Food insecurity and climate change: To what extent can migration be part of the solution?

In the past, adaptation to both slow-onset and sudden-onset climatic hazards was perceived mostly as a local‑level process of adjustment that reduced vulnerability to climate variability and change.⁷⁰ More recently, empirical case studies have emerged that highlight how some affected individuals, households and communities have used migration as an autonomous and spontaneous adaptation tool when climate change adversely affects habitability, climate‑dependent livelihoods, or food security.⁷¹ In anticipation of displacement or in the face of displacement, some governments have also put into practice planned relocation programmes, with variable results, such as in the Caribbean.⁷² The relationship between migration and adaptation in the context of climate change is nuanced, and outcomes are indeed diverse and complex:

Properly supported and where levels of agency and assets are high, migration as an adaptation to climate change can reduce exposure and socioeconomic vulnerability (medium confidence). However, migration becomes a risk when climate hazards cause an individual, household or community to move involuntarily or with low agency (high confidence). Inability to migrate (i.e. involuntary immobility) in the face of climate hazards is also a potential risk to exposed populations (medium confidence).⁷³

The outcomes of migration as adaptation depend upon the circumstances of the individuals or households engaging in human mobility, and on the involvement and agency of the migrants, regardless of the reasons for migration.74 Evidence suggests that the better off the individual or household is socioeconomically, the better the outcomes for the sending and receiving communities and households.⁷⁵ However, displacement associated with limited agency – once adaptation in place is no longer successful, or when government actions are insufficient and when climate impacts surpass the coping capacity of vulnerable communities – can yield negative outcomes in terms of loss of livelihoods and overall well-being.⁷⁶ Evidence also indicates that displacement in these cases is usually associated with unanticipated and profound loss.⁷⁷

Adaptive migration: What does the evidence say?

Migration appears as a coping or adaptation option among other strategies when households are confronted with the impacts of climate hazards.⁷⁸ Communities faced with socioeconomic challenges at home may keep searching for work opportunities elsewhere as a viable livelihood pathway, more so when faced with structural poverty, limited access to land and land ownership, and in the face of detrimental climatic conditions affecting their crops.⁷⁹ In low- and middle-income countries, adaptive migration seems more likely to be from rural to urban.⁸⁰ Long‑term international migration to high-income countries from low-income countries suggests that households and individuals migrate to realize financial opportunities and increase household income in the country of origin via remittances.⁸¹ From a food security perspective, migrant communities from around the world provide income to the communities of origin to buy food through remittances.⁸² Evidence suggests that these mobilities in South Asia have promoted climate resilience in sending communities.⁸³

Remittances help households to adapt as well as facilitate agricultural adaptation, which ensures greater food security.⁸⁴ In northern Thailand, adaptation innovation in small-scale farming has been related to translocal migration networks.⁸⁵ In Nepal, remittance-recipient households are more likely to invest a part of their savings in flood preparedness if the women staying behind have access to capacity-building interventions that aim to strengthen autonomous adaptation measures such as precautionary savings and flood preparedness.⁸⁶

Families with access to remittances can adapt better to livelihood and food crises in comparison to families that do not have access to remittances.⁸⁷ In India, studies show a strong influence of climate impacts on internal migration from Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, with most remittances being used for daily consumption of goods, including food.⁸⁸ In Burkina Faso, even where rainfall variability has a negative impact on food security, remittances are found to enhance food security.⁸⁹ In Bangladesh, evidence indicates that households adapt to climate stressors by combining local-level adaptation measures with the migration of one or a few members of their households.⁹⁰

Adaptive migration should not substitute for investment in adaptive capacity-building in situ. However, with adequate support and inclusion in guiding strategies, it certainly has the potential to benefit communities in exposed locations to build adaptive capacity, and thus support the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Such an approach faces many challenges. For instance, the outcomes of migration as adaptation are largely mediated by the perception of migrants in the receiving communities and by how policy approaches seek to shape these perceptions. Projections of large numbers of migrants, increasing in future climate scenarios, can cause a misinterpretation of the scale of migration, leading to xenophobia and triggering potential security concerns, despite little evidence that migrants pose security threats at State or international levels.⁹¹

Research has focused more on understanding how migration and environmental change relates to climate assessments at the origin of the migrating communities, and less on the receiving communities.⁹² Research on migration from Zimbabwe to South African cities suggests that migrants face a high level of malnutrition upon arrival, associated with the difficulties of accessing regular income and the opposition of receiving communities to their presence, often resulting in limited access to regular income.⁹³ These scenarios raise key questions for further research to understand how rapidly growing cities can feed their populations, including those affected by climate hazards.⁹⁴ In addition, there is a need to understand how the current policies that promote seasonal migration (for example, the movements of agricultural migrant workers) ensure food security to the migrants after arrival.⁹⁵ However, this is the context of the broader issue about the extent to which seasonal labour migration arrangements involving climate-affected origin communities (such as small island developing States) can actually be considered an adaptive solution to climate hazards.⁹⁶

Without adequate adaptation interventions and urban planning, the infrastructure of urban centres receiving climate-related migrants will also be at increased and compounding risk, including the risk of failure in the face of sudden-onset disasters. This is due to increased exposure to climatic events in these urban areas, but also due to low adaptive capacity in place (for example, in expanding informal settlements in risk-prone urban areas).⁹⁷ Migrants arriving in coastal cities may be vulnerable to rising sea levels.⁹⁸ Different large urban centres are already exposed to water scarcity, a situation that can only worsen without adaptative action as water demand rises in line with the arrival of new migrants and with increasing climate change impacts.⁹⁹

Another important and recent area of research interest on adaptive migration is the evaluation of transitional food security. There is a need to undertake further research to document the food security situation of migrants during their journey.¹⁰⁰ Earlier research revealed that climate hazards affect migrants on the move who suffer from food insecurity, such as migrants in transit through Mexico to the United States.¹⁰¹

Although mobility together with the use of remittances as a form of adaptation has been used by some to minimize vulnerabilities, there is also evidence that, in some contexts, this kind of migration is maladaptive. Studies have highlighted, for example, the potential impact of remittances on changes in land use, including deforestation and forest degradation, resulting in further environmental damage.¹⁰² In three locations of north-eastern Cambodia, for example, “migration causes labour shortages and welfare issues, but does not necessarily improve food security”, possibly appearing as a maladaptive option to climate change, in that the responses end up creating more vulnerability.¹⁰³ Other studies in India find that changing social structures as a result of migration and the prevalence of traditional gender roles have actually worsened food security outcomes for women-headed households, offsetting gains in women’s autonomy.¹⁰⁴ The diversity of experiences and migration outcomes in terms of climate adaptation and food security requires carefully crafted policies that address the situation of the most vulnerable, prevent forced movements, and leverage the positive impacts of mobility for climate adaptation and food insecurity at a local level.