Food Security

Food security occurs when people at all times have access to safe food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for a healthy life. Climate change will result in higher temperatures, changes in precipitation, and more extreme and variable weather, which will challenge local, regional, and global food supplies, distribution systems, and food storage systems. Climate impacts that will affect food security will be driven by both acute (e.g., fire, hurricanes) and chronic (e.g., ecological drought) events. Also, increases in atmospheric carbon will diminish the nutritional value of many agricultural crops, which may increase the demand for new and different cropping systems and can also lead to chronic malnutrition.  

The challenge facing a future world of 9 billion people suggests we may have to produce more food in both environmentally and socially sustainable ways that meets the food security needs of all people. Certain groups, including the urban and rural poor, are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity, which will be worsened by climate change. Additionally, a lack of food availability and first foods, in particular, can have physical, as well as mental, health impacts for indigenous and tribal communities.