A new integrated assessment framework for climate-smart food security in sub-Saharan Africa: methods and phase I results

Abstract:

Food system outcomes depend upon a range of interacting factors. Domestic climate change impacts, land-use patterns and dietary habits all play a role in determining local supply and demand. National policy influences all of these factors, as well as influencing outcomes through policy on international trade, climate change mitigation targets and domestic nutrition security. The complexity of the inter-related set of climate change and food security risks and responses means that no single modelling system can be used to assess the functioning of food systems under climate change. Here, we present a new integrated assessment framework (IAF) that combines crop-climate-emissions modelling with analyses of the FAO food balance sheets and trade data in order to map out food system outcomes under a range of climate, technological, policy and market futures.

The IAF uses scenarios of land use, productivity and trade that have been developed jointly with stakeholders and form the basis of an empirical examination of the interactions between mitigation, food production and sustainable nutrition through modelling. The scenarios are being used to test hypotheses and, in consultation with stakeholders, develop pathways towards a) sustainable sinks and sources of greenhouse gas emissions, b) climate resilient agricultural food production systems, and c) sustainable nutrition security in 2050. The novel methodology proposed draws on existing tools and expertise to address the timely and fundamental question of how Paris-compliant agriculture can be achieved alongside the SDGs.

The outcome of this process is an assessment of national nutrition security, greenhouse gas emissions and resilience to extremes for a range of policy-oriented future land use patterns. Assessed trade-offs include indications of how plausible trade futures affect national nutrition security. Initial results suggest, amongst other things, that climate-induced losses to crop yields can be mitigated by possible expansion of cropland for crop production, but with consequences for emissions and nutrition security.