CAN CLIMATE CHANGE BREAK THE GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY SYSTEM?

The year is 2020 and the world’s food system is under increasing stress. Extreme weather and political conflict are undermining food production and creating shortages. Prices are skyrocket- ing. Social unrest is growing. Populations are at risk.

How will the world respond?

Front Photo Credits: Cargill, WWF, Michel Gunther, Steve Niedorf.

Food Chain Reaction: A Global Food Security Game, a role-playing exercise held in Washington, D.C. on November 9-10, 2015, featured thought leaders from around the world acting as governments, institutions, and private companies, and simulated how they might respond during a future crisis in the global food system.

The game brought together 65 influential players from the United States, European Union, Brazil, Continental Africa, India and China, along with businesses, investors and multilateral institutions.

Game play began in the year 2020 in a world where population growth, rapid urbanization, extreme weather and political crises combine to threaten global food systems. Over the course of two days, the players collaborated, negotiated, made decisions, and confronted trade-offs while dealing with different consequences resulting from their actions during the period of 2020 to 2030.

Throughout the game, disruptions to food production and accessibility led to rapid price increases. This undermined stability in vulnerable countries and contributed to civil unrest and violence. Players responded with a diverse set of actions, such as new trade and tax policies, adopting emergency measures to aid populations most at risk, and working together to offer regional and multilateral solutions.

Several of the disruptions posed to the players during the game also had links to the increasing influence of climate change on the global food system.

These included severe changes in temp-erature and rainfall patterns, environmental degradation, unpredictable El Niños, and water scarcities across several geographies —including in India, China, the Sahel region of Africa, Russia, Brazil and North America.

Food insecurity presents complex political, economic, environmental and global security challenges. Food Chain Reaction demonstrated that when climate change is added to that already volatile mix, the impact is greater and there are more urgent consequences for the global food systems that nourish human life.

The solutions required are beyond those which any single nation or institution can address alone; they demand collective, global action.

This perfect storm of events could not be addressed by the players with existing policies, but required them to explore new approaches and opportunities for partnership and collaboration. They also experienced the interdependent impacts of climate and agriculture.

As the world population grows and standards of living rise, producing more food will present new demands on the environment, while the changing climate will make it harder to produce the crops needed to feed more people.

Inside Photo Credit: Darren Higgins

LOOKING AHEADFood Chain Reaction was designed to help high-level decision makers better understand the interdependencies within the global food system and the cascading effects of decisions, trade-offs and actions. Beginning in January 2016, the results and lessons learned from the Food Chain Reaction game will be shared with policy audiences around the world.

For the latest on global food security, as well as information, videos and testimonials from the game, please visit: FoodChainReaction.org

Food Chain Reaction: A Global Food Security Game was produced by World Wildlife Fund and the Center for American Progress, with game design by CNA. Funding and technical support for Food Chain Reaction was provided by Cargill, with major support from Mars, Inc. Additional funding was provided by DuPont, Louis Dreyfus Group, Sealed Air Corporation, and Thomson Reuters.