Beyond ecosystem services: a food security perspective

The authors argue that traditional ecosystem services (EServ) frameworks are insufficient for modelling food provision because they focus solely on flows from nature to humans, neglecting critical human-to-nature and human-to-human interactions. To address this, the paper suggests an agent-based modelling (ABM) approach combined with a 'social-ecological governance compass' to capture how individual behaviors—categorized by cooperation, competition, conformation, and differentiation—influence collective food security outcomes. Using a case study from the Zomba District of Malawi, the paper demonstrates that cooperative economic behavior and differentiated production patterns can optimize the flow of benefits from nature to humans through social networks, such as labor exchange and food banking, which are often overlooked in market-driven paradigms.

• Traditional ecosystem services frameworks are limited because they only consider the flow of services from nature to humans, ignoring 'human to nature flows' (co-production and environmental pressures) and 'human to human flows' (social and economic exchanges).
• Food access is heavily dependent on social networks and economic entitlements, meaning that human-to-human flows are essential for understanding food security beyond simple food availability.
• The authors propose a 'social-ecological governance compass' to model individual behavior based on two axes: economic behavior (cooperation vs. competition) and personal behavior (conformation vs. differentiation).
• In the context of rural food security, the combination of cooperation and differentiation is identified as ideal for optimizing benefits, as it encourages crop diversity and the rise of social flows like labor exchange and food banking.

APA

Balbi, S., & Villa, F. (2016). Beyond ecosystem services: a food security perspective. Basque Centre for Climate Change. https://www.bc3research.org/h6T8Uy8Nm4gFs0O/201705100323212021548268.pdf

Chicago

Balbi, Stefano, and Ferdinando Villa. Beyond ecosystem services: a food security perspective. Basque Centre for Climate Change, 2016. https://www.bc3research.org/h6T8Uy8Nm4gFs0O/201705100323212021548268.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Balbi |first1=Stefano |last2=Villa |first2=Ferdinando |title=Beyond ecosystem services: a food security perspective |publisher=Basque Centre for Climate Change |date=May 2016 |url=https://www.bc3research.org/h6T8Uy8Nm4gFs0O/201705100323212021548268.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{balbi2016beyond, author = {Balbi, Stefano and Villa, Ferdinando}, title = {{Beyond ecosystem services: a food security perspective}}, institution = {Basque Centre for Climate Change}, year = {2016}, month = may, url = {https://www.bc3research.org/h6T8Uy8Nm4gFs0O/201705100323212021548268.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }