Food security changes in Central Asia during 1992–2019 and potential assessment in different scenarios based on self-sufficiency

The global food security continued to deteriorate in recent years due to frequent international events interrupting trade. To rise food self-sufficiency has been regarded widely. Central Asia (CA) as a region with rich land per capita has a certain food production potential to achieve self-sufficiency and promote global food security. However, few studies examine food self-sufficiency ability changes and potential in this area. From the perspective of food self-sufficiency, this study adopted the land carrying capacity (LCC) assessment methods to analyze food security changes in CA and countries in it from 1992 to 2019 and to evaluate the food security level under multiple scenarios covering different agricultural productivity levels and food and nutrition consumption levels based on the FAOSTAT database. The results show that CA, Kazakhstan (KAZ), Kyrgyzstan (KGZ), Turkmenistan (TKM), and Uzbekistan (UZB) realized food self-sufficiency except Tajikistan (TJK). During this period, food self-sufficiency ability of CA and KAZ rapidly declined first and then increased with fluctuation; KGZ and TJK showed a similar rising trend but experienced two big fluctuations; TKM has a similar changing trend to UZB, but the latter's fluctuation range was smaller than the former's. In terms of the LCC pressure index (LCCPI), CA and the five countries were generally above the level of “affluence” from 1992 to 2019 except TJK that 43 % years was below the level of “slack balance”. For CA, the main limiting factor is energy insufficiency before 2009 but fat insufficiency since that year. At the country level, the limiting factor is the fat for KAZ, the energy for TKM and UZB, and the energy in most years and the fat in the last several years for KGZ and TJK. Agricultural productivity and structure changes directly influenced the LCC changes of CA countries, but political factors were the underlying cause for the change. Scenario analyses show that CA countries will face challenges from food insecurity with food nutrition consumption upgrading. But, these challenges can be addressed by improving agricultural productivity and adjusting agricultural structure except KGZ and TJK with limited land resources. This study presents reinforcing international cooperation (joint development of land and water resources, agricultural technology exchanges, intra-regional trades, etc.) and exploring reasonable crop planting structure and sustainable consumption patterns are necessary for improving food sufficiency ability in CA.