Title: Understanding Cross-scale Interactions of Trade and Food Policy to Improve Resilience to Drought Risk
Principal Investigator: Lyndon Estes
Funding Agency: National Science Foundation

Food security in regions affected by drought is influenced by a complex set of interactions among hydrological, agricultural,
and social systems. Previous models examining the impact of drought on food security have not incorporated food trade and
food movements at fine spatial scales, yet these components are critical parts of regional food systems. In sub-Saharan Africa droughts and floods account for approximately 80% of fatalities and 70% of the economic losses that are due to natural hazards.

This project’s goal is to understand the effect of drought hazards in subsistence agriculture, using a novel integrative framework that merges data, models, and knowledge of drought risk and crop production, their interactions with the dynamics of trade-based and aid-based responses, and their effect on household food security and consumption.

With collaborators at Princeton University, we shall address three questions:

• What are the spatio-temporal scales of drought risk across Zambia and how does risk transfer into agricultural impacts
• What is the role of trade and domestic food policy on food security at local to national levels?
• Can drought impacts be more effectively reduced by integrating an understanding of policy and food transfers into an agricultural drought early warning system?