Climate change challenges food security in the Amazon, study shows
09 de September de 2025
By Fred Santana – From Cenarium
MANAUS (AM) – Climate change is causing profound transformations in the Amazon, affecting biodiversity, altering rainfall patterns, and directly impacting the lives of populations that depend on the forest to survive. A new study indicates that facing this reality requires not only mitigation but also adaptation, with measures ranging from large-scale forest restoration to river protection, essential both for agricultural production and for transportation in the region.
These recommendations are compiled in the policy brief “Climate Adaptation Strategies Aimed at the Well-Being of Amazonian Populations,” released in August 2025. The document was prepared by researchers from the Vale Institute of Technology for Sustainable Development (ITV), in partnership with institutions such as the University of São Paulo (USP) and the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). Policy briefs are concise documents, guided by issues faced daily by decision-makers, containing information based on current scientific research and suggestions for options and actions that may contribute to and enrich the debate on public policies.
The material systematizes a set of priority actions for public policies aimed at food and water security for Indigenous peoples, riverside communities, quilombolas, and residents of rural and urban areas of the Amazon. Among the proposals are the valorization of traditional knowledge, the creation of seed banks, networks of collectors, and the identification of food species more resilient to climate change.
The publication’s coordinator, researcher Tereza Cristina Giannini, from ITV, highlights that the initiative brings together experts from different fields of bioeconomy and the sustainability of food chains in the Amazon. The starting point of the work was the observation, in previous studies, of alarming scenarios for about 200 plant species consumed by native peoples, including strategic foods such as Brazil nuts.
“For now, this knowledge was incorporated indirectly, since we consulted previous publications that compiled traditional knowledge about the plants used as food by Amazonian peoples. It was from this list of 228 species that we generated computational models to evaluate which plants would potentially be more resistant to climate change,” explains Tereza.
The policy brief also responds to the recommendation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to prioritize adaptation strategies, since part of the environmental impacts is irreversible. This means going beyond mitigation actions, which only seek to reduce the effects of climate change.
“It would be good if public policies could foster sustainable businesses, contributing to income generation, technological innovation, and training for local communities. Robust educational actions, including technical/technological training, are also important,” evaluates the researcher. “Valuing the forest implies valuing the peoples who live within or near the forests, building a partnership where people see themselves as part of these biomes and are able to live in harmony with them, enabling sustainable environmental management that brings cycles of prosperity to the region,” affirms Tereza.
The publication points to future paths already being explored by the research team, such as the creation of a booklet on “plants of the future”, little-known species that are potentially more resistant to the region’s new climate. Another focus will be the analysis of the effects of the climate crisis on agricultural pollinators, vital for the production of foods such as cocoa, açaí, and Brazil nuts.
Studies are also underway on the food vulnerability of Indigenous peoples, aiming to map the areas most susceptible to food insecurity, and genetic mapping work on cocoa, to identify adaptive traits that may contribute both to genetic improvements and to the definition of priority conservation areas.
“Many of the plants consumed regionally as food come from the forest. It is known that the original peoples who have inhabited the Amazon for thousands of years have been managing the forest and prioritizing useful plants, whether for food, medicinal uses, or as a source of wood and fiber,” recalls the scientist.
For Giannini, the main contribution of the document was to synthesize, in a single publication, the knowledge accumulated by different lines of research on the impact of climate change on the diet of Amazonian populations.
Vulnerability scenario
In the Amazonian states, data on food insecurity reveal an alarming picture. According to the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (PNAD Contínua) from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), in 2023 almost half of Amazonas’ population lived without full access to food, with 17.3% of families in moderate or severe food insecurity, and 9.1% already facing the most extreme form, characterized by hunger at home.
Pará presented the worst scenario in the region, with 20.3% of households in moderate or severe food insecurity, followed by Amapá, with 18.6%. In contrast, Rondônia registered one of the best rates in the country, with 80% of households in a situation of food security and only 2.9% facing severe insecurity.
Data from the National Survey on Food Insecurity in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic (VIGISAN), coordinated by the Brazilian Research Network on Food Sovereignty and Security in partnership with Fiocruz, show that the effects of the pandemic intensified vulnerability in the Amazonian states.
Among households with children up to 10 years old, moderate or severe food insecurity reached 54.4% in Amazonas, 53.4% in Pará, and 60.1% in Amapá, rates much higher than those recorded by IBGE in 2023. These results highlight how the health and economic crisis worsened hunger in families already historically exposed to social exclusion and difficulties in accessing public policies in the region.