Abstract
Climate change will put millions more people in Africa at risk of food and nutrition
insecurity by 2050. Integrated assessments of food systems tend to be limited
by either heavy reliance on models or a lack of information on food and nutrition
security. Accordingly, we developed a novel integrated assessment framework that
combines models with in-country knowledge and expert academic judgement to explore
climate-smart and nutrition-secure food system futures: the integrated Future Estimator
Jennings et al. iFEED: Integrated Climate-Smart Nutrition Assessment
for Emissions and Diets (iFEED). Here, we describe iFEED and present its application
in Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia. The iFEED process begins with a
participatory scenario workshop. In-country stakeholders identify two key drivers of food
system change, and from these, four possible scenarios are defined. These scenarios
provide the underlying narratives of change to the food system. Integrated modeling
of climate change, food production and greenhouse gas emissions is then used to
explore nutrition security and climate-smart agriculture outcomes for each scenario.
Model results are summarized using calibrated statements-quantitative statements of
model outcomes and our confidence in them. These include statements about the way
in which different trade futures interact with climate change and domestic production
in determining nutrition security at the national level. To understand what the model
results mean for food systems, the calibrated statements are expanded upon using
implication statements. The implications rely on input from a wide range of academic
experts-including agro-ecologists and social scientists. A series of workshops are used
to incorporate in-country expertise, identifying any gaps in knowledge and summarizing
information for country-level recommendations. iFEED stakeholder champions help
throughout by providing in-country expertise and disseminating knowledge to policy
makers. iFEED has numerous novel aspects that can be used and developed in future
work. It provides information to support evidence-based decisions for a climate-smart
and nutrition-secure future. In particular, iFEED: (i) employs novel and inclusive reporting
of model results and associated in-country food system activities, with comprehensive
reporting of uncertainty; (ii) includes climate change mitigation alongside adaptation
measures; and (iii) quantifies future population-level nutrition security, as opposed to
simply assessing future production and food security implications.
Year
2022
Category
Refereed journal