

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

Biophysical factors

Food production

Crop yields

GIS-based EPIC model

Crop sown areas

Crop choice decision model

Crop price and trade

IFPSIM model

Crop area model—crop choice decision model

The crop choice decision model was used to analyze the changes in crop areas by investigating changes in crop choice decisions among a variety of available alternatives.

Land user

Landscape

Natural ecosystem

Socio-economic system

Crop choice decision

Crop yield model—GIS-based EPIC model

Wheat

Maize

Rice

Soybean

Soils

Planting date

Cropping system

Topography

Irrigation

Global land use

Harvest date

The GIS-based EPIC was used to estimate the potential yields of different crop types under a given biophysical and agricultural management environment.

Crop price model—IFPRIM model

Crop price was assessed by the International Food Policy and Agricultural Simulation (IFPSIM) model.

Food supply

(In collaboration with the University of Tokyo, Japan)

Future scenario setting

Time period for scenario analysis: 2000-2020

Scenario development

Scenario analysis

Global total population

Average growth rate of global urban population

Global total GDP

Growth rate of urban population for countries

Total population for countries

Growth rate of GM crops for major countries

Socio-economic scenarios: describes the key elements, such as demography, economic development, technology, and policy interventions, which together provide the description of a possible future state of the world.

High economic growth rate

IPCC SRES: A1 scenario

Relatively low population growth

Climate change scenarios: Defines the major features of future climate change, which may strongly drive changes in the crop yield and cropping systems in future; Monthly maximum temperature, minimum temperature and precipitation data between 2000 and 2020 were obtained from the high resolution projections of MIROC (developed by the University of Tokyo, Japan).

3600 1800 100

year

MIROC simulated data for 1901-2000

(1.1 degree)

CRU observation data for 1901-2000

(0.5 degree)

3600 1800 100

year 3600

1800 20 year

MIROC simulated data for 2000-2020

(1.1 degree)

Downscaling (0.1 degree)

Grid by grid regression

Downscaling (0.1 degree)

Downscaling (0.1 degree)

Grid by grid bias correction Method for climate data calibration

Steps for assessing potential risks of food insecurity

Step 1: Based on the simulated crop yields and crop areas, the changes in total food production were assessed by comparing the food production in 2020 with that in 2000. Change ratio of total food production (CR_p) was calculated with the following Equation:

Y is the crop yield for crop type i; A is the crop areas for crop type i; n is the total number of crops.

∑

∑

=

=4

1i

2000i

2000i

4

1ii

2020i

A*Y

A*YpCR

2020

－ －

Steps for assessing potential risks of food insecurity

Step 2: To understand whether the projected changes in total food production will influence the overall food availability, relative changes in per capita food availability (CR_a) for the same period were calculated:

Y is the crop yield for crop type i; A is the crop areas for crop type i; POP is the total population; n is the total number of crops.

20004

1i

2000i

2000i

20204

1i

2020i

2020i

POPA*Y

POPA*YaCR

∑

∑

=

=－－

4. Steps for assessing potential risks of food insecurity

Step 3: A separate analysis for the changes in per capita GDP were undertaken because it can strongly impact the purchasing power and determine whether a country or region is able to import more food from outside. First computed the overall increase in per capita GDP between

2000 and 2020.

Then calculated the relative difference between the growth rate of per capita GDP in a grid cell and the average per capita growth rate.

Steps for assessing potential risks of food insecurity

Step 4: The changes in per capita food availability and the changes in per capita GDP were combined to examine the hotspots of potential risks of food insecurity for the study period through identifying the areas: With decreased per capita food availability.

With a slower growth rate of per capita GDP than the

average growth rate.

Rice

Maize

2000

2020

－i

i

YYCR

CR: change ratio; Y: crop yield for crop type i;

Simulation results--changes in crop yields

Wheat

Soybean

Simulation results--changes in crop yields

2000

2020

－i

i

YYCR

CR: change ratio; Y: crop yield for crop type i;

Simulation results--changes in crop areas

2000

2020

Simulation results--changes in crop areas

0

40

80

120

160R

ice

Mai

ze

Whe

at

Soyb

ean

Ric

e

Mai

ze

Whe

at

Soyb

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Ric

e

Mai

ze

Whe

at

Soyb

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Ric

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Mai

ze

Whe

at

Soyb

ean

Ric

e

Mai

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Whe

at

Soyb

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Ric

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Mai

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Soyb

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Africa Asia Europe Latin-America North-America Oceania

Sow

n A

rea

(in m

illio

n he

ctar

es)

2000 2020

Sown areas of rice, maize and wheat were predicted to increase in each continent. Soybean areas declined in Africa, Asia and North-America, but slightly increased in other regions.

Changes in total food production

Changes in total food production

∑

∑

=

=4

1

20002000

4

1

20202020

*

*

－

iii

iii

AY

AY

CR

CR: change ratio; Y: crop yield for crop type i; A: crop areas for crop type i.

Climate change will result in a reduction in total food production during 2000–2020 in several regions such as southern China, southern and south-eastern Asia, western and eastern Europe, Northern Great Plains in USA, Brazil and some African countries.

Climate change will lead to an increase in total food production in some regions in northern China, northern India, northern Europe, Central USA, Argentina, Australia and some eastern African countries such as Kenya and Zimbabwe.

Changes in per capita food availability

Change in per capita food availability

20002000

20202020

//

－POPTotalPOPTotal

CR

CR: change ratio; Total: total food production; POP: Total population.

A substantial increase in per capita food availability can be found in Northeast China, eastern and southern Europe, USA and Brazil.

Noticeable increase can also be found in southeastern Asia, Argentina, south-eastern Africa and Australia.

Decreases in per capita food availability are located in Northern and Southern China, most southern and south-eastern Asian countries, western Europe, USA, Brazil, Argentina, and most African countries.

Changes in per capita GDP

Change in per capita GDP with respect to the global average

Areas with the highest growth rate of GDP per capita are located in developing countries such as China, south-eastern Asian countries and Latin-American countries, and some south-eastern and northern African countries such as Botswana, Mozambique, Morocco and Egypt.

The areas located in southern Asian countries and most African countries are likely to experience a dramatic decrease in the capacity to import food on a per capita basis than currently as the growth rates of GDP in these areas are 35-50% lower than the world average.

Improve the food security situation: either an increase in per capita food availability or an increase in the capacity to import food. Remain the hotspots of food insecurity: a decrease in both the

per capita food availability and the capacity of being able to import food.

Potential risks of global food insecurity

Developed countries will still be food-secure: their populations less rely on subsistence agriculture, have

higher financial support and purchasing power, the substantial adaptive capacity and proactive food management systems.

Potential risks of global food insecurity

Protect the quantity and quality of farmlands and invest more to improve land productivity so as to provide enough food supply (Food Availability).

Build efficient agricultural subsidy systems to improve the farming income and strengthen purchase power(Food Affordability).

Reform the food circulation and agricultural commodity trade systems to enlarge food supply by linking to outside international and domestic market (Food Accessibility).

Actively improve the adaptive capability of agriculture in response to climate change to ensure a stable food production(Food Stability).

Recommendations for reducing food insecurity risks

International Conference on Climate Change and Food Security

Thank you very much for your attention!!!

wwb@mail.caas.net.cn