Vulnerability Research
An improved understanding of food system vulnerability to GEC is a central component of GECAFS. It is important because the capacity to cope with existing variability in biophysical and socioeconomic systems, and the ability to perceive GEC and adapt food systems, underpins food security.
Vulnerability research has, to date, typically been place-based and focused on either environmental or social vulnerability. A new approach to vulnerability studies specifically relevant to food systems research is needed. Environmental vulnerability refers to stresses originating from drought, storms and landslides and other such phenomena, often exacerbated by human-induced factors such as deforestation, land degradation, soil erosion, land and water pollution, etc. Social vulnerability relates to communities’ lack of capacity to cope with and recover from all kinds of stresses, including, but not limited to, environmental stresses.
(Adapted from Ingram and Brklacich, 2006)
The diagram above shows how the vulnerability of food systems is not determined by the nature and magnitude of environmental stress per se. It is determined by a society’s capacity to cope with, and/or recover from GEC, coupled with the degree of exposure to stress. While the coping capacity and degree of exposure are both related to environmental changes, they are both also related to changes in societal aspects such as institutions and resource accessibility. Finally, changes in the food system aimed at reducing vulnerability feed back to environmental and societal changes themselves. They may, for example, reinforce agricultural practices that either reduce or exacerbate land degradation and increase or reduce farm profitability. The research aim is to enhance understanding of how integrating concepts of food system social vulnerability to GEC with concepts from natural science can provide a more holistic approach to vulnerability studies in the context of GEC.
Initial work is focused on developing an improved theory to couple concepts of ecological and social vulnerability, developing integrated research methods and constructing case studies that can be synthesised across regions and food systems. It will build on previous research, which has focused largely on micro-scale issues, and adapt it for analyses at regional level that will characterise GECAFS food systems projects. Methods will be reviewed for determining present vulnerability of food systems to GEC and extended to allow assessment of future vulnerability based on integrated scenarios of GEC. This work will be followed with research to design an integrated methodology suitable for GECAFS studies and evaluate it in the context of a number of the regionally-based food systems.
The GECAFS theme on vulnerability will draw upon existing research programmes and developments. The following are of particular relevance to the implementation of vulnerability assessment in GECAFS regional projects:
Livelihood-based food security assessments and future vulnerabilities. There has been considerable progress in employing human livelihoods to assess local food security over relatively short periods of time. These approaches provide a foundation for GECAFS vulnerability assessments but their applicability at regional scales and over longer timelines needs to be tested.
Multiple-stressors and vulnerability hot spots. Assigning weights to the multiple dimensions of vulnerability, particularly in their representation of stakeholders’ different views and values, and in identifying consensus or conflicts in vulnerability mapping should be further explored.
Multi-level modelling. Understanding vulnerability and multiple stresses embedded in regional environmental and economic models provides a means to represent the exposure of vulnerable groups within more conventional regional assessments. In addition, global scenarios are poorly connected to the regional scale that interests GECAFS. Similarly, the global scenario driving forces are unlikely to represent the regional conditions and driving forces of food security.
Linking vulnerability to food security. Vulnerability assessments have typically focused on identifying communities and regions that are food insecure. They have not been designed to examine strategies promoting future food security. Merging vulnerability assessments with adaptation and resilience research provides an opportunity to provide explicit links between vulnerability assessments and the formulation of policies supporting future food security.
Key vulnerability research issues relating to food systems are:
- Which aspects of food systems (availability, accessibility, utilisation) are now most vulnerable to environmental stress and which stresses are most threatening?
- How might these vulnerabilities change and to what extent might GEC either heighten or mitigate these vulnerabilities?
- Which strategies, involving both the private and public sectors, will most likely reduce food system vulnerabilities and thereby increase food security?