Further concepts and approaches for enhancing food system resilience

The cornerstones to enhance food system resilience can be considered as three fundamental concepts, the ‘3Rs’¹: robustness, based on the capacity of the food system actors to adapt their activities to resist disruptions to desired food system outcomes; recovery, based on the ability of food system actors to adapt their activities so as to be able to return to pre-existing food system outcomes following disruption; and reorientation, based on the ability of food system actors to adapt their activities based on accepting alternative food system outcomes as a strategy before or after disruption. The 3Rs are not mutually exclusive or hierarchical. Each is dynamic, complex and subject to unpredictable uncertainties, requiring innovations in institutions, governance mechanisms and other systems of accountability, as well as changes in culture, individual behaviour and technology. An appropriate balance is needed across the 3Rs, rather than advocating for singular solutions. While resilience strategies based on robustness and recovery may be more appropriate in the short term but not sustainable, reorientation is arguably a longer-term approach, suggesting practitioners need to situate shorter-term ‘status quo’ efforts within a longer-term, reorientated vision.

The approach taken will depend on the answers to a set of framing questions that have shaped resilience practice over the past two decades^2,3: resilience of what, to what, from whose perspective and over what time frame? Yet, these four questions lead to the need for a fifth one: resilience for what purpose? In relation to stakeholder interests, this fifth question emphasizes the normative nature of resilient food systems and makes it explicit that different stakeholders have different objectives, motives and worldviews. This is particularly important for considering the preferred mix of food system outcomes coupled with acceptable trade-offs between outcomes that will align with reorientation. These five questions need to be answered collaboratively and iteratively among food system stakeholders to arrive at a shared understanding and agreed framing. However, links between the 3R concepts and practice are not sufficiently well developed and strategies are needed to improve these links. Key components to consider in light of these resilience concepts include agency (of actors in responding to shocks), buffering (resources to fall back on in times of stress), connectivity (and communication between actors and market segments) and diversity (across scales and places in the interacting systems)⁴. Building resilience in practice has hence been associated with the capacity and agency of food system actors to develop connections across multiple levels on spatial, temporal and jurisdictional scales, and to respond to disruptions. It is also necessary to acknowledge the wider context with which specific food systems operate, for example, historical and cultural determinants, the integration of farming with other economic domains (for example, tourism⁵), local geographies and natural resources, as well as relevant policies and regulations at local, national and international levels. This allows for strengthening food sovereignty at bioregional levels⁶.