A preliminary study on implication of a changing climate on food security in Kota Belud, Sabah

Abstract

Climate change is considered as posing the intense threat to agriculture and food security in the 21 st century. Some studies have been conducted and shown that climate change affects food production directly through changes in agro-ecological conditions and indirectly by affecting growth and distribution of incomes, The global food crisis in 2008 has been a wake-up call for everyone. The world food prices are spiked more steeply than for 30 years. This can be shown in the rice price situation in the period of time from 2004 to 2008. The relationship between climate change and food security nowadays have been explored to assess its impacts on crop productivity and hence, food production. This article is interested to review the vulnerability of food security under the influence of climate change in Kota Belud, Sabah. Radimer/Cornell hunger scale was used to measure the hunger and food insecurity. Survey fonnns have been distributed to 251 residents in Kota Belud. Chi-Square tests were used to determine the correlation between the farmers' perceptions towards climate change and food accessibility aspect in food security. The results show that climate change has no significant correlation with the food accessibility. Even though, all of the four elements of food security are seem to be affected by climate change, there are some of emerging and ongoing forces that have effect food security such economic growth, changes to trade flows, stocks, and food aid policy.