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

5.1 Increasing the food supply: more production, less loss and less waste

Over the coming decades the world's population will grow from the current 7.5 billion to 9 billion people in 2050. The biggest growth will occur in developing countries. In a business-as-usual scenario, this means that global food production will have to increase by 60% in order to feed the world's growing population in 2050. 

In order to meet this enormous challenge, most strategies focus on expanding production capacity and productivity in developing countries, for example by improving services to farmers through training and access to inputs such as credit. Thus the main focus of these conventional approaches is to increase primary agricultural production. However, there is a possible trade-off between more intensive production methods and the environment. Alternative ways of boosting food supply without having to take up more of the available natural resources, with a possible negative environmental impact, can be sought by intervening elsewhere in the food chain. 

Studies show that 30% of the food produced in the value chain is lost, either through loss in the production chain (especially in poor countries) or because it is wasted by the consumer (more so in rich countries than in poorer ones). This means that food availability can be increased by ensuring that a larger portion of primary agricultural production reaches and is used by the consumer. 

One way to do this is to improve post-harvest management: the storage, processing and transport of food products in the chain. If products are refrigerated or processed, for example, they will keep for longer, while better roads facilitate the transport to market (e.g. cities). Thus entry points for interventions and investments are found mainly in the transport and processing stage of the chain respectively, and with the government and government policy to ensure an effective infrastructure. Another possibility is to increase consumer awareness of their purchasing and consumption behavior in order to tackle waste. Addressing the issue of waste can be supported by providing information about what people need in terms of nutrition (dietary guidelines), or by alerting consumers to the environmental impact of food-wasting behavior. Figure 6 on the next page presents some of these interventions within the food system diagram as outlined in Section 4. The arrows in Figure 6 show the interactions between socio-economic and/or environmental factors and the food system activities. The red arrows from the socio-economic part to the food production system indicate feedback from an earlier change in activities in the food production system (feedback loop), while the green arrows do the same for feedback from the environmental part of the system. The figure shows that there is more than one option for reducing losses/waste. Policy programmes should ensure that the proposed interventions are the most effective and efficient, given the local situation. 

There is a possible trade-off between reducing losses and/or waste and environmental or socioeconomic consequences. The reduction of losses/waste ensures a greater supply of food, which can lead to a drop in prices. While this benefits consumers, it means less income for farmers (producers). Falling incomes can tempt farmers to increase their use of land, fertilizer, and/or water in an attempt to nevertheless generate an adequate income through higher production. This can have a negative impact on the environment, but prices may also fall further (because of even greater market supply), with an associated drop in farmers' incomes. A possible solution is to switch to products with more added value in order to increase returns per unit of produced product. Another option is to encourage producers to be more efficient in their use of available land and other inputs, for example through better recycling of minerals from animal manure and by using by-products or food remains in animal feed and compost (focus on circular processes). This can reduce the costs per unit of product while making the production method more sustainable. Feedback loops of this kind, from the market and the ecosystem based on measures relating to post-harvest management and/or waste reduction, can be thought through using the FSA. 

Figure 6 Food systems thinking around production, post-harvest, and waste