Cooperative food bank: a collective insurance regime to govern food insecurity and nitrogen pollution under risk

Abstract

Risks, such as climate change, disease outbreak, geopolitical tension, may exacerbate food insecurity by negatively impacting crop yield. Additional agricultural nitrogen input may partly offset yield losses, with a corresponding increase in nitrogen pollution. The problems of food insecurity and nitrogen pollution are urgent and global but have not been addressed in an integrated fashion. Current efforts to combat food insecurity occur primarily through the United Nations’ World Food Program at the international level, and, at the local community level, through food banks. The international program to monitor and reduce global nitrogen pollution is in its early stage. Food provision and nitrogen pollution reduction from agriculture presents a dual challenge that requires an integrated solution. Here, we propose a cooperative food bank, where membership is a matter of choice and is not coerced. Membership requires participants to reduce nitrogen pollution in agriculture but creates a risk-buffering system, providing food compensation when participants are affected by risk factors. We delineate the structure of the cooperative food bank, its operation, from the short-term mobilization of resources to long-term capacity building. Lastly, we assess the feasibility of its implementation and highlight the potential major roadblocks to its implementation within the current socio-political context. The cooperative food bank showcases a novel solution that simultaneously tackles food insecurity and nitrogen pollution via governance. We hope this proposal will stimulate a research agenda and policy discussions focused on integrated approaches to effective governance regimes for linked socio-environmental problems.