Food system resilience: concepts, issues, and challenges

Zurek, M., Ingram, J., Sanderson Bellamy, A., Goold, C., Lyon, C., Alexander, P., Barnes, A., Bebber, D. P., Breeze, T. D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8929-8354, Bruce, A., Collins, L. M., Davies, J., Doherty, B., Ensor, J., Franco, S. C., Gatto, A., Hess, T., Lamprinopoulou, C., Liu, L., Merkle, M., Norton, L., Oliver, T. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4169-7313, Ollerton, J., Potts, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2045-980X, Reed, M. S., Sutcliffe, C. and Withers, P. J.A. (2022) Food system resilience: concepts, issues, and challenges. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 47 (1). pp. 511-534. ISSN 1543-5938 doi: 10.1146/annurev-environ-112320-050744

Abstract/Summary

Food system resilience has multiple dimensions. We draw on food system and resilience concepts and review resilience framings of different communities. We present four questions to frame food system resilience (Resilience of what? Resilience to what? Resilience from whose perspective? Resilience for how long?) and three approaches to enhancing resilience (robustness, recovery, and reorientation—the three “Rs”). We focus on enhancing resilience of food system outcomes and argue this will require food system actors adapting their activities, noting that activities do not change spontaneously but in response to a change in drivers: an opportunity or a threat. However, operationalizing resilience enhancement involves normative choices and will result in decisions having to be negotiated about trade-offs among food system outcomes for different stakeholders. New approaches to including different food system actors’ perceptions and goals are needed to build food systems that are better positioned to address challenges of the future.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/123600
Identification Number/DOI	10.1146/annurev-environ-112320-050744
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Biological Sciences > Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Publisher	Annual Reviews
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