Article review

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1. what are the author’s credentials, and in writing this article, is the author adding something robust or new or controversial to the field in which they specialize?
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5. Add something personal–a response to the information in the article–Has this article opened your eyes to something you didn’t know before?

Integrating climate change, food prices and population health
Catherine Bradbear ?, Sharon Friel 1
National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University, Mills Road, Canberra 0200, Australia
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 9 February 2012
Received in revised form 8 August 2013
Accepted 16 August 2013
Keywords:
Climate change
Food policy
Food prices
Food system
Health
Health inequalities
a b s t r a c t
The inter-related nature of food, health and climate change requires a better understanding of the linkages
and a greater alignment of policy across these issues to be able to adequately meet the pressing
social and health challenges arising from climate change. Food price is one way through which climate
change may affect health. The aim of this study of the global and Australian food systems is to provide
a whole-of-system analysis of food price vulnerabilities, highlighting the key pressure points across
the food system through which climate change could potentially have the greatest impact on consumer
food prices and the implications for population health. We outline areas where there are particular vulnerabilities
for food systems and food prices arising from climate change, particularly global commodity
prices; agricultural productivity; short term supply shocks; and less direct factors such as input costs and
government policies. We use Australia as a high-income country case study to consider these issues in
more detail. The complex and dynamic nature of pricing mechanisms makes it difficult to predict precisely
how prices will be impacted. Should prices rise disproportionately among healthy foodstuffs compared
to less healthy foods there may be adverse health outcomes if less expensive and less healthy foods
are substituted. Higher prices will also have equity implications with lower socio-economic groups most
impacted given these households currently spend proportionately more of their weekly income on food.
The ultimate objective of this research is to identify the pathways through the food system via which climate
change may affect food prices and ultimately population health, thereby providing evidence for
food policy which takes into account environmental and health considerations.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Introduction
Food systems are the complex and dynamic interactions between
and within the biogeophysical and human environments
that result in the production, trade, processing, distribution, preparation
and consumption of food (Ericksen, 2008; Gregory et al.,
2005). The activities undertaken within the food system have
broad ranging impacts, including on the economy and environment,
but also on social welfare, food security, diet and human
health (Lang et al., 2001). Food security is defined as ‘all people
at all times have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe
and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences
for an active life’ (FAO, 1996). The health implications of food
insecurity are significant: poor nutrition plays a prominent role in
morbidity and premature death from many chronic health conditions
in all countries including Australia (Australian Institute of
Health and Welfare, 2010; WHO, 2003).
Evidence is accumulating internationally on the current and expected
impacts of climate change on food system sustainability
and human health (Easterling et al., 2007; Tirado et al., 2010).
The food sector relies on ecosystems’ ability to provide the resources,
such as nutrient-rich soils and water, and the climate regulation
necessary to produce food (Garnaut, 2008; UNEP, 2010).
Climate change represents an additional pressure on food systems
and diet-related health, and on the production of nutritious, plentiful
and affordable food, though the nature and extent of impact is
likely to vary around the world, as well as within countries (FAO,
2011; Friel et al., 2008).
There is growing awareness of the impact of climate change on
crop productivity and food production and the implications for
food security (Gregory et al., 2005; Schmidhuber and Tubiello,
2007). Relatively less analyses consider the impact of climate
change on other dimensions of food security including affordability,
which relates to the purchasing power of households relative
to the price of food (Ericksen, 2008; Gregory et al., 2005). Issues
associated with food prices and affordability have been emerging
in recent years, partly in response to the global food price increases
of 2008 and the complexity of factors, including climate events,
that combined to produce the price increases (Ericksen et al.,
0306-9192/$ – see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2013.08.007
? Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 401 269 860; fax: +61 2 6125 0740.
E-mail addresses: cbradbear@gmail.com (C. Bradbear), Sharon.Friel@anu.edu.au
(S. Friel).
1 Tel.: +61 2 6125 0721.
Food Policy 43 (2013) 56–66
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Food Policy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/ locate/foodpol