Do global food systems have an Achilles heel? The potential for regional food systems to support resilience in regional disasters
Do global food systems have an Achilles heel? The potential for regional food systems to support resilience in regional disasters
复制标题
全球粮食系统有致命弱点吗？
DOI：
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发表时间：
2015
影响因子：
2.1
通讯作者：
G. Berardi
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Rebekah Paci;G. Berardi
今天的美国国内食品生产是一个为全球化市场优化的具有竞争力、高产和高增长的生产的结果。然而，工业增长可能会减少粮食供应来源的多样性，从而削弱粮食系统对突然中断的抵御能力。在本文中，我们首先探讨了食品消费向依赖复杂和长途食品配送、食品进口和外出就餐的转变。其次，我们讨论了大规模、快速发作的灾害如何影响粮食安全和粮食不安全家庭的粮食获取。然后，我们考虑区域粮食生产是否以及如何支持区域粮食弹性。为了说明这些问题，我们以华盛顿西部为例，该地区不仅农业生产丰富，而且受到卡斯卡迪亚俯冲带地震和海啸的威胁。预计这样的事件将扰乱主要粮食分配系统所依赖的运输和能源系统。区域粮食供应（本文的目的是将其定义为一个或邻近流域的粮食生产）是否能够在大规模破坏期间支持社区粮食恢复力的更广泛目标是我们论文的一个关键主题。接下来的讨论并不是要提供简单的、地方主义的解决方案，作为灾难粮食供应的唯一答案，但在粮食规划过程中也不应忽视区域粮食来源。我们对小规模和灵活的区域农业生产的探索表明，区域生产可以在紧急救援和零售补充库存到来之前帮助支持粮食安全。然而，为了做到这一点，我们需要制定一项强有力的、适合本地区的粮食抵御力战略。这一战略应解决热量需求、储存和分配问题，并在此过程中重新平衡我们对进口和复杂的国内供应链粮食供应的依赖。显然，粮食来源的多样性可以增加冗余性和灵活性，使粮食系统在面临中断时能够更灵活地适应。
Today’s domestic US food production is the result of an industry optimized for competitive, high yielding, and high-growth production for a globalized market. Yet, industry growth may weaken food system resilience to abrupt disruptions by reducing the diversity of food supply sources. In this paper, we first explore shifts in food consumption toward reliance upon complex and long-distance food distribution, food imports, and out-of-home eating. Second, we discuss how large-scale, rapid-onset hazards may affect food access for both food secure and insecure households. We then consider whether and how regional food production might support regional food resilience. To illustrate these issues, we examine the case of western Washington, a region not only rich in agricultural production but also threatened by a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake and tsunami. Such an event is expected to disrupt transportation and energy systems on which the dominant food distribution system relies. Whether a regional food supply—for the purposes of this paper, defined as food production in one or adjacent watersheds—can support a broader goal of community food resilience during large-scale disruption is a key theme of our paper. The discussion that ensues is not meant to offer simplistic, localist solutions as the one answer to disaster food provision, but neither should regional food sources be dismissed in food planning processes. Our exploration of regional farm production, small in scale and flexible, suggests regional production can help support food security prior to the arrival of emergency relief and retail restocking. Yet in order to do so, we need to have in place a robust and regionally appropriate food resilience strategy. This strategy should address caloric need, storage, and distribution, and, in so doing, rebalance our dependence on food supplied through imports and complex, domestic supply chains. Clearly, diversity of food sourcing can add redundancy and flexibility, allowing more nimble food system adaptation in the face of disruption.