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Resilience and vulnerability

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Image of graffiti on a wall in Almeria, written in Spanish, 'no hay mejor regalo que el futuro' - there is no better gift than the future
Essay
The hidden cost of Europe’s affordable food: a story of informality and resilience
Affordable food, particularly fresh produce, is a key feature of food system goals in the EU, but the provision of year-round fresh fruit and vegetables relies on a growing system that offers little stability to its workers. Researcher María Alonso Martínez asks what we can learn from the resilience of the workers in this community, and how to reconcile affordability with the precarity it seems to require. María Alonso Martínez is Junior Officer in Circular Development at the ICLEI World Secretariat. This research was carried out at Wageningen University & Research, Netherlands. 
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Image of a woman holding her son's hand while walking through a rice paddy. Photo by Mi Pham via Unsplash.
Journal articles
Addressing gender inequalities and strengthening women's agency to create more climate-resilient and sustainable food systems
This article focuses on the impact of gender inequality on women’s vulnerability, resilience and response to  climate change impacts. The researchers explore how patriarchal norms limit women’s access to climate-smart adaptation strategies and how policies targeted at climate action fail to overcome this structural inequality.
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Image of a riot at night. Photo by Maurício Mascaro via Pexels.
Journal articles
Experts warn of risk of Civil Unrest in UK due to major future food system disruptions
This paper reports the results of a structured expert elicitation process from 76 food system experts on future food system disruption scenarios for the UK. Around one third of those consulted thought that major civil unrest due to a shortage of popular carbohydrates as a result of extreme weather was more likely than not in the next 10 years.
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Why the United States Should Champion Alternative Proteins as a Food and National Security Solution
Reports
Alternative proteins for food and national security
This policy brief from Climate Advisers and the Good Food Institute suggests that alternative proteins (both plant-based and cultivated, i.e. lab-grown, options) are important for food security around the world and national security in the United States. It argues that feeding edible crops to livestock drives up the price of staple crops, negatively affects the quantity of food available to people, and makes food reliant on long, fragile supply chains (e.g. at risk of zoonotic disease outbreaks).
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Living Planet Report 2022
Reports
Living Planet Report 2022
The WWF sets out global trends in biodiversity over the past 50 years, concluding that land use change is currently the greatest threat to nature, but that climate change could overtake land use change in impact if we cannot keep warming to 1.5°C. The relative abundance of monitored vertebrate wildlife populations has declined by an average of 69% between 1970 and 2018, with particularly large declines (of 94%) in Latin America and the Caribbean. (For a definition of relative abundance, see page 9 of the Living Planet Index technical report). The report also emphasises the importance of indigenous knowledge and a rights-based approach to solving the nature, climate and pollution crises.
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Image: christels, Desert locust insect, Pixabay, Pixabay Licence
Journal articles
Research priorities for global food security
This paper identifies research priorities relating to threats to global food security caused by extreme events such as heat waves, floods, war or financial crises. Focusing on the next two decades, the authors asked experts for emerging threats to food security as well as research questions, which were then ranked according to their potential impact and effort required to answer them.
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The Ukraine war and threats to food and energy security
Reports
The Ukraine war and threats to food and energy security
Governments must act now to make societies and economies more resilient to shocks such as COVID-19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, argues this report from UK-based international affairs think tank Chatham House. The Russia-Ukraine crisis is amplifying food insecurity and the cost of living crisis that had already followed the COVID-19 pandemic, and risks triggering a “cascade” of supply chain disruptions, market volatility, resource insecurity, the displacement of people and geopolitical upheaval. The potential for simultaneous price or supply shocks in food and energy, including those induced by climate change, is growing.
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Another perfect storm?
Reports
Special report on the global food price crisis
This report from IPES Food explores the factors underlying the increase in global food prices, which in April 2022 were 34% higher than a year previously. It focuses on the impacts of the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as broader structural issues in the global food system, including heavy reliance on food imports, barriers to changes in production systems, excessive speculation in grain markets, and vicious cycles of climate change, poverty, conflict and food insecurity.
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Image: blende12, Bee pollination apple blossom, Pixabay, Pixabay Licence
Journal articles
Pollinator declines threaten global food trade
Developed economies such as the UK, Germany and Japan could suffer the greatest economic losses from sudden declines in pollinator populations, due to their dependence on imported crops, according to this modelling study. The paper estimates the changes in production levels and market prices that would occur for 74 animal-pollinated crops following sudden pollinator loss due to three causes: high use of pesticides; natural disasters such as drought; or countries being unable to pursue sustainable agricultural policies due to high levels of debt.
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