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"Food systems"
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How food systems change (or not): governance implications for system transformation processes
This paper argues that supporting food system transformation requires more than obtaining science-based understanding and analysis of how components in the system interact. We argue that changing the emergent properties of food systems (what we call food system synthesis) is a socio-political challenge that is affected by competing views regarding system boundaries and purposes, and limited possibilities for central steering and control. We point to different traditions of ‘systems thinking’ that each emphasize particular types of interventions for achieving system change, and argue that food systems are best looked at as complex multi-dimensional systems. This implies that we need to move beyond rational engineering approaches to system change, and look for approaches that anticipate and accommodate inherent social tensions and struggles in processes of changing food system dynamics and outcomes. Through a case study on the persistence of an undesired emergent property of food systems (i.e. poverty) we demonstrate that a multi-level perspective (MLP) on system transformation is useful in understanding both how food system transformation has happened in the past, and how desirable transformations is prevented from happening today. Based on such insights we point to key governance strategies and principles that may be used to influence food system transformation as a non-linear and long-term process of competition, negotiation and reconfiguration. Such strategies include the creation and nurturing of diversity in the system, as well as process interventions aimed at visioning, destabilization and formation of discourse coalitions. Such governance interventions imply a considerable re-orientation of investments in food system transformation as well as a rethinking of the role that policy-makers may play in either altering or reproducing undesirable system outcomes.
Journal Article
Consumer-driven strategies towards a resilient and sustainable food system following the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia
Background
The COVID-19 pandemic and associated public health restrictions temporarily disrupted food supply chains around the world and changed the way people shopped for food, highlighting issues with food systems resilience and sustainability. The aim of this study was to explore consumer-driven strategies towards a more resilient and sustainable food system in Australia, learning from experiences during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods
During May–June 2020, a cross-sectional, online survey was conducted in Tasmania, Australia in a non-random sample of adults aged 18 years and over. The survey collected demographic data and posted the open-ended question: “How could Tasmania’s food system be better prepared for a disaster in the future?” Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the demographic data and thematic analysis was employed to analyse the qualitative data.
Results
Survey respondents (
n
= 698) were predominantly female (79%), over 55 years of age (48%), university educated (70%) and living with dependents (45%). Seven key themes were identified: (i) balance food exports with local needs; (ii) strengthen local food systems; (iii) increase consumer awareness of food supply chains; (iv) build collaboration and connection in the food system; (v) embed clear contingency arrangements; (vi) support community capacity building and individual self-sufficiency; and (vii) the food system coped well.
Conclusions
The consumer-driven strategies identified indicate multiple opportunities to increase resilience and sustainability in the food system to avoid future supply disruptions. Our findings indicate that considerable popular support for more resilient, local and sustainable food systems may be emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Journal Article
An analysis of the transformative potential of Australia’s national food policies and policy actions to promote healthy and sustainable food systems
Despite commitment by many countries to promote food system transformation, Australia has yet to adopt a national food policy. This study aimed to evaluate Australian Federal Government's (AFG) food policies and policy actions potential to promote healthy and sustainable food systems.
This study is a desk-based policy mapping followed by a theoretically guided evaluation of policy actions. This involved three steps: 1) identification of government departments and agencies that could influence Australia's food system; 2) identification of food policies and policy actions within these departments; and (3) use of a conceptual framework to evaluate policy actions' potential of changing the food system as adjust (first-order change), reform (second-order change) or transform (third-order change).
Australia.
None.
Twenty-four food policies and sixty-two policy actions were identified across eight AFG departments and the Food Regulation System and evaluated based on the order of change they represented. Most policies were led by individual departments, reflecting the absence of a joined-up approach to food policy in Australia. Most policy actions (n= 25/ 56.5%) were evaluated as having adjust potential whereas no transformative policy action was identified.
These findings suggest that Australia is likely to proceed incrementally towards achieving food system change through adjustments and reforms but lacking transformative impact. To promote transformative change, all three orders of change must be strategically implemented in a coherent and coordinated matter. A comprehensive national food policy and a national coordinating body are needed to ensure a cohesive approach to policy.
Journal Article
ChAracterizing, Revlving, Supporting, Monitoring and MAnaging sustainable food systems to address malnutrition in Indigenous tribal communities (CARISMMA): exploring food systems and its drivers to develop multisectoral data-driven solutions. A study protocol
Background
Indigenous food systems of Indian tribal communities, hold potential to address the dual burden of malnutrition, and thus, comprehensive research on dynamics and complexity of food systems and their main drivers is critical to understand the root causes of poor nutrition in Indian tribes. Incorporating local food systems drivers into data-driven decision-making algorithms, can help improve food production, distribution, and consumption among Indian tribes through customized interventions to address malnutrition. The present study aims to assess indigenous food systems elements, their drivers and nutritional outcomes among diverse tribal communities of India and use novel data analytics to develop decision support algorithms for sustainable food systems solutions.
Methods
A prospective observational cohort study using mixed methods will be implemented across three tribal communities from three states of India: i) Gond tribal community of Mandla, Madhya Pradesh, ii) Garo tribal community of West Garo Hills, Meghalaya and iii) Pahari Korwa tribal community of Surguja, Chhattisgarh. Longitudinal data will be collected in all three tribal cohorts for a period of three years on food system elements (food supply chain and food environment), and different drivers like policy and governance, demographic, sociocultural, infrastructure and technology, biophysical and environment and economic drivers. Additionally, nutritional outcomes will be assessed as proximal outcomes (including household dietary patterns, nutritional intake, indigenous food consumption and dietary diversity in women and children under-five and the gut microbiota profile of women), and distal outcomes (including anthropometric indicators of women and children and nutritional and inflammatory biomarkers in women). The accumulated data from tribal cohorts will be used to formulate data-driven decision support tools using classical statistical procedures and machine learning informed optimization pathways to assess food system vulnerabilities and develop customized food systems interventions.
Discussion
The diverse data from several cross-sectoral domains, generated in the present study, will facilitate an objective assessment of the nuances of indigenous food systems. This will further guide the development of equity-focused, resource-optimized food systems interventions, which will be piloted for acceptability through inclusion of bottom-up voices from indigenous tribal communities as well as the stakeholders including policymakers and non-government organizations.
Journal Article
Resilience of local food systems and links to food security – A review of some important concepts in the context of COVID-19 and other shocks
The objective of this review is to explore and discuss the concept of local food system resilience in light of the disruptions brought to those systems by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. The discussion, which focuses on low and middle income countries, considers also the other shocks and stressors that generally affect local food systems and their actors in those countries (weather-related, economic, political or social disturbances). The review of existing (mainly grey or media-based) accounts on COVID-19 suggests that, with the exception of those who lost members of their family to the virus, as per June 2020 the main impact of the pandemic derives mainly from the lockdown and mobility restrictions imposed by national/local governments, and the consequence that the subsequent loss of income and purchasing power has on people’s food security, in particular the poor. The paper then uses the most prominent advances made recently in the literature on household resilience in the context of food security and humanitarian crises to identify a series of lessons that can be used to improve our understanding of food system resilience and its link to food security in the context of the COVID-19 crisis and other shocks. Those lessons include principles about the measurement of food system resilience and suggestions about the types of interventions that could potentially strengthen the abilities of actors (including policy makers) to respond more appropriately to adverse events affecting food systems in the future.
Journal Article
UN Food Systems Summit 2021: Dismantling Democracy and Resetting Corporate Control of Food Systems
This article analyzes the development and organization of the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), which is being convened by UN Secretary General António Guterres in late 2021. Although few people will dispute that global food systems need transformation, it has become clear that the Summit is instead an effort by a powerful alliance of multinational corporations, philanthropies, and export-oriented countries to subvert multilateral institutions of food governance and capture the global narrative of “food systems transformation.” This article places the upcoming Summit in the context of previous world food summits and analyzes concerns that have been voiced by many within civil society. It elaborates how the current structure and forms of participant recruitment and public engagement lack basic transparency and accountability, fail to address significant conflicts of interest, and ignore human rights. As the COVID-19 pandemic illuminates the structural vulnerabilities of the neoliberal model of food systems and the consequences of climate change for food production, a high-level commitment to equitable and sustainable food systems is needed now more than ever. However, the authors suggest that the UNFSS instead seems to follow a trajectory in which efforts to govern global food systems in the public interest has been subverted to maintain colonial and corporate forms of control.
Journal Article
Global maize production, consumption and trade: trends and R&D implications
Since its domestication some 9,000 years ago, maize (Zea mays L.; corn) has played an increasing and diverse role in global agri-food systems. Global maize production has surged in the past few decades, propelled by rising demand and a combination of technological advances, yield increases and area expansion. Maize is already the leading cereal in terms of production volume and is set to become the most widely grown and traded crop in the coming decade. It is a versatile multi-purpose crop, primarily used as a feed globally, but also is important as a food crop, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, besides other non-food uses. This paper reviews maize production, consumption, and international trade to examine the changing trends in global supply and demand conditions over the past quarter century and the implications for research and development (R&D), particularly in the Global South. The inclusiveness and sustainability of the ongoing transformation of agri-food systems in the Global South merit particular attention. There is a need for further investments in R&D, particularly to enhance maize’s food and livelihood security roles and to sustainably intensify maize production while staying within the planetary boundaries.
Journal Article