How food secure are the green, rocky and middle roads: food security effects in different world development paths

Abstract

Climate change developments urge for a growing interest in long run food and nutrition security aspects. Food and nutrition security is a complicated issue, and understanding its future needs insights in (i) food availability, (ii) food access (food purchasing power), food utilisation (nutrition), and (iv) food stability. Food and nutrition developments are complex and highly region-specific as currently the number of undernourished people remains high or even increases in some regions, despite high GDP per capita growth. The internationally agreed shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) are quantified using a computable general equilibrium model (MAGNET) coupled with an integrated assessment model (IMAGE). A unique feature of this paper is that it focusses on all four dimensions of food security in addition to the risk of hunger. Food availability improves in general, although it decreases in South Asia in SSP3. The number of undernourished people decreases in most scenarios, becoming more and more concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. However, undernourishment stays high in SSP4 (550 million people) and increases to over two billion people in SSP3. Food access generally improves. However, due to lock-in effects the wages of unskilled workers (especially in agriculture) might decline leading to reduced food access in SSP3, SSP4 and SSP2. The indicators of food utilisation and food stability show food security problems for Sub-Saharan Africa in SSP3 and SSP4. The overall food security picture based on the four dimensions of food security is a less optimistic one which differs from previous studies that study food availability and risk of hunger and find an improvement of food security in almost all scenario’s. Our results indicate that food security problems remain and that effective policies are needed to achieve food security for all.