Assessing the impact of interventions on food systems resilience

The resilience of food systems is becoming increasingly important in securing consumer access to food, but also people’s ability to generate income from agriculture and agri-businesses. Any assessment of interventions in a food system should include an assessment of the effects these interventions will have on the resilience of that particular system. However, measuring the effects of interventions on food systems resilience is not straightforward, as we cannot simply add up the different component parts of resilience (i.e., of what and who). Food systems contain many interdependencies between different stakeholders and their economic and ecological environments, and these result in trade-offs and synergies. Any policy intervention can be expected to not only affect the specific resilience target, but also other parts of the system – and this should be considered in any assessment. This paper offers a practical assessment framework to support policymakers and impact investors aspiring to strengthen food system resilience or predict the effects of their policies and investments on food system resilience.