Modelling food security: Bridging the gap between the micro and the macro scale

Birgit Müller*, Falk Hoffmann, Thomas Heckelei, Christoph Müller, Thomas W. Hertel, J. Gareth Polhill, Mark van Wijk, Thom Achterbosch, Peter Alexander, Calum Brown, David Kreuer, Frank Ewert, Jiaqi Ge, James D.A. Millington, Ralf Seppelt, Peter H. Verburg, Heidi Webber

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

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Abstract

Achieving food and nutrition security for all in a changing and globalized world remains a critical challenge of utmost importance. The development of solutions benefits from insights derived from modelling and simulating the complex interactions of the agri-food system, which range from global to household scales and transcend disciplinary boundaries. A wide range of models based on various methodologies (from food trade equilibrium to agent-based) seek to integrate direct and indirect drivers of change in land use, environment and socio-economic conditions at different scales. However, modelling such interaction poses fundamental challenges, especially for representing non-linear dynamics and adaptive behaviours. We identify key pieces of the fragmented landscape of food security modelling, and organize achievements and gaps into different contextual domains of food security (production, trade, and consumption) at different spatial scales. Building on in-depth reflection on three core issues of food security – volatility, technology, and transformation – we identify methodological challenges and promising strategies for advancement. We emphasize particular requirements related to the multifaceted and multiscale nature of food security. They include the explicit representation of transient dynamics to allow for path dependency and irreversible consequences, and of household heterogeneity to incorporate inequality issues. To illustrate ways forward we provide good practice examples using meta-modelling techniques, non-equilibrium approaches and behavioural-based modelling endeavours. We argue that further integration of different model types is required to better account for both multi-level agency and cross-scale feedbacks within the food system.

Original languageEnglish
Article number102085
Pages (from-to)1-16
Number of pages16
JournalGlobal Environmental Change
Volume63
Early online date13 May 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2020

Funding

BM, DK, and FH acknowledge funding by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for the POLISES project (01LN1315A, www.polises.de ). POLISES organized the international workshop on “Modelling approaches to enhance food security” that brought this paper’s authors together from March 10-12, 2018, in Leipzig. We thank Gunnar Dressler who designed Figure 1 and three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this paper. CM acknowledges financial support from the MACMIT project (01LN1317A) funded through BMBF. JGP would like to acknowledge funding from the Scottish Government’s Rural Affairs, Food and Environment Strategic Research Portfolio 2016-2021, Theme 3 (Food, Health and Wellbeing), Work Package 3.3 (Food Security). JM acknowledges support from the UK Natural Environment Research Council (grant number NE/M021335/1) via Belmont Forum CRA13 Type 2 project, ‘Food Security and Land Use: The Telecoupling Challenge’. PA acknowledges support by the UK’s Global Food Security Programme project RUGS (BB/N020707/1). TH acknowledges that his contribution is partially funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy - EXC 2070 – 390732324. TWH acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation (RDCEP, SES-1463644), as well as USDA-NIFA (IND01053G2) and Hatch (100342). TA acknowledges support from the Netherlands Ministry of Agriculture (WUR knowledge base KB-22-003-001/35-002-001) and CGIAR program Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH-F1-P329).

FundersFunder number
Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung01LN1315A

    Keywords

    • Agent-based models
    • Crop models
    • Economic equilibrium models
    • Food security
    • Land use
    • Model integration
    • Multi-scale interactions
    • Social-ecological feedbacks

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