Does climate change only affect food availability? What else matters?

Figures & data

Figure 1. Factors determine the vulnerability of food systems to global environmental change.

Source: Ingram, Gregory, and Brklacich (2005)

Table 1. Summary of the studies on climate change impacts on food availability

Main themes	Key issues	Studies
CC impacts on agriculture, fisheries, and livestock production quality and quantity, which affect to efforts of increasing food availability. Impacts of promoting food availability.	Limitations in climate-crop modelling create gaps in evidence of climate change impacts on food security and its four dimensions. Temperature increase generates negative impacts on crop yields and natural habitats. Decline of crop productions in developing countries due to extreme climate events and natural resources depletion. Promoting food availability have positive impacts on poverty alleviation, malnutrition etc.	Campbell et al. (2016), Funk and Brown (2009), Rosenzweig et al. (2014), Schlenker and Lobell (2010), Wheeler and von Braun (2013), Wheeler et al. (2000)
CC impacts on crop productivity and interventions in food systems. CC impacts on the hydrological cycle, change in rainfall patterns and droughts. CC impacts on oceans, coasts, and marine ecosystems.	CC impacts on food availability; however, it adversely affects poor and vulnerable communities. Poor adaptation and mitigation strategies and weak learning feedbacks intensify the adverse effects of climate change. CC impacts on world agroecosystems, livestock, fisheries, habitats, and overall livelihoods.	Constinot et al. (2016), Mantua et al. (2010), McClean et al. (2005), Vermeulen et al. (2012), Ziervogel and Ericksen (2010)
Positive and negative effects of CO2 concentration and fertilisation on food crop productions. Impacts of crop expose to excess water, drought, heatwaves or temperature.	CO2 fertilisation has limited positive effects on crop products, while extreme changes in temperature and rainfall significantly affect the yields negatively. Every crop models have their limitations to assess CC impacts on agricultural systems. Counterproductive effects of CC on crops due to the proliferation of pests, diseases, and weeds.	Darwin and Kennedy (2000), Long et al. (2004), Reilly et al. (2003), Tubiello et al. (2007), Vermeulen et al. (2012)
Impacts of climate change on agricultural food processing, storage, distribution, and consumption patterns.	Scarcity of food due to supply chain failures, post-harvest losses, and food wastes. Pest attacks, microorganism infections and diseases in African and South Asian regions. Impacts of CC on roads, storages and distribution systems increase the costs of food productions. Limited studies on food systems, distribution and consumption patterns.	Abbade (2017), Chodur et al. (2018), FAO (2008a), Hendrix and Salehyan (2012), Niles et al. (2018), Nukenine (2010)

Table 2. Studies on climate change and its impacts on food accessibility

Main themes	Key issues	Studies
CC impacts on food access, markets and policies. CC impacts on food affordability, allocation and food preferences.	Access to food depends on socio-pollical, cultural, economic and market structures of society. Sub-Saharan Africa suffers from more CC impact on crop yields, hence challenge the access to food. Damaged crop products and farm assets by CC force farmers and the poor to reduce food intake. CC impacts on household food costs hikes.	Campbell et al. (2016), Hertel and Rosch (2010), Reidsma et al. (2010), Schlenker and Lobell (2010) Schmidhuber and Tubiello (2007)
Food access as a socio-cultural, spiritual and economic act.	Resources availability, capacities of individuals, societies, and countries define food access. Crop failures in developing countries and lacks disaster preparedness challenge food access. Regional variations of CC cause different impacts on food access and diversity and food culture. Limited studies in CC impacts on food culture, spiritual and nutritional values.	Brown et al. (2015), Islam and Wong (2017), Leroy et al. (2015), Myers et al. (2017), Schmidhuber and Tubiello (2007), Zewdie (2014)
Impacts of CC on food affordability define food preferences and food allocation.	Issues of purchasing power, needs of specific populations and food allocation within households. Food availability, market systems, price, and choice are vital for non-farm households. When market systems or social trust collapse due to the insufficiency of food, it may trigger food riots. Changes in food patterns challenge the lifestyle and health, exaggerate the CC, while healthy food patterns bring positive impacts on CC.	Alderman (2010), Harvey et al. (2014), Ericksen (2008), Niles et al. (2018), Timmer (2017), Wang et al. (2018), Ziervogel and Ericksen (2010)
CC impacts on wild foods, traditional crops, and food verities hence challenge cultural values.	CC alters the local wild crops and food species hence affect the traditional food, medicines and cultural and spiritual values. Food in tribal and indigenous communities is cultural, so changes in wild food challenge cultural heritage, food allocation, and preferences. Loss of traditional food due to CC challenges health and cultural values so denies the right to food.	Hertel and Rosch (2010), Jernigan et al. (2012), Lynn et al. (2013), Norgaard (2005), Weatherdon et al. (2016), Whyte (2013)

Table 3. Key findings of the studies focus on food utilisation

Main themes	Key issues	Studies
Existing knowledge in food utilisation and knowledge gaps.	Limited studies of climate change impacts on food utilisation, food quality and their determinants. Food utilisation and nutritional values of food were adversely affected yet least studied. Food utilisation represents the socio-cultural values of food and economic access to food.	Cvitanovic et al. (2016), Ericksen (2008), FAO (2008a), Gregory et al. (2009), Zewdie (2014)
Food quality, safety, and diversity. Infectious diseases and pests impact on nutritional values of food.	CC impacts on health and nutritional outcomes, issues of food, vector, and water-borne diseases. CC impacts on food utilisation challenge labour productivity, incomes and health conditions. CC increases poverty and mortality. It also affects balanced diets and caused child stunting. CC increase vector diversity propel the vector spread and impacts on the quality of food. Pests and pest controls pose health impacts.	Anderson et al. (2004), Bernardes et al. (2015), Campbell et al. (2016), Islam and Wong (2017), Nelson et al. (2009), Tirado et al. (2010), Schmidhuber and Tubiello (2007)
Considering food utilisation as sociocultural, religious and spiritual values of a society.	Food utilisation has nutritional, socio-cultural and religious values. Loss of such food varieties causes to forget socio-cultural diversities and spiritual values. Some food species have mythical and spiritual values and crucial in the socialisation process. These challenge the mitigation & adaptation to CC.	Adger et al. (2013), Cvitanovic et al. (2016), FAO (2008a), Foale (2008), O’Brien and Wolf (2010)

Table 4. Summary of the research studies on food system stability

Main themes	Key issues	Studies
Food systems stability and its impact on other dimensions of food security.	CC threats the food system stability as it changes cropping cycles and reduces crop yields. Global focus on high crop yields and value chains should move to resilient food systems at local levels since complex systems intensify the risks. Extreme weather events and food systems instability affect vulnerable groups adversely. CC cause to lost lives and livelihood, income, create food shortages and increase malnutrition and diseases. Food systems stability requires a balance between human needs and utilising natural resources.	Gilbert and Morgan (2010), Jibrillah et al. (2018), Jahn et al. (2018), Parker et al. (2019), Smith et al. (2002), Wang et al. (2018), Wheeler and von Braun (2013), Willows (2005)
Food market volatility, the stability of food systems as well as ecosystem stability and biodiversity.	CC challenges the food systems, hence, requires shifts in the socio-economic development process. Decreasing biodiversity, loss of food production resources, loss of crop and farm productivity will impact on households with limited resources and adaptive capacities. Even small CC shocks challenge the global food stocks, hence intensify food price volatility and challenge the food system stability.	Campbell et al. (2016), Kundzewicz et al. (2007), Reilly and Willenbockel (2010), Smith et al. (2002), Wheeler and von Braun (2013), Willows (2005)
Climate change impacts on demographic changes, new development trends, and markets.	Population dynamics, urbanisation and changes in consumption patterns pose risks to the food systems and environment globally and locally. Market policies, subsidies and quota systems intensify the risks pose on food systems stability. Existing CC and energy policies challenge food security dimensions, hence require new policies globally.	Beckman et al. (2012), Jahn et al. (2018), Wheeler and von Braun (2013)

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