The role of community social capital for food security following an extreme weather event

The current climate change trajectory is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events (EWE), which have the potential to influence community food security. This research explores the influence of social capital on U.S. rural community responses to an EWE, and its impact on community food security. After the 2011 EWE Tropical Storm Irene in VT, both bonding and bridging social capital influenced rural community responses to the EWE. Communities with high levels of social capital prior to the EWE led to effective action improving and stabilizing community food security immediately after the event. However, low levels of social capital prior to the EWE did not negatively affect community response when bridging social capital was engaged by a central community actor during and after the EWE. Our findings indicate that rural communities with high levels of bonding and/or bridging social capital facilitates a collective community response to short-term community food security during and after an EWE. The findings also show that a community's sense of place is different depending on the level of community social capital present prior to an EWE. We discovered a connection between a rural community's access to and effective use of physical capital to help mitigate community food insecurity, and that community's level of bonding and bridging social capital prior to the EWE. We suggest areas for future research to investigate how rural social capital can help build/maintain physical capital to increase rural resiliency and expand adaptation capacity. As such, we suggest that promoting the use and development of social capital can build resiliency and adaptation to future EWE by promoting the growth of community social capital, both bonding and bridging, within rural communities. •Rural communities with high levels of social capital display resilience and adaptation to food insecurity after extreme weather events.•Social capital is related to physical capital; the more social capital a community has, the better a community accesses physical capital.•Use of social capital is significant in successful acute community food insecurity mitigation.•A rural community’s use of physical capital is connected to the type of social capital – bridging/bonding - prior to the EWE.•Rural community development should invest in social and physical capital to increase climate change resilience and adaptation strategies.