scholarly journals Overcoming undesirable resilience in the global food system

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom H. Oliver ◽  
Emily Boyd ◽  
Kelvin Balcombe ◽  
Tim G. Benton ◽  
James M. Bullock ◽  
...  

Non-technical summaryOur current global food system – from food production to consumption, including manufacture, packaging, transport, retail and associated businesses – is responsible for extensive negative social and environmental impacts which threaten the long-term well-being of society. This has led to increasing calls from science–policy organizations for major reform and transformation of the global food system. However, our knowledge regarding food system transformations is fragmented and this is hindering the development of co-ordinated solutions. Here, we collate recent research across several academic disciplines and sectors in order to better understand the mechanisms that ‘lock-in’ food systems in unsustainable states.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franziska Gaupp

<p>Currently, the global food system is the single largest threat to people and planet. Food is the leading cause behind transgressing five of the nine planetary boundaries. It is a major source of carbon emissions, as well as the single largest contributor to global deforestation, overuse of fresh water and eutrophication of our aquatic ecosystems. And while agriculture has been a major engine of poverty reduction, agricultural activities are unable to deliver a decent livelihood for an estimated 80 percent of those living in extreme poverty. The projected increase in frequency and severity of climate extreme events is posing additional threats to the global food system.</p><p>A transformation towards a more inclusive, sustainable and health-promoting food system is urgently needed. This presentation will introduce the newly established Food Systems Economics Commission (FSEC) that provides detailed and robust evidence assessing the implications of the policy and investment decisions needed to foster a food system transformation. It integrates global modelling tools such as integrated assessment modelling and innovative applications of agent-based modelling with political economy considerations.  It investigates the hidden costs of our current food system, explores transitions pathways towards a new food and land use economy and suggests key policy instruments to foster the transformation towards a sustainable, inclusive, healthy and resilient food system.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 14005
Author(s):  
Jingpeng Guo ◽  
Kebiao Mao ◽  
Zijin Yuan ◽  
Zhihao Qin ◽  
Tongren Xu ◽  
...  

Quantified components of the global food system are used to assess long-term global food security under a series of socio-economic, epidemic normalization and climate change scenarios. Here, we evaluate the global food security including the global farming system as well as the global food trade, reserve and loss systems from 1961 to 2019, and analyze their temporal and spatial characteristics by using the global food vulnerability (GFV) model. The spatio–temporal patterns of the vulnerability of the global food system were consistent with the GFSI. As food production and consumption vary greatly in different countries which have continued for a long time, food exports from many developed agricultural countries have compensated for food shortages in most countries (about 120 net grain-importing countries). As a result, many countries have relied heavily on food imports to maintain their domestic food supplies, ultimately causing the global food trade stability to have an increasing impact on the food security of most countries. The impact of global food trade on global food security increased from 9% to 17% during 1961–2019, which has increased the vulnerability of the global food system. The food damage in the United States, Russia, China, and India has varied significantly, and global cereal stocks have fluctuated even more since 2000. From 1961 to 2019, the food system security of some Nordic countries significantly improved, while the food system security of most African countries significantly deteriorated. Most countries with high food insecurity are located in Africa and South Asia. In order to cope with extreme events, these countries need to strengthen and improve their own food production and storage systems, which will help the World Food and Agriculture Organization to formulate relevant food policies and maintain sustainable development.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_2) ◽  
pp. 689-689
Author(s):  
Nick Smith ◽  
Andrew Fletcher ◽  
Lakshmi Dave ◽  
Jeremy Hill ◽  
Warren McNabb

Abstract Objectives While the environmental, social and economic sustainability of the current global food system attracts increasing research, its ability to nourish the global population must be prioritised. Our objective was to produce a computational model illustrating the nutritional adequacy of the current global food system and allow investigation of proposed global food system scenarios. Methods Data from several public databases was collected to describe food production, processing and waste in the global food system. Data was also sourced for global demographics and human nutritional requirements for 29 nutrients. These data were used to construct the DELTA Model. The model takes global food production scenarios as its input and calculates the nutrients available for human consumption, after consideration of animal feed uses, waste and non-food use. This amount of available nutrients was then compared to demographically weighted target daily intakes, allowing the nutritional adequacy of the food system to be quantified. The DELTA Model also includes nutrient bioavailability adjustments for protein and essential amino acids to ensure accurate conclusions are drawn for these nutrients, demonstrated to be pressure points in global nutrition previously. The model is freely available online. Results Modelling the 2018 global food system showed that neither energy nor protein are limiting under conditions of equal food distribution, even with a population increase of 1 billion. Halving food waste between farm and consumer allows for sufficient energy and protein availability to nourish the forecast 2050 population of 9.7 billion using current production volumes. However, numerous micronutrient insufficiencies emerge in these future scenarios. Considering the bioavailability of protein and amino acids reduced the availability of these nutrients by between 2% and 17% compared to simply considering the content of foods, emphasizing the importance of this consideration. Conclusions It is essential that nutritional adequacy is at the forefront of the sustainable food system debate. The DELTA Model allows both experts and non-experts to better understand food system dynamics in global nutrition, aiding the discussion of what changes to the food system may be appropriate. Funding Sources Funding from the Riddet Institute Centre of Research Excellence.


2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-67
Author(s):  
Yashar Saghai

AbstractWill we, by 2050, be able to feed a rapidly growing population with healthy and sustainably grown food in a world threatened by systemic environmental crises? There are too many uncertainties for us to predict the long-term evolution of the global agri-food system, but we can explore a wide range of futures to inform policymaking and public debate on the future of food. This is typically done by creating scenarios (story lines that vividly describe what different futures could look like) and quantifying them with computer simulation models to get numerical estimates of how different aspects of the global agri-food system might evolve under different hypotheses. Among the many scenarios produced over the last twenty years, one would expect to see the future advocated by the food sovereignty movement, which claims to represent roughly two hundred million self-described “peasants” (small farmers) worldwide. This movement defends a vision of the future based on relocalized, sustainable, and just agri-food systems, self-governed through direct and participatory democratic processes. Yet, food sovereignty is conspicuously absent from quantified scenarios of global food futures. As part of the roundtable, “Ethics and the Future of the Global Food System,” this essay identifies seven obstacles that undermine the creation of food sovereignty scenarios by examining two attempts at crafting such scenarios.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Chiles

Coronavirus is currently dealing a concussive blow to global food systems, but this crisis could also present a rare opportunity to uncover and address longstanding social and environmental problems. The purpose of this paper is to shed additional light on this rapidly developing situation by (i) outlining the vulnerabilities and inequities in the global food system that have been exposed by the coronavirus, (ii) identifying the emergent sociotechnical shifts that have occurred in the initial stages of the post-coronavirus era, and then (iii) interpreting these vulnerabilities, inequities, and shifts from the standpoint of two key theories in environmental sociology: the treadmill of production and ecological modernization.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 173-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo Figueroa-Helland ◽  
Cassidy Thomas ◽  
Abigail Pérez Aguilera

Abstract We employ an intersection of critical approaches to examine the global food system crisis and its alternatives. We examine counterhegemonic movements and organizations advancing programs of constructive resistance and decolonization based on food sovereignty, indigenous revitalization and agroecology. Food system alternatives rooted in intersectional critiques of the world-system open spaces for materially-grounded, commons-based socioecological relations that make just, sustainable, and equitable worlds possible beyond a civilization in crisis.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 1062 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald Steiner ◽  
Bernhard Geissler ◽  
Eva Schernhammer

Among the great challenges the world faces are how to ensure food security for its growing population—projected to rise to around 10 billion by 2050—so it can meet their nutritional needs for a healthy life. Current regulations and literature on food security mainly focus on food quantity (i.e., portion sizes), daily calorie intake and methods for increasing food production and too little on food and diet quality and the holistic effects of (mal)nutrition. From a systems perspective, in order to promote innovation policies for more sustainable food systems, food security cannot be viewed independently; rather, it is characterized by the interplay of an extensive network of economic, environmental and social dimensions that should all be taken into account in a comprehensive resilient and sustainable global food system. Here, we highlight one aspect of this vast network that we consider a particular challenge—yet also a great opportunity—for innovative policies geared toward more sustainable food systems: the interplay of hunger and obesity, including resulting policy strategies beyond potential efficiency improvements in farming practices. Future studies need to emphasize the importance of an in-depth understanding of the interdependencies within the global food system and its interrelatedness with societal and natural systems as part of coupled human-environment systems and in the face of continuing population growth and food demand globally. Recommended strategies for achieving sustainable food security systems include innovative educational approaches and stakeholder-driven innovation policies based on mutual learning processes between society, science, industry and policymakers, as well as fostering increased responsibility of all members of society along the agriculture and food value chain.


Organization ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 314-336
Author(s):  
Sophie Michel

Recently, there has been a proliferation of alternatives to the global food system. Yet, there is still an ongoing debate on their potential to transform the food system and challenge its globalization. This research introduces institutional analysis to the food system literature in order to comprehend actors’ efforts to scale up alternatives and transform the food system at the local level. Such efforts are explored from an inductive research of the organization called M-Local Food Project, which gathers a range of diverse actors to work on expanding alternative food and transforming the food system in eastern France. Based on this organization’s analysis and its collaborative institutional work, this research highlights how to organize collective agency from the collaboration of multiple actors to co-build an alternative food system and extends the debate on alternative food potential to challenge the dominant global food system. It also provides an emerging model of collaborative institutional work that enriches the institutional analysis on the coalition for institutional changes and offers practical advice on tensions for alternative organizations that cannot be overcome.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Prince Agyemang ◽  
Ebenezer Miezah Kwofie

International food system initiatives have led the efforts to combat the threats to global food security resulting from the failure of the current food systems. This study set out to investigate and assess the contributions of global food system initiatives in tackling the food system challenges. In assessing the food system initiatives, we develop a three-step methodology for Food System Initiative (FSI) selection and then conduct a qualitative evaluation using relevant indicators based on food system failure narratives. Furthermore, the authors synthesize present literature in the context of the extent to which coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has compounded food system challenges and, together with the response-to-failure analysis, recreate a resilient transformational framework, which will be an invaluable tool to FSI during and after the COVID-19 era, and guarantee we build back better. The findings show that while considerable effort is being made in addressing food system failures, the current COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the challenges and would require a paradigm shift not only in the implementation of conventional food system initiatives but also in the role of food system actors. The food system resilience framework presented provides useful pathway in expanding the understanding of the role of all key stakeholders and in identifying tipping points for building the desired resilience moving forward.


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