Trade has an important role to play in climate change adaptation efforts and can contribute to food security in many countries. In the short term, by moving food from surplus to deficit areas, trade can provide a mechanism to address production shortfalls due to extreme weather events. Global agricultural market integration could reinforce the adaptive role of trade by increasing availability of, and access to, food in countries that will be negatively affected by climate change.

Enhancing the resilience of supply chains to risks can help safeguard food security and reduce social deprivation and political stresses associated with poverty and inequality. Importantly, the relationship between resilience and sustainability means that policies for each of these pieces need to be considered together.

Contract farming schemes can help address the constraints smallholders face in price risk, access to inputs and credit, and access to technology. These schemes can improve productivity, raise commercialization rates, increase incomes and reduce poverty.

Governments set policy priorities and build general resilience, but it is actors throughout the supply chain who are directly affected and who need to consider business strategies and interventions to adapt and transform for the future.