Food security includes the availability and nutritional value of food, in relation to the needs of the population, in a particular region or throughout the global food system.  It is an inherently futures-oriented concept.  It tries to anticipate or forecast future developments and interactions among a complex array of drivers, policies, and food system responses that cross disciplines.  Drivers include population growth, climate change, changes in wealth and diets, energy and water availability, droughts, and crop failures; future technological changes include hybrid crops and genetically modified crops; and future policy levers include investments in agricultural research, crop subsidies, smallholder farmer support, road construction, and food export restrictions from producer nations in times of scarcity. 

Scenario planning, or scenario analysis, comprises a broad-ranging set of tools used in policy planning and analysis, strategic planning for business, and in the study of regional change and regional or global sustainability.  In scenario analysis, the future is not considered as a single, predictable trajectory of events or outcomes, but as a range of alternative futures.  Methodologies of scenario analysis can involve expert development of storylines or narratives, interactive stakeholder exercises, as well as modeling and simulation of alternative futures.