Food security concepts are extensively used in households as a measure of welfare, to conceptualise operational usefulness in the design, implementation, and evaluation of policies. Most research is focused on improving food security and sustainability and the patterns still remain tenuous. This article explores food security indicators for sustainability by using system dynamics to understand the interconnectedness of the food security system. This is done by analysing quantitative and qualitative concepts of food security indicators. The simulation result shows dynamics of cropland decreasing with increasing population as they need food, energy and space to survive.

Food security (FS) challenges exist in both the developed and the developing countries, the difference being the severity and the proportion of the population affected. Previous studies maintain that chronic food insecurity at subsistence farming level has persisted due to a number of factors including unsustainable subsistence agriculture and livelihood policies, lack of inputs, poor conservation methods, weak extension services, unregulated markets, limited land among others. This article investigates FS challenges at subsistence farming level using system dynamics tools. The emerging system dynamics model is conceptualised into four sectors; food production, sales, income and food consumption, representing a real-life food security system. The model is used to evaluate policies for better livelihoods as well as explore strategies for profitable subsistence farming and food security.

Smallholder African systems operate in harsh environments of climate changes, resource scarcity, environmental degradation, market failures, and weak public and/or donor support. The smallholders must therefore be prepared to survive by self-provisioning. This chapter examines the nature of vulnerability of smallholders' food security caused by above conditions in the context of system dynamics modelling. The results show that smallholders co-exist whereby the non-resilient households offer labor to the resilient households for survival during turbulent seasons irrespective of the magnitude of external shocks and stressors. In addition, non-resilient households cannot be liberated by external handouts but rather through building their capacity for self-reliance. Using simulation evidence, this chapter supports the claim that in the next decade only resilient households will endure the extreme situations highlighted above. Future research that employs similar systems-based methods are encouraged to explore how long-term food security among smallholders can be sustained.

Food security concepts are extensively used in households as a measure of welfare, to conceptualise operational usefulness in the design, implementation, and evaluation of policies. Most research is focused on improving food security and sustainability and the patterns still remain tenuous. This article explores food security indicators for sustainability by using system dynamics to understand the interconnectedness of the food security system. This is done by analysing quantitative and qualitative concepts of food security indicators. The simulation result shows dynamics of cropland decreasing with increasing population as they need food, energy and space to survive.

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