Elevated diversity of the supply chain boosts global food system resilience

Jia, Junwen, Yang, Weiqiang, Wu, Fang and Cui, Xuefeng 2024. Elevated diversity of the supply chain boosts global food system resilience. Environmental Research Letters 19 (2) , 024049. 10.1088/1748-9326/ad2434

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Abstract

Food supply shock is defined as a drastic shortage in food supply, which would likely threaten the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals 2: zero hunger. Traditionally, highly-connected global food supply system was deemed to help overcome shortages easily in response to food supply shock. However, recent studies suggested that overconnected trade networks potentially increase exposure to external shocks and amplify shocks. Here, we develop an empirical–statistical method to quantitatively and meticulously measure the diversity of international food supply chain. Our results show that boosting a country’s food supply chain diversity will increase the resistance of the country to food shocks. The global diversity of food supply chain increased gradually during 1986–2021; correspondingly, the intensity of food shocks decreased, the recovery speed after a shock increased. The food supply chain diversity in high-income countries is significantly higher than that in other countries, although it has improved greatly in the least developed regions, like Africa and Middle East. International emergencies and geopolitical events like the Russia–Ukraine conflict could potentially threaten global food security and impact low-income countries the most. Our study provides a reference for measuring resilience of national food system, thus helping managers or policymakers mitigate the risk of food supply shocks.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Earth and Environmental Sciences
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, Type: cc-by
Publisher:	IOP Publishing
ISSN:	1748-9326
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	9 February 2024
Date of Acceptance:	30 January 2024
Last Modified:	23 Feb 2024 15:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/166215

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