Shocks, seasonality, and disaggregation: Modelling food security through the integration of agricultural, transportation, and economic systems

Craig Bakker, Benjamin F. Zaitchik, Sauleh Siddiqui (), Benjamin F. Hobbs, Elena Broaddus, Roni A. Neff, Jonathan Haskett and Cindy L. Parker

Agricultural Systems, 2018, vol. 164, issue C, 165-184

Abstract: Food insecurity is a complex phenomenon with biophysical, climatic, economic, and infrastructure facets. Despite this understanding, there are few stakeholder-based modelling tools that can capture these dynamics and thereby evaluate the direct and indirect impacts that climatic change, economic change, and policy interventions can have on food security. To address this need, we have developed the Food Distributed Extendable COmplementarity (Food-DECO) model. The Food-DECO model represents individual aggregated stakeholders as decision-makers within the agricultural, transportation, and economic systems. In this paper, we demonstrate the model's capabilities by applying it to a food system based on characteristics of Ethiopia, a frequently food-insecure country. Food-DECO produces results that show the effects of seasonality and regional distribution networks on human nutrition while disaggregating those effects by age, gender, and per capita income. We explore the impacts of a regional crop failure and evaluate the possible effectiveness of several commonly proposed food security interventions. The economic integration of agriculture and transportation in Food-DECO enables us to see, counterintuitively, that improving the capacity of the existing food distribution network between regions can negatively impact the nutritional outcomes in the region experiencing crop failure; the increased ability to meet high demand elsewhere leads to an increase in regional exports – even during a food shortage.

Keywords: Food security; Complementarity modelling; Shocks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X17305942
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agisys:v:164:y:2018:i:c:p:165-184

DOI: 10.1016/j.agsy.2018.04.005

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Systems is currently edited by J.W. Hansen, P.K. Thornton and P.B.M. Berentsen

More articles in Agricultural Systems from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().