Journey of Food

Food takes a complex journey from farms, ranches, and waterways to reach our plates. The journey begins with natural capital, such as soil, freshwater, and the countless organisms that contribute to our food supply. Along the way, it may pass through the hands of food safety inspectors, warehouse managers, grocery store owners, and many others involved in food supply chains. The route to our plates is further influenced by the decisions of businesses, scientists, policymakers, and consumers. The people, activities, inputs, outputs, and outcomes involved in getting our meals onto the plate are all part of the food system(1).

What is food system?

Food system is a complex web of activities, encompassing the entire range of actors and their interlinked value-adding activities from input supply and production, aggregation, processing, distribution, consumption and disposal of food products that originate from agriculture, forestry or fisheries, and parts of the broader economic, societal and natural environments in which they are embedded(2–4).

Food system also includes undertakings of enabling policy environments and cultural norms around food(4). Ideal food systems includes nutrition, health, safety driven and economic food production, which is efficient as well as sustainable(3,4).

The food system is composed of sub-systems such as: farming system, waste management system, input supply system, etc. and interacts with other key systems like, energy system, trade system, health system, etc. (3).

Food and Environment

Several food system undertakings give rise to production of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and other climate change attributes, such as aerosols and changes in albedo. Certain exceptions are accepted in agricultural practices like agroforestry systems where they can restore the degraded land by having a net carbon sequestration effect. GHG emissions vary markedly across different food chain activities at global level. The food system contributes 19–29 percent of total global anthropogenic GHG emissions. Of which, agricultural production contributes 80–86 per cent at the global level, while the remainder comes from preproduction (predominantly fertilizer manufacture) and the postproduction activities(5).

The impacts of global climate change on food systems are expected to be widespread, complex, geographically and temporally variable, and profoundly influenced by preexisting and emerging social and economic conditions(5). The impact of weather anomalies and climatic trends on food systems, impacts plant and animal physiology and on yields, prices, reliability of delivery, food quality, and food safety(5).

The effect of climate change on growth of crops can be both positive and negative through multiple mechanisms, including changing phenology, heat stress, water stress, waterlogging, and increases or reductions in pests and diseases(5). Changes in temperature has affected the cultural crops, thus impacting the productivity and quality of horticulture crops. Due to the increase in temperature, few areas in North-West India experience high rate of evaporation and dry conditions(6). Rising ambient temperatures are associated with increasing incidence of harmful algal blooms that result in lethal toxins, in fishery industry particularly in shellfish which eventually impacts the food availability and safety for human populations(7). It is anticipated that climate change could affect livestock production directly through impacts on water, genetic diversity, diseases, pasture and feed supplies(5).

How is the food system structured?

The food system wheel framework is centered around FAO’s main goals, which include poverty reduction, food security and nutrition (Figure 1). These are embedded in the broader performance of the system, referring to the three dimensions of sustainability: economic, social, and environmental (elaborated in the next section). Such performance is determined by the behaviour of diverse actors, or the conduct of stakeholders in the food system (people-centric). This conduct in turn take place in the structure of the system, which consists of a core system, societal elements and natural elements. The core system includes a layer of activities through which food products flow (production, aggregation, processing, distribution and consumption, including waste disposal) and a layer of services supporting the flow. These activities are embedded in a societal context and a natural environment. The former includes all related policies, laws and regulations, socio-cultural norms, infrastructures and organizations. The latter includes water, soils, air, climate, and ecosystems and genetics(3).

What is a sustainable food system?

A sustainable food system lies at the heart of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Adopted in 2015, the SDGs call for major transformations in agriculture and food systems in order to end hunger, achieve food security and improve nutrition by 2030. To realize the SDGs, the global food system needs to be reshaped to be more productive, more inclusive of poor and marginalized populations, environmentally sustainable and resilient, and able to deliver healthy and nutritious diets to all. These are complex and systemic challenges that require the combination of interconnected actions at the local, national, regional and global levels(3).

What is sustainable food system development?(3)

In sustainable food system development, sustainability is examined holistically. In order to be sustainable, the development of the food system needs to generate positive value along three dimensions simultaneously: economic, social and environmental (Figure 2).

On the economic dimension, a food system is considered sustainable if the activities conducted by each food system actor or support service provider are commercially or fiscally viable. The activities should generate benefits, or economic value-added, for all categories of stakeholders: wages for workers, taxes for governments, profits for enterprises, and food supply improvements for consumers.

On the social dimension, a food system is considered sustainable when there is equity in the distribution of the economic value added, taking into account vulnerable groups categorized by gender, age, race and so on. Of fundamental importance, food system activities need to contribute to the advancement of important socio-cultural outcomes, such as nutrition and health, traditions, labour conditions, and animal welfare.

On the environmental dimension, sustainability is determined by ensuring that the impacts of food system activities on the surrounding natural environment are neutral or positive, taking into consideration biodiversity, water, soil, animal and plant health, the carbon footprint, the water footprint, food loss and waste, and toxicity.

By way of illustration, any proposed measures to address a problem (e.g. animal diseases) or to take advantage of a new opportunity (e.g. a new green technology or profitable market), will have to be assessed against all other dimensions of sustainability to ensure there are no undesirable impacts. How would these measures impact the use of natural resources? Or would these measures affect poor and rich farmers differently, thus perhaps increasing the divide between them? Or would these measures have negative impacts on consumer health? This holistic vision allows us to use potential synergies and to reveal often hidden trade-offs, to ensure that while our targeted impact is positive, the net overall impact on the value added of the food system activities will also be positive. An immediate result of this is the need for new or improved impact metrics.

Activities in Food System(8)

• Production: Primary food production includes the growth and harvesting of crops and the rearing and slaughter of livestock animals. Other examples include milking, catching fish and seafood and the collection of hen eggs. The primary food groups also referred to as ‘food ingredients’ include: vegetables, fruits, legumes/beans/pulses, cereals, tubers, meat, milk, poultry, egg, fish and other seafood.
• Processing and packaging: Primary processing involves cutting, cleaning, packaging, storage and refrigeration of raw foods to ensure that they are not spoilt before they reach the consumer. These minimally processed foods retain the original properties i.e., nutrition, physical, sensory and chemical properties as the unprocessed form and are ready for further processing by the food industry (secondary processing).
  
  Secondary food production involves converting raw food ingredients into more useful or edible forms. Secondary food products are refined, purified, extracted or transformed from minimally processed primary food products. Secondary food processes may vary depending on the type of food group, but could include physical processes such as pressing, milling and dehydration, and chemical processes such as hydrolysis, hydrogenation or using enzymes.
• Distributing and retail: The third or “tertiary” activity in global food system focuses on the food services industry; including food wholesalers, distributors and retailers. This food system involves the safe handling (ie distribution/transport/supply, storage and sale/trade) of primary and secondary food products. It also addresses the management of consumer need and demand and broader issues such as minimising food waste.
• Consuming and disposing of waste: The final activity in the food system relates to consumption of food and disposal of waste which is unfortunately beyond the scope of this course. If you’re interested in finding out more, you may find the recommended reading/information sources helpful in the ‘See also’ section.

Urban food systems(9–11)

More than half of the world’s population now lives in cities, and are constantly migrating to urban settings. By 2050, the growth will jump by two-thirds, with much of it Africa and Asia. It is indeed important to plan and provide for sustainable and resilient food systems given the pace and scale of urbanization.

If managed well, urbanization can be a positive force for change: it can help ensure food security and good nutrition for all, healthy urban environments and foster territorial development and job creation. However, there are signs that the exponential growth of towns and cities is leading to growth in slum areas and rising rates of food insecurity and malnutrition, including alarming levels of obesity.

Urban food systems often do not deliver adequate and nutritious food for all. They can also be the cause of environmental damage and exploitation of the most vulnerable. FAO’s Urban Food Action programme aims to transform urban food systems to make them more sustainable and improve nutrition by working with sub-national and local governments.

In partnership with UN agencies, international and local stakeholders, the programme aims to break down the rural-urban divide and promote sustainable food-system thinking. The programme supports policy design and planning through effective food governance mechanisms that mobilize actors at all levels, enhances capacities (including through city-to-city collaboration) and aims to attract investment to make urban environments and their surrounding areas more resilient and sustainable.

FAO 2030 Vision for the Urban Food Agenda promotes resilient, integrated, sustainable and inclusive food systems, able to ensure that all people in all places are free from hunger and all forms of malnutrition. This vision can only be achieved through coordinated policies, plans and action by different levels of government, institutions and stakeholders involved in urban and territorial development FAO works to support decision-makers at global, national and local/urban levels in order to address the challenges in providing safe and nutritious food for all, safeguarding the environment and strengthening the resilience of people and systems. In particular, FAO acknowledges the key role that urban and local governments can play in transforming food systems and calls for actions to strengthen their role and capacities.

Food system is both enormous and complex and includes the vast majority of the human population such as producers, traders, or consumers. Its activities include growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, marketing, selling, cooking, consumption, and disposal of food and any food-related items. Land, agricultural chemicals, labor, water, machinery, knowledge, and capital are inputs and outputs generated apart from food are greenhouse gas emissions, agricultural wastes, and municipal wastewater. Agriculture occupies roughly half of the plant-habitable surface of the planet. It uses 69% of extracted freshwater and, together with the rest of the food system, is responsible for 25 – 30% of greenhouse gas emissions. The largest percentage of cultivated land, accounting for almost half of the total cultivated area is occupied by cereal production, followed by oil crops, which occupy almost one fifth. Of the 1.5 billion hectares of agricultural land worldwide, only a third is used for the production of food crops. The remainder is primarily dedicated to the production of livestock. Because 38% of global crops are used as feed for animals, only 20% of global agricultural land is utilized for the direct production of crops for human consumption (FAO, 2015b). Fish provide 4.3 billion people with around 15 percent of their animal protein intake (12). The global fisheries and aquaculture sector produced over 176 million tonnes of seafood in 2011 (12). 

The global food system is in need of a dramatic transformation because the pathway used currently is leading to an impasse. The current structure of the food system lies at the center of a nexus of global problems. The increase in food production needs to meet the anticipated demands of the near future. Currently, more than enough food for the global population is produced, yet over 795 million people remain undernourished.  In 2012, the FAO estimated that by 2050 we will need to increase food output by 60% based on a business-as-usual scenario. Over 30% of food is currently wasted and a larger percentage of the population is now overweight than undernourished. Although nutritious diets can be provided with a fraction of the average resource demand, land resources are increasingly allocated towards non-food uses.

Four main challenges that need to be addressed simultaneously in order to transition to a sustainable and resilient food system are-

• Adaptive and Resilient Food System
• Nutritious Food for All
• Within Planetary Boundaries
• Supporting Livelihoods and Wellbeing

A minority of the global agricultural production has started using counter-movement to intensive, conventional agricultural and extractive systems is slowly emerging. These practices are still under- research and present a small, but promising, a new direction for innovations in the food system. Sufficient food can be produced for a much larger population if structural changes are made to how we approach both production and consumption. We must consider the systemic nature of the system’s behaviours and impacts to successfully move towards a sustainable and resilient food system. These include impacts in areas of preservation of global biodiversity, mitigation of climate change, management of soils and essential non-renewable resources, the preservation of culture and heritage, and the preservation of human health. Impacts will continue to occur if the central root causes that lead to multiple impacts are not addressed. To ensure that solutions are comprehensive and adaptive, we need to hard-wire systems thinking into the food policy. By accounting for systemic effects, we can come to understand feedback loops and adverse effects early on and adapt policy accordingly.

References

1. JHU. The Food System – Food System Primer – Johns Hopkins University [Internet]. Johns Hopkins University. [cited 2020 Nov 5]. Available from: http://www.foodsystemprimer.org/the-food-system/
2. Oxford U of. What is the Food System? | Future of Food [Internet]. University of Oxford. [cited 2020 Nov 5]. Available from: https://www.futureoffood.ox.ac.uk/what-food-system
3. FAO. Sustainable food systems: Concept and framework. 2018.
4. IFPRI. Food Systems | IFPRI : International Food Policy Research Institute [Internet]. International Food Policy Research Institute. 2020 [cited 2020 Nov 5]. Available from: https://www.ifpri.org/topic/food-systems
5. Vermeulen SJ, Campbell BM, Ingram JSI. Climate change and food systems [Internet]. Vol. 37, Annual Review of Environment and Resources. Annual Reviews ; 2012 [cited 2020 Nov 5]. p. 195–222. Available from: www.annualreviews.org
6. Bhati A, Kumari S, Kumar R. (PDF) Effect of Climate Changing on Horticultural Crops in India-A Review [Internet]. Trends in Biosciences. 2018 [cited 2020 Nov 5]. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331987868_Effect_of_Climate_Changing_on_Horticultural_Crops_in_India-A_Review
7. Moore SK, Trainer VL, Mantua NJ, Parker MS, Laws EA, Backer LC, et al. Impacts of climate variability and future climate change on harmful algal blooms and human health. In: Environmental Health: A Global Access Science Source [Internet]. BioMed Central; 2008 [cited 2020 Nov 5]. p. S4. Available from: http://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1476-069X-7-S2-S4
8. Learn F. The food system [Internet]. Future Learn. [cited 2020 Nov 5]. Available from: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/food-supply-systems/0/steps/53648
9. IFPRI. The human face of urban food systems | IFPRI : International Food Policy Research Institute [Internet]. International Food Policy Research Institute. 2020 [cited 2020 Nov 5]. Available from: https://www.ifpri.org/blog/human-face-urban-food-systems
10. Soulard C-T, Perrin C, Valette E. Relations Between Agriculture and the City in Europe and the Mediterranean. In 2017. p. 1–11.
11. FAO. About | Urban Food Agenda | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations [Internet]. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 2020 [cited 2020 Nov 5]. Available from: http://www.fao.org/urban-food-agenda/about/en/
12. Gladek, E., Fraser, M., Roemers, G., Sabag Muñoz, O., Kennedy, E., & Hirsch, P. (2017). The Global Food System: An Analysis – Metabolic. Metabolic, January, 1–180.
    https://www.metabolic.nl/publications/global-food-system-an-analysis-pdf/
    http://www.metabolic.nl/publications/global-food-system-analysis/