Quantifying the dynamic structural resilience of international staple food trade networks: An entropy-based approach

Abstract: Establishing a resilient food trade system is an international consensus on safeguarding food security amid growing disruptions. We employ an entropy-based approach to quantify the dynamic structural resilience of international trade networks for maize, rice, soybean, and wheat from 1986 to 2022. Using index decomposition analysis, we also investigate the relative contributions of several internal components to changes in resilience. Within this framework, despite heterogeneity across different food commodities, we find that current trade networks are relatively redundant, with improvements in efficiency being the dominant driver of changes in resilience. In addition, we reveal a historically pronounced impact of flow concentrations on resilience, while trade interactions have become increasingly important in recent years. Furthermore, following the leave-one-out approach, we identify critical economies and trade relationships that disproportionately affect the overall resilience, many of which are overlooked by conventional volume-based or centrality-based metrics. Moreover, we highlight that the overconcentration of flows along core trade relationships may undermine the overall efficiency and resilience, whereas peripheral trade networks play an essential role in sustaining resilience, underscoring the importance of promoting more equitable trade relations. These findings not only provide new insights for assessing the resilience of international food trade systems but also propose directions for making them more resilient.