Uncovering the Research Gaps to Alleviate the Negative Impacts of Climate Change on Food Security: A Review

Abstract

Climatic variability has been acquiring an extensive consideration due to its widespread ability to impact food production and livelihoods. Climate change has the potential to intersperse global approaches in alleviating hunger and undernutrition. It is hypothesized that climate shifts bring substantial negative impacts on food production systems, thereby intimidating food security. Vast developments have been made addressing the global climate change, undernourishment, and hunger for the last few decades, partly due to the increase in food productivity through augmented agricultural managements. However, the growing population has increased the demand for food, putting pressure on food systems. Moreover, the potential climate change impacts are still unclear more obviously at the regional scales. Climate change is expected to boost food insecurity challenges in areas already vulnerable to climate change. Human-induced climate change is expected to impact food quality, quantity, and potentiality to dispense it equitably. Global capabilities to ascertain the food security and nutritional reasonableness facing expeditious shifts in biophysical conditions are likely to be the main factors determining the level of global disease incidence. It can be apprehended that all food security components (mainly food access and utilization) likely be under indirect effect via pledged impacts on ménage, incomes, and damages to health. The corroboration supports the dire need for huge focused investments in mitigation and adaptation measures to have sustainable, climate-smart, eco-friendly, and climate stress resilient food production systems. In this paper, we discussed the foremost pathways of how climate change impacts our food production systems as well as the social, and economic factors that in the mastery of unbiased food distribution. Likewise, we analyze the research gaps and biases about climate change and food security. Climate change is often responsible for food insecurity issues, not focusing on the fact that food production systems have magnified the climate change process. Provided the critical threats to food security, the focus needs to be shifted to an implementation oriented-agenda to potentially cope with current challenges. Therefore, this review seeks to have a more unprejudiced view and thus interpret the fusion association between climate change and food security by imperatively scrutinizing all factors.

Keywords: climate adaptation; climate-smart food; environmental stresses; food safety; future crops; implementation challenges.

FIGURE 1

Schematic representation of climate change impacts on global food security and nutrition.

FIGURE 2

World’s undernourished population (The undernourished are those with a caloric intake less than the minimum daily requirement; LAC, Latin America and the Caribbean; Source: ADB calculations based on economy-level estimates from the FAO Food Security Indicators), http://www.fao.org/economic/ess/ess-fs/ess-fadata/en/.

FIGURE 3

Impacts of climatic variabilities on livestock production including policy makings and market demand and supply.

FIGURE 4

Important components of action-based research critical to ensure food security research gaps.

FIGURE 5

Important components of adaptation technology system (ATS) and adaptation measures for a resilient food system.

FIGURE 6

Adaptation and mitigation measures to ensure food security.

FIGURE 7

Role of financial services to address the issues of food security worldwide.

FIGURE 8

Importance of interlinked multi-stakeholder interactions to better address the food security challenges.