Assessing the global food security landscape for major food staples: a systematic literature review

In the current state of our world, the three cereal crops—maize, rice, and wheat—dominate the supply of food staples and inputs for animal feeds. Yet, many countries have an insufficient supply of food staples from domestic sources, whose situations seem to be worse in recent years, largely due to the continuing population growth and unexpected events that affect the world’s food trade. The challenges of ensuring global food security have thus become more critical. To better explore the relationship between food trade and food security, a systematic review—based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA)—has been conducted herein. According to 105 reviewed articles, two main themes are revealed as major threats to the world’s food security: (i) agricultural and environmental challenges and (ii) geopolitical and socioeconomic issues. Moreover, as identified by the Causal Loop Diagram (CLD), international trade, agricultural innovations, and virtual water trading are the current key approaches capable of mitigating food security problems—particularly the reduction in agricultural supply. To this end, international trade and virtual water trading can provide better access to agricultural products for low-income countries, while agricultural innovations can enhance agricultural yields for the high-income ones.