Sustainable food supply chains: the dynamics for change

Abstract

Understanding the dynamics of food and sustainability are pressing academic and public policy concerns. The food system in developed countries, especially that of the UK, often seems to be bedevilled by periodic alarms, for example, about the safety of food or its nutritional value. Anxieties about food safety and quality are allied to broader concerns about the relationships between producers and retailers, between retailers and manufacturers, and between economic actors in the food chain and policy makers and regulators. While public policy concerns relating to food are long-standing, contemporary debates on food and sustainability appear to have their own distinctive features. First, they involve a wider range of actors: all players in the supply chain have a legitimate voice in raising issues about how sustainability should be thought about and acted upon, and so too do a variety of other actors, ranging from bodies concerned with trade, alternative food networks, health, the environment and so on. In short, the public policy arena for dealing with food issues has become more crowded. Second, and partly as a consequence of the plethora of voices clamouring to be heard on food and sustainability, there is no fixed or agreed agenda. Many issues appear to wax and wane with regularity as their promoters bring them to the fore only to see them rapidly replaced by another issue, while others appear to have greater longevity, such those linked to climate change. Issues, however, do not simply disappear; rather they help to inform the way in which subsequent issues emerge. Policies are layered one upon another (Feindt and Flynn, 2009); issues interact, coalesce and compete in highly dynamic ways. Growing awareness of global threats to the food system has contributed to these debates, adding a further layer as concerns of food security and those of ecological sustainability converge (Godfray et al., 2010; SDC, 2009). This has prompted calls for new agri-food systems that recognise the multi-functionality of food; its social and environmental contributions in addition to its economic ones (IAASTD, 2009; House of Commons, 2009; Foresight, 2011). Advocates argue that new food systems need to be shaped to withstand greater volatilityand uncertainty (Ingram et al., 2010; Foresight, 2011) and need to operate within ecological limits, remain competitive while delivering fairer returns and greater social benefit (Pretty, 2008; Ambler-Edwards et al., 2009; The Royal Society, 2009; Garnett and Godfray, 2012). So, in recent years there have been, and continue to be, debates on food miles, food and health, food and climate change, the environmental impacts of food products, food and trade, alternative food systems, and food security. In this chapter we ask, to what extent is the current dominant food system capable of internal transformation to make it more sustainable? What is the potential for, perhaps, the key alternative food system, organic production, to engender change in the broader food system? The chapter is organised around five themes: the first discusses food supply chains in a global context; second, what is meant by food systems; third, the nature of alternative food systems; fourth, the potential transformative capacity of organic food; fifth, the environmental impacts of the food system, and concludes by pointing to some of the pressing academic and policy concerns.