SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS

Sustainable food systems are not just about farming and food production, it is a whole network of actors that includes products and services supplying input and output to put food on the table. This extends to even understanding how post food consumption and handling the food waste impacts the food system. Food systems can vary substantially from place to place and over time, depending on location specific conditions. The sustainable food system should also provide a comprehensive framework to assess the social, economical and environmental outcome of production of food.  

Sustainable food systems are not just about farming and food production, it is a whole network of actors that includes products and services supplying input and output to put food on the table. This extends to even understanding how post food consumption and handling the food waste impacts the food system. Food systems can vary substantially from place to place and over time, depending on location specific conditions. The sustainable food system should also provide a comprehensive framework to assess the social, economical and environmental outcome of production of food. 

 

USDA’s National Agricultural Library defines food systems as “everything from farm to table.”  USDA describes local and regional food systems as “place-specific clusters of agricultural producers of all kinds—farmers, ranchers, fishers—along with consumers and institutions engaged in producing, processing, distributing, and selling foods.”  A definition used by the U.S. in its Global Food Security Strategy is “Agriculture and food systems are the intact or whole unit made up of interrelated components of people, behaviors,

relationships, and material goods that interact in the production, processing, packaging, transporting, trade, marketing, consumption, and use of food, feed, and fiber through aquaculture, farming, wild fisheries, forestry, and pastoralism. The food and agriculture system operates within and is influenced by social, political, economic, and environmental contexts.”

 

What is the role of The Circular Farm Company in Sustainable Food Systems?

Food systems encompass the entire range of actors and their interlinked value-adding activities involved in the production, aggregation, processing, distribution, consumption and disposal of food products. It also includes sub-systems like farming system, waste management system, input supply system, and interacts with other key elements like trade, finance, policy.

 

Our company works in the realm of these systems and subsystems through our partners globally creating valued outcomes. Through our constant engagement in the different areas of food production, we support the communities that produce food to determine the value and outcome of the measures they adopt. Advocacy and  creating awareness has been our continuous pursuit and creating a band of climate warriors who puts conscious efforts in producing clean food.

Some of our efforts have amplified in creating food brands that respect nature and human health. To such heroes, we create an ecosystem supporting them in continuing their mission. This means that we ensure –
  • – It is profitable throughout (economic sustainability);
  • – It has broad-based benefits for society (social sustainability); and
  • – It has a positive or neutral impact on the natural environment (environmental sustainability).”

Author

Gayathri Ilango

CEO - Founder