Abstract
Dominant food systems are configured from the productivist paradigm, which focuses on producing large amounts of inexpensive and standardized foods. Although these food systems continue being supported worldwide, they are no longer considered fit-for-purpose as they have been proven unsustainable in environmental and social terms. A large body of scientific literature argues that a transition from the dominant food systems to alternative ones built around the wider principles of sustainable production and rural development is needed. Promoting such a sustainability transition would benefit from a diagnosis of food system types to identify those systems that may harbor promising characteristics for a transition to sustainable food systems. While research on food system transitions abounds, an operational approach to characterize the diversity of food systems taking a system perspective is still lacking. In this paper we review the literature on how transitions to sustainable food systems may play out and present a framework based on the Multi-Level Perspective on Socio-Technical Transitions, which builds upon conceptual developments from social and natural science disciplines. The objectives of the framework are to (i) characterize the diversity of existing food systems at a certain geographical scale based on a set of structural characteristics and (ii) classify the food systems in terms of their support by mainstream practices, i.e., dominant food systems connected to regimes; deviate radically from them, niche food systems such as those based on grassroots innovation; or share elements of dominant and niche food systems, i.e., hybrid food systems. An example is given of application of our framework to vegetable food systems with a focus on production, distribution, and consumption of low-or-no pesticide vegetables in Chile. Drawing on this illustrative example we reflect on usefulness, shortcomings, and further development and use of the diagnostic framework.
Highlights
The corporate food regime embodies the productivist paradigm rooted in the green revolution, in which food systems enact an industrial approach to food and farming, with state and industry support primarily geared to producing large amounts of standardized foods (Lang and Heasman 2015; Lowe et al 1993; Therond et al 2017), often leaving aside environmental and societal food system goals (Dobermann et al 2013; IPESFood 2015; O'Kane 2012)
The productivist paradigm to which many food systems adhere has resulted in strong negative environmental and social impacts around the world (Baroni et al 2006; Black et al 2011; Ericksen 2008; Tittonell et al 2016). On top of these impacts, some have argued that the dominant food systems, which are the food systems aligned to the corporate food regime, are ineffective at feeding the world population (Tittonell et al 2016), of which still close to 800 million people go hungry and over 1 billion are overweight (FAO, UNICEF, WFP, WHO 2017)
3.4 Step 4: identifying the multiple setups of support structures sustainability challenges; (ii) intention-oriented policies, which concentrate on the research and development (R&D); and (iii) system-oriented policies, which focus on system-level features, such as the degree of interaction between different parts of the food system
Summary
Food systems through the lens of the Multi-Level. Characterizing the diversity of food systems 3. Step 1: identifying the food system and defining the system boundaries 3.2. Step 2: identifying agricultural production system types 3.3. Step 3: identifying the types of value chains associated to agricultural production system types 3.4. Step 4: identifying the multiple setups of support structures 3.5. Step 5: identifying the diversity of food systems 3.6. Step 6: assessing food system outcomes 3.7. Step 7: classifying food systems through the lens of the MLP 4. Illustration to vegetable food systems in Chile: lessons from the application of the framework 4.1. Characterization of vegetable food systems in Chile and food system outcomes 4.3. Classification of vegetable food systems in Chile
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