Agriculture, diet quality and

sustainable agri-food systems: A socio-

ecological analysis
Outline
• Background information
• Analysing three articles
 Food system
• All elements and activities that relate to
production, processing, distribution, preparation,
and consumption of food.

• Food systems are comprised of all the elements

(eg, environment, people, inputs, processes, infra
structures, and institutions) and activities that
relate to the production, processing, distribution,
preparation and consumption of food.
 1Sustainable food systems
• Sustainable food systems are defined as those
that produce nutrient-rich foods that are
affordable, socially and culturally acceptable, and
sparing of both natural and human resources.
• Sustainable diets are defined as those that were
healthy, affordable, appealing, and
environmentally friendly. The four principal
domains of sustainable diets are health,
economics, society, and the environment (FAO,
2010).
Current status of diets
• Between the mid-1960s and the early 2000s, food availability improved globally,
and global per capita exports of agricultural products almost doubled, but food
self-sufficiency did not change significantly.
• The global population increased 2.5 times between 1961 and 2016, while calorie
production increased by more than 4 times by 2013.
• The researchers mentioned that current food systems are currently threatening
both human health and environmental sustainability.
• Providing a growing global population with healthy diets from sustainable food
systems is an immediate challenge.
• more than 820 million people have insufficient food and many more consume low-
quality diets that cause micronutrient deficiencies and contribute to a substantial
rise in the incidence of diet-related obesity and diet-related non-communicable
diseases, including coronary heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.
• Lose-lose diets (unhealthy and environmentally unsustainable) are often
characterised as being high in calories, added sugars, saturated fats, processed
foods, and red meats. In addition, environmental degradation resulting from
these lose-lose diets might further exacerbate poor health.
Western diet
• The global transition toward a “Western diet”,
characterized by high intake of refined
carbohydrates, added sugar, sodium, and animal
products, and low intake of fruits, vegetables, and
whole grains, has presented simultaneous
challenges for population health and
environmental sustainability.
• Key elements of the Western diet are among the
most prominent risk factors for morbidity and
mortality worldwide, and are major contributors
to key environmental burdens such as
greenhouse gas emissions and land use.
 Healthy reference diet
A healthy diet should optimise health, being a
state of complete physical, mental, and social
wellbeing, and not just absence of disease.

• Healthy reference diet largely consists of vegetables, fruits,

whole grains, legumes, nuts, and unsaturated oils, includes a
low to moderate amount of seafood and poultry, and
includes no or a low quantity of red meat, processed meat,
added sugar, refined grains, and starchy vegetables.
The plates below are examples of a planetary health diet. This is
a flexitarian diet, which is largely plant-based but can optionally
include modest amounts of fish, meat and dairy foods.
Scientific targets for a planetary health diet, with
possible ranges, for an intake of 2500 kcal/day
 Dietary patterns of promoting low risk of
chronic diseases and overall wellbeing
(1) protein sources primarily from plants, legumes, nuts,
fish or alternative sources of omega-3 fatty acids several
times per week with optional modest consumption of
poultry and eggs, and low intakes of red meat, if any,
especially processed meat;
(2) Fat mostly from unsaturated plant sources, with low
intakes of saturated fats, and no partly hydrogenated oils;
(3) Carbohydrates from whole grains with low intake of
refined grains and less than 5% of energy from sugar;
(4) At least five servings of fruits and vegetables per day,
not including potatoes; and
(5) Moderate dairy consumption as an option.
Food, planet, and health
• Globally, more than 820 million people remain undernourished,
151 million children are stunted, 51 million children are wasted,
and more than 2 billion people are micro nutrient deficient, 2·1
billion adults overweight or obese and the global prevalence of
diabetes almost doubling in the past 30 years.
• Because much of the global population is inadequately
nourished (ie, undernutrition, overnutrition, and malnutrition)
due to low dietary quality, the world’s diets urgently need to be
transformed.
• Food production is the largest cause of global environmental
change. Agriculture occupies about 40% of global land, and
food production is responsible for up to 30% of global GHG
emission and 70% of freshwater use.
 Two major global agendas focus on human health
and environmental sustainability.

• The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) seek to end

poverty, protect the planet, ensure prosperity for all, and
eradicate hunger and malnourishment.

• The Paris Agreement (195 nations), also addresses the

effects of climate change on human health. Furthermore,
reaching the Paris Agreement of limiting global warming to
well 1·5° - 2°C, is not possible by only decarbonising the
global energy system.

• A revolutionary change in food systems to support human

health and environmental sustainability is essential to the
Paris Agreement.
 Multiple health and
environmental impacts of foods
Michael A Clark a,b,c,1, Marco Springmann a,b, Jason Hilld, and
David Tilman e,f,1
aOxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food, University of Oxford, OX3 7LF Oxford, United Kingdom; bNuffield Department of Population
Health, University of Oxford, OX3 7LF Oxford, United Kingdom; cNatural Resources Science and Management, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN
55108; dDepartment of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108; eDepartment of Ecology, Evolution,
and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108; and fBren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California,
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
• They analyses how consuming an additional serving per day of
each of 15 foods is associated with 5 health outcomes in
adults and 5 aspects of agriculturally driven environmental
degradation.
• Foods: chicken, dairy, eggs, fish, fruits, legumes, nuts, olive
oil, potatoes, processed red meat, refined grain cereals, sugar-
sweetened beverages (SSBs), unprocessed red meat,
vegetables, and whole grain cereals.
• 5 health outcomes: mortality, coronary heart disease (CHD),
type II diabetes, stroke, and colorectal cancers
• 5 environmental outcomes—GHG emissions, land use, water
use, acidification and eutrophication.
• They first consider the health and environmental impacts of
these foods separately, and then explore them jointly.
Method followed:
• Health and environmental impacts of these foods have
been well documented through meta analyses of life
cycle assessments (LCAs).
• The health outcomes reported here are the relative
risks (RRs) of disease resulting from consuming an
additional serving of a food per day.
• If RR > 1, consumption of an additional serving is
associated with increased disease risk compared to the
average risk of that disease, and if RR < 1, this
consumption is associated with decreased disease risk.
Health Impact
• As to individual food groups, nuts, minimally processed
whole grains, fruits, vegetables, legumes, olive oil, and
fish are associated with significantly reduced health
risk.
• The health benefit of consuming a second additional
serving per day is often smaller than the health benefit
of consuming the first additional serving per day.
• Daily consumption of an additional serving of dairy,
egg, and chicken is not significantly associated with
disease incidence.
• However, if chicken consumption increases when
reduced consumption of red meat - likely to increase
disease risk (Message: red meat is not substitute for
chicken)
• Consuming larger amounts of refined grain cereals has been
associated with increased risk of diabetes. Substituting whole
grain cereals for refined cereals has been associated with
reductions in disease incidence.
• Sugar-sweetened beverage consumption is associated with a
significant increase in CHD, type II diabetes, and stroke, but
not total mortality or colorectal cancer.
• Consumption of unprocessed and processed red meat is
associated with significant increases in disease risk for all 5
health outcomes.
Environmental impacts
• They reported all environmental impacts relative to the
impact of producing a serving of vegetables*.
• Minimally processed plant source foods, olive oil, and
sugar-sweetened beverages have the lowest environmental
impacts for all indicators (<5).
• Dairy, eggs, fish, and chicken have relatively higher
environmental impacts that range from (3 -40).
• Producing a serving of unprocessed red meat has the
highest impact for all 5 environmental indicators (16 – 230).
• processed red meat has the second highest mean impact.
• Foods with the lowest environmental impacts often have
the largest health benefits.
• Consumption of leafy green vegetables has been associated
with a significant reduction in type II diabetes risk, whereas
some other vegetables have not.
 Associations between Health and Environmental Outcomes
• The foods with the largest environmental impacts—unprocessed and
processed red meat has 10 to 100 times larger environmental impacts —
often have the largest negative impacts on human health.
• The health and environmental impacts can be varied within each food
group, food preparation, or production methodology. For instance,
• Rice production emits more GHGs than other cereals because methane is
produced when rice paddies are flooded.
• For red meats, ruminant meat (beef, sheep, and goat) has higher
environmental impacts than pork because ruminant meat production uses
more agricultural inputs and emit methane when digesting food.
• For health but not for environmental impacts: For instance, frying fish can
negate its potential health benefits.
• Production location or methodology can be also an environmental factor:
For instance, the GHG emissions of fish production are highly variable,
recirculating aquaculture systems emit more GHG per amount of fish
produced than do other fish production system because of greater energy
use.
Association between a food group’s
impact on mortality and its AREI
Foods associated with significant
reductions in mortality
consistently have a low averaged
relative environmental impact .
Whole grain cereals, fruits,
vegetables, nuts, and olive oil
have an AREI of 4 or less per
serving.

Fish, significantly reduce

mortality, AREI =14 per serving.

Unprocessed red meats (AREI =

73) and processed red meats
(AREI = 37), sugar-sweetened
beverages (AREI = 0.95) have the
lowest AREIs of all foods in this
analysis.
Conrad Z, Niles MT, Neher DA, Roy ED, Tichenor NE,
Jahns L (2018) Relationship between food waste,
diet quality, and environmental sustainability. PLoS ONE
13(4): e0195405. https:// doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0195405

Editor: Benedetto Marelli,

Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, UNITEDSTATES
• They examined the relationship between
consumer-level food waste, diet quality, nutrient
waste, and multiple measures of sustainability:
use of cropland, irrigation water, pesticides, and
fertilizers.
• Method: Diet quality was assessed using the
Healthy Eating Index-2015. A biophysical
simulation model was used to estimate the
amount of cropland associated with wasted food.
• Food loss represents the portion of food that is
not consumed for any reason, including spoilage,
cooking loss, and plate waste.
• Analyses linking diet quality and environmental sustainability
have typically focused on a limited suite of sustainability
indicators, and have not typically included food waste, despite a
growing focus on understanding where and how food is wasted in
the food system.

• Food waste is an important indicator of sustainability because it

embodies the sum of resources used to produce uneaten food,
including cropland, agricultural chemicals like fertilizers and
pesticides, and irrigation water; in other words, these inputs are
used to grow food that is ultimately wasted by consumers.

• Globally, enough food is wasted every year to feed nearly 2 billion

people a 2,100 kcal/day diet, which amplifies the negative
environmental externalities associated with agriculture and
increases resource scarcity.
 Food waste by US consumers
Foods or dish items Grams %
(Average)
Total 421.5 100.00
Fruits and vegetables and mixed fruit and 164 39%
vegetable dishes
dairy 72.3 17%
meat and mixed meat dishes 56.8 14%
grains and grain mixed dishes 50.8 12%
other foods and dishes (candy, soft drinks, etc) 24.5 5.8
salty snacks 15.6 3.7
soup 11.8 2.8
potatoes and mixed potato dishes 8.6 2.0
nuts and seeds 5.8 1.4
Mexican dishes 5.4 1.3
eggs and mixed egg dishes 2.8 0.7
table oils and salad dressing 2.2 0.5
This analysis finds that
• US consumers wasted 422g of food per person daily, with 30 million
acres of cropland used to produce this food every year. This accounts
for 30% of daily calories available for consumption, one-quarter of
daily food (by weight) available for consumption, and 7% of annual
cropland acreage.
• Nearly 4.2 trillion gallons of irrigation water, 780 million pounds of
pesticides, approximately 1.8 billion pounds of nitrogen fertilizer, 1.5
billion pounds of phosphorus and 2.3 billion pounds of potash
fertilizer - wasted.
• Higher quality diets were associated with greater amounts of food
waste, greater amounts of wasted irrigation water and pesticides, but
less cropland waste, as fruits and vegetables are health-promoting
and require small amounts of cropland, but require substantial
amounts of agricultural inputs.
• These results suggest that simultaneous efforts to improve diet
quality and reduce food waste are necessary.
• Consumers should increase their consumption of fruits and
vegetables and simultaneously waste less of them.
• Increasing consumers’ knowledge about how to prepare and store
fruits and vegetables will be one of the practical solutions to reducing
food waste.
A social–ecological analysis of
the global agri-food system
Elisa Oteros-Rozas a,b,1,2, Adriana Ruiz-Almeida c,1, Mateo Aguado
d, José A. González d, and Marta G. Rivera-Ferre a,e
aAgroecology and Food Systems, Research Group Inclusive Societies, Policies and Communities, University of Vic–Central
University of Catalonia, 08500 Vic, Spain; bFRACTAL Collective, 28022 Madrid, Spain; cSustainability Measurement and
Modeling Lab, Research Institute for Sustainability Science and Technology, Polytechnic University of Catalonia, 08034
Barcelona, Spain; dSocial–Ecological Systems Laboratory, Department of Ecology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid,
28049 Cantoblanco, Spain; and eCenter Agroecology, Water and Resilience, University of Coventry, CV8 3LG Coventry,
United Kingdom
Edited by B. L. Turner II, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, and approved
November 7, 2019 (received for review July 23, 2019)
• A social–ecological systems perspective contributes to
systematically and quantitatively assessing environmental,
social, and economic relationships between countries
within a globalized world.

• The researchers applied a holistic approach to depicting the

global food panorama through a quantitative multivariate
assessment of 43 indicators of food sovereignty and 28
indicators of sociodemographic, social being, and
environmental sustainability in 150 countries.

• The results identify 5 world regions and indicate the

existence of disequilibria between regions in the natural
resources consumed, the environmental impacts produced,
and the social wellbeing attained by populations that play
different roles within the globalized agri-food system).
 1. Landgrabbed and Undernourished:
Agricultural Exporters but Food Importers:
• 45 countries, mostly from eastern, middle, and western Africa
• lowest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and very low income
• the smallest cultivated area per farmer,
• the largest total economically active population in agriculture,
• a limited use of fertilizers
• a low production of meat
• Agriculture is responsible for a high share of the GDP of these countries,
• Export huge amounts of agricultural products while failing to feed large
shares of their population.
• The largest importers of food, the most severe food deficits; and
significant vulnerability, which is consistent with the lowest protein supply
and adequacy of the dietary energy supply among the groups
• The lowest levels of access to resources, such as electricity, sanitation, and
drinking water; These countries also show the lowest degree of economic,
social, and political globalization, despite some of them being among the
biggest exporters of luxury commodities, like coffee and cocoa.
• shortest life expectancy and worse life satisfaction
 2. Diverse Intensive Producers of Crops
• 49 countries, mostly from Asia and the Americas.
• These countries have the largest population densities and
low–medium income.
• characterized by intensive production models based on a
large use of fertilizers and agricultural water withdrawal (for
wheat, maize, and/or rice production)
• They are large food exporters and also, characterized by the
second highest food deficit, low energy and protein intake,
and overall intermediate levels of social wellbeing.
 3. Least Ecologically Wealthy and
Land grabbers
• 18 countries
• Medium population densities and GDP per capita
• a limited proportion of agricultural area and forests as well as
overall very little cereal, meat, and fruit production but the greatest
use of fertilizers per hectare
• Little of the population lives in rural areas or is dedicated to
agriculture,
• the population in these countries seems to have good access to all
resources
• have limited exports of agricultural products, and they are net food
importers, with limited value added to agriculture
• the largest area of land grabbed
• Overall, they seem to have a good situation in terms of social
wellbeing
 4. Intensive Food Producers and Exporters
• 8 vast countries from Oceania and the Americas
• Exhibits high income and the largest GDP per capita alongside the smallest
population densities
• Access to resources is high in these countries,
• the agrifood system is focused of intensive production of cereals, fruit, meat, and
biofuels dependent on large inputs of pesticides
• Organic agriculture scores high
• Countries in this group seem to be the “bread basket of the world”: a large share
of food and agricultural exports while indicating limited food imports
• In fact, some of them, such as Australia, Argentina, Canada, the United States, and
most recently, Brazil dominate global food exports.
• This group also shows the largest financial support for agriculture.
• Protein supply is high, consistent with the high level of energy adequacy.
• Large ecological footprints and agricultural CO2 emissions as well as a large
biocapacity that sustains their large biocapacity reserves
• They have the best records for all social wellbeing indexes
 5. Overnourished Agricultural Importers
• 30 countries, mostly in Europe, the largest population densities, the
second largest GDP per capita, and high income.
• Access to resources is satisfactory.
• Agriculture is quite intensive, with little rural and agricultural populations,
little presence of women who are economically active in agriculture, and a
large use of fertilizers
• These are the largest importers of agricultural products.
• People in these countries are overall food secure but have a diet mostly
based on a large consumption of proteins.
• These countries are in a biocapacity deficit because of the ecological
footprint of the built-up land and the croplands, instead showing the
lowest grazing footprint and agricultural water withdrawal but large CO2
agricultural emissions.
• These are the countries with the largest degree of globalization and net
contribution of official development assistance for food and agriculture as
well as overall high levels of social wellbeing.
They analysed and described:
• Certain countries, like Australia, Brazil, Argentina, and those in
Europe and North America, hold a critical stake and should reduce
overconsumption, while African countries, would benefit from
improving their self-sufficiency.
• Material flows in global agrifood systems result in interregional
social inequities in the distribution of both costs and benefits of
producing, trading, and consuming food, hence affecting social
wellbeing, unevenly distributing environmental impacts, and
challenging environmental sustainability.
• A substantial proportion of the world’s 815 million people who are
unable to meet daily food needs are small-scalefood producers.
• Globalization poses complex tradeoffs for food system resilience
across scales due to high social, economic, and ecological
interconnectedness, tradeoffs, and, hence, vulnerability
• An unbalanced food system features a contrast between
high rates of undernutrition (group 1) vs. overnutrition (in
groups 4 and 5), leading to increasing overweight and
obesity, which highlights the need to promote dietary
changes in many countries of the Global North.
• Divergences in diets are reflected by the differences in
carbon footprints : mean dietary carbon footprints 0.7
kgCO2 eq. per capita per day for countries of group 1 while
it is 4for New Zealand, Australia, the United States, France,
Austria, Argentina, and Brazil (all in groups 4 and 5).
• If current crop production used for animal feed and other
nonfood uses, such as biofuels (particularly in the United
States, China, Western Europe, and Brazil), were used for
direct human consumption, ca. 70% more calories would
be available, potentially satisfying the basic needs of 4
billion people.
• Most countries with high nutritional quality show high
ecological footprints, and therefore, changes in the diets in
North America (group 4) and Europe (group 5) would entail
the largest reductions in environmental impacts of the
global agrifood system.
• Therefore, “doubling the agricultural productivity of small-
scale food producers,” as stated by SDG2, is per se not the
way to eradicate hunger in a context where the world is
already producing food to feed 12 billion people.
• On the contrary, only increasing agricultural productivity
has led to reduced prices (ultimately harming farmers) and
created health problems and the associated costs.
 International Agrifood Trade, Food Security,
and Environmental Sustainability
• The global agrifood trade entails tradeoffs in terms of social
equity and environmental sustainability
• In fact, securing the food supply through imports occurs
only in strong enough economies.
• In a globalized and financialized system, food tends to flow
toward money and power, not toward hunger, and
therefore, international agrifood trade can contribute to
increase social inequality in the form of food insecurity by
facilitating food being exported/traded away from the
hungry
• More than one-fifth of global calorie production is
exported, mostly from countries in group 4 (the United
States, Canada, Brazil, and Argentina).
• Industrialized countries with high GDP per capita tend to be
major net importers of biodiversity, while tropical countries,
such as Argentina and Brazil, suffer habitat degradation and
biodiversity loss as a result of producing crops for exports.
• Land use for export production is responsible for 25% of the
projected global biodiversity loss, ∼20% of global harvested
cropland area is devoted to export production, and most of
the new cropland expansion is globally attributed to the
production of crops for export.
• International food trade has been related to a virtual transfer
of water, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus, while the
environmental impacts of agricultural production tend to
remain in the producing countries.
Virtual water flows
 Virtual water flows
• Virtual water trade is an alternative to real water transfers
• Countries with large water stock can profit from their
abundance by producing water-intensive products for export.
• But water-scarce countries should achieve water security by
importing water-intensive products instead of producing
them domestically which puts more pressure on the water
supply.
• Strikingly, water-rich European countries belong to the net-
water-importer category. These countries import many
products that are much cheaper when produced somewhere
else or can be cultivated in their own land.
• In addition water-scarce countries, like China and India,
export a lot of their virtual water.
• Nowadays, water is, not yet, a dominant factor in
international trade, rather low wage and low transport costs.
 Solutions? making the usage of water
more efficient
• For instance, rice which has been produced in the US costs
2344 liter water per kilo and in Thailand the same amount
needs 3592 liters.
• Taking into account your ‘water friendliness’, you would
prefer the rice coming from the US. However, this rice is
cultivated on fields that are irrigated using a lot of water
from rivers and aquifers.
• On the other hand, in Thailand, rice is mainly cultivated
during the wet monsoon season. The load of rainwater is
absorbed by the rice fields instead of leading to floods.
• Finally, countries also need to pay attention to becoming
more neutral towards the import and export of virtual
water.
 Role of the commercial food system play in
promoting health through better diet
• Populations across the globe are highly dependent on
commercial food systems for daily nourishment
• Commercial food systems rely heavily on high volume sales
of foods high in unhealthy ingredients to generate profits
and value for shareholders
• The system does not adequately take account of the high
costs of its activities for societies, health, or the
environment, which are associated with increases in non-
communicable diseases.
• Processed foods have some advantages—for example, their
longer shelf life and convenience—and they may not
inherently need to be unhealthy. Nevertheless, how to
achieve healthier processed foods remains unclear.
• Highly processed foods satisfy human taste for salty
and sweet foods.
• Despite their convenience, palatability, longer shelf life,
improved food safety, endless choice, and affordability
for consumers, highly processed foods are widely
criticised for not contributing to a healthy diet.
• Aggressive marketing of such foods, often
accompanied by health and nutrition claims (for
example, “high in vitamins”) that can obscure potential
harms, drives and distorts consumer demand.
• Processed foods thus present a dilemma for public
health, food policy, and consumer choice
• In this case, governments will need to do more to limit the
influence of companies on health policy through —for
example, trade agreements, regulation of advertising, fiscal
policies, mandating nutrition labelling and transparency on
food ingredients, and, possibly, use of competition laws.
• Commercial food companies can voluntarily shift their
focus towards expanding the market for healthier and more
sustainable foods, while reducing the availability of less
healthy foods. This shift would require a significant will to
change as well as technical and business model innovations
within commercial food systems.
• Small but growing movements are emerging, such as
impact investing and alternative “social” business models.
 10
• The COVID-19 pandemic makes the importance
of health and wellbeing clear. The pandemic’s
implications for societies require action beyond
the health sector.
• For example, tobacco and alcohol use, unhealthy
diets, air pollution, and insufficient physical
exercise contribute to most non-communicable
diseases (NCDs), which account for 72% of all
global deaths. High NCD prevalence is
contributing to the impact of COVID-19.
 10
• Meeting on ‘Healthier societies for healthy populations’ -
Feb 10–12, 2020, in the UK - political economy lens -
• The discussants mentioned that policies to promote more
sustainable dietary choices, zero carbon energy, and
transport systems can improve health and mitigate climate
change. It is clear that leadership and public demand for
improved health are fundamental to motivate meaningful
change.
• Our first priority must be to evolve our societies to enable
people to stay and remain healthy- not only important for
people’s health, but also for sustainable development.
Five Strategies for a Great Food Transformation
(LANCET commission)
• Seek international and national commitment to
shift toward healthy diets
• Reorient agricultural priorities from producing
high quantities of food to producing healthy food
• Sustainably intensify food production to increase
high-quality output
• Strong and coordinated governance of land and
oceans
• Reducing food losses and waste, in line with UN
Sustainable Development Goals.
 2-2
• This Commission concludes that global food
systems can provide win-win diets to
everyone by 2050 and beyond. However,
achieving this goal will require rapid adoption
of numerous changes and unprecedented
global collaboration and commitment: nothing
less than a Great Food Transformation.
Thank you so much for your kind attention