Climate Change, Global Food Security, and the U.S. Food System

Brown, M.E.; J.M. Antle; P. Backlund; E.R. Carr; W.E. Easterling; M.K. Walsh; C. Ammann; W. Attavanich; C.B. Barrett; M.F. Bellemare; V. Dancheck; C. Funk; K. Grace; J.S.I. Ingram; H. Jiang; H. Maletta; T. Mata; A. Murray; M. Ngugi; D. Ojima; B. O’Neill; and C. Tebaldi. 2015. Climate Change, Global Food Security, and the U.S. Food System. 146 pages. Additional Technical Contributors: Mamta Chaudhari (GWU); Shannon Mesenhowski (USAID), Micah Rosenblum (USDA FAS), Isabel Walls (USDA NIFA), and Keith Wiebe (IFPRI). https://doi.org/10.7930/j0862dc7

Food security—the ability to obtain and use sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food—is a fundamental human need. Achieving food security for all people everywhere is a widely agreed upon international objective, most recently codified in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. This report describes the potential effects of climate change on global food security and examines the implications of these effects for the United States.

Food-security challenges are widely distributed, afflicting urban and rural populations in wealthy and poor nations alike. Food-security challenges are particularly acute for the very young, because early-life undernutrition results in measurably detrimental and lifelong health and economic consequences. Food insecurity affects people through both under- and overconsumption. Much of the scientific literature to date addresses the former issue, though the latter is now receiving more attention. For an individual, food insecurity may manifest as a reduced capacity to perform physically, diminished mental health and development, and an increased risk of chronic disease. Collectively, food insecurity diminishes global economic productivity by 2%–3% annually (USD 1.4–2.1 trillion), with individual country costs estimated at up to 10% of country GDP.