A new project led by J-WAFS fights food insecurity

 A new project led by J-WAFS fights food insecurity. The Jameel Index for Food Commerce and Vulnerability, a Community Jameel-funded project, will research how trade affects how climate change may affect food security.

A new project led by J-WAFS fights food insecurity

One of the most pressing issues facing the world today is food insecurity, and today the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) at MIT unveiled a new research initiative, financed by Community Jameel. Over half a million people globally are in famine conditions, and 276 million people worldwide have acute food insecurity.

The goal of this three-year research project is to create the Jameel Index for Food Trade and Vulnerability, a comprehensive index analysing countries' food security vulnerability. Food demand and supply may fluctuate as a result of regional geopolitics, conflict, social and economic upheaval, energy and environmental policies, and, of course, climate change. The Jameel Index will assess how much a nation depends on international food imports and trade, as well as how these regional-scale concerns may affect the viability of cross-regional trading in food products. A model to estimate global food demand, supply balance, and bilateral trade under several possible future scenarios, with a focus on climate change, will be a major output of the research.

While the world population is anticipated to increase and the climate situation is anticipated to deteriorate over the next 25 years, the work will aid in directing policymakers.

The project will serve as the cornerstone for the Food and Climate Systems Transformation Alliance, or FACT Alliance, which is led by J-WAFS. The FACT Alliance, a global network of 20 premier research institutions and stakeholder organisations, was formally introduced at the COP26 climate conference last November. It is advancing research and innovation and assisting in better decision-making for wholesome, resilient, equitable, and sustainable food systems in a rapidly changing climate. Greg Sixt, research manager for climate and food systems at J-WAFS, and Professor Kenneth Strzepek, expert in climate, water, and food at J-WAFS, are co-leading the programme.

Our food systems' terrible situation

The fact that hundreds of millions of people worldwide are currently facing food shortages is proof why this effort is necessary. While there are many reasons that contribute to food insecurity, one of the most significant is climate change. The production of crops and cattle is being crippled globally by destructive extreme weather occurrences. Communities are relocating in search of food all across the world, from Southwest Asia to the Arabian Peninsula to the Horn of Africa. Extreme heat and a lack of rain in the Southwest of the United States have significantly reduced Lake Mead's water levels, making it difficult to access water and drying off farmlands.

Food systems are also disrupted by economic, political, and social problems. Food insecurity is still getting worse as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak, supply chain disruptions, and inflation. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia is significantly exacerbating the situation and obstructing agricultural exports from both countries, which are among the top producers of corn, wheat, and sunflower seed oil globally. Other nations, including Lebanon, Sri Lanka, and Cuba, are dealing with food shortages as a result of their own financial problems.

Threats to food security posed by unforeseen alterations in food production or commerce affect only a small number of nations. The crucial international trade route was shut down for three months in March 2021 when a massive container ship became stuck in the Suez Canal. The ensuing international shipping delays had an impact on food supplies all across the world. These circumstances show how crucial food trade is to ensuring food security because a disaster in one region of the world can have a significant impact on the availability of food in another. This emphasises how interwoven and still susceptible to exogenous shocks the food systems on planet are.

A guide on preparing for the food future

Despite the need for more secure food systems, there are large information gaps regarding how various climatic scenarios may affect both agricultural output and the security of the world's food supply chains. Both the present IMPACT modelling system from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Global Trade Analysis Anticipate database from Purdue University allow analyses of current conditions but are unable to project or model changes in the future.

A preliminary Food Import Vulnerability Index (FIVI) was created in 2021 by Strzepek and Sixt as part of a regional evaluation of the threat that climate change poses to food security in West Asia and the Gulf Cooperation Council states. Additionally, FIVI is restricted in that it can only evaluate the state of the global economy and the risks posed by climate change to agriculture. Furthermore, because FIVI is a national composite index, it does not take into account issues of hunger, poverty, or equity that arise from regional differences within a nation.

Greg Sixt of J-WAFS and the FACT Alliance says, Current models are pretty good at depicting global food trade flows, but we don't have mechanisms for looking at food trade between particular nations and how diverse food system stressors like climate change and conflict disrupt that trade. This timely index will be a useful tool for policymakers to comprehend the vulnerabilities to their food security from various shocks in the nations from which they import their food. The research will also serve as an example of the FACT Alliance's key transdisciplinary approach, according to Sixt.

Four FACT Alliance members—MIT J-WAFS, Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, IFPRI (which is also a member of the CGIAR network), and the Martin School at the University of Oxford—will collaborate as part of the project's first phase. United Arab Emirates University, an outside partner, will contribute to the project's activities as well. This first phase will build on Strzepek and Sixt's earlier work on the FIVI by creating a thorough Global Food System Modeling Framework that considers climate and global changes projected through 2050 and evaluates their effects on domestic production, global market prices, national balance of payments, and bilateral trade.

The framework will also make use of a mixed modelling technique that evaluates bilateral trade as well as macroeconomic information linked to fluctuating agricultural productivity under various climatic and monetary policy scenarios. It is possible to achieve consistent and coordinated estimates of the global food demand and supply balance, bilateral trade, and climatic and global change.

According to George Richards, director of Community Jameel, much like in the worldwide response to Covid-19, using data and modelling are crucial to understanding and addressing risks in the global supply of food. To ensure food security for all, the Jameel Index for Food Trade and Vulnerability will help guide decision-making to handle shocks and long-term disturbances to food systems.

Through country-level food security evaluations of areas within countries and across various socioeconomic classes, the researchers will improve the Jameel Index on a national scale, enabling a clearer understanding of specific consequences on important communities. The study will provide vulnerability rankings for 126 countries across a range of food security criteria. The Jameel Index's applicability will be improved with the help of case studies on food security and food import vulnerability in Ethiopia and Sudan. The Rural Investment and Policy Analysis model, a tool created by IFPRI that enables analysis of urban and rural populations as well as various income categories, will be used in the case studies.

The application of the tools created by this research for national-level planning in priority countries, and ultimately for informing policy, will depend on local capacity building and stakeholder participation.

The project's second phase will build on the first and the knowledge gained from the case studies in Sudan and Ethiopia. To evaluate the impact of food imports on future hunger, poverty, and equity across various regional and socioeconomic groups within the modelled countries, it will involve a variety of more in-depth, national-level evaluations. The geographical national models and the global analyses will be connected by this effort.

The results of this investigation will be documented in an academic article, and a website will be developed so that interested parties and organisations can learn more.