High-Level Report Identifies Actions Needed to Address Food Security and Climate Change

A report released by the United Nations Committee for World Food Security (CFS) this week offers policymakers with a set of expert recommendations about how to address the relationship between two of the century’s most daunting challenges: climate change and food security.

“These challenges are inextricably linked, and so, we think, should be the world’s responses,” writes MS Swaminathan, the chair of The High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE), which oversaw the writing of the report.

IFPRI senior research fellow Gerald Nelson was the leader of the team that prepared the report, which makes 14 observations about the state of climate change and its impact on food security. Based on this analysis, the report provides five multi-point recommendations about how governments can address these problems.

The recommendations are:

1. Integrate food security and climate change concerns
2. Increase resilience of food systems to climate change
3. Develop low-emissions agricultural strategies that do not compromise food security
4. Collect information locally, share knowledge globally, and refocus research to address a more complex set of objectives
5. Facilitate participation of all stakeholders in decision making and implementation

The report also makes recommendation to the CFS about what role it can play in meeting these challenges. They include: Encourage more explicit recognition of food security in UNFCCC activities; support climate change adaptation and mitigation in international trade negotiations; and enhance the role of civil society.

Gerald Nelson discussed the report at a recent IFPRI policy seminar. He is one of several IFPRI researchers who examine the climate change-food security relationship.