ABSTRACT
Food security in the face of global environmental change (GEC) is one of the most complex issues facing the research community at large. Although most policy-makers, scientists and funding agencies recognize the need for additional knowledge about how the various food system activities interact and how these interactions affect food security (see Chapter 2), research that is capable of adequately addressing the problem is hard to find. This is because not only are there large uncertainties in many aspects of the debate, but the debate involves a bewildering range of interested parties, or ‘stakeholders’. A further complication is that food systems involve critical interactions at a number of levels on a range of scales (e.g. spatial, temporal, jurisdictional, institutional, management) (Cash et al, 2006; and see Chapters 2 and 13), each of which has its own group or groups of stakeholders. Research on the interactions between GEC and food security therefore has to recognize, and engage with, a wide range of stakeholders. This is in contrast to research on crop improvement, for instance, where the range of stakeholders is much narrower, and may remain predominantly within the research community itself. While considerable effort has been spent in improving understanding of food system–GEC interactions at the local or household level, research at the regional (sub-continental) level is far less well developed, but – as is discussed in detail in Part IV – offers important insights into food system adaptation strategies and policies. This chapter therefore addresses stakeholder engagement at regional level.
