FoodWeb Sustainability

Metrics
Quantifying ecosystem
costs, negotiating trade-offs Source:
Cost
Volatilities
Building new markets,
facing the hungry
Manufacturing
and Branding

Eco Equity
• Interconnected
• Food footprints vulnerabilities
• Lifecycle labels • Uncertain supplies
DIVERSE
Carbon GROWTH

Neutrality From global

standardization
Building a post-oil food to local Taste
system, struggling with
alternatives
collaborative Food Rights differentiation Imperatives
capacity Striving for food security, Amplifying food
• Local food production From development finding volatility experiences, straining
• Competing land uses economics • Local empowerment ecological capacities
to open
• Remote land control • Luxurious expectations
sustainability Co ns um pt i o n
a n d Tas t e • Strained capacities

Source: Flickr user Swisscan

Source:
Flickr user elizeu
Buying Land
Elsewhere
Source: Flickr user mugly

Vending Health geography

D istribution
and Logi stic s
of innovation Paying for
Fallow Farmland
Burning Fats

Reinventing
Localizing Feral Cities Competing
Craving Sushi Standards Transparencies
From fragmented
Home-brewing choices to
Finding Biofuels diverse values
the Farmers
Labeling Green
Food

Curbing Rice Programming Decentralized

Growing Meat
for the Masses
Hoarding Moods Access Food Fears
From fragile Seeking food safety,
dependence encountering a crisis
Agriculture a n d to urban of faith R e ta i l a n d
Resilient autonomy
lifecycles Steward ship • Systemic risks I n f o rm at i o n
From • Splintering trust
efficiency to
flexibility

Environmental
Emergencies Health
Securing safe water,
coping with climate Impacts
impacts Embracing enhancements,
confronting a nutritional
• Climate disruptions
gap
• Water rights
Dis posal and • Problems of plenty Source:
Flickr user maebmij
Renewal • Augmentation diets

Source: Flickr user mugly

 Resilience Principles How To Use This Map
In a world of rapid change, resilience is the key to products, processes, and organizations
that have staying power. It’s the capacity of a system to withstand unexpected shocks,
to repair itself when necessary, and to thrive when conditions are right. The underlying
assumption of resilience is that, yes, failure happens, but it is possible to design systems
Explore the layers of the Food Web 2020 map to build an interconnected view
of the next decade. Over the next decade, we face eight critical DISRUPTIONS to
the food web that reveal an increasingly complex and vulnerable food system. These
forces are challenging stakeholders at all scales to produce new INNOVATIONS—
critical responses that are reshaping the way we grow, process, eat, and dispose of
FoodWeb
that can quickly bounce back from failure. When applied to the worlds of food and agri-
food. From these we pose five of many possible FORECASTS of the Food Web
culture, resilience is the capacity of our food networks, relationships, technologies, and
in 2020 which will transform the ACTIVITIES of in the food system.
industries to continue to provide nutrition to the world during radical, even unprecedented,
environmental and economic disruptions. In this century, our ability to foster resilient
food systems will be essential, not only to our organizations, but to human survival. The Disruptio ns These are the forces—from cost vola-
principles of resilience thus provide the rules of thumb for anyone who is responsible for tilities to environmental emergencies to taste imperatives— “Food is our common ground,
designing or managing activities within the the global food web.* that will reshape the food system as we know it, both through
their direct impact and through local, regional, and global
a universal experience.” —James Beard
responses to them. Each disruption will push stakeholders at
Fl exibi l ity every level to rethink food systems as the collective impact of We all eat. It’s not just that we all eat, but everything we
Be ready to change your plans when they’re not working the way you expected; don’t count all eight disruptions will demand new kinds of responses and do leads back to food. Try thinking of three things that do
on things remaining stable. innovations at different scales. not lead back to food systems. Then think again ... do they?
Take the American auto industry. Cars enable us to travel
Diversit y Activities Think of these as six broad areas of connected longer distances to get food; we can bring more of it home
Not relying on a single kind of solution means not suffering from a single point of failure. activity in the food system. If the disruptions are driving at a time; and the drive-thru meal represents the ultimate
change in the food web, then these activities describe—and shift in eating contexts and occasions. Then there is the issue
Decentra l i z ati on help us locate—their impacts. They include: agriculture and of automobile fuel: the rise in oil prices of the last decade is
Centralized systems look strong, but when they fail, they fail catastrophically. stewardship, distribution and logistics, manufacturing and exacerbating price volatility and raising questions of appropriate
branding, retail and information, consumption and taste, and land-use. As automobile production has declined in the rust belt,
disposal and renewal. urban food production has emerged as a revitalization strategy.
Colla b or atio n
These examples show not only the pervasiveness of food systems,
We’re all in this together. Take advantage of collaborative technologies, especially those
Inn ovati ons Across these activities, stakeholders but also the complex, feedback-laden changes we see building on
offering shared communication and information.
around the planet are responding to today’s disruptive forces. one another to shape our collective future.
This layer of the map reveals a geography of
Trans pa rency innovation which is populated with signals of the kind of Over the past 60 years, we have seen radical transformations in our
Don’t hide your systems; transparency makes it easier to figure out where a problem may responses individuals, communities, and organizations are food system that have leveraged more specialized roles—more com-
lie. Share your plans and preparations, and listen when people point out flaws. engaging in that will redefine, redirect, or reinvent the activi- plex and connected relationships—to dramatically increase productive
ties which make up the food web as we know it. capacities. In the next decade, forces from environmental constraints
to increased capacities of small-scale actors and communities will push
Fo resi ght
Foreca sts The emergent food web will evolve, as the toward more hybridized systems incorporating different values, practices,
You can’t predict the future, but you can hear its footsteps approaching. Anticipate
disruptive forces demand innovative responses across and demands. The emergent food web is becoming increasingly complex—
and prepare. DIVERSE
GROWTH
From global
standardization all the activities that make up today’s food system. These culturally, economically, and ecologically.
to local
differentiation
five forecasts offer a set of directional shifts that begin to
Gracefu l Fai l ure This food web is emerging in a world fraught with dilemmas, beginning with
characterize the emergent food web in the year 2020.
Failure happens, so make sure that a failure state won’t make things worse than they the enormous challenge of meeting world food demand under worsening
are already. environmental conditions. Urbanizing and growing populations are putting more
pressure on infrastructures, while simultaneously diminishing the number of rural
This map identifies the critical foresight that will demand strategic responses from workers
Red u nda ncy
your organization and other stakeholders in the food system. Think of this map as a around the world. Disparities between the global North and the global South—the
Backup, backup, backup. Never leave yourself with just one path of escape or rescue.
tool and framework for anticipating change before it happens. The map also offers a dichotomy of industrialized and developing nations—are becoming increasingly
companion digital tool for exploring the emergent food web using the online presen- visible as food systems begin to buckle under the weight of a faltering global
It’s clear that resilience is complex, and resilient strategies may be difficult to implement. tation tool Prezi (http://prezi.com). Online you can access additional visual examples, economy. In this context, there are over a billion hungry people in the world,
Resilience often requires embracing behaviors and principles that run counter to expecta- data, and text. Visit www.iftf.org/FoodWeb2020 to view the completed online map. alongside the aspirational promise of a global middle class set to consume
tions, or that are seen as contrary to “what works”—even when “what works” is prone to
increasingly rich and diverse food. These dilemmas provide the context
catastrophic failure when problems arise. Established leaders and institutions may even
for this Food Web 2020 map and its companion report.
find aspects of resilience threatening. For many organizations, the challenge of resilience A project of the Global Food Outlook Program
will emerge in the recognition that efficiency, particularly production efficiency, can be for more information vistit www.iftf.org
or contact Dawn Alva, dalva@iftf.org
problematic—or, rather, what we do to increase production efficiency can run counter to
Institute for the Future
the demands of resilience. Perfect resilience may be impossible; improved resilience most
124 University Avenue, 2nd Floor | Palo Alto, CA 94301
certainly is not. These principles are IFTF’s recommendations to foster resilience in the 650.854.6322 www.iftf.org
Ack n ow ledgemen ts
food web, while keeping your interests in mind. Diana Arsenian, Miriam Lueck Avery, Jamais Cascio,
Rod Falcon, Bradley Kreit, Mani Pande, Kathi Vian
SR-1255 | Food Web 2020 is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0. For more information,
* To give you a sense of how broadly the concept of resilience has spread, these principles come from “The Next Big Thing: Resilience” visit creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/. All other brands and trademarks remain the property of their respective owners.
in the May/June 2009 edition of Foreign Policy.