The Food Systems Approach: Sustainable Solutions for a Sufficient Supply of Healthy Food

2.2 Contribution of the food systems approach

The FSA provides a framework showing where the main interactions and feedback between the subsystems occur. This produces a number of useful insights: 

• It maps out opportunities for a more efficient use of natural resources. 
• It highlights the important role of the food system's socio-economic context. 
• It shows the implications of the food system for health and malnutrition. 
• It helps to shed light on the trade-offs between different intervention strategies. 
• It sheds light on non-linear processes and feedback loops in the food system. 

Thus, unlike a focus on a value chain or farming system, the FSA looks at the interactions within the food system and its socio-economic and biophysical environment. It also highlights policy pathways that do not intervene in the value chain itself, but in the context of the food production system. These include a tax on 'unhealthy' nutrition or promoting investments in the infrastructure needed for the production, storage, and transport of – usually perishable – vegetables and fruit (regarded as the most nutritious foods). And by providing a broader view of the impact of different intervention strategies, it helps in the weighing-up of particular policy choices. The FSA thus provides insights into opportunities for effective entry points for longer-term policy. 

Insights from the FSA can be helpful in tackling the challenges of future food supply. Section 3 of this paper summarizes these global food challenges, which are centered on food production, nutrition, the environment, and poverty. The food system and its various subsystems are briefly described in Section 4. In Section 5, examples are presented to illustrate how food systems thinking can be used to assess the impact of interventions aimed at solutions for one of the challenges outlined. Section 6 briefly summarizes the contribution of food systems thinking to the challenges of the future and makes several suggestions for policy implications.