The aim of this report is to define the strategy for the Science and Policy Interface under Component 1 of the Resilient Food Systems Programme (RFS) Hub. Under this component, FAO and UN-Environment Programme, in partnership with RFS country projects and a range of other actors and platforms and institutions in sub-Saharan Africa, aim to address institutional and policy barriers to inclusion of ecosystem services-aware approaches into policies and investments for improved and sustainable smallholder agriculture and natural resources. The focus of this component is the facilitation of dialogue, models, policies, and institutions that bridge the agricultural and environmental agendas and constituencies, at various scales.

This book provides insights on innovative strategies to build resilient food systems in the wake of challenges posed by climate change. Providing food security to the growing population especially in developing countries without exacerbating the environment is a major challenge. Climate change is expected to reduce agricultural productivity, leading to a decline in overall food availability and significantly increasing the number of malnourished children in developing countries. Interventions for enhancing the adaptive capacity of farmers especially of small holders needs immediate impetus. The policy formulation and development programs must reorient in the wake of the new expectations and deliverables. This book comprises of sixteen chapters that discuss the trends in global agriculture development and food system. The book highlights different aspects of household food and nutritional security. The chapters covering diverse aspects address food system, rural and urban food chain, factors affecting their sustainability and short and long term solutions to make them climate resilient. Important issues having significant implications on climate change such as Waste management, Value chain, Agri-marketing, etc. are also covered. The book would be an important resource for researchers in food science, environmental sciences and agriculture. It would also be beneficial for students and future scientists working on sustainable agriculture and food security.

On July 22-23, 2020, the Food Forum of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine hosted a virtual workshop that explored the integration of the health, societal, economic, and environmental effects and future needs of the food system. The main objective of the 1.5-day workshop was to understand how to achieve a more sustainable, resilient, equitable, and nourishing food system. Workshop sessions examined three main dimensions of the food system: vulnerabilities, resiliency, and transformation. The workshop included discussions on global change, access to health and food, resiliency in complex dynamic systems and resiliency for the future, and consumption- and production-oriented strategies that could transform the food system. This publication highlights the presentation and discussion of the workshop.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has highlighted food security issues and nutrition gaps in Asia and the Pacific, where various risks and fragilities have continually affected the food and agriculture sector. There is a clear need to integrate sustainable management of natural resources, nutritional considerations, and the economic dimensions of food supply chains to enhance resilience and mitigate climate change. This publication explores how innovative financing and transformative knowledge solutions can help address the financing gaps and other challenges of food systems in the region.

The food systems concept has attracted a considerable amount of attention as it provides an opportunity to better understand and represent the array of factors that explain food security in a comprehensive and holistic manner. The value-added proposition of food systems resilience is that the ability to respond to shocks and stressors may be incorporated into such explanations. The qualities that make food system resilience attractive, however, also make it difficult to model in empirical terms. This paper, by drawing on the literatures of food systems and on the measurement of resilience, demonstrates how food systems resilience can be measured at a country level. Clustering countries into regions shows that North America and Oceania have the highest levels of food systems resilience, followed by Europe and North Africa and Western Asia. Food systems resilience is lower in Latin America and the Caribbean and South Asia and sub-Saharan countries exhibited the lowest levels of food systems resilience. In low- and middle-income countries, increasing market resilience plays a significant role in increasing overall food systems resilience.

Climate change presents an unprecedented challenge to the productivity and profitability of agriculture in North America. More variable weather, drought, and flooding create the most obvious damage, but hot summer nights, warmer winters, longer growing seasons, and other environmental changes have more subtle but far-reaching effects on plant and livestock growth and development. Resilient Agriculture recognizes the critical role that sustainable agriculture will play in the coming decades and beyond. The latest science on climate risk, resilience, and climate change adaptation is blended with the personal experience of farmers and ranchers to explore: The "strange changes" in weather recorded over the last decade The associated shifts in crop and livestock behavior The actions producers have taken to maintain productivity in a changing climate The climate change challenge is real and it is here now. To enjoy the sustained production of food, fiber, and fuel well into the twenty-first century, we must begin now to make changes that will enhance the adaptive capacity and resilience of North American agriculture. The rich knowledge base presented in Resilient Agriculture is poised to serve as the cornerstone of an evolving, climate-ready food system. Laura Lengnick is a researcher, policymaker, activist, educator, and farmer whose work explores the community-enhancing potential of agriculture and food systems. She directs the academic program in sustainable agriculture at Warren Wilson College and was a lead author of the report Climate Change and Agriculture in the United States: Effects and Adaptation.

In this paper we undertake an analytical review of the extant literature on the building food system resilience. While the concept of food system resilience has become a topical issue in global and national policy discussion, there is little research on how to develop operational procedures to design and implement interventions from the food system and resilience perspective. This review identifies five major entry points to strengthen food system resilience in the national context: policy, institutions, technology, capacity, and governance. Measurement issues and analytical approaches to studying food system resilience are reviewed. We conclude that while there is a large gap in the methodological approaches to study the food system resilience, beginning with the case studies of understanding specific elements of a food system and their role in enhancing resilience would be good starting point for addressing thematic issues, challenges and constraints facing resilience of the food systems.