ABSTRACT
Food system vulnerability to global environmental change (GEC) typically invokes vulnerability of agriculture: the sensitivity of food production, the resources on which production depends, and food producers to diverse aspects of GEC. The majority of research pertaining to foods and agricultural vulnerability generally adheres to this conceptualization. In this relatively large body of work, indicators of vulnerability tend to be associated with production and yields (e.g. Jones and Thornton, 2003; Thomson et al, 2005), farm income (e.g. Antle et al, 2004) and, more broadly, in terms of food availability, consumption and rural livelihood security (Rosegrant and Cline, 2003; Morton, 2007; FAO, 2008a). The human ‘units of concern’ of vulnerability analysis in this literature are typically producers (rural households, farm enterprises, agribusiness) or, alternatively, consumers (rural subsistence households or urban consumers). Vulnerability in this conceptualization also tends to be place-based, with the implicit assumption that outcomes such as a collapse in production or evidence of famine can be understood through an analysis of causal agents and impacts occurring in a contained and contiguous geographic space (see discussion in Eakin et al, 2009).
