IDS paper exploring the views of low income people in developing countries of the relationship between climate change, food security, and food price volatility.
Prepared to complement the Oxfam and Institute of Development Studies (IDS) report ‘Help Yourself’, this IDS paper explores the views of people living on low and precarious incomes of the relationship between climate change and food price volatility. Drawn from qualitative research in 23 sites and across 10 countries (from South America, Africa, and Asia), the research takes in rural as well as urban locales. While the views presented offer a relatively unmediated insight into how people view the causal connections between food security and the environment across varied social and ecological settings, it should be noted that the research was not specifically designed for this question, and so does not represent a rigorous examination. The views in the paper are organised around both short-term, climate-related events or shocks, as well as longer-term environmental changes directly shaping food security, particularly changes in local agriculture and livelihood patterns, and their associated adaptations. The first section concerns livelihoods and climate-related events, with several communities understanding all too well the impact on livelihoods and food prices that can come with floods (particularly in Asia), and other climatic events. Section two concerns longer-term environmental impacts such as drought, identified as a key explanation for price hikes in Burkino Faso, Ethiopia, and Kenya. The future of farming and farmers is the subject of section three which highlights a widespread withdrawal from work on the land, with young people viewing it as a livelihood of last resort. Finally, adaptation to drought is discussed in section four, and changing work patterns are further explored in section five. Four key points stand out as worthy implications for further consideration:
Those facing the greatest hardship and livelihood impacts are discussing climate and environmental change widely, suggesting an appetite, and opportunity, for people to mobilise and be better informed around these issues
The connections between uncertain harvests, food markets, and food insecurities appears well understood
Water emerges consistently as a core concern connecting climate, environment, and food
Climate change and environmental degradation, and the responses and adaptations to both, appear to exacerbate power and wealth inequalities, particular around the control of water.