The Food Systems Approach: Sustainable Solutions for a Sufficient Supply of Healthy Food
Systems thinking is an interdisciplinary approach that broadens perspectives when designing sustainable solutions for issues like food supply. This article discusses the usefulness of mapping food systems and how applying systems thinking to food security and production helps identify the best opportunities for more efficient use of natural resources while shedding light on the tradeoffs between different intervention strategies.
How can a systems approach lead to better policymaking and more sustainable solutions?
4 Mapping the food system
4.4 Socio-economic drivers of the food system
The socio-economic drivers of the food system (shown at the top of Figure 1) can be divided into five categories (see Figure 5 on the next page). This division into five categories is somewhat arbitrary but it does show concisely and adequately the different aspects that can make up a 'driver' of food systems:
- Markets: changes in market systems, world prices, trade relations, incomes, profits, wages, and labor availability. Markets provide opportunities for matching food supply and demand, but sudden changes in supply, for example, can cause large price fluctuations.
- Policy: different kinds of policy – for example, on land rights, food security, the environment, labor, trade, or food safety – can influence the food system. Policy seeks to guide the outcomes of food system activities in a socially desired direction, but outcomes are sometimes different to what is expected or policy measures do not align with the private interests of actors in the food system.
- Science & Technology: research, innovation, and education in key areas for agriculture and nutrition, such as chain agreements, transport/logistics, and medical or food technology. Research and innovation are important drivers for the productivity growth of all food system activities and can improve the quality and nutritional value of production. Technical or organizational innovations can also contribute to a more sustainable food system.
- Social organizations: organizational forms or sectors that affect the functioning of the food system, such as households, social movements, media, education, and health care. These organizations can help strengthen the position of farmers in the food system, for example, and possibly result in higher incomes.
- Individual factors: the lifestyle, norms (e.g. animal welfare norms), attitudes, and cultures (e.g. halal) that influence the choices of individual actors in the food system. These factors can be place-related and can influence consumer choices. Conversely, the food system can exert influence on individual factors, for example through home delivery of ready-made meals and/or groceries (appealing to a modern lifestyle).
Each of these socio-economic drivers has the potential to influence food system activities but can in turn also be affected by the activities and actors in the system. This can give rise to multiplier effects or feedback mechanisms.
Figure 5 Socio-economic drivers of the food system