Gopichandran Ramachandran – författare

This book contributes to the multidisciplinary debate about social–ecological systems (SES) within the perspective of rethinking the nature of interaction between these systems, especially in the Anthropocene Era. Most chapters either deliberate on risk dynamics threatening current SES or stimulate thought processes to manage such risks and related negative implications. After analyzing the main drivers of SES vulnerability, the book highlights the shifts to be made to enhance the sustainability and resilience of these systems, mainly the integration and restructuring of governance frameworks, the reorganization of production and consumption systems far from conventional models based on consumerism, the elaboration of mitigation, adaptation, and SDGs implementation measures from a co-benefit perspective, and the consideration of appropriate approaches and paradigms while elaborating and implementing response mechanisms. This volume is relevant to researchers/experts, students, practitioners, and decision-makers from different scales and spheres.

Human activity is changing the global environment at an unprecedented rate while humanity faces a range of complex and interrelated challenges to local, regional and global development, human security and politics. Food security ranks high on the science, policy and development agendas. However, most research linking global change and food systems examines the impact of climate change on agricultural production, or the impact of agriculture on land use, pollution and biodiversity, overlooking interactions with other aspects of the food system – such as food processing, packaging, transportation and consumption and employment derived from these activities.

This book demonstrates that new threats to food security which arise from environmental change require more than simply a focus on agricultural practices – what is needed is an integrated food system approach. The authors point out that the process of adapting food systems to global environmental change is not simply a search for technological solutions to increase agricultural yields. Tradeoffs across multiple scales among food system outcomes are a prevalent feature of globalized food systems. Within food systems, there are key underexplored areas that are both sensitive to environmental change and crucial to understanding its implications for food security and adaptation strategies.

The authors assert that technical prescriptions alone will not efficiently manage the food security challenge. This book is their contribution to a new paradigm, which addresses food systems holistically by engaging researchers in multiple disciplines to understand the causes and drivers of vulnerability.