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Project

On the rice: a holistic approach to identify countries with an imminent imbalance between rice supply and demand in Africa

Understanding supply and demand of rice in Africa is essential to tackling challenges of food security. A balance between both is complex: supply and demand are determined by production, consumption and trade, which in turn influence each other: when there is more demand for rice, more is produced or traded. But, if more is produced, more rice can be consumed. Actually, these three form a triangle. Today, the corners of this triangle are considered systems on their own. In this research, I will try to look to the entire triangle at once, as a system of systems. I will do this by first improving each corner of the triangle. Especially the production corner will get extra attention since there, land management is often incorrectly ignored. I will do this by collecting field data in Senegal, Tanzania, Madagascar and Uganda and combine them with satellite images. For the consumption and trade corners I will use existing models and assumptions. In Africa, where food security is an issue, this triangle will change due to climate change, population growth, migrations to the cities and economic development. If predictions are made for the future, too often it is done for only one point in the future. However, this is not correct since the triangle changes gradually due to changes in the corners and the elements determining these corners. This research will explicitly look to these gradual changes to be able to indicate where and when a gap can appear between rice supply and demand

Date:1 Nov 2019 →  1 Nov 2023
Keywords:Holistic Approach, rice, Production - Consumption - Trade System, global change, food security, remote sensing
Disciplines:Remote sensing, Sustainable agriculture, Population trends and policies
Project type:PhD project