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What is a food system? Exploring enactments of the food system multiple

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  • Samara Brock

    (Yale University)

Abstract

Recent years have seen widespread calls to transform food systems to address complex demands such as feeding a growing global population while reducing environmental impacts. But what is a food system and how can we most effectively work to change it? “Food System” can be found describing more limited dietary regimens as well as sector-specific supply chains going back to the 1930s, but its use to describe very large, dynamic, coupled socio-ecological systems gained traction in academic and civil society publications in the 1990s and this use of the term has increased dramatically in recent years. When the influential food system actors from non-governmental organizations, foundations, consultancies, and the UN that this research focuses on talk about food systems, they seem to be talking about the same thing. Yet the interpretive flexibility of the concept obfuscates that people may have very different framings that may be deeply incompatible. Drawing from interviews, participant observation, and document analysis, this paper examines what food systems thinking does in terms of setting the stage for how we enact the food system and efforts to intervene in it. It reveals that rather than leading to more expansive understanding, the unexamined use of the concept food system might actually serve to sharpen divides.

Suggested Citation

  • Samara Brock, 2023. "What is a food system? Exploring enactments of the food system multiple," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 40(3), pages 799-813, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:40:y:2023:i:3:d:10.1007_s10460-023-10457-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s10460-023-10457-z
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Matthew C. Canfield & Jessica Duncan & Priscilla Claeys, 2021. "Reconfiguring Food Systems Governance: The UNFSS and the Battle Over Authority and Legitimacy," Development, Palgrave Macmillan;Society for International Deveopment, vol. 64(3), pages 181-191, December.
    2. Leach, Melissa & Nisbett, Nicholas & Cabral, Lídia & Harris, Jody & Hossain, Naomi & Thompson, John, 2020. "Food politics and development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    3. Fanzo, Jessica & Haddad, Lawrence & Schneider, Kate R. & Béné, Christophe & Covic, Namukolo M. & Guarin, Alejandro & Herforth, Anna W. & Herrero, Mario & Sumaila, U. Rashid & Aburto, Nancy J. & Amuyun, 2021. "Viewpoint: Rigorous monitoring is necessary to guide food system transformation in the countdown to the 2030 global goals," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    4. Cees Leeuwis & Birgit K. Boogaard & Kwesi Atta-Krah, 2021. "How food systems change (or not): governance implications for system transformation processes," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 13(4), pages 761-780, August.
    5. Andrea Cornwall, 2007. "Buzzwords and fuzzwords: deconstructing development discourse," Development in Practice, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4-5), pages 471-484.
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    Cited by:

    1. Innocensia John, 2024. "Indigenous or Exotic Crop Diversity? Which Crops Ensure Household Food Security: Facts from Tanzania Panel," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(9), pages 1-14, May.

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