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Food insecurity is a perennial problem in much of the developing world, with gains against hunger backsliding in recent years and climate change predicted to accelerate this trend. Food insecurity is highly disruptive to rural livelihoods and can lead to dramatic shifts in food production strategies and resultant land use. However, studies to date have yet to outline the overarching patterns of land use change that can result from food insecurity. We elucidate the impact of food insecurity events between 2013 and 2020 in 25 low- and middle-income countries on resulting land use change and demographics. Using propensity score matching, we create a counterfactual and assess changes in forest cover, crop cover, population and nighttime luminosity between regions that experience food insecurity and comparable food-secure regions. Land use change theory, specifically the classical trajectories of agricultural intensification, land rent theory, and regime shifts help to explain observed land use trajectories. We find that food insecurity events lead to around a 4 % decline in population and a 3 % decline in cropped areas, alongside a 4 % increase in forest cover compared to control regions. Additionally, we show that drought-driven food insecurity drives impacts on land use and conflict-driven food insecurity shows greater impacts on population and nighttime luminosity. Food insecurity shocks result in an increase in population and crop cover in urban areas despite losses in adjoining rural land, suggesting that food insecurity drives local rural to urban migration. Furthermore, by assessing the impacts of discrete food insecurity events in three countries, we find that regional contexts mediate impacts by producing variable land use change trajectories.
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The need to include wild foods in climate change adaptation strategies
Declining wild food use has been reported around the world for decades, with important implications for nutrition and well-being. Commonly listed threats include land-use change and overharvesting. Climate change acts to compound these. Herein, we examine the importance of wild foods around the world and the impact of climate change on wild food species. We highlight large variations between regions, both in terms of climate impacts on wild foods and their importance. The emerging evidence suggests that, in addition to the Arctic, arid regions (such as the Sahel region of West Africa) and mountain regions (such as the Himalayas) may be particularly vulnerable to the impact of climate change on wild foods. We conclude with a reflection on the role of wild foods in climate change adaptation strategies and the ways that climate change adaptation strategies could threaten or enhance availability and accessibility to wild foods.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1927827
- PAR ID:
- 10480270
- Publisher / Repository:
- Elsevier
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability
- Volume:
- 63
- Issue:
- C
- ISSN:
- 1877-3435
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 101302
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2023.101302
