Food Systems, Sustainability and Climate Change Food Systems, Sustainability and Climate Change Glossary

Produced or brought about by living organisms.

Benefits people derive from ecosystem. Ecosystem services are typically grouped in four broad categories: provisioning, such as the production of food and water; regulating, such as the control of climate and disease; supporting, such as nutrient cycles and crop pollination; and cultural, such as spiritual and recreational benefits. (Source: Wikipedia)

The USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) defines food insecurity as a household characteristic. Food insecure households are those for which “consistent access to adequate food is limited by a lack of money and other resources at times during the year” (See more at: USDA-ERS).

The state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. During the first decade of this century, more than 800 million people live every day with hunger or food insecurity as their constant companion (see also National Academy of Science definitions).

Food security exists “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life.” According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the three pillars of food security are: availability, access and (safe) utilization. In addition you can learn about the four dimensions of food insecurity at the FAO website.

Heat trapping effect of greenhouse gases in the troposphere (lowest portion of the earth's atmosphere)

Relating to or considered in terms of pleasant (or unpleasant) sensations.

Enabling a person to discover or learn something for themselves. Techniques, activities or lessons that allow someone to discover something for himself or by finding solutions through experiments or loosely defined rules.

LCA addresses the environmental aspects and potential environmental impacts (e.g. use of resources and the environmental consequences of releases) throughout a product's life cycle from raw material acquisition through production, use, end-of-life treatment, recycling and final disposal (i.e. cradle-to-grave). There are four phases in an LCA study: a) the goal and scope definition phase, b) the inventory analysis phase, c) the impact assessment phase, and d) the interpretation phase (ISO 2006).

Study directed toward gaining (scientific) knowledge to meet a recognized need

Study directed toward gaining (scientific) knowledge primarily for its own sake

The capacity of a system to buffer shock and stresses. The ability to recover from setbacks, adapt well to change, and keep going in the face of adversity.

Narrowly defined, SI refers to increase food production from existing farmland in ways that place far less pressure on the environment and that do not undermine our capacity to continue producing food in the future. However, Garnett et al. (2013) added the following four premises underlying SI: (a) The need to increase production; (b) Increase production must be met through higher yields because increasing the area of land in agriculture carries major environmental costs; (c) Food security requires as much attention to increasing environmental sustainability as to raising productivity; and (d) SI denotes a goal but does not specify a priori how it should be attained or which agricultural techniques to deploy.