Petr Jehlička and Tomáš Kostelecký (2026) Mountain households’ food resilience: a safeguard for the uncertain future. 2nd International Conference on Mountain Hazards, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, China. 17 – 19 October 2026

Petr Jehlička and Tomáš Kostelecký: Mountain households’ food resilience: a safeguard for the uncertain future. 2^nd International Conference on Mountain Hazards: Sustainable Mountain Development under Global Warming and Intensified Human Activities. Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, China. 17 – 19 October 2026

Petr Jehlička presented a paper co-authored by Tomáš Kostelecký (Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences) in Chengdu.

Abstract
In addition to government-level measures aimed at tackling the growing risks of global food insecurity, other, more localised, safeguards against food insecurity need to be explored. In this paper, we propose one such possibility that is often neglected by both scholars and policymakers. What we have in mind is household-level food resilience. It rests on households’ ability to creatively combine multiple food sources, depending on the situations they face. These include food purchased in the retail sector, food produced by households themselves and food they can receive as a gift because of their membership in the local community, the latter point highlighting the inclusiveness of these practices. This proposition is especially relevant to mountainous areas, where supply routes are prone to closure due to natural hazards. Conceptually, this paper is based on the notions of endowment and entitlement sets developed by the Nobel laureate in economics, Amartya Sen. Importantly, food resilience conceptualised in this way is not limited to defensive, status quo-restoring resilience but is also forward-looking and change-enabling.