Global Environmental Change and Food Systems Insights from the Southern African Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

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Global Environmental Change and Food
SystemsInsights from the Southern African
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
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SAfMA scope food systems

• Human well-being
• Hunger Nutrition
• Livelihoods
• Determinants
• Production
• Access
• Impacts trade-offs
• Biodiversity
• Water
• Scenarios

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• Hunger and nutrition are significant

75 of protein is from vegetable sources, esp
cereals Important contributions from wild foods
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• Both production and access are important

Misselhorn 2005 Global Environmental Change
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• Food systems key characteristics

• Production potential is more than adequate to
  meet demand, but restricted by
• Lack of capital technology
• Marketing constraints SADC intl. agreements,
  infrastructure
• Impact of climate change small compared to
  difference between actual potential production
• Access key issue, even where production is
  adequate
• Large fraction of people base livelihoods on
  agriculture subsistence or agricultural labour
• Livestock acts as capital investment
• Not driven only by food demands

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• Scenarios

• Several recent scenario exercises exist for SADC
  region
• Synthesized using MA conceptual framework
• African Patchwork
• African Partnership NEPAD documents

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Key drivers within scenarios

• Governance critical uncertainty at all scales
• Effectiveness of policy, regional integration
  stability
• Economic growth, trade
• Infrastructure
• Science and technological investment growth
• Population growth, urbanization
• Rising demand for meat products chicken, beef,
  fish
• HIV/AIDS primarily affects work force and
  skills

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• Significant expansion of agricultural land

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Important interconnections

• Suggests link btw ecosystem service degradation
  social tension
• Likely to be a two-directional pathway

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GECAFS Southern Africa workshopTop 10 emerging
and key stressors
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