PhD Oral Defense: Connecting the dots: Building social resilience to support sustainable food security policy in the Caribbean

PhD Oral Defense of Arlette Saint Ville, Natural Resource Sciences

Caribbean nations are grappling with a wide range of complex social and ecological challenges related to household food and nutrition insecurity, including high non-communicable disease rates, rapid environmental change and a steady decline in rural communities. Recognizing the significance and complexity of these challenges, this dissertation begins with a detailed review of the conditions that have served to undermine efforts to achieve sustainable food and nutrition security outcomes in the Caribbean, focussing on issues of history, economy and innovation. The concept of social resilience subsequently emerges as operating at the pivot of human-nature interactions in the region, cutting across three intersecting policy domains: 1) smallholder farming systems, 2) global environmental change, and 3) food security. Building on this conceptual framework, the remaining dissertation explores how various dimensions of social resilience influence sustainable smallholder agricultural system innovation in the nation of Saint Lucia, a typical small island developing state in the Caribbean Community.

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