Enhancing Food Production System Resilience for Food Security Facing a Changing Environment

Book excerpt: As the dominant source of the human food supply, the global land system underlies the foundation of the livelihood and wellbeing of humanity on Earth. On the one hand, the growth rate in the land system’s productive capacity of food has played a key role in global food provision. Technological breakthroughs in wheat and rice production during the past few decades, for instance, have greatly contributed to the maintenance of this growth rate in many parts of the world. On the other hand, however, the terrestrial food production system is facing increasing challenges from environmental stressors ranging from climate change, air pollution to land degradation. Whether and how the global land system will support the food security of more than 10 billion people in the 21st century while minimizing its environmental footprint remains an open question to debate. It is inevitable that the global food production system has to be shifted from focusing on production expansion to land system resilience so that the dual goals of sustainable production and environmental friendliness can be simultaneously achieved.