food systems
How societies nourish
Food systems encompass the interconnected activities and infrastructure involved in producing, processing, distributing, and consuming food.
This includes farming, transportation, retail, and waste management, along with the economic, social, and environmental factors that shape them.
Policy discussions often frame problems like hunger or sustainability as food systems issues, emphasizing that individual elements—farms, grocery stores, diets—function as parts of a larger whole.
- farmerOne who cultivates land
- farm to tableDirect agricultural procurement
- supply chainProduct delivery infrastructure
- carbon footprintTotal greenhouse gases produced
- biodiversityRange of life forms
community gardens · school lunch · grocery stores · public health policies · agricultural subsidies · crop rotation · water conservation · sustainable farming · waste reduction · resilience · cold storage · irrigation · markets · trade agreements · policy · harvest · growing season · waste
food systemssubsistence farming
Growing food for household
foraging · hunting and gathering · self-sufficiency · homesteading · wild harvesting
food systemsfamine
Severe food shortage
starvation · food insecurity · hunger · food deserts · food scarcity