Topic ID No.: 2026-G09
Title of research topic:
Foresight-Driven Investment Pathways for Climate-Resilient Food-System Infrastructure in South Africa and Beyond
Description:
Food insecurity in South Africa persists despite sufficient national food production. The challenge lies less in scarcity of resources than in inadequate infrastructure investment and weak coordination of domestic finance. By combining foresight analysis with spatially explicit simulation models, this project aims to identify how future food demand can be met through targeted investments in e.g., water, energy, and logistics systems, and how domestic capital can be mobilised more effectively to achieve a resilient and inclusive food system.
The project shall apply foresight methods in combination with spatially explicit simulation models of the agri-food system to identify investment needs and financing pathways for climate-resilient food system infrastructure in South Africa. The research link future food-demand scenarios with regional models of agricultural supply, spatial allocation, and infrastructure investment, covering production, processing and transport chains in a coherent framework.
Target region or country (if applicable):
South Africa, Malawi
Topic background information / scientific relevance:
South Africa faces a structural food-system paradox: while the country produces enough calories to feed its population, unequal access, infrastructure bottlenecks, and limited investment in water, energy, and logistics systems continue to undermine food and nutrition security. These challenges are expected to intensify under climate change, urbanisation, and demographic growth. Addressing them requires not only more investment but a deeper understanding of how and where investments generate the strongest resilience and inclusion effects.
This project is scientifically relevant because it links foresight analysis—a long-term scenario and backcasting approach—with spatially explicit simulation models of the agri-food system. By combining foresight-driven policy design with quantitative modelling, it bridges forward-looking governance analysis and spatial economic modelling, an integration rarely applied in African food-system research. The study will quantify how different infrastructure investment strategies and financing architectures affect agricultural supply, regional food availability, and the spatial distribution of welfare outcomes.
Drawing on diverse datasets (production, labour, land use, infrastructure, household demand, and enterprise surveys), the project will employ deterministic and stochastic analyses to assess uncertainty in climate, market, and governance parameters. A comparative case from another Sub-Saharan African country will provide additional insights into institutional and financial conditions for mobilising domestic capital in support of sustainable food-system transformation. The research will thus contribute new empirical and methodological knowledge to the fields of food-system foresight, spatial policy modelling, and infrastructure finance in developing-country contexts.
Research objectives:
The project aims to identify and quantify investment pathways that strengthen the resilience and inclusiveness of South Africa’s food system by 2050. Specifically, it will
(1) apply foresight and backcasting methods to define future infrastructure and financing needs;
(2) develop spatially explicit simulation models of agricultural supply, allocation, and investment;
(3) integrate multi-source datasets to analyse policy and investment scenarios under uncertainty; and
(4) compare South Africa’s context another Sub-Saharan African country to derive transferable lessons for climate-resilient food-system development.
Required skills and qualifications of the applicant:
Strong foundation in quantiative methods, specifically econometrics and economic simulation modelling (preferably in GAMS, with prior experience of using optimzation or equilibrium models)
Contact person and institute in charge:
Prof. Dr. Arndt Feuerbacher. University of Hohenheim. Ecological-Economic Policy Modelling.
a.feuerbacher@uni-hohenheim.de