CLIMATE CHANGE AND FOOD SECURITY

CLIMATE CHANGE AND FOOD SECURITY:

A FRAMEWORK DOCUMENT

FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS ROME, 2008

Climate change and food security: a framework document

FOREWORD

Climate change will affect all four dimensions of food security: food availability, food accessibility, food utilization and food systems stability. It will have an impact on human health, livelihood assets, food production and distribution channels, as well as changing purchasing power and market flows. Its impacts will be both short term, resulting from more frequent and more intense extreme weather events, and long term, caused by changing temperatures and precipitation patterns,

People who are already vulnerable and food insecure are likely to be the first affected. Agriculture-based livelihood systems that are already vulnerable to food insecurity face immediate risk of increased crop failure, new patterns of pests and diseases, lack of appropriate seeds and planting material, and loss of livestock. People living on the coasts and floodplains and in mountains, drylands and the Arctic are most at risk.

As an indirect effect, low-income people everywhere, but particularly in urban areas, will be at risk of food insecurity owing to loss of assets and lack of adequate insurance coverage. This may also lead to shifting vulnerabilities in both developing and developed countries.

Food systems will also be affected through possible internal and international migration, resource- based conflicts and civil unrest triggered by climate change and its impacts.

Agriculture, forestry and fisheries will not only be affected by climate change, but also contribute to it through emitting greenhouse gases. They also hold part of the remedy, however; they can contribute to climate change mitigation through reducing greenhouse gas emissions by changing agricultural practices.

At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen the resilience of rural people and to help them cope with this additional threat to food security. Particularly in the agriculture sector, climate change adaptation can go hand-in-hand with mitigation. Climate change adaptation and mitigation measures need to be integrated into the overall development approaches and agenda.

This document provides background information on the interrelationship between climate change and food security, and ways to deal with the new threat. It also shows the opportunities for the agriculture sector to adapt, as well as describing how it can contribute to mitigating the climate challenge.

Wulf Killmann Chairperson

Interdepartmental Working Group on Climate Change

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Climate change and food security: a framework document

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

III

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

IX

SUMMARY

XI

ACRONYMS

XIII

INTRODUCTION

1

1. DEFINING TERMS AND CONCEPTUALIZING RELATIONSHIPS

3

Food systems and food security

3

Food security

3

Food system

3

Food chain

5

Climate and climate change

6

Climate and its measurement

6

Climate system

7

Climate variability and climate change

8

Effects of global warming on the climate system

8

Acclimatization, adaptation and mitigation

8

Climate change and food security

9

Agriculture, climate and food security

9

Food security and climate change: a conceptual framework

11

Vulnerability to climate change

12

Livelihood vulnerability

27

2. PROTECTING FOOD SECURITY THROUGH ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE

31

FAO's strategic approach

31

Living with uncertainty and managing new risks

32

Improving the quality of information and its use

34

Promoting insurance schemes for climate change risk

39

Developing national risk management policies

40

Strengthening resilience and managing change

41

Adjusting consumption and responding to new health risks

41

Intensifying food and agricultural production

42

Creating an eco-friendly energy economy

46

Adapting agriculture-based livelihood strategies

54

3. PROTECTING FOOD SECURITY THROUGH MITIGATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE

59

Reducing emissions

60

Reducing agricultural and forestry emissions of carbon dioxide

60

Reducing agricultural emissions of methane and nitrous oxide

62

Sequestering carbon

65

Reforestation and afforestation

66

Rehabilitating degraded grasslands

67

Rehabilitating cultivated soils

68

Promoting conservation agriculture

69

4. THE WAY FORWARD

71

The institutional setting for addressing food security and climate change linkages

71

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

71

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, its Conference of the

Parties, the Kyoto Protocol and the Nairobi Worlk Programme

71

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