Small Farm Agrifood Supply Chains and Sustainable Food Security in the Developed World: A System Dynamics Methodology
Abstract
The aim of the present research is to enhance food security and sustainability in developed countries through providing a simulation tool for supporting the impact assessment of interventionary policies for the support of smallholdings’ farming. To this effect, we first discuss the role of small farms towards ensuring food security and sustainability in the developed world. Following, the System Dynamics methodology is employed to explore the effect of interventions on the diffusion of small farms’ cultivated commodities to the specific Greek food market. Following, a simulation modelling tool is developed that specifically captures four external factors affecting the adoption rate of the refereed agrifood products, namely: (i) consumers’ environmental awareness, (ii) social implications, (iii) economic incentives, and (iv) health and nutrition consciousness. The simulation results suggest that policy interventions that could play a critical role in ensuring food security and sustainable development in developed nations should mainly focus on the increase of advertising expenditure in promoting small-scale farming and locally cultivated products, on consumers’ training and education, and on subsidies of investments in smallholdings.
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Introduction
Food security and sustainable agricultural development emerge as key challenges to all nations [1; 2]. Projections about a global population growth to 9.1 billion by 2050 and a corresponding increase in food demand by 70% [3], in tandem with climate change, temperature rise and rainfall fluctuation [4], formulate a gamut of factors that position the food insecurity challenge at a prominent position in the international policy and research agenda. Nevertheless, evidence in the extant literature suggest that the actual concern does not apply to the increase of food production capacity by 70% within the forthcoming 40 years, but rather lies within the capability to configure efficient agrifood supply chains to increase households’ accessibility to food commodities by 70% [3], and to meet the diverse dietary habits in the developed world [5].
Notwithstanding the extensive research on agrifood production and distribution systems, several figures justify the fact that food security concerns still predominate in public debates, both in developing countries and developed nations. For example, estimations indicate that nearly 870 million people around the world suffer from undernourishment or chronic hunger [6], while contemporarily around 2 billion people suffer from micronutrient insufficiency or hidden hunger [7] and approximately 500 million people suffer from obesity [8]. Furthermore, specific incidents appear to have a detrimental impact on the food availability and supply stability in industrialized nations [9], like the: (i) sudden and sharp increase in world food prices in 2007–2008, (ii) increased use of agricultural land for bioenergy crops, (iii) strict trade regulations and political uncertainty, and (iv) rapidly growing food demand in China and India. To that end, small farms (SFs) or smallholdings are suggested as a feasible approach tackle the developed world’s food security and sustainability challenges [10]. This is further accentuated by the ongoing funding schemes of the European Union to support research initiatives for the development of short food supply chains and local food systems in the Community [11]. In addition, the European Union recognizes the significance of SFs in food and nutrition security and has already approved funds to support the development of smallholdings and related food business landscapes [12].
Conclusion
Food security has a multidisciplinary nature and it is an important issue not only for the developing world, but also in the developed countries. The prevailing farming practices are unsustainable. Small Farms could play a critical role in Food Supply Chains ensuring Food Security and Sustainable development at the same time. The operation of food markets is quite complex and perhaps, the (mainly social and environmental) merit of a small-scale agricultural production is not enough to build momentum for increase the number of small farms. Thus, (national and international) governance with selected interventions may have a key role. To this end, this paper provides a new quantitative policy-making support tool based on System Dynamics methodology, which has been used for the Greek food market. This is a first time effort and there is space for improvements. Future research directions include further validation and verification of the System Dynamics model based upon data from FAO and Eurostat, the examination of alternative diffusion models, the development of a multi-level model incorporating all the EU-27 countries and different agricultural products on a single-product basis (i.e. cereals, nuts, wheat etc.).