Food systems

-       Refers to the physical, economic, and social context in which consumers engage with the food system to acquire and consume food

-       Consists of physical spaces where food is obtained (shops etc.), the built environment to access these spaces (infrastructure etc.), and the social context (cultural norms etc.)

-       Food environment influences accessibility, affordability, and desirability (alternatives, the environment affects what you consume)

-       Reflects choices made by households and individuals on what food to acquire, store, prepare and eat, and on the allocation of food within the household

-       Influenced by personal socioeconomic conditions and preferences

-       Consumer behavior influences food affordability, desirability, and utilization

-       Consumers rely on fresh or minimally processed, locally processed foods

-       Short supply chains (own production, local markets)

-       Access to perishable foods limited or seasonal

-       Farmers rely on both formal and informal markets to sell their produce

-       Processed and packaged foods more accessible, nutrient-rich foods expensive

-       Food safety and quality standards exist, but not always followed

-       Diverse food options all year long

-       Food safety and quality standards usually reliable

-       Easily accessible markets in high-income, food deserts/swamps in low-income areas

-       All countries in the world suffer from at least one, most from two or three different forms of malnutrition simultaneously (double or triple burden)

-       Agricultural production has serious negative environmental effects (climate, biodiversity, soil quality, water pollution, air pollution, etc.)

-       Nutrition transition towards ultra-processed foods, high in sugar, fat and salt, but low in micronutrients and fiber

-       Unhealthy diets responsible for more than one-third of global burden of disease

-       The goal of the food system is to ensure food and nutrition security for all to promote human health

-       A sustainable food system does so within the planet boundaries, to promote planetary health (include human health & environmental health)

The food system includes all actors, institutions, and activities involved in the production, processing, distribution, preparation, and consumption of food, and the effects of these activities on health, socioeconomic and environmental outcomes.

Resilience is the ability to prepare for, withstand, and recover from a crisis or disruption.

Resilience is gaining in importance with the increasing frequency of crises (CCC, Climate Change, Covid, Conflict).

A resilient food system is able to withstand and recover from disruptions in a way that ensures a sufficient supply of acceptable and accessible food for all.

Hunger is a complex of severe sensations occurring when an individual is deprived of food energy for a longer period of time. The body starts to use its fat reserves and protein tissue (muscles) as the source of energy.

Starvation is a severe reduction in food intake. An individual begins to starve when he/she has lost about one-third of the normal body weight (>40% usually leads to death).

Undernutrition is the underconsumption of food. A person suffering from undernutrition is short of the energy and nutrients (protein etc.) needed for normal growth, health, and activity (= protein-energy malnutrition, PEM).

A good nutritional situation, with all nutrients required, is crucial for proper body functioning:

-       Physical development

-       Mental development (cognitive skills)

-       Health and immune system

Undernourished people cannot develop normally and are often sick, as their resistance to disease is low. Infectious diseases (diarrhea, pneumonia, measles etc.) lead to high child mortality. In many cases, the underlying cause is undernutrition.

Food security exists when all people, at all times, have access to sufficient safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (FAO). Some people think primarily about calories when using the term food security, even though the above definition is broader. When one wants to clarify that all essential nutrients are meant, one can use the term food and nutrition security.

1.       FAO method (based on aggregate country data)

2.       Food consumption based methods (based on food consumption data)

3.       Anthropometric methods (based on measures of body weight and height)

biochemical data are more expensive and therefore not available for regulat global statistics

1.       Average dietary energy supply (DES) in a country, derived from FAO’s “food balance sheets”

2.       Coefficient of variation (CV) for calorie distribution to account for inequality in access to food

3.       Minimum dietary energy requirement (MDER) in a country, accounting for demographic structure

+ It relies on data that are available for most countries and can be updated on a regular basis (except for CV) + it allows comparisons across countries over time

- builds on aggregate country data with inaccuracy and varying data quality - A small variation in one of the parameters can make a big difference in calculation - Holding the CV constant for long periods implicitly assumes that food availability is all that matters for food security - With only one estimate per country, the FAO method does not produce actionable information for national policies (who in a country is most affected? So you can not act directly)

1.       Food consumption surveys

2.       Dietary recalls

3.       Food diaries

4.       Direct observation

5.       Food frequency surveys

6.       Subjective food security assessments

1.       Typical format: How much oft he following food items did your household (including all membres) consume during the last 7 days?

-          Include all possible food items, adjusted to local context (many surveys include more than 100 items)

-          7-day household-level food consumption recalls are often included in standard living standard monitoring surveys (LSMS) run by country statistical offices and the World Bank. Hence, such data are often available on representative basis.

-          Household-level data can be converted to per-capita values by dividing by number of household members (or better number of adult equivalents, AE)

-          But: this is an average value of per-capita consumption, not actual intake by individuals

-          One can extend survey design by differentiating between food sources, processing levels, specifically asking for food away from home, etc.

1.       Typical format: How much oft he following food item did you individually eat during the last 24h?

-          The questions are often asked meal-specifically, referring to dishes eaten and ingredients

-           Often, not all household members are asked, but only women and children (mothers report for small children)

-          Useful to capture actual individual intakes (and thus intra-household food distribution)

-          But day-to-day variation not captured in 24h dietary recall, unless repeated household visits, which can be costl

-          Households are asked to record exactly what they eat over a certain period

-          Can be more accurate than recall, but requires literacy and may influence behavior

-          Outside person observes food preparation and eating in the household (typically also weighing portions) over certain period

-          Accurate, no literacy required by household, but is costly and may influence behavior

-          Households or individuals are only asked whether and/or how often they consumed certain foods/food groups over a specified recall period, without quantities consumed

-          Much easier, faster, and cheaper than full consumption or dietary recalls, but only useful for simplified dietary indicators (not for calorie and nutrient consumption)

1.       Instead of trying to capture food consumption objectively, one can also use questions asking how respondents assess their own food security situation subjectively.

 Anthropometric indicators are most precise measures of nutritional status, but they are not only determined by food intake (not for identifying specific diet problems).

"Lack of the resources required to satisfy basic needs". (Basic needs: food, shelter, clothing, health).

is defined as the minimum level of income required to satisfy basic needs (minimum-cost basket of foods and other goods and services needed).

Wichtig increasing income, people tend to spend a decreasing share of their income on food.

transition in consumption from a few inexpensive starchy staples to a greater variety of more expensive foods with rising income.

on famers:

• marketing option

• price, technology, income

• farm specialization

• gender roles

• contract smallholders

• productivity increased & income increased

• poverty among supermarket suppliers was reduced by 20 %

• visiting supermarkets is positively significant with BMI

• calories in supermarkets are cheaper and are therefore more consumed

800 mio hunger (calorie deficiency)

around 3 billion hidden hunger (micronutrient deficiencies)

over 2 billion overweight ans obesity

Headcount index:

where H is the headcount, that is, the number of people with incomes below YP, and N is the total population number.

80% of all poor live in rural areas

females are more affected in povertry than man

young people are affected

people with lower education

-       Through representative household surveys (e.g., LSMS: Living Standard Measurement Survey)

-       Data on income or consumption (expenditure)

-       Income/expenditure data need to cover cash flows as well as the value of subsistence production/consumption

Poverty is not primarily about income but about satisfying basic needs.

An alternative approach to income poverty is to assess directly to what extent people’s basic needs are satisfied (indicators for nutrition, water, etc.).

The multidimensional poverty index (MPI) looks at three dimensions and ten indicators with defined minimum thresholds for each. If a person/household is below the threshold for several of these indicators, it is classified as multidimensionally poor.

rich countries also use the term poverty

"Lack of the resources required to participate in the activities and enjoy living standards that are customary or widely accepted in a given society". (It is much more about inequality)

For relative poverty statistics, a person is classified as “poor” when his/her income is lower than a certain percentage of the average income in a country.

Economic growth is positively associated with poverty reduction.

Growth tends to reduce poverty but the effect depends on the type of growth:

If only the rich benefit, inequality will rise and poverty remains unaffected. In contrast, growth coupled with constant or falling inequality, will reduce poverty („pro-poor growth“).

Policy implication:

promote growth in sectors from which many oft he poor derive their income (especially in Africa, this is primarily agriculture).

demand:

• price

• income

• prices of other good

• popolation growth

• preferences

  
  

  Supply:

• price

• level of technology

• price of other goods

• factor prices

Supermarkets change the way food is produced, distributed, and sold. This may affect farmers, traders, processors, consumers, etc.

Possible effects on:

-       Income

-       Prices

-       Food access

-       Food environment

-       Etc.

food choices

• types of foods offered

• prices, packaging sizes

• shopping atmosphere

• quality and hygiene

What matters for contracts:

-       Education

-       Access to credit

-       Assured irrigation

-       Transport

Policy implications:

-       Support vulnerable groups in accessing modern supply channels

-       Facilitate access to off-farm employment

-       The human population would increase exponentially

-       Food production could only be increased linearly, because of the dependence on land, which “does not breed”

understimated the growth in food supply because of not taking into account technological progress:

• agronomy/crop rotation

• plant nutrition/fertilization

• genetics and breeding

demand:

• population growth

• income growth

• change in food preferences

• demand of non-food use (fiber, biofuel, etc.)

• food waste

supply:

• availability of land

• availability of water (and irrigation and infrastructure)

• climate change

• technological change

• supply chain losses

• use of chemical inputs

• support poverty reduction, economic development, food security

• access to contraceptives and health counseling

• empowering women contributes to declining numbers of childen

  • better female education raises opportunity cost of childcare

  • empowerment strengthens womens decision-making power within the family

Life cycle assessment

is a method for assessing the environmental impacts associated with all stages of a product

1. goal and scope definition

2. life cycle inventory

3. life cycle impact assessment

4. result interpretation

when a country implements a new policy that changes production/consumption at home, land-use change effects in other countries can occur.

• each LCA depends on many assumptions and different data could be used

• How much can we rely on the results of single studies?

• who has conducted a study?

• biodiversity is not yet well reflected

• meta-analysis are likely more reliable

• How good are the data, to what extent are specific conditions and technologies reflected?

• Which environmental dimensions are included/excluded?

Cobine date on the environemntal footprint of food products, planetary boundaries and healthy dietary guidelines to calculate diets that would work for human health of 10 billion and planetary health.

• not all environmental diemensions considered in sufficient detail

• not all important nutrients sufficiently considered

• cultural differendes not sufficient considered

• dietary recommendation not affordable for many in developing countries

• economics of food systems not considered

highlighted the urgent need for dietary change everywhere

refers to the process of increasing the market interactions of subsistence-oriented farm households

Value of farm output sales/ Value of total famr production

Fairtrade is an arragement desined to help producers in developing countries achieve equitable trade relationships.

Sustainable diets are those with low environmental impacts which contribute to food and nutrition security and to healthy life for present and future generations.

Changes in lifestyle patterns driven by economic growth, urbanization and globalization. Often, these changes result in rising rates of overweight and obesity.

quantitative relationships between variables