What are the impacts of climate change and biodiversity on food security? a systematic literature review

Abstract

Food security (FS) remains a pressing issue at the global scale. Current literature about FS points to a plethora of causes of food insecurity, among which climate change and the loss of biodiversity are critical to all facets of food security. Building on this notion, we advocate for a comprehensive understanding of drivers of food security, thus contributing by examining climate change and biodiversity as drivers of food security. The interest in this subject stems not only from the scientific community, but also from practitioners and policymakers. However, holistic encapsulation of the relevant literature addressing this subject is currently lacking. This review systematically analyses and categorises the drivers of FS induced by climate change and biodiversity. Following the Systematic Literature Review approach, 342 peer-reviewed studies were selected and synthesised. Our findings identified 11 categories of climate change drivers and 9 categories of biodiversity drivers of FS. These drivers were found to impact the habitats, phenology, physiology, behaviours, and resilience of crops and animals, which are key for food production and, subsequently, FS. The impacts of these drivers are discussed, linking them to the four pillars of FS, including availability, accessibility, utilisation, and stability. Findings from the literature strongly indicate adverse impacts from various climate change drivers, notably increased temperature, precipitation changes, and increased sea temperature. On the other hand, biodiversity drivers are found to be beneficial to food security when adopted to the current food system. The literature highlights diversity in plants and crops, diversity in soil biota, and agroforestry as some important drivers. Moreover, we found that the availability and accessibility pillars of FS are most mentioned in the reviewed studies, whereas the stability and utilisation pillars can be further investigated.