Migration and Food Security Dynamics
Summary
Migratory movements intersect with food security through complex socio-economic and environmental pathways. Migration can act as both a response to food insecurity and a mechanism that reshapes food access, dietary patterns and agricultural capacity across origin and destination regions. Households often rely on remittances to stabilise income, diversify food expenditures and enhance dietary diversity, while large-scale population shifts influence labour availability, land use and local food systems. Environmental changes, notably climate variability, further mediate this nexus by triggering rural out-migration along the agricultural pathway, whereby declining yields drive mobility as an adaptation to sustain livelihoods. Understanding these dynamics requires integrated frameworks that consider household strategies, market linkages and policy interventions to bolster resilience and ensure equitable food access amidst evolving migratory trends.
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Migration and Food Security Dynamics publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in migration and food security dynamics across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Food security: The state in which all people have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to maintain a healthy life.
Remittance: Financial or in-kind transfers sent by migrants to support households in their regions of origin.
Dietary diversity: A metric assessing the number of different food groups consumed over a period, indicating nutritional quality.
Agricultural pathway: The conceptual route linking environmental impacts on crop productivity to migration as an adaptation strategy.
References
- Food Security: The impact of migrants and remittances in Sri Lanka. Discover Food (2024).
- A framework to link climate change, food security, and migration: unpacking the agricultural pathway. Population and Environment (2024).
- The effects of remittances on household food nutrition security in the context of multiple shocks in Malawi. Cogent Food & Agriculture (2023).
About these summaries
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