Agricultural Geography and Food Security: Challenges and Policy Perspectives

Food security—defined by availability, access, utilization, and stability—is deeply spatial. Where food is grown, processed, transported, sold, and consumed depends on the interaction of climate, soils, water, infrastructure, markets, institutions, and households’ social and economic conditions. Agricultural geography, as the study of spatial patterns and processes in agriculture, provides the conceptual and analytical tools to diagnose food security risks and design territorial responses. This paper synthesizes the connections between agricultural geography and food security and proposes a policy framework that is sensitive to regional heterogeneity, climate risk, and market integration. Drawing on global patterns and selected regional perspectives (Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, East and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and MENA), we examine drivers of food insecurity—including climate change, land degradation, water scarcity, market and logistics frictions, conflict, and social exclusion—and outline policy responses: sustainable intensification, agroecology, climate-smart agriculture, water governance, land tenure reform, digital market integration, risk financing, and nutrition-sensitive safety nets. The paper argues for multi-scalar governance with geospatial targeting and outcome-based monitoring to close the gap between production and nutrition outcomes, especially for vulnerable populations facing compounding shocks.