Food system consists of all processes that food undergoes, before and during consumption.
Chop is from a presentation made by Steve Sedgwick. Global and local food system transformation is necessary in order to ensure the delivery of healthy, safe, and nutritious foods in both sustainable and equitable ways. Food systems are complex entities that affect diets, human health, and a range of other outcomes including economic growth, natural resource and environmental resiliency, and sociocultural factors. However, food systems contribute to and are vulnerable to ongoing climate and environmental changes that threaten their sustainability. Although there has been increased focus on this topic in recent years, many gaps in our knowledge persist on the relation between environmental factors, food systems, and nutritional outcomes
A key contribution of the FSI (Food Sustainability Index) is how it shines a spotlight on the strengths of various countries’ food systems as a way to extract important lessons for other countries. For example, Colombia scores in the top ten for sustainable agriculture, reflecting strong performance on water management and environmental biodiversity. What are they doing right? Likewise, the index highlights some of the weaknesses in food systems that countries must address. The United States scores poorly for food waste, for example, and along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ranks poorly for overweight and obesity. Addressing these complex challenges will require a reshaping of their food systems for better nutrition and health, as well as tools that help to elevate the issue and to guide policy response.
The FSI offers a great start by looking at the food systems of the G20 countries as well as Nigeria, Ethiopia, Colombia, the UAE and Israel. Yet for all the countries in the world to end hunger and malnutrition sustainably and achieve multiple SDGs, they need these kinds of tools as well. In many developing countries, particularly where hunger and malnutrition are most severe, there is limited financial or human capacity to collect and analyse the kind of data and indicators used in the Food Sustainability Index. To help make these kinds of indexes up to date and global in scope, more investment is needed to develop systems for collecting precise and timely data in developing countries.
Certain aspects of food systems may be taken for granted in developed countries. For example, food systems need well-functioning market dynamics and linkages in the food supply chain for food to move safely and cheaply from farm to fork. Food systems also require government support to create an enabling environment through adequate transport, communication and energy infrastructure, as well as legal, regulatory and institutional frameworks. These kinds of market dynamics and public investments are critically weak or missing from some developing countries’ food systems. As such, these dimensions of the food system also require tracking and monitoring.
