NIARR

Resilient Agricultural Systems are Fundamental for Global Food Security and Social Stability

Resilient agricultural systems are those that can continue to provide food, livelihood security and important ecosystem services in the face of climate, economic and other global changes currently threatening agricultural systems. Modern agricultural systems are vulnerable to shifts that may lead to system collapse and reorganization around different processes, structures and functions that are less desirable for food production and for humanity and have the potential to destabilize food security and societies.

Specific aspects of modern intensive agriculture have been shown to be fundamentally unsustainable. However, we need a better understanding of how modern agricultural practices and policies increase the risk of regime shifts in key dimensions of agricultural systems.

Resilience science, which focuses on threshold behavior and vulnerability to regime shifts at multiple spatial and temporal scales, is well suited for addressing these critical gaps in knowledge. There is currently no single institution or network that is fully capable of addressing this challenge, as the needed data and expertise are distributed across multiple entities.​