Food loss is often framed as a technical inefficiency in agricultural supply chains; however, in climate-vulnerable regions such as the Pacific Island Countries (PICs) it also reflects deeper structural dynamics within food systems. This study develops the Food Loss–Resilience Systems Framework to examine how food loss both arises from and shapes the resilience capacity of climate-exposed agricultural systems. The framework was created through an integrative synthesis of empirical evidence, drawing on a regional scoping review of food loss literature, field studies of taro value chains and experimental research on post-harvest deterioration of taro in Samoa and Tonga, and comparative analyses of food loss in dairy farming systems in Fiji and Australia. The synthesis demonstrates that food loss arises through interacting climatic, biological, infrastructural, livelihood, and institutional processes operating across production and postharvest stages. Climatic variability amplifies existing structural constraints such as limited storage infrastructure, labor disruptions, and fragmented governance, accelerating deterioration and reducing productivity. The framework further shows that food loss shapes economic viability, environmental efficiency, socio-cultural stability, and long-term adaptive capacity within food systems. By conceptualizing food loss both as an embedded outcome of system interactions and as a diagnostic indicator of resilience capacity, the study reframes it as a signal of broader food-system performance under climatic stress. Integrating efforts to reduce food loss into climate-adaptation and food-system governance strategies is therefore critical to strengthening the resilience capacity of Pacific agricultural systems.
Amato-Ali et al. (Tue,) studied this question.