Climate Change and Food Security

Book excerpt: Global climatic change has resulted in new and unpredictable patterns of precipitation and temperature, the increased frequency of extreme weather events and rising sea levels. These changes impact all four aspects of food security – availability, accessibility, stability of supply and appropriate nourishment – as well as the entire food system – food production, marketing, processing, distribution and prices. Climate Change and Food Security focuses on the challenge to food security posed by a changing climate. The book brings together many of the critical global concerns of climate change and food security through local cases based on empirical studies undertaken in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean. Focusing on risk reduction and the complex nature of vulnerability to climate change, the book includes chapters on the responsiveness of farmers based on traditional knowledge, as well as the critical phenomenon of food insecurity in the urban setting. Other chapters are devoted to efforts made to strengthen resilience through long-term development, with interventions at the regional and national levels of scale. It also examines cross-cutting themes that underlie the strategies employed to achieve food security, including equity, gender, livelihoods and governance. This edited volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, food security, environmental management and sustainable development.