What is a food system?
"A food system includes all the people, animals and activities involved in producing, processing, distributing, retailing, consuming and disposing of food, and the interactions between them. It also includes the infrastructure, natural resources and other inputs that support those activities, and their outputs"
- Carey et al. (2024) [1]
A simple way of thinking about a food system is everything that happens from farm to fork so that people can eat. We can think about food systems at multiple scales – global, national (e.g. Australia’s food system), state (e.g. Victoria’s food system), regional (e.g. North-East Victoria) or local (e.g. in a local government area).
Researchers have conceptualised food systems in different ways to understand the interactions between parts of a food system and how those interactions affect food system outcomes, such as food security.
Key elements of a food system
We can think about a food system as having the following parts:
Drivers – underlying environmental, economic, political or social changes affecting food systems [2][3]
Activities – food system activities include [3][4]:
- food supply chains – activities across all stages of food supply chains from food production to food consumption and the disposal and recycling of food losses and waste
- food environments – the physical, social and economic contexts in which consumers make decisions about what to buy, cook and eat. Physical food environments include food retail stores and settings, such as schools, hospitals and workplaces
- consumer behaviours - the decisions that individual consumers make about which foods to buy, cook and eat
Food systems also interact with other interdependent systems – such as energy, transport, communications, banking and finance. The impacts of shocks and stresses on these interdependent systems can disrupt food systems.
Outcomes - food systems have outcomes on food security, health, equity, environment and economy. Outcomes on health include the health impacts of overweight and obesity. Equity outcomes include inequitable access to food. Environmental outcomes of food systems include biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions, and economic outcomes include incomes and the livelihoods of workers throughout food supply chains.
There are interactions and feedback loops between these different food system drivers, activities and outcomes [3]. Intervening in one part of the food system can have effects in other parts. This is one reason why it’s important to take a food systems approach to planning resilient food systems.
Circular food systems
Food supply chains are increasingly conceptualised as circular to emphasise opportunities to recycle food waste and by-products as part of circular food economies.
Circular food economies can strengthen food system resilience by recycling valuable nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorous, and by recycling wastewater to produce food [5].
-
[1] Carey, R., Murphy, M. and Behen, T. (2024) Planning a resilient food system for Victoria. The University of Melbourne. https://doi.org/10.46580/124375 Draws on a definition in HLPE (2020).
[2] Bene, C., Prager, S., Achicanoy, H., Alvarez Toro, P., Lamotte, L., Bonilla Cedrez, C. and Mapes, B. (2019) Understanding food systems drivers: A critical review of the literature. Global Food Security 23: 149-159. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2019.04.009
[3] HLPE (2020) Food security and nutrition: building a global narrative towards 2030. A report by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the Committee on World Food Security, Rome.
[4] van Berkum, S., Dengerink, J. and Ruben, R. (2018) The food systems approach: sustainable solutions for a sufficient supply of healthy food. Wageningen, Wageningen Economic Research, Memorandum 2018-064.
[5] Carey, R., Murphy, M., Alexandra, L., Sheridan, J., Larsen, K. and McGill, E. (2022) Building the resilience of Melbourne’s food system – a roadmap. University of Melbourne, Australia. https://doi.org/10.46580/124371
Related key concepts
Sign up for the Foodprint Melbourne newsletter for project updates