Abstract

Agriculture is expected to face significant challenges in the 21st century in connection with the need to increase global food, timber, and bioenergy supplies to a world of 10 billion people, given limited soil and water resources and increasing threats from climate change. Increased land competition between bioenergy and food crops, climate extremes in key food exporting regions, rapidly shifting diets in large emerging economies, and a degree of financial speculation has resulted in instability in the world’s food production systems. If these pressures increase further in coming decades, the world’s poor are particularly vulnerable, especially those located in low-income, food importing countries, where a large share of income is already devoted to purchasing basic food staples. However, the climate-driven challenges also offer the potential to develop and promote food and livelihood systems that have greater environmental, economic and social resilience to risk. It is clear that success in meeting these challenges will require both the integrated application of current multidisciplinary knowledge and the development of a range of technical and institutional innovations. This paper aims to provide an overview of the effects of climate change on global food security and to explore ways to reduce negative impacts through adaptation and resilience.

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