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Achieving large-scale, transformative climate change adaptations in agriculture while mitigating further climate impacts and supporting sustainable and equitable rural livelihoods is a grand challenge for society. Transformation of the agri-food system is necessary and inevitable, but the extent to which transformation can be intentionally guided toward desirable states remains unclear. We argue that, instead of targeting leverage points (LPs) in isolation, coordinated interventions at multiple LPs and their interactions are necessary to create a broader system transformation toward more adaptive futures. Using the southeastern United States of America as a case study, we conceptualize a way of doing transformation research in agri-food systems that integrates multiple theoretical and practical perspectives of how transformative pathways can be constructed from ‘chains’ of interacting LPs. We outline several principles for transformative research, the core of which are participatory, transdisciplinary, and convergence research methods needed for articulating a shared vision. These principles embrace an action-oriented approach to research in which the act of assembling diverse networks of researchers, stakeholders, and community partners itself can activate community- and regional-level LPs to scale up changes. Finally, we present tangible examples of specific LPs and their interactions targeted by agri-food system interventions currently underway or planned. This work offers an ‘anticipatory’ vision for agri-food system transformation research that recognizes the need to normatively create an enabling environment to build momentum toward shared visions of secure, equitable, and sustainable regional agri-food systems.

Land cover change and its impact on food security is a topic that has major implications for development in population-dense Southeast Asia. The main drivers of forest loss include the expansion of agriculture and plantation estates, growth of urban centers, extraction of natural resources, and water infrastructure development. The design and implementation of appropriate land use policies requires accurate and timely information on land cover dynamics to account for potential political, economical, and agricultural consequences. Therefore, SERVIR-Mekong led the collaborative development of a Regional Land Cover Monitoring System (RLCMS) with key regional stakeholders across the greater Mekong region. Through this effort, a modular system was used to create yearly land cover maps for the period 1988 - 2017. In this study, we compared this 30-year land cover time-series with Viet Nam national forest resources and agricultural productivity statistics. We used remote sensing-derived land cover products to quantify landscape changes and linked those with food availability, one of food security dimension, from a landscape approach perspective. We found that agricultural production has soared while the coverage of agricultural areas has remained relatively stable. Land cover change dynamics coincide with important legislation regarding environmental management and sustainable development strategies in Viet Nam. Our findings indicate that Vietnam has made major steps towards improving its' food security. We demonstrate that RLCMS is a valuable tool for evaluating the relationship between policies and their impacts on food security, ecosystem services and natural capital.

Vertical soil moisture profiles based on the principle of maximum entropy (POME) were validated using field and model data and applied to guide an irrigation cycle over a maize field in north central Alabama (USA). The results demonstrate that a simple two-constraint entropy model under the assumption of a uniform initial soil moisture distribution can simulate most soil moisture profiles that occur in the particular soil and climate regime that prevails in the study area. The results of the irrigation simulation demonstrated that the POME model produced a very efficient irrigation strategy with minimal losses (about 1.9% of total applied water). However, the results for finely-textured (silty clay) soils were problematic in that some plant stress did develop due to insufficient applied water. Soil moisture states in these soils fell to around 31% of available moisture content, but only on the last day of the drying side of the irrigation cycle. Overall, the POME approach showed promise as a general strategy to guide irrigation in humid environments, such as the Southeastern United States.