Climate Resilience and Food Security

The paper introduces a framework to analyze food system resilience to climate change, moving from the household as the locus of food security up to community and national scales. It proposes two 'spinwheel' tools: one for food security analysis and one for resilience analysis, integrating system, agent, and institutional criteria. The framework is applied through the CREFSCA project in Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, utilizing the CRiSTAL tool for community-level assessments.

• The document argues that most food security studies focus on direct impacts of climate events on food production, neglecting other critical dimensions such as access, utilization, and stability, which limits the understanding of factors that make communities climate resilient.
• The proposed conceptual framework uses a 'spinwheel' approach with five concentric rings to analyze food systems, starting with the household at the center and expanding to food access, food availability, supporting resources and services, and finally supporting organizations and policies.
• Resilience in food systems is treated as an emergent property resulting from interactions between system elements over time, rather than a simple function of individual characteristics.
• The framework for resilience analysis (Spinwheel 2) applies specific normative criteria: 'systems' (flexibility, robustness, redundancy, modularity, diversity, and safe failure), 'agents' (responsiveness, reorganization, resourcefulness, and capacity to learn), and 'institutions' (rights, entitlements, decision making, and information).
• At the community level, the framework is integrated with the CRiSTAL (Community-based Risk Screening Tool – Adaptation and Livelihoods) tool to identify how climate hazards affect local livelihoods and the resources used for coping.
• Food availability resilience is specifically linked to the capacity and distribution of storage systems; the document notes that centralized storage can be a vulnerability, citing the 2010 Pakistan floods where World Food Programme reserves were destroyed due to their proximity to the Indus River.
• The framework emphasizes that food access resilience is higher when households have diverse income and food sources, such as balancing farm production with non-farm income.
• The resilience of supporting organizations and policies is assessed based on their ability to restore functionality after shocks, provide equitable access to marginalized groups, and maintain transparent, participatory decision-making processes.

APA

Tyler, S., Keller, M., Swanson, D., Bizikova, L., Hammill, A., Zamudio, A. N., Moench, M., Dixit, A., Flores, R. G., Heer, C., González, D., Sosa, A. R., Gough, A. M., Solórzano, J. L., Wilson, C., Hernandez, X., & Bushey, S. (2013). Climate Resilience and Food Security. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/adaptation_CREFSCA.pdf

Chicago

Tyler, Stephen, Marius Keller, Darren Swanson, Livia Bizikova, Anne Hammill, Alicia Natalia Zamudio, Marcus Moench, et al. Climate Resilience and Food Security. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2013. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/adaptation_CREFSCA.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Tyler |first1=Stephen |last2=Keller |first2=Marius |last3=Swanson |first3=Darren |last4=Bizikova |first4=Livia |last5=Hammill |first5=Anne |last6=Zamudio |first6=Alicia Natalia |last7=Moench |first7=Marcus |last8=Dixit |first8=Ajaya |last9=Flores |first9=Ramón Guevara |display-authors=etal |title=Climate Resilience and Food Security |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=June 2013 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/adaptation_CREFSCA.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{tyler2013climate, author = {Tyler, Stephen and Keller, Marius and Swanson, Darren and Bizikova, Livia and Hammill, Anne and Zamudio, Alicia Natalia and Moench, Marcus and Dixit, Ajaya and Flores, Ramón Guevara and Heer, Carlos and González, Daysi and Sosa, Andrea Rivera and Gough, Angie Murillo and Solórzano, José Luis and Wilson, Ceferino and Hernandez, Xochilt and Bushey, Steve}, title = {{Climate Resilience and Food Security}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2013}, month = jun, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/adaptation_CREFSCA.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }