Food security in space and time

Background

Population growth threw many developing countries into a "poverty trap" characterized by expansion of agriculture into marginal lands, land degradation, declining yields, increasing frequencies of crop failures, food shortages, and conflicts between parties with different interests in how specific tracts of land are used. Drought and floods, possibly associated with climate changes, further enhance food supply problems

Studies that address these problems require timely and reliable (spatial) information on:

-	Type and quality of available land resources management, productivity and sustainability of current and alternative agricultural land use systems,

-	Effects of interventions and socio-economic conditions on land use and land cover modifications and conversions, and on actual and anticipated (future) food demand supply situations.

Objectives

Food-Sat is based on a systems approach that uses up-to-date methods and tools for the assessment of food production activities and their interactions in time and space. The objectives of the research are:

-	To provide up-to-date spatial information for food security policies.

-	To improve methods to make sustainability assessments of actual and anticipated food security situations.

-	To develop methods to monitor and validate the results.

Many staff members involved in natural resource management (NRS) at ITC have experience in studying food security issues using a systems approach. Their knowledge is incorporated in NRM courses and has been applied in several projects. However, many options exist to further strengthen and update the approach through research. Possibilities to strengthen the approach are promising by further studies on:

-	Crop growth modelling

-	Regionalization of geo-informatics data

-	Assessment of food production alternatives and scenario development

-	Production of land use information