Evidence Aid Newsletter: 26 February 2024
Welcome to Evidence Aid’s February newsletter.
Last month, we called attention to a crisis of an international nature: food insecurity and malnutrition. At the same time, the start of 2024 was marked with a different sort of record-breaking discovery — not only was last month the warmest January on record, but it was also reported that the world just experienced a 12-month period of more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial reference period.
2023 was already our planet’s hottest year in global records spanning back to 1850, with the previous warmest January being in 2020. The evidence is clear: these temperatures will only continue to rise without deference to our world’s food systems. Climate change and food insecurity are not crises of distinct natures. In fact, it is likely that one cannot and should not be examined without consideration of the other. Climate change influences weather patterns, causing heat waves, heavy rainfall, and droughts. Considering that about 80% of the global population most at risk from crop failures and hunger live in regions of the world most vulnerable to changing El Niño weather patterns, any effective solution to such crises must consider traversing nature. As such, this month’s newsletter aims to shed light on the relationship between two intersecting crises, highlighting several summaries which address the complex relationship between both climate change and food insecurity.
Relevant Evidence Aid Summaries
Community well-being and climate change
Citation: Dorji T, et al. Understanding How Community Wellbeing is Affected by Climate Change: Evidence From a Systematic Literature Review. Environmental Management. 2023;72:568-586.
Community well-being encompasses social, economic, environmental, and political health — all of which can be impacted by climate change. The impacts of climate change are most heavily felt by those living in farming, rural, indigenous, fishing, and coastal communities, as it changes the physical environment and thus the ecosystems upon which communities depend for their livelihood, food security, and cultural purposes.
Citation: Chandra A, et al. Climate-smart agriculture: perspectives and framings. Climate Policy. 2018;18(4):526-41.
Climate-smart agriculture integrates the management of various agricultural issues, including cropland, livestock, forests, and fisheries to address both food security and climate change. This approach has the ability to provide policy directions to promote climate change, health and nutritional benefits, as well as finance and infrastructure development.
Farming field schools improve some farming practices and farmer outcomes.
Citation: Waddington H, et al. Farmer Field Schools for Improving Farming Practices and Farmer Outcomes: A Systematic Review. Campbell Systematic Reviews 2014;10: i-335.
The COVID-19 pandemic decreased agricultural production, reducing the supply of workers, food supply chains, and increasing food insecurity. Farmer field schools can improve farmers’ knowledge and adoption of beneficial practices, reducing the overuse of pesticides and environmental degradation.
For additional information, visit our humanitarian impact of climate change evidence collection.
Additional Information
Social media: Four of our volunteers (Vidhi Ramnarain, Sophie Deardon, Emily Meier, and Sebastien Duverseau) promote our summaries and the work of Evidence Aid through several social media accounts. We’d like to welcome Abbie Butler who will be taking over from Vidhi, Emily and Sophie later this month. Please follow us to continue to stay up to date on our work and share any content you think is useful.
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Commissioned projects: Read more about our ongoing projects here.
Volunteers: Vital to the ongoing work of Evidence Aid, volunteers are the backbone of our organization. From searching, screening, and downloading reviews to preparing and writing summaries, the work of volunteers is apparent in every ounce of material we produce. If you’re interested in joining our team, please email Sumra Ali at info@evidenceaid.org.
Funding: If you enjoy our work and agree that it’s important that we continue through 2024, please consider donating here. Anybody who hasn’t donated before will have their donations match funded; please do think about this particularly now when your donation will be doubled!
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From,
Your Evidence Aid team