Cultivating climate change resilience in agri-food systems: responses to natural disasters and emerging climate risks in Queensland’s fresh produce supply chains (2017)

Over the last decade, Australia has experienced several severe natural disasters which have caused significant disruptions to its agri-food supply chains. Global climate change is driving an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events that can lead to natural disasters. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that climate change - and extreme weather events, in particular - pose significant threats to food security. While much food security research focusses on developing nations, contemporary, supermarket-based food systems have a number of characteristics that make them highly vulnerable to disruptions from extreme weather events. The experience of recent disasters and projections of on-going climate change suggest that Australia’s food systems are facing escalating climate risks to which they must adapt. This thesis considers how the agri-food supply chains that underpin Australia’s food system are enabled or constrained to cope with emerging climate risks and, in particular, to a more rapid recurrence of damaging weather events. In this thesis, supply chains are conceptualized as social institutions and identified as a key location in the food system for decision-making regarding the management of climate risks. The empirical focus of the research is national-scale fresh produce supply chains based on vegetables produced in south-east Queensland’s Lockyer and Fassifern Valleys. These supply chains have been affected by a series of severe weather events and natural disasters since 2011. The study applies qualitative methods to draw insights from supply chain actors regarding: the impacts of recent severe weather events; perceptions of these events and future climate risks; the ways in which climate risks are governed in the supply chain; and what responses have occurred following recent events. The analysis is informed by theoretical perspectives from the social sciences, in particular the social construction of risk, risk governance and resilience. The thesis aims to advance recent conceptualisations of food system resilience and proposes a set of attributes that would enable a capacity for resilience to climate risks and natural disasters within agri-food supply chains. The results of the study demonstrate that the impacts of recent natural disasters were unevenly distributed within the supply chain. Upstream segments of the chain (that is, business involved in vegetable production, packing and transport) experienced more significant impacts and longer recovery periods than downstream segments (such as wholesalers and retailers). The study finds that this is strongly linked to an uneven distribution of vulnerability to risks in the chain which, combined with the rapid recurrence of disaster events, has weakened the fresh produce supply system. The study provides important insights into perceptions, and social constructions, of recent weather events and climate risks amongst actors within fresh produce supply chains – addressing a significant gap in the literature. The results suggest that a shared narrative about Australia’s highly variable climate strongly influences a collective construction amongst supply chain actors which normalises and attenuates climate risk. The study finds, however, that recent extreme weather events have unsettled this dominant construct. Perceptions of future climate risks amongst supply chain actors were varied. Those strongly influenced by the climate variability narrative did not expect future risks to be much different from those experienced in the past. A smaller number of research participants, however, were concerned that climate risks may be escalating and that this may require changes to how those risks were managed. The study found two strongly contrasting approaches to the governance of climate risk in fresh produce supply chains. The findings demonstrate that, typically, climate risks are governed in highly individualised ways but that the emergence of new supply chain intermediaries is facilitating a more collective approach to climate risk governance in some chains. The research also shows that recent recurrent floods have catalysed a number of supply chain actors to pursue changes that improve their capacity to more effectively manage climate risks. Those most motivated to make adaptations were found to be involved in supply chains characterised by individualised governance of climate risks. The thesis concludes by considering what the findings suggest about the prospects for cultivating resilience to escalating climate risks in supply chains and the implications for food security in Australia. The study finds that while a collaborative approach to risk governance is emerging in some cases, there are significant constraints to cultivating climate change resilience in fresh produce supply chains in Australia – and that this adds to known threats to our national food security. The research suggests, however, that adopting a risk governance perspective could help to engage a wider set of social actors, particularly governments and consumers, in the process of improving supply chain and food system resilience in the face of climate change.