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Food system
The term food system describes the interconnected systems and processes that influence nutrition, food, health, community development, and agriculture. A food system includes all processes and infrastructure involved in feeding a population: growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, marketing, consumption, distribution, and disposal of food and food-related items. It also includes the inputs needed and outputs generated at each of these steps.
Food systems fall within agri-food systems, which encompass the entire range of actors and their interlinked value-adding activities in the primary production of food and non-food agricultural products, as well as in food storage, aggregation, post-harvest handling, transportation, processing, distribution, marketing, disposal, and consumption.[1] A food system operates within and is influenced by social, political, economic, technological and environmental contexts. It also requires human resources that provide labor, research and education. Food systems are either conventional or alternative according to their model of food lifespan from origin to plate.[2][3][4] Food systems are dependent on a multitude of ecosystem services. For example, natural pest regulations, microorganisms providing nitrogen-fixation, and pollinators.[5]
According to the IPCC, the global food system, including all of the various industries involved in sustainable and conventional food systems, provide employment for 1 billion people.[6] This global food system is facing a number of challenges created by impeding global food security issues created by climate change and non-climate change stresses on the system.[6] About 34% of total greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to the global food system.[7][8][6] In 2020 an EU evidence review found that food system gas emissions are on course to increase by 30–40% by 2050 due to population growth and dietary change.[9] It is crucial to build the resilience of agrifood systems so that they have the capacity over time, in the face of any disruption, to sustainably ensure availability of and access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food for all, and sustain the livelihoods of agrifood systems' actors.[1]
Transitioning to sustainable food systems is critical for addressing global challenges such as climate change, hunger, biodiversity loss, and deforestation. Addressing issues at each stage in the system, can have system-wide effects for 30-40 percent of food produced is lost from post-harvest up to retail and the consumer.[10] Reducing food waste then reduces the environmental impacts of agriculture, such as land use impacts, and reducing food prices or preventing shortages. International policy has increasingly approached policy from a food systems perspective: Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger and Sustainable Development Goal 12: "responsible consumption and production" focus on sustainable food systems and Sustainable and in September 2021 the United Nations hosted the first Food Systems Summit.[11]
- ^ a b The State of Food and Agriculture 2021. Making agrifood systems more resilient to shocks and stresses, In brief. Rome: FAO. 2021. doi:10.4060/cb7351en. ISBN 978-92-5-135208-3. S2CID 244536830.
- ^ "A Primer on Community Food Systems: Linking Food, Nutrition and Agriculture" (PDF). Farmland Information Center. n.d. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-01-13. Retrieved 2019-01-12.
all processes involved in keeping us fed: growing, harvesting, processing (or transforming or changing), packaging, transporting, marketing, consuming and disposing of food and food packages.
- ^ Ericksen, Polly J. (February 2008). "Conceptualizing food systems for global environmental change research" (PDF). Global Environmental Change. 18 (1): 234–245. Bibcode:2008GEC....18..234E. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2007.09.002. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2022-05-23. Retrieved 2019-01-12.
- ^ Development Policy Review, 2003, 21 (5-6): 531-553 Food Policy Old and New - Simon Maxwell and Rachel Slater∗
- ^ Zurek, Monika; Ingram, John; Sanderson Bellamy, Angelina; Goold, Conor; Lyon, Christopher; Alexander, Peter; Barnes, Andrew; Bebber, Daniel P.; Breeze, Tom D.; Bruce, Ann; Collins, Lisa M.; Davies, Jessica; Doherty, Bob; Ensor, Jonathan; Franco, Sofia C. (2022-10-17). "Food System Resilience: Concepts, Issues, and Challenges". Annual Review of Environment and Resources. 47 (1): 511–534. doi:10.1146/annurev-environ-112320-050744. hdl:20.500.11820/892d615a-5f55-45b7-9afa-d98304809e18. ISSN 1543-5938. S2CID 252457011.
- ^ a b c Mbow, C.; Rosenzweig, C.; Barioni, L. G.; Benton, T.; et al. (2019). "Chapter 5: Food Security" (PDF). IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land. pp. 439–442.
- ^ "FAO - News Article: Food systems account for more than one third of global greenhouse gas emissions". www.fao.org. Archived from the original on 30 September 2023. Retrieved 22 April 2021.
- ^ Crippa, M.; Solazzo, E.; Guizzardi, D.; Monforti-Ferrario, F.; Tubiello, F. N.; Leip, A. (March 2021). "Food systems are responsible for a third of global anthropogenic GHG emissions". Nature Food. 2 (3): 198–209. doi:10.1038/s43016-021-00225-9. ISSN 2662-1355. PMID 37117443. S2CID 233831795.
- ^ SAPEA (2020). A sustainable food system for the European Union (PDF). Berlin: Science Advice for Policy by European Academies. p. 39. doi:10.26356/sustainablefood. ISBN 978-3-9820301-7-3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-04-18. Retrieved 2020-04-14.
- ^ "Reduced Food Waste". Project Drawdown. 2020-02-12. Archived from the original on 2020-09-24. Retrieved 2021-10-10.
- ^ "Outrage + Optimism: 117. The Seeds Are Sown for a Food Revolution with Agnes Kalibata". outrageandoptimism.libsyn.com. Retrieved 2021-10-10.
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