Abstract
National interest in the effects of the U.S. food system has risen to such a level that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies was compelled recently to publishA Framework for Assessing Effects of the Food System(IOM/NRC 2015), focusing on health, environmental, and economic and social variables. While providing a useful framework, the volume stopped short of actually carrying out studies to validate or test the assumptions of the framework. In addition to having measurable societal effects, food systems are also being affected by powerful secular forces that range from rising income inequality, consolidation and rationalization in retailing, consumer preferences for local and regional foods, to changes in climate and competition for land associated with urbanization. In parallel, an expanding “food movement” has emerged that, with little formal or rigorous analysis, has become highly critical of the food system and its consequent health, environmental, and economic and social effects.
Highlights
National interest in the effects of the U.S food system has risen to such a level that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies was compelled recently to publish A Framework for Assessing Effects of the Food System (IOM/NRC 2015), focusing on health, environmental, and economic and social variables
It was hardly able to solve all problems related to the food system, the NIFA-funded conference held on June 9–10, 2018, in Philadelphia, in conjunction with the NAREA annual conference, sought to begin to lay the initial groundwork for addressing this challenge by bringing researchers from different disciplines together and providing them with a framework they can use to start to think about these interrelated issues
We considered a range of issues related to and affecting the food system, and we provided a forum for scientists who often work in silos to consider how their efforts may leverage and be leveraged by the work of other scientists – and in the process producing more system-wide and effective solutions to problems
Summary
It was hardly able to solve all problems related to the food system, the NIFA-funded conference held on June 9–10, 2018, in Philadelphia, in conjunction with the NAREA annual conference, sought to begin to lay the initial groundwork for addressing this challenge by bringing researchers from different disciplines together and providing them with a framework they can use to start to think about these interrelated issues. We considered a range of issues related to and affecting the food system, and we provided a forum for scientists who often work in silos to consider how their efforts may leverage and be leveraged by the work of other scientists – and in the process producing more system-wide and effective solutions to problems.
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