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

4 Mapping the food system

As stated earlier, the FSA looks not only at the activities of the food system, but also at outcomes in the form of food security, and socio-economic and environmental indicators. In this section we will describe the parts of the food system and how they interrelate, based on literature about the FSA. 

The food system is made up of a number of activities (see Figure 1) whose primary aim is to increase food security. Activities in the food system encompass not only activities within the value chain, but also service organizations (business services) and the 'enabling environment' (e.g. food safety regulations). A number of factors that influence activities at the consumer level are also included: the food environment and the characteristics of (individual) consumers, both of which determine the consumer's relationship to food. 

These food system activities contribute to outcomes at the socio-economic level (such as income and work), and in the areas of the environment and food security – defined as the use of, access to, and availability of food. These three outcomes interact with one another. For example, certain socioeconomic outcomes such as income can increase food availability, and better food utilization (e.g. reducing food waste) could have a positive environmental impact because it can lead to less intensive land use. On the other hand, there are also trade-offs between environmental, socio-economic, and food security outcomes. Thus an increase in food production can put more pressure on the environment and certain choices concerning food access can lead to unequal socio-economic outcomes. Lastly, socio-economic and environmental conditions in turn affect the functioning of the food system. Figure 1 presents the components of the socio-economic and environmental drivers and uses arrows to show the feedback between the system components. 

Figure 1 A way of mapping the relationships of the food system to its drivers