Simulation Based Tools for Linking Knowledge with Action to Improve and Maintain Food Security in Africa, 2017

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations there were 800 million malnourished people in 2015. The percentages of malnourished were highest in Africa South of the Sahara. Meanwhile, Africa South of the Sahara is a region that is especially vulnerable to climate change.

The main food source in this region are maize, hence the maize crops plays an important role for the population regarding food security. However, research shows that climate change will contribute to a remarkable reduction in the crops for the maize-dominant agriculture in the south of Africa, and this is a new factor that will increase the uncertainty of the food security in the region.
Different methods to adapt the changing climate and other threats towards food security have been launched. Reviews of the consequences of these methods in short and long term have been challenging because of the dynamic complexity of food production in this area. This is the case of reviews of individual adaption methods and especially when the adaption methods were seen in context with strategies for food security.

This project has contributed to the implementation of methods that adapted the agriculture to climate changes through development and use of simulation models and related training tools. These tools were used in a project in the maize-dominated agriculture in Zambia, and the project had two overall goals:
-To identify effective political measurements to increase food production over time if climate change were to occur in the region
-Develop and review strategies for integration of knowledge and capacity increasing measures that supports the political measurements

The project combined the academic disciplines of climate research, agriculture and food security with the academic discipline of System Dynamics, that used data simulated models for designing political measures and for the teaching of complex dynamic systems. This combination led to both the making of guidelines for training in complex dynamic systems and accessibility of information of climate change, agriculture and food security.

The uniqueness about this project was that it had led to development of several methods where system dynamics modelling tools and techniques that can be used by small scale agriculture to build effective adaption strategies.