The Project
Summary
Food production, processing and consumption are interconnected all over the world, forming a highly complex “food system”. This system should provide sufficient food to a growing global population, no matter how much the climate changes, or how scarce resources become. It should also avoid causing environmental and social damage.
Changes in the food system are urgently required, in order to improve its outcomes for food security, and environmental and social welfare. Decision-makers need to be able to estimate where and how they can make the necessary changes, without making things worse elsewhere. They also need to know if such changes will allow the system to carry on functioning even if there are disturbances (such as natural disasters, market-related shocks, political crises, etc.). This requires the development of new tools, which can capture the complexity of the system, and evaluate its resilience to disturbances.
Detailed Description
We seek to develop a practice-oriented tool allowing the assessment of resilience and outcomes in food value chains, and supporting the design of interventions by decision-makers. This tool should account for the complex and dynamic interactions and feedbacks that can occur at multiple spatial and temporal scales, between processes, stakeholders, drivers (such as environmental change), outcomes (such as food security, environmental and social welfare). However, the tool should also be applicable in practice, meaning it should be as simple as possible, but not so simple that results are unreliable.
Phase I:
We will select and evaluate existing modeling approaches addressing parts of the food system, and determine the adequate level of quantitative and qualitative detail required in data and models (e.g. using sensitivity and uncertainty analysis).
The model approaches retained will then be assembled together in a holistic framework, coupling system dynamics approaches (such as agent based modeling), system mapping approaches (such as life cycle assessment or material flow analysis), resilience indicators, and stakeholder participation techniques.
These model approaches are currently applied in various case studies.
Phase II:
The models and framework will be transformed into an operational tool. Ultimately, the application of such a tool will contribute to the much needed generation of empirical knowledge on the food system and intervention design.