Challenges and solutions towards achieving resilient and sustainable food supply chains
Date
2024
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Food systems are facing unprecedent challenges, leading to growing calls to make transitions towards more sustainable, healthy, just, and resilient outcomes. Over the past decades, agriculture has made great progress in increasing production to meet the demand of a growing population and to ensure the affordability of food worldwide. However, major drivers of food insecurity and malnutrition continue to intensify - including conflict, climate extremes, economic slowdowns and downturns, and growing inequality - while world hunger and severe food insecurity continue to increase. Climate change has profound impacts on every aspect of the food supply chain, including production, storage, processing, distribution, retail, and consumption, emphasizing the multifaceted challenges that food systems face today. Agriculture performs a vital role in reducing hunger, but it also imposes considerable pressure on the environment due to excessive use of pesticides and fertilizers, water consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions. In response to the pressing needs to simultaneously enhance food supply, nutritional quality, and environmental sustainability, numerous investigations have sought to develop holistic solutions to improve the sustainability of food supply chains. Yet many of the challenges and solutions to improve the sustainability of food supply chains remain poorly understood. ☐ Thus, the goals of my dissertation work are to quantify the sustainability challenges of food production and consumption – with a particular focus on interactions with climate – and to investigate how solutions for more sustainable and resilient food supply chains, such as cropping pattern transitions and dietary shifts, can be feasible and co-benefit multiple dimensions of sustainability. This dissertation seeks to illuminate the intricate relationship between climate variability and food production stability, uncovering the often-overlooked roles of planted area and harvestable fraction alongside yield fluctuations. Production shocks frequently coincide with fluctuations in planted area and harvestable fraction, underscoring the significance of producer decision-making in mitigating climate-induced disruptions. The work then investigates the propagation of production shocks through interconnected domestic and international food supply chains, shedding light on the vulnerability of certain food groups to cascading shocks and underscores the need for targeted interventions to enhance the resilience of global food supply chains in the face of increasing socio-environmental variability. The dissertation work then shows that by optimizing cropping patterns in monsoon cereals in India, there is a large potential for farmer-driven interventions to bolster production stability and enhance farm profitability. Finally, this dissertation demonstrates that maximizing the share of climate-resilient cereals and increasing the consumption of whole grains can bring multiple co-benefits in promoting both human and environmental health, uncovering significant opportunities to align dietary patterns with sustainability goals while considering local preferences and cultural acceptability. By synthesizing these diverse perspectives, this dissertation offers a comprehensive exploration of the challenges and solutions crucial to achieving sustainable food supply chains. It underscores the imperative of holistic approaches that integrate environmental, social, economic, and cultural considerations to foster resilience, equity, and sustainability throughout the food supply chains.
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Keywords
Environmental sustainability, Food systems, Supply chain, Sustainability goals, Food supply chains