scholarly journals Global map and indicators of food system sustainability

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christophe Béné ◽  
Steven D. Prager ◽  
Harold A. E. Achicanoy ◽  
Patricia Alvarez Toro ◽  
Lea Lamotte ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Entire Range ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Data Space ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Metric Dimensions ◽  
The Individual ◽  
System Sustainability

AbstractThis paper presents the first global map of food systems sustainability based on a rigorous protocol. The choice of the metric dimensions, as well as the individual indicators included in the metric, were initially identified from a thorough review of the existing literature. A rigorous inclusion/exclusion protocol was then used to refine the list and shorten it to a sub-set of 27 indicators. An aggregate sustainability score was then computed based on those 27 indicators organized into four dimensions: environment, social, food security & nutrition and economic. The paper shows how the availability of data (or lack therefore) results in an unavoidable trade-off between number of indicators and number of countries, and highlights how optimization can be used to present the most robust metric possible given the existence of this trade-offs in the data space. The process results in the computation of a global sustainability map covering 97 countries and 20 indicators. The sustainability scores obtained for each country are made available over the entire range of indicators.

Fulfilling the Right to Food for South Africa: Justice, Security, Sovereignty and the Politics of Malnutrition

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 112-152
Author(s):  
Busiso Helard Moyo ◽  
Anne Marie Thompson Thow
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Food Justice ◽  
System Transformation ◽  
Right To Food ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right

Despite South Africa’s celebrated constitutional commitments that have expanded and deepened South Africa’s commitment to realise socio-economic rights, limited progress in implementing right to food policies stands to compromise the country’s developmental path. If not a deliberate policy choice, the persistence of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms is a deep policy failure.  Food system transformation in South Africa requires addressing wider issues of who controls the food supply, thus influencing the food chain and the food choices of the individual and communities. This paper examines three global rights-based paradigms – ‘food justice’, ‘food security’ and ‘food sovereignty’ – that inform activism on the right to food globally and their relevance to food system change in South Africa; for both fulfilling the right to food and addressing all forms of malnutrition. We conclude that the emerging concept of food sovereignty has important yet largely unexplored possibilities for democratically managing food systems for better health outcomes.

scholarly journals Alternative Agri-Food Systems Under a Market Agencements Approach: The Case of Multifunctional Farming Activity in a Peri-Urban Area

Environments ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Maria Cecilia Mancini ◽  
Filippo Arfini ◽  
Federico Antonioli ◽  
Marianna Guareschi
Keyword(s):  
Urban Area ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Alternative Food Networks ◽  
Alternative Food Systems ◽  
Design And Implementation ◽  
Trade Offs

(1) Background: A large body of literature is available on the environmental, social, and economic sustainability of alternative food systems, but not much of it is devoted to the dynamics underlying their design and implementation, more specifically the processes that make an alternative food system successful or not in terms of its sustainability aims. This gap seems to be particularly critical in studies concerning alternative food systems in urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA). This paper explores how the design and implementation of multifunctional farming activity in a peri-urban area surrounding the city of Reggio Emilia in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy impact the achievement of its sustainability aims. (2) Methods: The environmental, social, and economic components of this project are explored in light of the sociology of market agencements. This method brings up the motivations of the human entities involved in the project, the role played by nonhuman entities, and the technical devices used for the fulfillment of the project’s aims. (3) Results: The alternative food system under study lacked a robust design phase and a shared definition of the project aims among all the stakeholders involved. This ended in a substantial mismatch between project aims and consumer expectations. (4) Conclusions: When a comprehensive design stage is neglected, the threefold aim concerning sustainability might not be achievable. In particular, the design of alternative food systems must take into account the social environment where it is intended to be put in place, especially in UPA, where consumers often live in suburban neighborhoods wherein the sense of community is not strong, thus preventing them from getting involved in a community-based project. In such cases, hybridization can play a role in the sustainability of alternative food networks, provided that some trade-offs occur among the different components of sustainability—some components of sustainability will be fully achieved, while others will not.

scholarly journals Food System Sustainability Metrics: Policies, Quantification, and the Role of Complexity Sciences

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 12408
Author(s):  
José V. Matos ◽  
Rui J. Lopes
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Policy Design ◽  
Sustainability Metrics ◽  
Investment Projects ◽  
Complexity Sciences ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Confidence Levels ◽  
System Sustainability ◽  
And Control

The rise of global attention toward sustainability and sustainable development (SD) has provided increased incentives for research development and investment in these areas. Food systems are at the center of human needs and global population growth sustainability concerns. These drives and the need to provide quantified support for related investment projects led to the proliferation of sustainability metrics and frameworks. While questions about sustainability definition and measurement still abound, SD policy design and control increasingly need adequate quantified support instruments. This paper aims to address this need, contributing to a more consistent and integrated application of food system sustainability metrics and quantified management of the implemented solutions. After presenting the relationships between sustainability, resilience, and robustness and summarizing food system sustainability quantification developments so far, we expose complexity sciences’ potential contributions toward SD quantified evaluation, addressing prediction, intangibles, and uncertainty issues. Finding a paramount need to make sense and bring existing sustainability metrics in context for operational use, we conclude that the articulated application of multiple and independent modeling approaches at the micro, meso, and macro levels can better help the development of food SD policies and implemented solution quantified management, with due regard to confidence levels of the results obtained.

Agricultural and Food Policy

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Abiodun Elijah Obayelu ◽  
Simeon Olusola Ayansina
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Food Policy ◽  
Policy Intervention ◽  
Sustainable Food Systems ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Adequate Food ◽  
System Sustainability ◽  
Sustainable Food System

Policy plays significant role in defining the food system of any country, and a sustainable food system is necessary for food security. This chapter maps out the causal interactions between food systems, food security and policy, and the challenges in transition to a sustainable food system while respecting the rights of all people to have access to adequate food in Nigeria. Explicit, rigorous, and transparent literature search was undertaken and many articles were assessed and reviewed. Although the results established a mutual relationship between food system and food security, existing literature have widely failed to take interactions between food systems, food security and policy into account. While food production is used as an entry point to improving food system sustainability, the quest for food security are undermining transition towards sustainable food systems. It was found that without right policies in place, it may be difficult to have food systems that are sustainable and ensure food security. This chapter provides a useful contribution to policy, and research on transitions towards sustainable food system. Any policy intervention to address one part of the food systems will impact on other parts and will determine whether a country is food secure or not. Enabling policy environment is therefore essential in ensuring a sustainable food system and for the attainment of food security.

scholarly journals The transformative service paradox: the dilemma of wellbeing trade-offs

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 637-663
Author(s):  
Rebekah Russell–Bennett ◽  
Rory Mulcahy ◽  
Kate Letheren ◽  
Ryan McAndrew ◽  
Uwe Dulleck
Keyword(s):  
Laboratory Experiment ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Implicit Assumption ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Physical Wellbeing ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Future Implication

PurposeA transformative service aims to improve wellbeing; however, current approaches have an implicit assumption that all wellbeing dimensions are equal and more dimensions led to higher wellbeing. The purpose of this paper is to present evidence for a new framework that identifies the paradox of competing wellbeing dimensions for both the individual and others in society – the transformative service paradox (TSP).Design/methodology/approachData is drawn from a mixed-method approach using qualitative (interviews) and quantitative data (lab experiment) in an electricity service context. The first study involves 45 household interviews (n = 118) and deals with the nature of trade-offs at the individual level to establish the concept of the TSP. The second study uses a behavioral economics laboratory experiment (n = 110) to test the self vs. other nature of the trade-off in day-to-day use of electricity.FindingsThe interviews and experiment identified that temporal (now vs. future) and beneficiary-level factors explain why individuals make wellbeing trade-offs for the transformative service of electricity. The laboratory experiment showed that when the future implication of the trade-off is made salient, consumers are more willing to forego physical wellbeing for environmental wellbeing, whereas when the “now” implication is more salient consumers forego financial wellbeing for physical wellbeing.Originality/valueThis research introduces the term “Transformative Service Paradox” and identifies two factors that explain why consumers make wellbeing trade-offs at the individual level and at the societal level; temporal (now vs. future) and wellbeing beneficiary.

scholarly journals “When We Stand up, They Have to Negotiate with Us”: Power Relations in and between an Agroindustrial and an Indigenous Food System in Bolivia

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 4001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanna Jacobi ◽  
Aymara Llanque
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Food System ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Scientific Culture ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Production And Consumption

Our global food system is characterized by an increasing concentration and imbalance of power, with trade-offs between hunger, inequality, unsustainable production and consumption, and profit. A systematic analysis of power imbalances in food systems is required if we are to meet the 2030 Agenda vision of promoting sustainable production and consumption patterns and ending hunger and poverty. Such an analysis, with a view to a transformation to more sustainable and just food systems, requires tools to be developed and tested in real-life case studies of food systems. To better understand the structures and mechanisms around power in food systems, this study applies a political ecology lens. We adapted the “power cube” analysis framework that was proposed by the Institute of Development Studies for the analysis of spaces, forms, and levels of power. We apply the analysis of these three dimensions of power to two food systems in the tropical lowlands of Bolivia: one agroindustrial and one indigenous. After identifying food system actors, the food system spaces in which they interact, and what forms of power they use at what levels, we discuss some implications for an emerging scientific culture of power analyses in critical sustainability assessments. Mechanisms of hidden power undermine visible legislative power in both case studies, but in our example of an indigenous food system of the Guaraní people, visible power stays with a local community through their legally recognized and communally owned and governed territory, with important implications for the realization of the right to food.

scholarly journals Agroecological Approach to Farming for Sustainable Development: The Indian Scenario

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ishwari Singh Bisht ◽  
Jai Chand Rana ◽  
Sarah Jones ◽  
Natalia Estrada-Carmona ◽  
Rashmi Yadav
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Food System ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Agricultural Systems ◽  
Farming Communities ◽  
Root Cause ◽  
Ecological Principles ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
System Sustainability

Agroecology is the application of ecological principles to agricultural systems and practices and the application of social justice principles to whole food systems. Agroecological farming, an unfamiliar concept to those who treat agriculture and ecology as separate subjects, refers to farming for producing food, employment and economic benefits in addition to cultural, social and environmental services and benefits. Additionally, agroecology empowers farming communities, as the key agents of change, and addresses the root cause of problems of unsustainable agricultural systems in an integrated way and provides holistic and long-term solutions to transform the food and agricultural systems. As agroecology is at the forefront of transforming farming and food system sustainability, the present chapter specifically explores the state of Indian traditional farming agroecosystems, evidence collected under the ongoing Indian UNEP-GEF project “Mainstreaming agricultural biodiversity conservation and utilization in agricultural sector to ensure ecosystem services and reduce vulnerability”. We discuss traditional Indian farming in view of FAO’s 10 principles of Agroecology which is key to help policymakers, practitioners and stakeholders, in planning, managing and evaluating agroecological transitions.

scholarly journals The case for a Canadian national school food program

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 208-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberley Hernandez ◽  
Rachel Engler-Stringer ◽  
Sara Kirk ◽  
Hannah Wittman ◽  
Sasha McNicholl
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Dietary Behaviour ◽  
School Food ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Food Literacy ◽  
National School ◽  
Good Nutrition ◽  
System Sustainability

Canada is one of the only member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) without a national school food program. Good nutrition impacts children’s health, wellbeing, and learning; and school food environments offer an important setting to promote health and other food system sustainability behaviours that can last a lifetime. We present an overview of national and international evidence, with a focus on promising practices that support the establishment of a national school food program in Canada. School food programs have been shown to benefit health and dietary behaviour and critical food literacy skills (learning, culture, and social norms) that support local agriculture and promote sustainable food systems. Finally, we make recommendations for key elements that should be included in a national school food program for Canada.

scholarly journals Guiding Nutritious Food Choices and Diets along Food Systems

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (17) ◽  
pp. 9501
Author(s):  
Beulah Pretorius ◽  
Jane Ambuko ◽  
Effie Papargyropoulou ◽  
Hettie C. Schönfeldt
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Food Choices ◽  
Health Food ◽  
Trade Offs

Poor diets are responsible for more of the global burden of disease than sex, drugs, alcohol, and tobacco combined. Without good health, food security, and nutrition, development is unsustainable. How food is grown, distributed, processed, marketed, and sold determines which foods are available, affordable, and acceptable within the local cultural context. These factors guide food choices, influencing the quality of people’s diets, and hence they play a vital part in health. The food system is complex and is neither nutrition nor health driven. Good nutrition and human health are not seen as important supply chain outcomes, diminishing between the different processes and actors in the chain. This is in contrast to the environmental and labour concerns now also perceived as supply chain issues. Although food loss and waste is now appreciated as key to sustainable food supply chains, the critical role on nutrition security remains obscure. In a free market dispensation, the trade-offs between agricultural production and income generation versus nutrient delivery from farm to fork needs to be addressed. Investment and incentivised initiatives are needed to foster diverse food production, preservation, distribution and influence consumers’ behaviour and consumption. The decisions made at any stage of the food supply chain have implications on consumer choices, dietary patterns, and nutritional outcomes. Leveraging the entire food system is an underused policy response to the growing problem of unhealthy diets.

Transforming the Campus Foodscape Through Participatory Mapping

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalie Zdzienicka Fanshel ◽  
Alastair Iles
Keyword(s):  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
Campus Climate ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Community Members ◽  
University Campuses ◽  
Diverse Community ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Individual

University campuses are dynamic foodscapes that meet the needs of thousands of diverse community members. These foodscapes are difficult to comprehend in their entirety, and inequities based on race, class, gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, dis/ability, and other forms of marginalization often remain unidentified and unaddressed. Since 2015, the UC Berkeley Foodscape Mapping Project has emerged as a model of participatory, justice-oriented food systems education. Drawing on critical pedagogy principles, it uses the Berkeley campus as a living laboratory for students, staff, and faculty to generate food systems knowledge. We trace the project’s development to show how what started as a set of workshops to address campus climate problems grew into a major mapping effort and advocacy projects that aim to improve the campus food system. Early on, workshops found that the biggest barrier to changing our campus food system was understanding the system itself: who the individual and departmental decision makers are and how different parts of the foodscape interact. Foodscape mapping is one possible pathway for changing a campus food system. This pathway was chosen because it could create a much-needed data foundation for advocacy at UC Berkeley. We discuss the concept of mapping and work through the process of building the Campus Food Players map. Several examples of Spotlight Maps and a practical policy advocacy project are presented to show the variety of outputs. Finally, we analyze financial, personnel, and pedagogical resources needed to realize the map, along with important constraints on its development. Readers will learn about campus foodscape mapping and be better equipped to develop projects at their own campuses.

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