Sociology & Political ScienceSystematic Review
Food Security Under Climate Change: Who Eats When the Harvest Fails?
Global food production must roughly double by 2050, but climate change is reducing crop yields in the regions that can least afford it. Five papers examine the biological mechanisms, geographic disparities, and technological responses shaping food security under climate pressure.
By Sean K.S. Shin
This blog summarizes research trends based on published paper abstracts. Specific numbers or findings may contain inaccuracies. For scholarly rigor, always consult the original papers cited in each post.
Global agricultural production must roughly double by 2050 to meet the demands of an increasing world population—but this challenge is being made harder by climate change. Environmental stress, heat, and drought are key drivers in food security and strongly impact crop productivity. The countries that will bear the greatest burden of climate-driven food insecurity are those that contributed least to the emissions causing the crisis: Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and small island developing states.
The food security challenge under climate change is fundamentally a question about inequality. The science of how climate affects crops is increasingly well understood. The science of how to adapt agriculture to changing conditions is advancing rapidly, with AI and precision agriculture offering promising pathways. But the distribution of adaptive capacity—who can afford new technologies, who has access to credit and insurance, who controls land and water—maps onto the same axes of global inequality that shape every other development challenge.
The Biological Mechanisms
Janni, Maestri, and Gullì (2024) provide a comprehensive review of plant responses to climate change. The paper examines how global warming affects crop productivity through multiple biological mechanisms: heat stress reduces grain filling and seed development, drought stress limits photosynthesis and biomass accumulation, elevated CO₂ concentrations may increase some yields but reduce nutritional quality, and increased pest and pathogen pressure accompanies warming temperatures.
The review emphasizes that climate change affects crops not through single stressors but through combinations of stressors that interact in complex ways. A plant experiencing simultaneous heat and drought stress responds differently than a plant experiencing either stressor alone. These interaction effects make prediction difficult and adaptation strategies that address single stressors insufficient.
Bangladesh: A Frontline Case
Rahman, Chowdhury, and Al Amran (2024) examine climate change impacts on food system security and sustainability in Bangladesh. Climate change poses a significant threat to food systems, particularly in vulnerable regions such as Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable due to its geography (low-lying delta highly susceptible to sea-level rise and flooding), economy (agriculture employs a substantial portion of the workforce), and population density (one of the world's highest, leaving little margin for agricultural disruption). The paper reviews impacts across the food system chain: from production (crop damage from floods, salinity intrusion, cyclones) through distribution (infrastructure damage disrupting supply chains) to consumption (food price volatility affecting purchasing power).
Ethiopia: Drought, Flood, and Resilience
Abebe and Amare (2025) examine the climate change and food security nexus in Ethiopia. Developing countries like Ethiopia are disproportionately affected by negative impacts of climate change, and food security is highly jeopardized by climate-induced shocks such as drought and flood.
The Ethiopian case illustrates a pattern common across the Horn of Africa: alternating extreme drought and extreme flooding, each disrupting agricultural production through different mechanisms. Drought reduces water availability for rain-fed agriculture (which constitutes the vast majority of Ethiopian farming). Flooding destroys crops, erodes topsoil, and contaminates water sources. The unpredictability of which extreme will occur makes planning adaptation strategies particularly challenging.
AI and Climate-Smart Agriculture
Mmbando (2025) investigates how different smart technologies are integrated to enhance food security. As a strategic reaction to climate change challenges, the review examines AI and remote sensing in climate-smart agriculture—an approach that uses precision technologies to optimize agricultural inputs, predict weather patterns, and detect crop stress before it becomes visible to human observation.
AI-powered agriculture offers several pathways to climate adaptation: satellite-based crop monitoring detects drought stress early enough for intervention, weather prediction models enable adaptive planting decisions, and soil analysis algorithms optimize fertilizer application to maximize yields under water-constrained conditions.
However, the review also acknowledges the access gap: AI agriculture requires data infrastructure, connectivity, equipment investment, and technical expertise that smallholder farmers in the Global South typically lack. Without deliberate policy to ensure equitable access, AI agriculture may widen the productivity gap between large commercial farms (which can afford precision technology) and smallholder farms (which cannot).
Sub-Saharan Africa: Integrated Approaches
Manono and Gichana (2025) examine the agriculture-livestock-forestry nexus as a pathway to enhanced food security and climate mitigation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Increasing global population and the threat from climate change impose economic, social, and ecological challenges on global food production.
The paper advocates for integrated agroforestry systems that combine crop production, livestock management, and forest conservation on the same land. This approach offers multiple benefits: diversified income sources reduce economic vulnerability to any single crop failure, livestock provide manure that improves soil health, and tree cover sequesters carbon while providing shade that moderates microclimate conditions for crops.
The integrated approach represents a departure from the Green Revolution model of intensified monoculture that has dominated agricultural development—a model whose productivity gains came at the cost of biodiversity loss, soil degradation, and increased vulnerability to climate shocks.
Claims and Evidence
<
| Claim | Evidence | Verdict |
|---|
| Climate change reduces crop yields through multiple interacting mechanisms | Janni et al. (2024): heat stress, drought, elevated CO₂, and pest pressure interact | ✅ Supported |
| Climate change disproportionately affects Global South food security | Rahman et al. (2024), Abebe & Amare (2025): Bangladesh and Ethiopia cases documented | ✅ Supported |
| AI and precision agriculture can improve climate adaptation | Mmbando (2025): early detection, prediction, and optimization documented | ✅ Supported (for equipped farms) |
| AI agriculture benefits are equitably distributed | Mmbando (2025): access gap between commercial and smallholder farms | ❌ Refuted |
| Integrated agroforestry outperforms monoculture under climate stress | Manono & Gichana (2025): diversification reduces vulnerability | ✅ Supported |
Open Questions
Can AI agriculture be made accessible to smallholder farmers? Low-cost sensors, smartphone-based advisory services, and community data cooperatives are proposed pathways—but scalability and sustainability remain uncertain.How should food security policy integrate climate adaptation and social protection? Agricultural adaptation reduces production vulnerability, but social protection (food assistance, cash transfers, insurance) is needed for the transition period. How should these be coordinated?What role should dietary change play in food security strategy? Shifting from livestock-intensive to plant-based diets would reduce agriculture's climate footprint—but livestock is the primary protein source and economic asset for many rural communities in the Global South.Can indigenous agricultural knowledge complement scientific adaptation? Traditional farming practices that evolved over centuries of climate variability may contain adaptation strategies that scientific research has not yet rediscovered.Implications
The food security challenge under climate change cannot be addressed by agricultural technology alone. It requires coordinated action across agriculture, social protection, trade, infrastructure, and climate policy—calibrated to the specific vulnerabilities of different regions and populations. The evidence reviewed here suggests that the most promising approaches combine technological innovation (AI agriculture, drought-resistant varieties) with systemic resilience (diversified farming systems, strong social protection, equitable access to resources).
Global agricultural production must roughly double by 2050 to meet the demands of an increasing world population—but this challenge is being made harder by climate change. Environmental stress, heat, and drought are key drivers in food security and strongly impact crop productivity. The countries that will bear the greatest burden of climate-driven food insecurity are those that contributed least to the emissions causing the crisis: Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and small island developing states.
The food security challenge under climate change is fundamentally a question about inequality. The science of how climate affects crops is increasingly well understood. The science of how to adapt agriculture to changing conditions is advancing rapidly, with AI and precision agriculture offering promising pathways. But the distribution of adaptive capacity—who can afford new technologies, who has access to credit and insurance, who controls land and water—maps onto the same axes of global inequality that shape every other development challenge.
The Biological Mechanisms
Janni, Maestri, and Gullì (2024) provide a comprehensive review of plant responses to climate change. The paper examines how global warming affects crop productivity through multiple biological mechanisms: heat stress reduces grain filling and seed development, drought stress limits photosynthesis and biomass accumulation, elevated CO₂ concentrations may increase some yields but reduce nutritional quality, and increased pest and pathogen pressure accompanies warming temperatures.
The review emphasizes that climate change affects crops not through single stressors but through combinations of stressors that interact in complex ways. A plant experiencing simultaneous heat and drought stress responds differently than a plant experiencing either stressor alone. These interaction effects make prediction difficult and adaptation strategies that address single stressors insufficient.
Bangladesh: A Frontline Case
Rahman, Chowdhury, and Al Amran (2024) examine climate change impacts on food system security and sustainability in Bangladesh. Climate change poses a significant threat to food systems, particularly in vulnerable regions such as Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable due to its geography (low-lying delta highly susceptible to sea-level rise and flooding), economy (agriculture employs a substantial portion of the workforce), and population density (one of the world's highest, leaving little margin for agricultural disruption). The paper reviews impacts across the food system chain: from production (crop damage from floods, salinity intrusion, cyclones) through distribution (infrastructure damage disrupting supply chains) to consumption (food price volatility affecting purchasing power).
Ethiopia: Drought, Flood, and Resilience
Abebe and Amare (2025) examine the climate change and food security nexus in Ethiopia. Developing countries like Ethiopia are disproportionately affected by negative impacts of climate change, and food security is highly jeopardized by climate-induced shocks such as drought and flood.
The Ethiopian case illustrates a pattern common across the Horn of Africa: alternating extreme drought and extreme flooding, each disrupting agricultural production through different mechanisms. Drought reduces water availability for rain-fed agriculture (which constitutes the vast majority of Ethiopian farming). Flooding destroys crops, erodes topsoil, and contaminates water sources. The unpredictability of which extreme will occur makes planning adaptation strategies particularly challenging.
AI and Climate-Smart Agriculture
Mmbando (2025) investigates how different smart technologies are integrated to enhance food security. As a strategic reaction to climate change challenges, the review examines AI and remote sensing in climate-smart agriculture—an approach that uses precision technologies to optimize agricultural inputs, predict weather patterns, and detect crop stress before it becomes visible to human observation.
AI-powered agriculture offers several pathways to climate adaptation: satellite-based crop monitoring detects drought stress early enough for intervention, weather prediction models enable adaptive planting decisions, and soil analysis algorithms optimize fertilizer application to maximize yields under water-constrained conditions.
However, the review also acknowledges the access gap: AI agriculture requires data infrastructure, connectivity, equipment investment, and technical expertise that smallholder farmers in the Global South typically lack. Without deliberate policy to ensure equitable access, AI agriculture may widen the productivity gap between large commercial farms (which can afford precision technology) and smallholder farms (which cannot).
Sub-Saharan Africa: Integrated Approaches
Manono and Gichana (2025) examine the agriculture-livestock-forestry nexus as a pathway to enhanced food security and climate mitigation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Increasing global population and the threat from climate change impose economic, social, and ecological challenges on global food production.
The paper advocates for integrated agroforestry systems that combine crop production, livestock management, and forest conservation on the same land. This approach offers multiple benefits: diversified income sources reduce economic vulnerability to any single crop failure, livestock provide manure that improves soil health, and tree cover sequesters carbon while providing shade that moderates microclimate conditions for crops.
The integrated approach represents a departure from the Green Revolution model of intensified monoculture that has dominated agricultural development—a model whose productivity gains came at the cost of biodiversity loss, soil degradation, and increased vulnerability to climate shocks.
Claims and Evidence
<
| Claim | Evidence | Verdict |
|---|
| Climate change reduces crop yields through multiple interacting mechanisms | Janni et al. (2024): heat stress, drought, elevated CO₂, and pest pressure interact | ✅ Supported |
| Climate change disproportionately affects Global South food security | Rahman et al. (2024), Abebe & Amare (2025): Bangladesh and Ethiopia cases documented | ✅ Supported |
| AI and precision agriculture can improve climate adaptation | Mmbando (2025): early detection, prediction, and optimization documented | ✅ Supported (for equipped farms) |
| AI agriculture benefits are equitably distributed | Mmbando (2025): access gap between commercial and smallholder farms | ❌ Refuted |
| Integrated agroforestry outperforms monoculture under climate stress | Manono & Gichana (2025): diversification reduces vulnerability | ✅ Supported |
Open Questions
Can AI agriculture be made accessible to smallholder farmers? Low-cost sensors, smartphone-based advisory services, and community data cooperatives are proposed pathways—but scalability and sustainability remain uncertain.How should food security policy integrate climate adaptation and social protection? Agricultural adaptation reduces production vulnerability, but social protection (food assistance, cash transfers, insurance) is needed for the transition period. How should these be coordinated?What role should dietary change play in food security strategy? Shifting from livestock-intensive to plant-based diets would reduce agriculture's climate footprint—but livestock is the primary protein source and economic asset for many rural communities in the Global South.Can indigenous agricultural knowledge complement scientific adaptation? Traditional farming practices that evolved over centuries of climate variability may contain adaptation strategies that scientific research has not yet rediscovered.Implications
The food security challenge under climate change cannot be addressed by agricultural technology alone. It requires coordinated action across agriculture, social protection, trade, infrastructure, and climate policy—calibrated to the specific vulnerabilities of different regions and populations. The evidence reviewed here suggests that the most promising approaches combine technological innovation (AI agriculture, drought-resistant varieties) with systemic resilience (diversified farming systems, strong social protection, equitable access to resources).
References (5)
[1] Janni, M., Maestri, E., & Gullì, M. (2024). Plant responses to climate change, how global warming may impact on food security: a critical review. Frontiers in Plant Science, 14, 1297569.
[2] Mmbando, G. (2025). Harnessing AI and Remote Sensing in Climate-Smart Agriculture. Cogent Food & Agriculture, 11(1), 2454354.
[3] Abebe, M.G. & Amare, Z. (2025). Climate change and food security nexus in Ethiopia: challenges to food sustainability—a systematic literature review. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 9, 1563379.
[4] Rahman, M.M., Chowdhury, M.I., & Al Amran, M.I.U. (2024). Impacts of climate change on food system security and sustainability in Bangladesh. Journal of Water and Climate Change, 15(12), 631.
[5] Manono, B. & Gichana, Z. (2025). Agriculture-Livestock-Forestry Nexus: Pathways to Enhanced Incomes, Soil Health, Food Security and Climate Change Mitigation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Earth, 6(3), 74.